Hi Jason,
I admire your intentions but there are a few things which you need to

understand a bit better. First off, I do not know Lawrence Lessig or

his involvement, so I do not understand how he made your list.
On the other hand, Eben Moglen is arrogant and unscrupulous. His stated

goal is to steal as much software as possible and put it under the GPL

even when doing so is illegal. If you give him a valid and sound

argument why the "legal advice" he has given is obviously illegal, the

very most you will get from him is a facetious reply asking where you

are licensed to practice law. -I know this from experience because it

is the exact reply I got from him after emailing him this:

http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=118901954525700&w=2
Whether they realize it or not, the other two clowns on your list,

Bradley M. Kuhn and Matt Norwood (as well as Richard Fontana and Karen

Sandler who also signed off on it) are really nothing than expendable

cannon fodder for the FSF war against reality. Eben being crafty and

cowardly, he decided not to put his name on the list of FSF lawyers

signing off on the code theft. Since anyone could easily complain to

the Bar Association about lawyers giving out bogus legal advice, and

possibly cause them to be disbarred, cowardly Eben is letting others

take the fall.
http://marc.info/?l=linux-wireless&m=118857712529898&w=2

Signed-Off-By: Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn@softwarefreedom.org>

Signed-Off-By: Matt Norwood <norwood@softwarefreedom.org>

Signed-Off-By: Richard Fontana <fontana@softwarefreedom.org>

Signed-Off-By: Karen Sandler <karen@softwarefreedom.org>
Most of us are also aware of the instance where OpenBSD took some GPL

code and replaced the license with BSD. What OpenBSD did in that cases

was just as illegal, just as immoral and just as wrong but it was

corrected when it was discovered in one of the dev branches of cvs.
In the case of Ryek's code, the reverse is true but instead of adm...
[ message continues ]

OH COME FREAKING ON!!!!  Can you guys DROP it already?  There was NO

VIOLATION because nobody actually changed the code!!!  The patch that

Jesper submitted was a *MISTAKE* and was *NEVER* *MERGED*!!!  Nobody

needs to argue/flame/spam about anything because there is no change

in the code.
My god this has been said 30 times by 30 different people at this

point.  I swear it feels like talking to a wall.
EXHIBIT #1:
EXHIBIT #2:
EXHIBIT #3:
CONCLUSION:

You guys are spamming our mailing list for NO GOOD REASON!!!!  Can we

*please* get back to actual useful development now?
Cheers,

Kyle Moffett
-

You are wrong.
http://marc.info/?l=linux-wireless&m=118857712529898&w=2

http://madwifi.org/browser/branches/ath5k
I suggest actually taking the time to get the facts before making

completely baseless statements. When you make obviously erroneous

statements, it leaves everyone to believe you are either hopelessly

misinformed, or a habitual liar. -Which is it?
jcr

-

There's no need to CC all those FSF people on this as I'm sure

they're plenty busy with other things, have lots of people to dispel

FUD for them, and certainly don't need the excess email in their

inboxes.
Well you seem to have CCed the linux kernel mailing list, so I am

talking about the linux kernel sources, not stuff hosted on

madwifi.org or other places as I have no knowledge or control over

what those maintainers accept or do not accept.  If you aren't

talking about the Linux kernel itself then you should get your  
I see these very out-of-date URLs showing people making changes to

some already-problematic licenses in various files in some other non-

linux-kernel repository.  Please note that the Linux kernel does

*NOT* contain an atheros driver right now!  Therefore this doesn't

seem to be the patch posted to LKML I was talking about:
Original patch:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/28/157
Responses:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/28/304

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/29/171

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/29/69
The "madwifi" site is not a linux-kernel branch at *all*.  The stuff

that gets imported there is totally under the control of the madwifi

people and if you want to gripe about copyright *they* are the people

you should be griping to.  It's like complaining to the OpenBSD

developers about copyright issues in some code that NetBSD developers

commit to their repository; it just plain doesn't make sense.
For starters, I seem to have plenty of references to "the facts" as

cited above.  You even deleted 3 major references from the email you

were *replying* to!
Secondly, what the HELL is with you guys and the personal

attacks?!?!?  You said I am "hopelessly misinformed, or a habitual

liar"???  You very carefully snipped out the 3 examples I gave where

people were describing how the Linux kernel did the right thing both

legally and ethically so you could make those claims?  Seriously, if

you really want to know what went on ...
[ message continues ]

You are right and I apologize. I've received plenty of personal attacks

from your group, and failed to hold my temper when dealing with you.
You and the rest of the linux kernel devs need to realize there are a

lot of angry people who are tired of being ignored by the powers that

be in the GNU/FSF/GPL/SFLC. The claimed distinction between the linux

kernel, the linux operating system, the various linux distros, the GNU

project, the FSF, and the SFLC is pedantic at best to the rest of the

outside world. As far as everyone else on the outside is concerned, you

are all one large project working together.
When some part of your project is indulging in code theft, it makes all

of you look bad, regardless if it's upstream, downstream, sidestream or

otherwise. When linux/gpl developers and linux/gpl lawyers refuse to

take a stance against code theft, you look like one big happy family

doing everything you can to put as much code as possible under your

preferred license regardless if it's illegal or immoral.
I knew darn well that I wouldn't be winning any new friends in the

linux/gpl/gnu camp by voicing an unpopular opinion to your project, but

after being ignored, you too would want to find the people on the other

side with the spine to stand up and say code theft is wrong.
Would you stand by quietly, tolerate being ignored, and accept delay

tactics of unethical lawyers if the roles were reverse?
Would you be willing to be called every untoward name in the book by

voicing your dissenting opinions clearly and loudly?
I have.
jcr

-

Please take a moment to understand the Linux development process.
A better place to look would be 'ath5k' branch of

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/linville/wireless-dev.git
but nonethless, the fact remains that ath5k is STILL NOT UPSTREAM and

HAS NEVER BEEN UPSTREAM, as can be verified from
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git

	(official linux repo; nothing is official until it hits here)
Part of the reason why ath5k is not upstream is that developers are

actively addressing these copyright concerns -- as can be clearly seen

by the changes being made over time.
So let's everybody calm down, ok?
Regards,
	Jeff
-

Jeff,
Look at what you are saying from a different perspective. Let's say

someone took the linux kernel source from the official repository,

removed the GPL license and dedicated the work to public domain or put

it under any other license, and for kicks back-dated the files so they

are older than the originals. Then they took this illegal license

removal copy of your code and put it in a public repository somewhere.
You'd be perfectly content with such a development because it had not

been officially brought "upstream" by the "offical" public domain or

whatever project?
No, you would most likely be absolutely livid and extremely vocal

getting the problem fixed immediately, so your reasoning falls apart.
If the people who could fix the problem continued to ignore you, and the

people in leadership roles tell you then intend to steal your code,

then you would continue to get more angry and vocal about it. 
Now take it one step further. For the sake of example, let's assume all

of this atheros driver nonsense went to a German court and the

GNU/FSF/SFLC/Linux or whoever you want to call yourselves lost a

criminal copyright infringement suit. You have now been legally proven

to be guilty code theft.
After such a ruling let's assume some jerk was to do the all the

horrific stuff mentioned in the first paragraph above to the linux

source tree, along with a little regex magic to call it something other

than "linux" and seeded the Internet with countless copies. At this

point, the GNU, FSF, GPL and all of the hard working Linux devs are now

stuffed. A company could download the bogus source, violate the now

missing GPL license, claim you stole the code from someplace else on

the `net and illegally put your GPL license on it... Worst of all, they

now have your past conviction of criminal code theft to back up their

assertion about the way you normally operate.
You should be concerned. The above is an immoral and illegal but still

practical attack on the ...
[ message continues ]

Ok, suppose someone did (precisely) this.  Then the person to be upset

with would be the people who did this, not the people behind the

official repository.  Some folks seem to be unfortuntaely blaming the

people who run the official repository.  
Look, it's perhaps a little understandable that people in the *BSD

world might not understand that the Linux development community is

huge, and not understand that the people who work on madwifi.org, the

core kernel community, and the FSF, are distinct, and while they might

interact with each other, one part of the community can't dictate what

another part of the community does.  You wouldn't want us to conflate

all of the security faults of say, NetBSD with OpenBSD, just because

it came from a historically similar code base and "besides all you

*BSD folks are all the same --- if you don't want a bad reputation,

why don't you police yourselves"?  Would you not say this is

unreasonable?  If so, would you kindly not do the same thing to the

Linux community?
Secondly, it looks like people are getting worked up about two

different things, and in some cases it looks like the two things are

getting conflated.  The first thing is a screw-up about attribution

and removal of the BSD license text, and that is one where the SFLC

has already issued advice that this is bad ju-ju, and that the BSD

license text must remain intact.
The second case which seems to get people upset is that there are

people who are taking BSD code, and/or GPL/BSD dual licensed code, and

adding code additions/improvements/changes under a GPL-only license.

This is very clearly legal, just as it is clearly legal for NetApp to

take the entire BSD code base, add proprietary changes to run on their

hardware and to add a propietary, patent-encrusted WAFL filesystem,

and create a codebase which is no longer available to the BSD

development community.
The first case was clearly a legal foul, whereas the second case is

legally O.K (whether the GPL or NetApp propietary license...
[ message continues ]

But that isn't the situation being discussed. You've sent this mail to the

*LINUX* *KERNEL* ML, not the MadWifi ML. The patches in question were not

accepted into the Linux Kernel, so this is *NOT* the place to send mail

related to them.
*PLEASE* go do a Google search or check the MadWifi site for their discussion 
Yes, true, but you are attacking people who haven't done anything wrong. And

by your own words, Mr. Roberts, OpenBSD has violated peoples

copyrights: "Most of us are also aware of the instance where OpenBSD took

some GPL code and replaced the license with BSD. What OpenBSD did in that

cases was just as illegal,"
If the OpenBSD developers want to attack the Linux Kernel community over

patches that were *NEVER* *ACCEPTED* by said community, it should be just as

fair for the Linux Kernel community to complain about those (unspecified)

times where OpenBSD replaced the GPL on code with the BSD license.
And, as said before, the place to take these complaints is the MadWifi

discussion area, since they are, apparently, the only people that accepted 
*WE*, the people on the Linux Kernel ML, *CANNOT* "fix the problem" with the 
Linux Kernel != FSF/GNU
If it was then RMS would not be attacking Linus and Linux with faulty claims

just because Linus has publicly stated that the GPLv2 is a better license

than v3 and because Linux cannot, for numerous reasons, ever be released

under the GPLv3.
I repeat - Linux has *NOT* and will *NEVER* accept the patches in question. If

somebody else has, then go and yell at them about it. The developers here, on

the LINUX KERNEL MAILING LIST, have no control or authority (in general) over

projects such as MadWifi. If they have accepted the faulty patches - and said

patches are now part of their code-base, then go tell them about it and make

sure Theo gets the message.
DRH
--

Dialup is like pissing through a pipette. Slow and excruciatingly painful.

-

Although it's true the code is not yet upstream...
Given that we want support for Atheros (whenever all this mess is

sorted), I think it's quite fair to discuss these issues [in a calm, 
Given that we want it upstream, it is however relevant.  We want to make

sure we are aware of copyright problems, and we want to make sure any

copyright problems are fixed.
On a side note:  "MadWifi" does not really describe the Linux ath5k

driver, the driver at issue here.  Some mistakes were made by Linux 
Amen.  100% agreed.
	Jeff
-

Thanks Jeff. I've been told both on list and off, as well as both

politely and impolitely that including the Linux kernel mailing list

was the wrong thing to do. Though I certainly do take serious issue

with a handful of people at the GNU/FSF/SFLC who have been acting in

bad faith, the code in question is per se "intended" to become part of

the Linux kernel. The code has not been "accepted upstream" as you say

but that is still the intended goal.
Saying something like:

    "Linux Kernel != FSF/GNU" 
is quite similar to saying:

    "Windows != Microsoft"
In both cases, the pairs of terms may not be "equal" but they are

certainly related. Also in both cases, the former term is most often

considered part of the latter term. Just as the Linux kernel is under

the GPL of the FSF/GNU, equally Windows is under EULA of Microsoft. You

are correct in stating a distinction technically exists, yet in common

language of everyday people, the terms are interchangeable even though

it is pedantically incorrect to do so.
Please pardon the comparison with Microsoft, it is not intended as an

insult in any way, but does serve nicely as an example.
There are some extremely talented and altruistic people who put their

hard work under the GPL license. Some of the Linux kernel developers

are on my personal list of ubergeeks deserving hero worship for their

continuous contributions. I am certain some of them are far more fair

minded and well thought than I will ever be.
With that said, if you had been ignored and even stone walled by the

GNU/FSF/SFLC and you wanted to reach the more pragmatic and free

thinking minds which use the GPL license where would you go?
The linux kernel mailing list is the best answer.
As much as you may have disliked my action of involving the Linux kernel

mailing list, please understand it was not an attack, but instead it's

a plea for help on an issue which will, eventually, affect you.
If some of the outstanding members of the linux kernel...
[ message continues ]

You could equally say that

  "OpenBSD != University of California, Berkeley"
was wrong since OpenBSD uses the licence of the UCB. [1]
Or that

  "OpenBSD != NetBSD"
was wrong since OpenBSD is just a spinoff of NetBSD, and for everyday

people all the *BSD operating systems are anyway the same.
Or that

  "OpenBSD != Linux kernel"
was wrong since although they are not equal, they are related since they

are both open source operating systems.
Or even that

  "OpenBSD != FSF"
was wrong.
In case you wonder about the latter, check at [2] whose project's

project leaders won the FSF's Award for the Advancement of Free Software

and whose project's project leader did not.
The FSF and the Linux kernel community have some relationship, but they

are quite distinct communities with different views on some things.
As an example, Linus Torvalds made clear some years ago that the kernel

is GPLv2 only and will stay GPLv2 forever. This makes it impossible to

move the kernel to the FSF's new GPLv3. If you have such differences in

mind it sounds ridiculous when people don't differentiate between the 
cu

Adrian
[1] I don't know the background of the 2-clause BSD licence, but at

    least for the 3-clause and 4-clause BSD licences this was true

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Award_for_the_Advancement_of_Free_Software
-- 
       "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
-

BTW: never heard someone is using the FreeBSD version of Linux?

I did, not once :-)

--

Krzysztof Halasa

-

On Sunday, 16 September 2007, J.C. Roberts wrote:
  Let's say

  someone took the linux kernel source from the official repository,

  removed the GPL license and dedicated the work to public domain or put

  it under any other license, and for kicks back-dated the files so they

  are older than the originals. 
  Now take it one step further. For the sake of example, let's assume all

  of this atheros driver nonsense went to a German court and the

  GNU/FSF/SFLC/Linux or whoever you want to call yourselves lost a

  criminal copyright infringement suit. You have now been legally proven

  to be guilty code theft.
  After such a ruling let's assume some jerk was to do the all the

  horrific stuff mentioned in the first paragraph above to the linux

  source tree, along with a little regex magic to call it something other

  than "linux" and seeded the Internet with countless copies. 
None of this has happened.  What has happened is that people who do

not have full possession of the facts and have no legal expertise--

people whom from the very beginning we have been trying to help--have

made irresponsible charges and threatened lawsuits, thus slowing down

our efforts to help them.  It might be useful to recall the first

stage of this process, when OpenBSD developers were accused of

misappropriating Atheros code, and SFLC investigated and proved that

no such misappropriation had occurred?  Wild accusations about our

motives are even more silly than they are false.
We understand that attribution issues are critically important to free

software developers; we are accustomed to the strong feelings that are

involved in such situations.  In the fifteen years I have spent giving

free legal help to developers throughout the community, attribution

disputes have been, always, the most emotionally charged.
But making threats of litigation and throwing around words like

"theft" and "malpractice" was a Really Bad Idea, because once some

people started using that language--thus ma...
[ message continues ]

Everyone is expecting yet another one of your lovely recommendations

which very simply reads: "steal and infect everything you possibly can

and refuse to pass on the rights that you have received."

http://lwn.net/Articles/248223/
As you do your imaginary "painstaking reconstruction" the whole world

can see you refuse to practice what you preach in the supposed "spirit"

of your "steal-alike" license because you refuse to pass on the rights 
When you stated you intend to secure as much code as possible under your

license of choice, you mistakenly told the world you had no intention 
Speaking of "Really Bad Ideas," you trained us. The only time we get any

form of response is when we continue to become more loud, more

abrasive, more aggressive, and more accusational. As long as people in

your camp continue to use your license and lawyers as a weapon to push

your "free as in koolaid" political agenda there will be people like me

who will stand up and fight against your theft, your malpractice, your

stalling tactics and your legal bullying.
I hope the name Pavlov rings a bell.
jcr

-

I don't thinl this helps openbsd or anyone else.   As Theo is already

working with the individuals involved, and hasn't asked for help, I

think rather than saying "I think you're going to suck", let's see

what happens.  Going ovewrboard isn't going to help anyone.
--

"This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity."

-- Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation.

-

Thanks for the detailed response.  There have also been some very

articulate and fact-oriented responses here from the OpenBSD Misc list

as well.
I will repeat and elaborate on what I wrote in my first response which I

gave the subject "Divide and conquer (was Re: Wasting our Freedom)"
Although there are some valid concerns regarding workflow between

projects of different licensing families,  keep in mind that
	1) a license (ie. GPL, BSD, or other) is simply another tool
	2) some outside FOSS would like nothing better than

	to divide FOSS up and set the factions against each other
Intentional trolls (agent provacateur) are part of the bag of tricks

available to the political groups that have much to gain by playing the

various FOSS projects off against each other.  Various political parties

and factions, not the least of which is MS, lose out if we use our time

effectively or if the general public start to understand and apply

principles that make for sound, secure, and interoperable systems.
Bickering with or harranging the FSF, OBSD, or any other project is less

useful than coding, documenting, debugging (even workflow debugging) or

teaching.  It plays right into MS' media strategy of "Saturate, Diffuse,

and Confuse" by filling up the communications channels with noise, thus

drowning or diluting the useful material and burning out the casual

observer.  One of the common tactics seen again and again, including in

this case, is the re-circulation of outdated and incorrect sources.
Some of the people doing the bickering may just be plainly and simply

less than knowledgeable and further handicapped by inability to express

themselves.  Others may just be 'tards easily goading into action by an

agent provacateur and, unless proven otherwise, should be treated as the

first group.
Regards,

-Lars

-

Thanks for the detailed response.  There have also been some very

articulate and fact-oriented responses here from the OpenBSD Misc list

as well.
I will repeat and elaborate on what I wrote in my first response which I

gave the subject "Divide and conquer (was Re: Wasting our Freedom)"
Although there are some valid concerns regarding workflow between

projects of different licensing families,  keep in mind that
	1) a license (ie. GPL, BSD, or other) is simply another tool
	2) some outside FOSS would like nothing better than

	to divide FOSS up and set the factions against each other
Intentional trolls (agent provacateur) are part of the bag of tricks

available to the political groups that have much to gain by playing the

various FOSS projects off against each other.  Various political parties

and factions, not the least of which is MS, lose out if we use our time

effectively or if the general public start to understand and apply

principles that make for sound, secure, and interoperable systems.
Bickering with or harranging the FSF, OBSD, or any other project is less

useful than coding, documenting, debugging (even workflow debugging) or

teaching.  It plays right into MS' media strategy of "Saturate, Diffuse,

and Confuse" by filling up the communications channels with noise, thus

drowning or diluting the useful material and burning out the casual

observer.  One of the common tactics seen again and again, including in

this case, is the re-circulation of outdated and incorrect sources.
Some of the people doing the bickering may just be plainly and simply

less than knowledgeable and further handicapped by inability to express

themselves.  Others may just be 'tards easily goading into action by an

agent provacateur and, unless proven otherwise, should be treated as the

first group.
Regards,

-Lars

-

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2007/jul/31/openhal/
As I said in a former email, this has several glaring problems.
As far as I understand, this is a public statement, even if it predates

the issue at hand.
Please fix it in a timely manner, or take it down for now.

-

Most noticeably, I fail to see any credits to Reyk Floeter in the

above press release.
Moreover, back when the release was first posted at the above address,

there was no credit even to the OpenBSD project, which I found simply

outrageous!  Only after I (and possibly others) have complained to

SFLC did they append the release to give some really vague mention

that OpenHAL is based on OpenBSD's ath(4) HAL.
Eben, is this the work that you are doing in bringing the communities

together, by omitting such vital information as giving credit to the

people and projects who performed most of the work?  After all of

these mistakes, after ignoring the ethical side of the relicensing,

after failing to inform when relicensing is even legally an option,

are you seriously even surprised about the negative attention that

SFLC is getting now?  Taking a step aside, don't you agree it is

well-deserved?
http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/13/156258
C.

-

That's the wonderful thing about open development:  our mistakes, and

the corrections made to fix mistakes, are out in the open for all to

see.  And we wouldn't have it any other way.
	Jeff
-

Or rather, can everybody please just shitcan those perverted dipshits you

are replying to and get on with it? These people are here for one reason

only and that's to cause a stir -- however righteous they may feel about

themselves, they're nothing but dumb trolls.
Please stop feeding.
Rene.

-

On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 03:33:18AM -0700, J.C. Roberts wrote:
<the clearest public analysis of the situation yet>
thank you.  I've tried but I get too pissed.
--

jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org

SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

-