Further to Jane's message[1], I wanted to let people here know what  
is going on now I have been able to complete some research. I'd been  
alerted to some issues with attributions in the case of the zyd  
driver last year. I was thus very concerned to hear just before the  
break of another claim that the iwk driver was also problematic. My  
apologies to the OpenSolaris community and to the OpenBSD developers  
for not discussing this earlier, but I felt it was better to get the  
facts straight before making comment.

In both cases, it does appear that taking down the code was the  
appropriate first response. I know Damien Bergamini in the OpenBSD  
community was very offended and I apologise to Damien and the OpenBSD  
community for any part Sun's employees may have played in either  
incident. The zyd driver has now been suitably annotated; the future  
of the iwk driver is still being researched.

It seems the two incidents are quite different from one another in  
cause. Sun's engineering team is working on new procedures that will  
minimise the risk of either of these different circumstances  
happening again. While there's really nothing one can do to make  
absolutely certain, I know Bill Franklin's staff will be approaching  
the OGB to request their views on behalf of the OpenSolaris community  
when they are ready, no later than the end of January. I'll check to  
make sure you've been informed.

S.
_____
Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer & Open Source Ombudsman, Sun  
Microsystems
[If you wish to complain about anything Sun has done, please write to  
ombudsman AT sun DOT com]


[1] http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/laptop-discuss/2008-January/ 
009596.html

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