Attention journal long avec plein de morceaux en anglais !

L'affaire est un peu explosive alors je vais mesurer mes mots.

Les faits :

Michael Buesch, l'un des auteurs du driver Linux de la carte wifi Broadcom bcm43xx, a envoyé un mail sur la liste de diffusion d'OpenBSD. Dans ce mail il signale qu'il existe une probable violation de copyright car du code de son driver bcm43xx (sous licence GPL) aurait été repris tel quel par Marcus Glocker (un développeur OpenBSD) dans son driver bcw (sous licence BSD) :

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).

Il donne ensuite des détails sur la reprise du code (les noms de fonctions ou de variables identiques, l'implémentation exacte de fonctions qui ne sont que vaguement décrites dans les specs Broadcom et qui ne peuvent donc venir que du driver Linux, les messages d'erreur identiques...etc. Il y a même plusieurs fois des "bcm43xx" qui restent dans le code !).

Après avoir exposé ses griefs Michael Buesch propose des solutions : Il demande que l'on respecte son copyright et que l'on respecte également les obligations de la licence GPL qu'il a choisi :

We'd like to offer you to start cooperating with us.
We respect you and your Copyright. You should also do so on our work.

Il n'est pas contre le fait de relicencer certaines parties de son code pour les mettre sous licence BSD et indique qu'il faut en parler pour résoudre le problème maintenant :

We would not be opposed to relicensing parts of our code under the BSD license on an explicit case-by-case base. So if you ask "May I use this and that function" and if I own the Copyright on that particular function, I will approve or deny your request.
Other Copyright holders of the bcm43xx code might act the same way.
We're not out for blood, just for a fair resolution.
We'd like you to start contacting us to resolve the issue now.
Have a nice day.

Et c'est là que la flamewar commence ;-)

Theo de Raadt, le leader du projet OpenBSD, signale que comme le code du driver bcw ne fonctionne pas encore (il est en chantier), techniquement il n'est pas nécessaire de se conformer à la GPL puisque personne "n'utilise" le code.
Il ajoute surtout que le fait de ne pas envoyer un mail privé à Marcus Glocker pour signaler le problème et de choisir plutôt de mettre des centaines de personnes en copie est insultant et humiliant. Il annonce qu'il comprendrait parfaitement que Marcus Glocker abandonne son projet après avoir été ainsi publiquement trainé dans la boue :

If he quit, I would understand his position completely, based on the first contact with him about this issue BEING A PUBLIC DRAG THROUGH THE MUD BY YOU GUYS.

Cette prédiction se révèle vraie puisque Marcus Glocker supprime le code du driver bcw du dépot CVS public et annonce dans son message de commit qu'il abandonne le projet :

After been attacked by Michael Buesch 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.

Bien entendu cela ne fait que renforcer l'acrimonie des développeurs d'OpenBSD et les échanges deviennent furieux. Voici quelques citations dans le désordre ci-dessous. Elles sont extraites du thread http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/(...) et ne reflètent pas l'ordre des messages...c'est juste pour donner un aperçu du ton :

Theo :
The way they chose to "notify" Marcus shows a complete lack of respect for Marcus.

Michael :
The way OpenBSD folks used our code was a complete lack of respect for us. Fullstop.

Theo :
You refuse to accept it was an accident. Do you even know the word 'mistake'?

Michael :
I can't see how you can copy code from bcm43xx to bcw by mistake.
Really, I want to explicitely state that in my opinion the 1:1 copying was going on intentionally. This is impossible to be a mistake.

Theo :
Some person on the net who does not know how human beings react when they are called thieves implied he had purposefully stolen code, and he's so saddened that he is going to throw all that away.

Michael :
We do not treat Marcus bad in any way.
The opposite is true. We offered the explicit opportunity to get (some of the) code relicensed, if he starts to work together with us.

Theo :
No, your message offered that he can come begging, because that is the best that thieves may do.
Come little dog, come beg for forgiveness.
You are a very poor example of humankind.

Michael :
I want you to respect my copyright. Fullstop.

Theo :
You are an inhuman asshole, out to make a public fuss about something, when you had a choice to tell him in private.

Après cette flamewar le site d'information d'OpenBSD a choisi de lancer de l'huile sur le feu en attaquant les développeurs Linux :

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=2007040610400(...)

The Linux people may know what their ridiculous egos have stomped all over and destroyed.
Mr. Buesch, have you no decency ?

Les commentaires de l'article de cet article d'Undeadly sont également très polarisés :

Coté OpenBSD on pense que :

* Michael Beusch made a public spectacle out of Marcus' mistake. It should have been addressed privately between developers, and then broadcast publicly if discussions were unsuccessful. Regardless of whether you believe Marcus' actions were a mistake or a theft, you must give someone with his track record the benefit of the doubt. By embarrassing him publicly, Michael destroyed Marcus' motivation to work in bcm(4) and benefit the non-GPL user communities.

* These are true Marcus' rights:
- to be respected as a human,
- and not to be crucified for mistake.
This so-called "GPL Philosophy" is just another kind of lie.

Alors que coté Linux on souligne que :

* What a joke. There's no way what Marcus did was a "mistake". Or if he did, why did he get approval from other openbsd developers? Or were those commits from him "unreviewed" (unlike many others)? How could be "accidently" commit the changes to cvs.openbsd.org? The claim that it was an "accident" is like Clinton saying what Monica did was not an act of sex.
The Linux folks have done everything right here.

* I have no sympathy for Marcus Glocker being caught as what he is, a thief. Taking GPL stuff and checking it into an OpenBSD tree under a different license is a copyright violation and theft. Pulling bcw(4) from the CVS and not standing up in public and defend his work is more indication that he knew all too well.

Le bilan :

Le driver bcw n'existe plus dans le dépot CVS d'OpenBSD et Marcus Glocker a abandonné le projet. Les développeurs d'OpenBSD sont exaspérés et les développeurs Linux sont outragés. Triste.

> Lire le journal (78 commentaires, moyenne: 4,8).