It certainly is

And that's what any distribution and developer team should be primarily judged on, not someone's or some group's subjective idea of what's ethical or not.

Do you insinuate that arny's behaviour is related to that of the devil himself? You certainly make it sound like he is. As far as I can see arny has made mistakes with the replacement and removal of Slackware copyrights and he should correct those as soon as possible. However, I can't see the relevance of the other things he's accused of.

Do some people in the Slackware community want him to quit developing and maintaining BW64 or is there some other axe to grind? Slackware has no 64-bit edition and as such leaves a void that arny (with BW64) and Fred (with Slamd64) have filled. If either Patrick or Fred have problems with the work arny has done and is doing, they should come forward and say so, but having talked to both, I don't think they will. So it looks like this is made a larger issue than the other lead developers think it is and that's the only thing that counts for me, being a distribution developer myself.

The point about arny having used Slamd64's tool chain in order to build his own, I don't know why such a fuss is made out of it. He might just as well have built one of himself by following the CLFS guides and maybe that would have been a better way to silence all his critics. Ultimately the source distribution you use in order to build a tool chain is immaterial, since anything that isn't obviously broken would suffice.

Slackware can't cater to all people all of the time, so please step down from your high horses and either make 64-bit Slackware happen or at least have the decency not to prevent arny from doing his work. If he earns something substantial from all of this, which I truly doubt, that would be all the better for him. But it's just not the case that Slackware and its team has a god-given monopoly on creating and distributing a Slackware-like GNU/Linux distribution.

Personally, I'd also question the extraordinary importance attributed to Slackware when there are so many other usable distributions around, but I don't want to open another can of worms like the one this thread seems to do. If there's one thing BW64 does, it would be that it strengthens the Slackware ecosystem by being almost an exact copy. Arny could also have decided to build something new and unrelated and in my opinion he would have been wise to opt for that so he could just work on it without wasting time on forum topics like the current one.

Hi,

I think it has been stated all along that the violations (bugs as arny calls them) are attempts to pass work off as his own. The errors should be corrected properly and not just admitting openly the errors are there or that if someone would point out the BUGS then corrections would be made.


Yes, the manner that arny continues to maintain the BW64 distribution should stop. No axes just standpoints that I feel should be addressed. Would you pass work off as your own? How do you address the open source? You do credit adaptation of others work don't you? I think if arny would not continue to pass work via omission and thus inclusion then some of the problems would be clarified. I don't speak for PV or Fred but I do believe that is up to the general public to point out error and things that don't align with their morality or ethics.

That's the difference in our opinions along with what we have been speaking about. Ethics, morality or just plain what's right and wrong.

Yes, if arny had built his own then part of the issue would have been resolved. He should have included his proper notices of the utilization(s).


I'm not on a high horse! Get off your soap box. Doing his work? Or just taking someone else's an passing as his own work? Money or other gains are not the issue here except for the ill gotten gain. I don't care if it is $0.01 if done wrong then it's wrong.
You are the one pointing out the concept of the monopoly of Slackware let alone god given. I care if he would take something from another distribution and including without proper notice or inclusion of a notice that said piece was from Joe-Bob's GNU/Linux. Along with the original notices.

You have opened the can already. Thankful we do have forums and arny does participate. Your stance that I am defending Slackware is wrong. I happen to use Slackware and note the uses.
If I would happen to notice these errors in any mode of presentation I would point out the problem(s). Ignoring them will just cause me to be just like a lot of people who let things pass when things are wrong. Literal thoughts have been a trait but add ethics, morality then you have something that can be looked at and remembered.

Your view that BW64 strengthens Slackware is wrong because the plagiarism stance continues. If you take someone else's work then pass it off as your own and believing nothing is wrong but there are BUGS that should be reported. That's the problem!

Please tell me where are still errors and I correct them ASAP. Thanks!

That happened a lot with a lot of distros before,got corrected and nobody of the copyright owners felt the need to make a great fuss about it.

Of course slackware users are a different animal....

Once again, morality and ethics have nothing to do with this simply because they haven't been defined or generally accepted. If arny continues to violate copyright or licenses, you need to point out these violations. In detail. File and line number. Arny DOES need to be held accountable for specific problems. However, if this is just a general vendetta, it needs to stop. Otherwise this is just the Slackware equivalent of Microsoft claiming that a bunch of it's IP is violated by Linux, but refusing to say what IP.

A direct question onebuck. Are you as offended by CentOS as you are by BW64?

Would you care to be more specific in your claim that plagiarism is still taking place?

Hi,
No vendetta. Not even close to being the same thing.

I don't use CentOS but if one violates the another's rights then someone should take notice of a violation.

Hi,
Read the thread!

The plagiarism has been done. Once the action has been done then one must re-do an action correctly not just openly admit.

Huh? You guys need to quit beating around the bush. Is there still an issue or isn't there? It's that simple. yes or no.

Well? Answer the question. This is the ONLY thing that holds weight in this thread. If the copyright notices have been fixed then basically all this amounts to is whining, and as hangdog stated, a personal vendetta. As far as I can tell, this is nothing more than typical Slackware zealot behavior.

I'll say it again... I feel extremely embarrassed for Pat and the Slackware team.... Absolutely absurd, this thread. There is no such thing as plagiarism in GPL land. As long as you correctly cite the source work then there is no issue what-so-ever. The only thing you need to watch out for are copyright notices and trademark infringement.

Look, I take DIY Linux base verbatum and rebrand it as Jaguar. Greg could give a f**k less. I've stated that the base/ directory is DIY verbatum. Issue solved.

I've stated most bootscripts are LFS. They could give a f**k less. I've stated the network bootscripts are Slackware. Pat could give a f**k less.

If I accidentally mangle a copyright with sed, and someone finds it, then all they have to do is email me saying "Hey dude.... Looks like you got some collateral damage using sed. It's in this script at line blah."

Plagiarism consists of claiming credit for the work created by somebody else. The only allegations I've seen in this thread were the absence of accreditation for usage of the slamd64 toolchain. Even if such lack of accreditation were "plagiarism" (it is not), the person making the allegation (H_Tex_Mex_H) goes on to acknowledge that the situation has since been rectified and thus would not qualify as "continuing".

My request stands. If you have evidence that Bluewhite64 is continuing to falsely claim credit for the work of others, you should present it.

Identical changelogs and release announcements may be part of the plagiarism people are talking about as well.
Those cant be licensed..

It's a port of Slackware which follows Slackware development. What else would one expect?

Again.... This isn't college literature class. Why would someone waste their time rewording changelogs when they are rebuilding packages for the same exact reason that Slackware is? Time could be better spent testing said packages rather than pointless paraphrasing...

jong357 you are in looking at a hundred lifetimes of trouble anyway: Jaguar -> Apple will sue you,slackware scripts -> the slack guys are going to get you,DIY Linux -> not sure but I'd bet they got soem kind of hitsquad,too

The devil himself ... that would be me... but call me Lucifer not Satan, I like it better.

Anyway, I think this thread has derailed beyond any rectification.

It's not like I'm the only one who has pondered the nature of bw64. This question has arisen many times in other threads with accusations flying around. I tried to somehow put an end to it by channeling all of it here into one thread and putting an end to it. If you think that is a bad idea, fine, close the thread. But, don't complain if the unresolved problem pops up in every single thread about 64-bit slackware.

Whatever, I don't care anymore, I'm unsubscribing from this thread, as there is no hope left for it.

Really? You've said some pretty strong things about arny and have continued to insinuate that he is being unethical even after you've admitted that the violations are old and many (all?) of them fixed. Arny needs to be held to the standards that apply to all distros. There aren't a special set of rules for Slackware derivatives.


The reason I brought up CentOS is that it goes beyond the situation with BW64 and Slackware. All the CentOS crew do is take RHEL once Red Hat have released it, strip out logos and copyrighted material not covered by open source licenses, recompile it and distribute it as their own. In fact their reputation is based on them being a 100% binary compatible clone of RHEL. Heck, at least arny doesn't just copy what the Slackware team does.