Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:55 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement by hingo
Parent article: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

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

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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.