Subject: Re: Quick Q's about 4.4 vs 4.3, fs code
To: None <dyson@freebsd.org>
From: VaX#n8 <vax@linkdead.paranoia.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 05/14/1996 21:35:13
In message <199605142304.SAA13278@dyson.iquest.net>, "John S. Dyson" writes:
>> Most of the code should have the Berkeley copyright.  We (Utah, origin of
>> the ext2fs port) would be perfectly happy if the GPLed code were rewritten.
>> Godmar just didn't have time to do that.

I will look into this.  It's not much code to reimplement, and it
is fairly straightforward.  If I re-wrote it by hand (or memory),
it would still bear striking resemblance to the original, but I suppose
there is only so much change you can make & still have it read the same file
system on one side and interface to a Unix kernel on the other :-/
On the other hand, the lack of latitude in implementation is also a good
copyright argument; if there's only a small variation in how you can perform
the same task, you aren't required to change it as much.

I was suprised at how close the ext2fs and BSD FFS really are.  It is
almost as if the Linux people didn't start from scratch :)

>He did an excellent job on the port to BSD, and we only had to make a few
>changes for FreeBSD.

I couldn't figure out what the code was originally for; I saw the
#ifdef __FreeBSD__ stuff and wondered (I still don't know exactly what
it was written for, by your comments; which BSD?)

PS: Thanks everyone for the overwhelming response about the new 4.4 book;
I got it today.