I am the one that handed BusyBox over to Anderson after maintaining it for 2 years.
I believe I worked with Busybox longer then Bruce did and during my time I reorganized the code, but still consider Bruce the primary root Copyright holder and license grantor. Anderson is claiming complete Copyright and that is simply an impossibility. As far as I am concerned, this claim is a GPL violation in and of itself.
Even if every line of code Bruce or myself wrote were replaced, it was done so on his and subsequentl
1) There are two things here: Copyright and License. Bruce created a work. He holds copyright. He published that worked under a license. That license is the GPL. I had privilege to use, modify, and redistribute that work according to the license. The license requires that I respect Bruce's copyright and redistribute derivatives under that same license. I own copyright to the parts I have authored. This goes so forth and so on for each person. IMO the original author never loses copyright claim. Without question the original author remains the primary license grantor.
2) Violating the GPL means violating the terms of the license. According to the GPL if you violate these terms, you loose your privilege the work completely .
3) Before meaninglessly rambling actually read the GPL.
4) Before meaninglessly rambling actually read the courts documents. Anderson claims complete copyright here.
5) I would argue that from my knowledge Anderson did not hold the copyright for many of the code contributions he made into busybox (his employer did) and further more as Anderson is not respecting the terms of the original copyright and license term of the original author (Bruce) and authors before him (Me) he is in violation of Section 1 GPLv2, and has lost his his privileges to the software according to Section 4 GPLv2. In this case Anderson lacks standing to bring suit and he himself is open to an action.
6) One must wonder why the SFLC is working with Anderson when they have been aware that both Bruce and myself have more senior claims to the original work without the 'issues' Anderson has. As Bruce has written we've basically been snubbed by them.
7) I feel I speak for Bruce here in saying the most important issue for us is to have our interests be respected and to be a party to any terms of how the license is enforced. I would be content if it was ultimately left to Bruce because he is original author and respect that. I personally never made a penny from BusyBox unlike Anderson who's full time job paid him to work on BusyBox (and other work I created). When I start to read about 'undisclosed settlement amounts' and considering the full picture, it leaves a very bad taste not knowing exactly what is taking place here. I'm not allowed to know. Bruce is not allowed to know. That's not acceptable.
As I posted to Bruce, you probably have standing to see the undisclosed settlement.
You probably need the consent of all parties, but I expect a copyright attorney could make that happen for you. in short order, but I suspect you and Bruce need to go through the courts to see it.
"What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?"
"A good start."
"I used to be offended by layers jokes, now I see them as simple truths." -- Garfield, War of the Roses
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
-- Sagan
Backing Bruce's Copyright (Score:5, Informative)
I am the one that handed BusyBox over to Anderson after maintaining it for 2 years.
I believe I worked with Busybox longer then Bruce did and during my time I reorganized the code, but still consider Bruce the primary root Copyright holder and license grantor. Anderson is claiming complete Copyright and that is simply an impossibility. As far as I am concerned, this claim is a GPL violation in and of itself.
Even if every line of code Bruce or myself wrote were replaced, it was done so on his and subsequentl
Re:Backing Bruce's Copyright (Score:5, Informative)
In bulk reply:
1) There are two things here: Copyright and License. Bruce created a work. He holds copyright. He published that worked under a license. That license is the GPL. I had privilege to use, modify, and redistribute that work according to the license. The license requires that I respect Bruce's copyright and redistribute derivatives under that same license. I own copyright to the parts I have authored. This goes so forth and so on for each person. IMO the original author never loses copyright claim. Without question the original author remains the primary license grantor.
2) Violating the GPL means violating the terms of the license. According to the GPL if you violate these terms, you loose your privilege the work completely .
3) Before meaninglessly rambling actually read the GPL.
4) Before meaninglessly rambling actually read the courts documents. Anderson claims complete copyright here.
5) I would argue that from my knowledge Anderson did not hold the copyright for many of the code contributions he made into busybox (his employer did) and further more as Anderson is not respecting the terms of the original copyright and license term of the original author (Bruce) and authors before him (Me) he is in violation of Section 1 GPLv2, and has lost his his privileges to the software according to Section 4 GPLv2. In this case Anderson lacks standing to bring suit and he himself is open to an action.
6) One must wonder why the SFLC is working with Anderson when they have been aware that both Bruce and myself have more senior claims to the original work without the 'issues' Anderson has. As Bruce has written we've basically been snubbed by them.
7) I feel I speak for Bruce here in saying the most important issue for us is to have our interests be respected and to be a party to any terms of how the license is enforced. I would be content if it was ultimately left to Bruce because he is original author and respect that. I personally never made a penny from BusyBox unlike Anderson who's full time job paid him to work on BusyBox (and other work I created). When I start to read about 'undisclosed settlement amounts' and considering the full picture, it leaves a very bad taste not knowing exactly what is taking place here. I'm not allowed to know. Bruce is not allowed to know. That's not acceptable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As I posted to Bruce, you probably have standing to see the undisclosed settlement.
You probably need the consent of all parties, but I expect a copyright attorney could make that happen for you. in short order, but I suspect you and Bruce need to go through the courts to see it.
"What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?"
"A good start."
"I used to be offended by layers jokes, now I see them as simple truths." -- Garfield, War of the Roses