Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[linux]

>>> Correct.  He is violating the license in a number of ways, though it
>>> probably isn't totally intentional.
>>
>> Removing copyright and licence statements can't have been anything BUT
>> intentional.
>> 
>> That's really a basic rule, pretty much a "programming 101" thing.  You
>> know, like "test your code", "don't remove other folks' copyrights",
>> "don't try to change the licence on code copyrighted by someone else".

That's programming 101 in a litigous country.  Some people are lucky
enough to live in places where the law is treated with the respect
it deserves.

> Well, I suspect that poor soul did not know what (s)he was doing. They
> are clearly trying to do the right thing... just paste back original
> copyrights and be done with it.

> No need to pull them into the loop, I'd say. What they done is wrong,
> but we can correct it without their help.

I'm with Pavel.  This was probably done by some underpaid junior coder
in Bangalore who is utterly innocent of law, much less international law.

The point is, they didn't try to claim it's proprietary and a trade secret.
Misplacing the credit is very rude, but also easily fixable, especially
once the duplicate code is properly factored out.

A mention of "you shouldn't do that" is appropriate, but harassing a party
who's basically being cooperative is unnecessary and counterproductive.

A lot of expensive stonewalling in courts is caused by the fact that
it's dangerous to admit that you did anything wrong; it has very little
benefit, and lawyers proceed to just twist it into "and what else *aren't*
they admitting to?"  Unless you want to encourage that behaviour,
please don't make their lawyers regret that they let the source code
out with the incriminating lack-of-comments.  Just fix it and move on.

Save your righteous ire for the hard cases at gpl-violations.org.

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Markus Rechberger]

Hi,

is anyone already on that issue?
Delock will send me a testdevice, I'll migrate the code to the new
usbnet framework then. Fixing the copyrights shouldn't be such a
problem there :)

Markus

On 6 May 2006 19:23:11 -0400, linux@horizon.com <linux@horizon.com> wrote:
> >>> Correct.  He is violating the license in a number of ways, though it
> >>> probably isn't totally intentional.
> >>
> >> Removing copyright and licence statements can't have been anything BUT
> >> intentional.
> >>
> >> That's really a basic rule, pretty much a "programming 101" thing.  You
> >> know, like "test your code", "don't remove other folks' copyrights",
> >> "don't try to change the licence on code copyrighted by someone else".
>
> That's programming 101 in a litigous country.  Some people are lucky
> enough to live in places where the law is treated with the respect
> it deserves.
>
> > Well, I suspect that poor soul did not know what (s)he was doing. They
> > are clearly trying to do the right thing... just paste back original
> > copyrights and be done with it.
>
> > No need to pull them into the loop, I'd say. What they done is wrong,
> > but we can correct it without their help.
>
> I'm with Pavel.  This was probably done by some underpaid junior coder
> in Bangalore who is utterly innocent of law, much less international law.
>
> The point is, they didn't try to claim it's proprietary and a trade secret.
> Misplacing the credit is very rude, but also easily fixable, especially
> once the duplicate code is properly factored out.
>
> A mention of "you shouldn't do that" is appropriate, but harassing a party
> who's basically being cooperative is unnecessary and counterproductive.
>
> A lot of expensive stonewalling in courts is caused by the fact that
> it's dangerous to admit that you did anything wrong; it has very little
> benefit, and lawyers proceed to just twist it into "and what else *aren't*
> they admitting to?"  Unless you want to encourage that behaviour,
> please don't make their lawyers regret that they let the source code
> out with the incriminating lack-of-comments.  Just fix it and move on.
>
> Save your righteous ire for the hard cases at gpl-violations.org.
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>


--
Markus Rechberger

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[David Brownell]

On Wednesday 03 May 2006 12:10 pm, David Brownell wrote:

> Well, it's always allowed driver modularization ... the change was only
> to move the hardware-specific parts outside of the driver core.

Bad wording there.  Last September I submitted patches to split out
the driver core and the hardware-specific parts into separate source
and object modules ... the core was always separate from the parts
applying to specific hardware.  (As you know, since you adopted that
approach for your ASIX code.)  What changed was the "one big file"
model, which had stopped making sense.

- Dave

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[David Brownell]

On Wednesday 03 May 2006 7:44 am, David Hollis wrote:
> Correct.  He is violating the license in a number of ways, though it
> probably isn't totally intentional.

Removing copyright and licence statements can't have been anything BUT
intentional.

That's really a basic rule, pretty much a "programming 101" thing.  You
know, like "test your code", "don't remove other folks' copyrights",
"don't try to change the licence on code copyrighted by someone else".


> The development on that driver 
> probably began before usbnet was modularized to allow for the
> componentizing of driver specific code outside of usbnet.

Well, it's always allowed driver modularization ... the change was only
to move the hardware-specific parts outside of the driver core.


I certainly could see how work on this Moschip support might have
started before September of last year, when the core was more fully
split out.  But that's still no excuse for this kind of "piracy".

- Dave

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Pavel Machek]

On Wed 03-05-06 20:14:28, Michael Helmling wrote:
> On Wednesday 03 May 2006 17:31, Andrey Panin wrote:
> > > What he
> > > should do would be to create a moschip.c that uses usbnet as a support
> > > module - just like asix.c does.  In this file, he can have his sole
> > > Copyright attribution and not have to worry about following
> > > changes/updates to usbnet.  Of course, if he communicated his
> > > development efforts with the community, he would have received all of
> > > this information long ago and we'd likely help shake out bugs in the
> > > code to make it a more robust driver.
> > 
> > IMHO we should do it now. If there is no volunteers, I can try to do it,
> > but it will be my first USB driver, so don't expect results soon.
> > 
> 
> That would be great, I could give you feedback if / how it works.
> But I think someone versed in the GPL should contact moschip to clear things a 
> bit.

No need to pull them into the loop, I'd say. What they done is wrong,
but we can correct it without their help.
							Pavel
-- 
Thanks, Sharp!

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > I bought an USB-Ethernet adaptor from delock (www.delock.de) and found it was 
> > not supported by linux from the vendor. So I played a little with lsusb and 
> > found it uses a MCS7830 chip from MosChip semiconductor (moschip.com). On 
> > their homepage I found a driver but it only was a precompiled Fedora4 module. 
> > So I wrote them an email and they sent me the whole source code for the 
> > module...
> >
> > Would be nice to see this supported in further kernel releases.
> > The sourcecode can be found at ftp://supermihi.myftp.org
> 
> Was it you who removed the copyrights from the "usbnet" driver and
> changed the author assertion to one "M Subrahmanya Srihdar" ??
> I'm guessing the latter; the www.moschip.com site implies that
> its engineering HW is in India.
> 
> Either way, blatant plagiarism and theft of copyright is unlikely
> to get into upstream kernels.

Well, I suspect that poor soul did not know what (s)he was doing. They
are clearly trying to do the right thing... just paste back original
copyrights and be done with it.
							Pavel
-- 
Thanks, Sharp!

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Michael Helmling]

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On Wednesday 03 May 2006 17:31, Andrey Panin wrote:
> > What he
> > should do would be to create a moschip.c that uses usbnet as a support
> > module - just like asix.c does.  In this file, he can have his sole
> > Copyright attribution and not have to worry about following
> > changes/updates to usbnet.  Of course, if he communicated his
> > development efforts with the community, he would have received all of
> > this information long ago and we'd likely help shake out bugs in the
> > code to make it a more robust driver.
> 
> IMHO we should do it now. If there is no volunteers, I can try to do it,
> but it will be my first USB driver, so don't expect results soon.
> 

That would be great, I could give you feedback if / how it works.
But I think someone versed in the GPL should contact moschip to clear things a 
bit.

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Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Andrey Panin]

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On 123, 05 03, 2006 at 10:44:48AM -0400, David Hollis wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 15:28 +0200, Michael Helmling wrote:
> 
> > So, what this Mr. Srihdar di wrong is to set his own name in the "copyright" 
> > field instead of using yours. The process of modifying a GPLed module itself 
> > is ok, am I right with this?
> > So it should be possible to convince him of this nuisance, and then use the 
> > changes he made to make moschips device working. 
> 
> Correct.  He is violating the license in a number of ways, though it
> probably isn't totally intentional.  The development on that driver
> probably began before usbnet was modularized to allow for the
> componentizing of driver specific code outside of usbnet.  

After looking at mcs7830.c source this seems highly unlikely.

> What he
> should do would be to create a moschip.c that uses usbnet as a support
> module - just like asix.c does.  In this file, he can have his sole
> Copyright attribution and not have to worry about following
> changes/updates to usbnet.  Of course, if he communicated his
> development efforts with the community, he would have received all of
> this information long ago and we'd likely help shake out bugs in the
> code to make it a more robust driver.

IMHO we should do it now. If there is no volunteers, I can try to do it,
but it will be my first USB driver, so don't expect results soon.

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Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[David Hollis]

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On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 15:28 +0200, Michael Helmling wrote:

> So, what this Mr. Srihdar di wrong is to set his own name in the "copyright" 
> field instead of using yours. The process of modifying a GPLed module itself 
> is ok, am I right with this?
> So it should be possible to convince him of this nuisance, and then use the 
> changes he made to make moschips device working. 

Correct.  He is violating the license in a number of ways, though it
probably isn't totally intentional.  The development on that driver
probably began before usbnet was modularized to allow for the
componentizing of driver specific code outside of usbnet.  What he
should do would be to create a moschip.c that uses usbnet as a support
module - just like asix.c does.  In this file, he can have his sole
Copyright attribution and not have to worry about following
changes/updates to usbnet.  Of course, if he communicated his
development efforts with the community, he would have received all of
this information long ago and we'd likely help shake out bugs in the
code to make it a more robust driver.

-- 
David Hollis <dhollis@davehollis.com>

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Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Michael Helmling]

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On Wednesday 03 May 2006 07:29, David Brownell wrote:
> On Tuesday 02 May 2006 10:06 pm, Michael Helmling wrote:
> 
> They just hacked "usbnet".  There are huge chunks of code, and comments,
> that are clearly identical.  At least half of the "moschip" driver.
> 
Then what they did really isn't right.

> "M Subrahmanya Srihdar" didn't "accidentally" copy the bulk of usbnet, 
> remove all
> the attributions, and replace them ... not possible.  There were certainly a 
> few
> chip-specific additions of course, right where "usbnet" expects them, but 
> the
> core driver is obviously all "usbnet" code.
So, what this Mr. Srihdar di wrong is to set his own name in the "copyright" 
field instead of using yours. The process of modifying a GPLed module itself 
is ok, am I right with this?
So it should be possible to convince him of this nuisance, and then use the 
changes he made to make moschips device working. 
Regards,
Michael

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Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[David Brownell]

On Tuesday 02 May 2006 10:06 pm, Michael Helmling wrote:

> > Was it you who removed the copyrights from the "usbnet" driver and
> > changed the author assertion to one "M Subrahmanya Srihdar" ??
> > I'm guessing the latter; the www.moschip.com site implies that
> > its engineering HW is in India.
> 
> No, I did not change the code in any way, it is exactly the version they 
> mailed me.

That's what I strongly suspected.


> But I don't really understand what you are saying about the usbnet  
> module. They gave me the sourcecode for a yet not available kernel module 
> "mcs7830", not usbnet. Or did they just modify usbnet? I don't know enough 
> about such things to distinguish from both. 

They just hacked "usbnet".  There are huge chunks of code, and comments,
that are clearly identical.  At least half of the "moschip" driver.


> > Either way, blatant plagiarism and theft of copyright is unlikely
> > to get into upstream kernels.
> 
> I personally have the feeling that they didn't do this by purpose. They were 
> very willing to help me with the driver and don't seem to understand much of 
> kernel development. Anyway, if this IS a copyright violation, they should 
> really change it quickly.

"M Subrahmanya Srihdar" didn't "accidentally" copy the bulk of usbnet, remove all
the attributions, and replace them ... not possible.  There were certainly a few
chip-specific additions of course, right where "usbnet" expects them, but the
core driver is obviously all "usbnet" code.

- Dave

Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[Michael Helmling]

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On Wednesday 03 May 2006 00:09, David Brownell wrote:
> On Tuesday 02 May 2006 11:02 am, Michael Helmling wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I bought an USB-Ethernet adaptor from delock (www.delock.de) and found it 
was 
> > not supported by linux from the vendor. So I played a little with lsusb 
and 
> > found it uses a MCS7830 chip from MosChip semiconductor (moschip.com). On 
> > their homepage I found a driver but it only was a precompiled Fedora4 
module. 
> > So I wrote them an email and they sent me the whole source code for the 
> > module...
> >
> > Would be nice to see this supported in further kernel releases.
> > The sourcecode can be found at ftp://supermihi.myftp.org
> 
> Was it you who removed the copyrights from the "usbnet" driver and
> changed the author assertion to one "M Subrahmanya Srihdar" ??
> I'm guessing the latter; the www.moschip.com site implies that
> its engineering HW is in India.

No, I did not change the code in any way, it is exactly the version they 
mailed me. But I don't really understand what you are saying about the usbnet 
module. They gave me the sourcecode for a yet not available kernel module 
"mcs7830", not usbnet. Or did they just modify usbnet? I don't know enough 
about such things to distinguish from both. 
> 
> Either way, blatant plagiarism and theft of copyright is unlikely
> to get into upstream kernels.

I personally have the feeling that they didn't do this by purpose. They were 
very willing to help me with the driver and don't seem to understand much of 
kernel development. Anyway, if this IS a copyright violation, they should 
really change it quickly.
> 
> Likewise, that is NOT the way to integrate with the "usbnet" driver
> framework.  See how it's done by the "asix.c" driver module.
> 
Sorry this isn't useful for me, I'm not a developer, more than ever no kernel 
developer. ;)
> 
> In fact, I'm very tempted to ask them to withdraw their distribution,
> since they have clearly violated pretty basic terms of the GPL. 
Maybe you should do this, since I don't know much about the details of GPL and 
my english is really bad. *g*
> How 
> long have they been doing that?  How much money have they made by
> this theft?


> 
> That stuff is correctible ... but until they correct their problems,
> I'm not inclined to let them continue distributing stolen software.
> 
This is comprehensible. But, nevertheless this is the possibility of 
supporting another hardware device in linux, and we shouldn't forsake it.


- Michael

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Re: [linux-usb-devel] New, yet unsupported USB-Ethernet adaptor

[David Brownell]

On Tuesday 02 May 2006 11:02 am, Michael Helmling wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I bought an USB-Ethernet adaptor from delock (www.delock.de) and found it was 
> not supported by linux from the vendor. So I played a little with lsusb and 
> found it uses a MCS7830 chip from MosChip semiconductor (moschip.com). On 
> their homepage I found a driver but it only was a precompiled Fedora4 module. 
> So I wrote them an email and they sent me the whole source code for the 
> module...
>
> Would be nice to see this supported in further kernel releases.
> The sourcecode can be found at ftp://supermihi.myftp.org

Was it you who removed the copyrights from the "usbnet" driver and
changed the author assertion to one "M Subrahmanya Srihdar" ??
I'm guessing the latter; the www.moschip.com site implies that
its engineering HW is in India.

Either way, blatant plagiarism and theft of copyright is unlikely
to get into upstream kernels.

Likewise, that is NOT the way to integrate with the "usbnet" driver
framework.  See how it's done by the "asix.c" driver module.


In fact, I'm very tempted to ask them to withdraw their distribution,
since they have clearly violated pretty basic terms of the GPL.  How
long have they been doing that?  How much money have they made by
this theft?

That stuff is correctible ... but until they correct their problems,
I'm not inclined to let them continue distributing stolen software.

- Dave