On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 07:41:07AM +0200, Marcus Glocker wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 10:08:13PM +0200, Michael Buesch wrote:
>
> > I, Michael Buesch, am one of the maintainers of the GPL'd Linux
> > wireless LAN driver for the Broadcom chip (bcm43xx).
> > The Copyright holders of bcm43xx (which includes me) want to talk
> > to you, OpenBSD bcw developers, about possible GPL license and therefore
> > Copyright violations in your bcw driver.
> >
> > We believe that you might have directly copied code
> > out of bcm43xx (licensed under GPL v2), without our explicit permission,
> > into bcw (licensed under BSD license).
> > There are implementation details in bcm43xx that appear exactly
> > the same in bcw. These implementation details clearly don't come
> > from the open specifications at bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net
> > or bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net.
> >
> > We have always made and still make a great effort to keep our code clean
> > of any Copyright issues (cleanroom design). Please make sure you also do.
> >
> > A few examples follow of what we think might be GPL violations.
> > This list is far from being complete.
>
> Michael,
>
> I am aware that right now a lot of lines in bcw are written in a way
> with a too close eye to your code. That's out of question, and I have
> already informed Theo about that fact before you got in touch with
> us.
>
> I wanted to make some quick progress (maybe too quick), and rewrite
> the functions in question after seeing some first success, e.g.
> receivment of first frames, which isn't the case right now. But
> still, the specs for some functions are so strict, writing tons
> of registers in a strict order, some parts will still look similar.
>
> The last thing I want is to start a license war with you guys,
> and also I don't want to harm OpenBSD further with this issue.
> And of course we want to solve that license issue ASAP.
>
> So, I am suggestion three options:
>
> 1. You give me some time and I try to rewrite the code
> in question. We keep in touch, and maybe we can split
> up both parties in freedom afterwards.
>
> 2. Same as option one, but if my time resources keep
> shrinking like they do right now, spending weekends
> in the office and I can't fix up the driver soon,
> I'll drop the driver.
>
> 3. We don't come to a point and I'll plain drop the driver
> directly, very soon.
>
> Waiting for your reaction.
>
> Regards,
> Marcus
OK, I decided to go for option 3:
***
From: Marcus Glocker <mglocker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: source-changes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 10:25:25 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: CVS: cvs.openbsd.org: src
CVSROOT: /cvs
Module name: src
Changes by: mglocker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 2007/04/05 10:25:25
Modified files:
sys/conf : files
sys/dev/pci : files.pci
sys/dev/cardbus: files.cardbus
Removed files:
share/man/man4 : bcw.4
sys/dev/ic : bcw.c bcwreg.h bcwvar.h
sys/dev/pci : if_bcw_pci.c
sys/dev/cardbus: if_bcw_cardbus.c
Log message:
After been attacked by Michael Buesch <mb@xxxxxxxxx> because we initially
were using some of their routines in the bcw driver, I decided to stop
working on it. To avoid any further license chit chat I plain drop the
driver.
***
Happy now?
It's a pleasure to see how the OpenSource community stands together,
and starting public wars instead of talking directly to the people
involved.
Marcus
--
Marcus Glocker, marcus@xxxxxxxxx, mglocker@xxxxxxxxxxx
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