Re: OpenBSD bcw: Possible GPL license violation issues

[Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>]

On Thursday 05 April 2007 23:33, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > We put THOUSANDS of hours of work into bcm43xx and you
> > simply relicense it without permission. Your point being?
> 
> It was an accident for him to commit it.  But it was no accident you
> decided to make a public fuss about it.  Now you have your public
> fuss.
> 
> > > > Snipped?  I presume, then, you admit you are misrepresenting others' 
> > > > opinions in this thread.
> > > 
> > > No, there was a side discussion about whitespace and variable naming,
> > > and even algorithms covered by the GPL.  Gimme a break.  These were
> > > essentially claimed by some of the examples shown by Michael.  Go look
> > > carefully.
> > 
> > You simply don't get it. These were EXAMPLES of why we think the
> > code was copied 1:1. This has NOTHING to do with copyright law
> > at this point. It simply shows: "Oh look, you named that variable
> > or that function exactly like I did, although the specs did not
> > suggest naming. Unlikely to be so by coincidence."
> 
> Those were just 'EXAMPLES'?  So you had no evidence?  Why would you
> show examples of white space and variable naming when you had real
> evidence?  Or did you think that the examples would be evidence?
> 
> Of COURSE Marcus was reading your driver at the same time.  That's
> explicitly permitted by law.  He can read it, and then he can rewrite
> it to do the same thing but with his own 'expression' and there is
> nothing you or anyone else can do about it because you chose to use
> Copyright law to govern distribution.

You would not say this, if you'd have read and compared bcw to bcm43xx.
Reading code and writing it down again _IS_ copying. (Although I
doubt he did this, as copy'n'paste results in the same result).


Theo, you are a GREAT psychologic engineer.
You really make people feel they have done something wrong. But in
reality they are the victims. In reality bcm43xx developers are the
victims, because YOU, the openbsd developers, violated our
copyright in the first place.
You can not deny that and every independent lawyer on earth would
judge the same way.
It is simply obvious that the code was copied and NOT rewritten.
You have no point in saying the opposite now by takling bullshit
about "reading code" and "writing something down blabla".

> > > The Italian dude in particular was complaining bitterly in private
> > > mail about the whitespace similarities... good grief, not whitespace
> > > similarities.  How SCO of him.
> > 
> > Yeah. Must be coincidence that you typed whitespace exactly like
> > we did. I'm sure this didn't come from copying, but from coincidence.
> 
> Or an accident.

How can you type in code by accident that looks like mine?
I mean, you can get and infinite amount of monkeys with typewriters
and an infinite amount of time and you will end up with my code, but
that story doesn't count for me.


AND! Let's simply pretend it was really an accident. However that could
happen. How would that make the situation different? You have violated
the copyright of the bcm43xx developers. That's the fact that you can
not deny. You have dealt with it. Fine. I offered you a way to deal
with it in a much more elegant way. You didn't like it. Fine.

I'm fine with this. Know what? I don't care anymore about you, openbsd guys.
Do what you'd like to do. I'm out of your business.
In future don't violate my copyright anymore, and you won't hear anything
from me anymore.

I know I already said this, but now I won't respond to you anymore
(unless you insult me personally again, perhaps).

-- 
Greetings Michael.