Quick summary: OpenBSD developer spends six months working on a driver for a device. OpenBSD developer copies GPLd code into the OpenBSD tree without permission. Author of the GPLd code posts this to an OpenBSD mailing list, copies several other developers on the mail, and kicks off a huge flamewar (okay, that part doesn't boggle my mind) which starts with the leader of OpenBSD flaming the original developers for being mean (here's where my headache starts), claiming that the GPLd code accidentally made it into the source tree (over at least a few commits and perhaps a couple of months of time), arguing that because the driver doesn't actually work that there's no copyright violation, and, at least to me, implying that it's worse to contact someone who's infringing your copyright in public than it is to infringe someone else's copyright because, as a few other people postulated, you're a big meanie who wants to stop the development of truly free drivers, even though the initial contact offered the possibility of relicensing some of the code.
The only thing preventing my headache from becoming a migraine is the probably-unfair satisfaction that I forgot to donate money for OpenSSH when the leader of the OpenBSD project complained that people were not violating the license.
I think I'll go back to the Haskell book. Surely it's less headache-inducing that this tortured line of thought.
Re:Couldn't read this
chromatic on 2007-04-07T07:26:56
You should have seen the first draft of my novel. It was painfully obvious I've read David Foster Wallace.
