[reyk@openbsd.org: Re: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing]

[reyk@openbsd.org: Re: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing]

[Jonathan Gray]

This is a lot more relevant than much of the ongoing
discussion, so perhaps people could take a moment to read it over.

----- Forwarded message from Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org> -----

From: Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org>
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 13:23:04 +0200
To: misc@openbsd.org
Subject: Re: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing

Hi!

I just returned from vacation where I was offline for about two weeks.
So I totally missed the incidence and all the surrounding discussion.
I'm just digging through many many mails in my inbox from OpenBSD
users and developers, Linux people, GNU/freesoftware people, misc *BSD
people, and obviously from some trolls.

I don't want to restart the discussion but I just want to say and
repeat a few words:

- I will not release or agree to release my code under either the GPL
or any kind of a "dual"-license.

- The ISC-style license must remain including the copyright notice and
even the warranty term.

- Thanks to the OpenBSD community and especially to Theo de Raadt for
entering into it and for defending my rights as the author of the
controversial code.

- This is eating our time. Every few weeks I get a new discussion
about licensing of the atheros driver etc. blah blah. Why can't they
just accept the license as it is and focus on more important things?

I will talk to different people to get the latest state and to think
about the next steps. I don't even know if the issue has been solved
in the linux tree. But PLEASE DON'T SPAM ME with any other mails about
this, even if you want to help/support me, I will talk to the relevant
people in private.

Thanks!
reyk

On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 07:40:52PM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> [bcc'd to Eben Moglen so that people don't flood him]
> 
> I stopped making public statements in the recent controversy because
> Eben Moglen started working behind the scenes to 'improve' what Linux
> people are doing wrong with licensing, and he asked me to give him
> pause, so his team could work.  Honestly, I was greatly troubled by
> the situation, because even people like Alan Cox were giving other
> Linux developers advice to ... break the law.  And furthermore, there
> are even greater potential risks for how the various communities
> interact.
> 
> For the record -- I was right and the Linux developers cannot change
> the licenses in any of those ways proposed in those diffs, or that
> conversation (http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/28/157).
> 
> It is illegal to modify a license unless you are the owner/author,
> because it is a legal document.  If there are multiple owners/authors,
> they must all agree.  A person who receives the file under two
> licenses can use the file in either way....  but if they distribute
> the file (modified or unmodified!), they must distribute it with the
> existing license intact, because the licenses we all use have
> statements which say that the license may not be removed.
> 
> It may seem that the licenses let one _distribute_ it under either
> license, but this interpretation of the license is false -- it is
> still illegal to break up, cut up, or modify someone else's legal
> document, and, it cannot be replaced by another license because it may
> not be removed.  Hence, a dual licensed file always remains dual
> licensed, every time it is distributed.
> 
> Now I've been nice enough to give Eben and his team a few days time to
> communicate inside the Linux community, to convince them that what
> they have proposed/discussed is wrong at a legal level.  I think that
> Eben also agrees with me that there are grave concerns about how this
> leads to problems at the ethical and community levels (at some level,
> a ethos is needed for Linux developers to work with *BSD developers).
> And there are possibilities that similar issues could loom in the
> larger open source communities who are writing applications.
> 
> Eben has thus far chosen not to make a public statement, but since
> time is running out on people's memory, I am making one.  Also, I feel
> that a lot of Linux "relicencing" meme-talkin' trolls basically have
> attacked me very unfairly again, so I am not going to wait for Eben to
> say something public about this.
> 
> In http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/29/183, Alan Cox managed to summarize
> what Jiri Slaby and Luis Rodriguez were trying to do by proposing a
> modification of a Dual Licenced file without the consent of all the
> authors.  Alan asks "So whats the problem ?".  Well, Alan, I must
> caution you -- your post is advising people to break the law.
> 
> I will attempt to describe in simple terms, based on what I have been
> taught, how one must handle such licenses:
> 
> - If you receive dual licensed code, you may not delete the license
>   you don't like and then distribute it.  It has to stay, because you
>   may not edit someone's else's license -- which is a three-part legal
>   document (For instance: Copyright notice, BSD, followed by GPL).
> 
> - If you receive ISC or BSD licensed code, you may not delete the
>   license.  Same principle, since the notice says so.  It's the law.
>   Really.
> 
> - If you add "large pieces of originality" to the code which are valid
>   for copyright protection on their own, you may choose to put a different
>   and seperate (must be non-conflicting...) license at the top of the file
>   above the existing license.
> 
>     (Warning: things become less clear as to what the combination of
>     licenses mean, though -- there are ethical traps, too).
> 
> - If you wish for everyone to remain friends, you should give code back.
> 
>   That means (at some ethical or friendliness level) you probably do
>   not want to put a GPL at the top of a BSD or ISC file, because you
>   would be telling the people who wrote the BSD or ISC file:
> 
>      "Thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give
>      us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back.  screw off."
> 
> In either case, I think a valuable lessons has been taught us here in
> the BSD world -- there are many many GPL loving people who are going
> to try to find any way to not give back and share (I will mention one
> name: Luis Rodriguez has been a fanatic pushing us for dual licensed,
> and I feel he is to blame for this particular problem).  Many of those
> same people have been saying for years that BSD code can be stolen,
> and that is why people should GPL their code.
> 
> Well, the lesson they have really taught us is that they consider the
> GPL their best tool to take from us!
> 
> GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would
> take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back.  Nope -- the great
> problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and
> lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock
> us out.  Just like the Linux community, we have many companies giving
> us code back, all the time.  But once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get
> it back.
> 
> Ironic.
> 
> I hope some people in the GPL community will give that some thought.
> Your license may benefit you, but you could lose friends you need.
> The GPL users have an opportunity to 'develop community', to keep an
> ethic of sharing alive.
> 
> If the Linux developers wrap GPL's around things we worked very hard
> on, it will definately not be viewed as community development.
> 
> Thank you for thinking about this.
> 
> [I ask that one person make sure that one copy of this ends up on the
> linux kernel mailing list]

----- End forwarded message -----

Re: [reyk@openbsd.org: Re: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing]

[Adrian Bunk]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 11:25:42PM +1000, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> This is a lot more relevant than much of the ongoing
> discussion, so perhaps people could take a moment to read it over.
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org> -----
> 
> From: Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org>
> Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 13:23:04 +0200
> To: misc@openbsd.org
> Subject: Re: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I just returned from vacation where I was offline for about two weeks.
> So I totally missed the incidence and all the surrounding discussion.
> I'm just digging through many many mails in my inbox from OpenBSD
> users and developers, Linux people, GNU/freesoftware people, misc *BSD
> people, and obviously from some trolls.
> 
> I don't want to restart the discussion but I just want to say and
> repeat a few words:
> 
> - I will not release or agree to release my code under either the GPL
> or any kind of a "dual"-license.

It's your code and it's your choice.

(But note that you contributed to then dual-licenced code in the
 OpenBSD CVS and kept this code dual-licenced. For this code your
 contributions might be assumed dual-licenced.)

> - The ISC-style license must remain including the copyright notice and
> even the warranty term.

Full agreement (for not dual-licenced code).

> - Thanks to the OpenBSD community and especially to Theo de Raadt for
> entering into it and for defending my rights as the author of the
> controversial code.

The email of Theo that was forwarded to linux-kernel [1] centered around 
Theo telling people that picking one licence for Sam's dual-licenced 
code would "break the law".

He would have better made the mistake in Jiri's patch visible (and 
therefore better defended your copyright) if he wouldn't have obscured 
it with these pointless accusations...

> - This is eating our time. Every few weeks I get a new discussion
> about licensing of the atheros driver etc. blah blah. Why can't they
> just accept the license as it is and focus on more important things?
> 
> I will talk to different people to get the latest state and to think
> about the next steps. I don't even know if the issue has been solved
> in the linux tree.
>...

To clarify this myth once again:

The patch that mistakenly changed BSD-only code to GPL has never ever 
been in the Linux tree.

> Thanks!
> reyk

cu
Adrian

[1] http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/9/1/102

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed