Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 17:09 UTC (Tue) by hingo (guest, #14792)
Parent article: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

So is this replacement busybox based on Bruce Perens code, or are they writing it from scratch?

(http://perens.com/blog/2009/12/15/23/ ...hmm, that one seems to be down now, anyway here's an article about the blog post where Perens granted permissive license to his parts of busybox: http://www.osnews.com/story/22618/BusyBox_Author_Bruce_Pe... )

to post comments

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 18:55 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (2 responses)

I didn't grant a permissive license. I do grant a waiver of my own rights to my customers, but those customers have hired me to help them cure their infringement by providing the correct source code.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:55 UTC (Tue) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (1 responses)

Hi Bruce

Thanks for the clarification. As the blog post was unavailable I was left to rely on my memory of reading it 2+ years ago.

It seems that also anwers my question then :-)

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:00 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

No problem, Henrik.

Helping these folks solve their compliance problem is not too difficult. Getting them to allow me to help often is.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:55 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

I get the impression busybox was (originally) Rob Landley's project and code. I'm sure he or Bruce will correct me if I'm wrong :-)

So no, Rob is probably NOT "writing from scratch" - he has a major stake in either the original or a later version of busybox and can re-use his old code.

Cheers,
Wol

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:01 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (4 responses)

Bruce started Busybox, but then he left the project. Rob was one of the maintainers at a later point in time, and still later Rob left the project as well.

Rob is being extremely careful about the source of all code that he re-uses.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:28 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (3 responses)

Oddly enough, I didn't so much leave Busybox as I finished the project. It was complete for my needs, implementing the Debian installer.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:41 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

Ok, you finished it and then other people decided to fork it up and extend it to do things that you didn't need.

I'm not sure that's a significant distinction.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Feb 1, 2012 1:28 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (1 responses)

You know, technically if somebody else can take your code and repurpose it as a tiny part of some larger project after you're done with it, and you still get to take credit for the new thing created from your "finished" work, then the _true_ author of busybox is the guy who wrote gunzip. That was the first two applet multiplexer, after all...

Rob

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Feb 1, 2012 1:50 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

This is so ignorant of the context of stuff that was already discussed today, like the multiple people who told you that gunzip is not the first applet multiplexer, and that I haven't claimed it as an invention, that I am wondering if you have just smoked a doobie big enough to erase your short-term memory.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:02 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Busybox was my creation.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:22 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (1 responses)

I started writing toybox in scratch in 2006 precisely BECAUSE I couldn't stand working on a project that Bruce Fscking Perens could (no matter how undeservedly) take credit for.

http://landley.net/notes-2006.html#28-09-2006

I get annoyed when people who _don't_code_ tell people who _do_ how they should be doing it. Especially when they won't go away when you tell them to write it themselves.

This is the opposite of "shut up and show me the code". They're telling me that I should stop coding so I can listen to them talk.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Feb 1, 2012 13:43 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

Can you please stop doing that ?

Heated debate is okay, and infact aslong as it's constructive and adds actual arguments, can even be welcome.

But name-calling does not add anything to the discussion. Please stop it.