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How not to handle a licensing violationHow not to handle a licensing violationPosted Apr 12, 2007 7:51 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333)In reply to: How not to handle a licensing violation by rickmoen Parent article: How not to handle a licensing violation
Well do you suppose that the developer didn't realise that people were downloading code from that CVS server?
I don't think that he was that clueless on how CVS works. The excuse stinks.
It's similar to sticking a program (say.. modified GPL'd gimp plugin) on a public website, telling people that it's your copyright, telling people that it's BSD licensed, and then being confused about weither or not this constitutes 'distribution'.
Sounds like the guy is playing up the old OpenBSD anti-GPL arguements about the licensing being confusing and difficult to understand.
The earlier excuse was that was used was that the guy was working on a replacement for GPL'd code and he used functions and bits of logic from the GPL code to aid in the development of his own code. AS a sort of developer crutch, I guess.
As he progressed he would replace the borrowed logic from the GPL'd code with his own.
He made a mistake by forgetting about replacing this and that code snippet. So through the development proccess these bits of bcm43xx code wound up on the public CVS server.
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How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 8:05 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] "drag" wrote:I don't think that he was that clueless on how CVS works. The excuse stinks. I'm going to muster all powers of diplomacy at my disposal, and point out that neither I nor anyone else present is making an "excuse" for Marcus. Thus my overall comment that "Either way, it's copyright violation, and needed to be fixed...", which seems to have eluded your notice. In addition, I'll point out, pro bono publico, that I nowhere suggested Marcus being clue- deficient about CVS. What I said was that (1) I speculated that he might have forgotten that borrowings from bcm43xx were still present when he made his comments, and (2) Nathan says he has reason to think Marcus thought CVS checkin wasn't yet "distribution" for copyright purposes. (If you think developers aren't prone to forgetting that the public can and does grab things from their public CVS repositories, you probably haven't known many developers.) There's a certain lovely irony in a habitual Linux user (that would be me) making efforts to understand what happened, and, for his pains, being accused of making "excuses". It isn't much compared to the larger ironies noted by others, but I thank you for your contribution, anyway. Rick Moen
How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 8:58 UTC (Thu) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] Hmm. In the flamewar archive there is a link to a commit that replacesoriginal bcw code with code from bcm43xx, apparently to fix a bug. That doesn't fit with your speculation (1) at all.
How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 16:04 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] "dark" wrote:In the flamewar archive there is a link to a commit that replaces original bcw code with code from bcm43xx, apparently to fix a bug. That doesn't fit with your speculation (1) at all. Actually, I can see that, too: It would require only that use borrowed code for that purpose and intend to fully rewrite it before commit, but then by commit time have forgotten that necessity. Negligent? Of course. So is the scenario Nathan Myers described. Figuring out what did happen with Marcus is an interesting exercise, and the smart money might bet on Nathan's scenario rather than mine -- but I'd argue that it's at least equally useful to visualise all the various plausible ways such things could happen. As "ajross" says, if you anticipate the potential for screwups, there are meaures you can take to make them less likely. Rick Moen
How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 18:11 UTC (Thu) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link] You know... the truth is that I don't really know what Marcus wasthinking (if at all) when checking GPL code into the OpenBSD repository. But this is a great time to point out that it is human nature to give more 'rope' in allowances for what /might/ have happened if you look favorably on the party in question. It is here that I think Theo did the biggest disservice -- to his own developer Marcus. By reacting as he did, he put everyone on edge and made it that much more difficult to accept that it was a simple 'mistake'.
How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 9:31 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] "There's a certain lovely irony in a habitual Linux user (that would be me) making efforts to understand what happened, and, for his pains, being accused of making "excuses". It isn't much compared to the larger ironies noted by others, but I thank you for your contribution, anyway."
You misunderstood what I ment.
I didn't think _you_ were making excuses for him.
What you stated was realy very close to what Theo stated for Marcus's excuses. So I thought you were talking about _their_ excuses.
Plus I don't think that it's impossible or stupid to think that could happen. I think it's unlikely.
I am still willing to beleive it one way or the other. The guy deserves the benifit of the doubt.
It's just fishy excuses, that's all. I think that they could come up with something better.
How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 9:33 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] PS. But if that is what happenned then that's possible.
I agree that realy it doesn't matter. The problem is resolved one way or the other.
I just wish the OpenBSD developers would choose to work _with_ the bcm43xx folks to help get broadcom driver support for OpenBSD rather then spend their time fighting them.
The whole thing is pretty stupid.
How not to handle a licensing violation Posted Apr 12, 2007 14:21 UTC (Thu) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link] Note that there are processes that can help with this sort of misunderstanding. Every commit to the kernel, for example, includes a chain of "signed-off" tags indicating the developers who have reviewed the patch.
The related agreement in Documentation/SubmittingPatches includes a section detailing exactly what "signed-off" entails in the context of license and copyright law. So at least in principle, every change includes an affirmative promise that there are no hidden license violations. It's not possible for such a change to reach a relaese without the whole chain of developers from the original author to Linus failing to follow the rules.
What seems interesting is that OpenBSD appears to have no equivalent. They just delegate commit privileges without training and assume everyone is clean and competent.
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