Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

[Jonathan A. George]

While the title of Marc's email might be construed as flame bait, it is 
disappointing to see that the generally very valid points he has made 
(as both a BSD _and_ _GPL_ developer) are being ignored. To make it 
simple try answering these two questions:

----
Question #1: Is it _ethical_ (legality aside) to take someone else's 
actively maintained work (for example an OpenBSD driver) and make 
changes which can not be shared/used by the original developer/maintainer?

Answer #1: Considering that the whole reason I personally choose the GPL 
for some projects is to prevent this sort of one way street behavior 
_away_ from the original OSS developers/contributors _my_ answer must 
be; No it is not ethical.

----
Question #2: Is it _technically beneficial_ to branch an OSS work (for 
example an OpenBSD driver) in such a way as to diminish the ability to 
share contributions between projects?

Answer #2: It would be fascinating (and sad) to see an attempt at 
justifying a yes response to this question.


Please don't let the rude language or defensiveness bought out by this 
particular incident distract from doing the right thing.  Just because 
you legally can (or might be able to) do something doesn't make it right.


--Jonathan--


P.S. As a secondary concern; it could be legally dubious with some 
governments to relicense an existing file from the OpenBSD license 
(given that the copyright license must remain intact) -- though patches 
could themselves _technically_ be GPL.  Creating _new_ GPL files which 
work _with_ the existing BSD licensed has no such ambiguity, but please 
see questions #1 and #2 above -- is it the _right_ thing to do?

Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

[Matthew Jacob]

 > Question #1: Is it _ethical_ (legality aside) to take someone else's
> actively maintained work (for example an OpenBSD driver) and make
> changes which can not be shared/used by the original developer/maintainer?
>
> Answer #1: Considering that the whole reason I personally choose the GPL
> for some projects is to prevent this sort of one way street behavior
> _away_ from the original OSS developers/contributors _my_ answer must
> be; No it is not ethical.

I beg to differ. If you want to put things out there for others to use
but want to avoid having the situation as you describe it, simply
license the work as such (which would be neither BSD nor GPL)-
requiring any changes to come back to the original maintainer.
*Snort*. I seem to recall Unix commercial distributions that made
claims that bug fixes that you made belonged to them.

Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

[Jeff Garzik]

Jonathan A. George wrote:
> Question #1: Is it _ethical_ (legality aside) to take someone else's 
> actively maintained work (for example an OpenBSD driver) and make 
> changes which can not be shared/used by the original developer/maintainer?

This happens all the time.  It's called a fork.

Forks happen for good reasons, bad reasons, dumb reasons, and smart reasons.

Sometimes the useful changes can be shared back, and that's a good thing 
[for that situation].

Sometimes changes cannnot be shared back, and that's also a good thing 
[for that situation].


> Question #2: Is it _technically beneficial_ to branch an OSS work (for 
> example an OpenBSD driver) in such a way as to diminish the ability to 
> share contributions between projects?

Can only be answered on a case-by-case basis.

The reality OF THE CODE is such that *BSD and Linux share good SOLUTIONS 
quite often.  That's a benefit of open source.  And that's a good thing.

	Jeff

Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

[Jonathan A. George]

Matthew Jacob wrote:
>  > Question #1: Is it _ethical_ (legality aside) to take someone else's
>> actively maintained work (for example an OpenBSD driver) and make
>> changes which can not be shared/used by the original developer/maintainer?
>>
>> Answer #1: Considering that the whole reason I personally choose the GPL
>> for some projects is to prevent this sort of one way street behavior
>> _away_ from the original OSS developers/contributors _my_ answer must
>> be; No it is not ethical.
> 
> I beg to differ. If you want to put things out there for others to use
> but want to avoid having the situation as you describe it, simply
> license the work as such (which would be neither BSD nor GPL)-
> requiring any changes to come back to the original maintainer.
> *Snort*. I seem to recall Unix commercial distributions that made
> claims that bug fixes that you made belonged to them.

... But is it _ethical_ (as opposed to legal) to violate the expressed 
intent of the original author ...

IP laws (including copyright) are generally used as an imperfect (and 
internationally inconsistent) mechanism to protect intent, but inexact 
application of those laws affects enforcement as law ... however, 
respect for intent remains the ethical standard by which I (for one) 
would prefer to govern my life.

--Jonathan--

Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

[Jeff Garzik]

Jonathan A. George wrote:
> ... But is it _ethical_ (as opposed to legal) to violate the expressed 
> intent of the original author ...


The author expresses his intent primarily by choice of license text, and 
it's very important to all of us that we follow the rules set forth by 
the author in that license text.

	Jeff

Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"

[H. Peter Anvin]

Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Jonathan A. George wrote:
>> ... But is it _ethical_ (as opposed to legal) to violate the expressed 
>> intent of the original author ...
> 
> The author expresses his intent primarily by choice of license text, and 
> it's very important to all of us that we follow the rules set forth by 
> the author in that license text.
> 

I have released software on more on one occasion where I have given a 
very liberal license (like MIT), and then put a "however, if you like 
this, X would be appreciated."  I wouldn't consider it unethical if 
someone didn't obey the optional request (it's optional for a reason), 
however, it does mean that I do genuinely appreciate someone doing X.

So there is a difference between what is legal and ethical, and what is 
the nice/friendly thing to do.

	-hpa