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Dell Releases Streak Source Code
RandyDownes writes "Members of the developer community called Dell out for not releasing the complete source code for the Android-powered slate, thus violating the GPL. Dell has since complied and released the total custom Android 1.6 ROM to the public. Maybe now someone can get the minitablet/smartphone to run Froyo without breaking everything."
It looks like Dell only released the parts that they're required to under the GPL - so the summary is wrong in saying they released the "total custom Android 1.6 ROM". However, the kernel alone should hopefully help get some custom ROMs started on this thing.
The reason for the about face is probably a lawsuit against cisco from the Free Software Federation. This is a good thing that the actions of the FSF are forcing other companies to properly comply with the open source licenses they choose.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
An offer for the source (or the source) is supposed to ship with the binaries.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
According to the license, you have to release source and binaries at the same time.
No, according to the license, you have to provide it when asked for it. Otherwise mailing out floppies wouldn't have been allowed under the GPL.
GPL gets rather sticky in where the limitation ends on whats required to be included.
For instance one of the GPL requirements is a bit about the scripts and toolchain required to compile the code.
Its not entirely clear to what extent that goes. My interpretation of it is that you couldn't distribute something that required say an MS CC specific option because you would also be required to distribute the MS CC in some what (source or binary is also unclear).
The general consensus however from the OSS community at large is that it means you have to distribute the scripts that call special tools, but not the tools themselves. You would have to include your batch file that builds using MS CC, but not MS CC itself.
GPL wants to consume everything it touches where ever possible. Unfortunately, that wouldn't go over well and would have required basically someone to invent a GPL'd computer that you could then start making GPL'd software on, but you'd have to base that on a GPL'd universe. Which ... clearly is a ludicrous idea, so rather than try to enforce that to its fullest extent, the community generally accepts a certain, not carved in stone, cutoff point that generally leaves build tools out of the distribution chain.
If those bits are ever challenged it could cause significant problems for GPL and its users. Rather than going to court over such things, both sides don't want to risk the potential outcome of a court case going wrong, so both sides (GPL users and proprietary license users) generally meet in the middle to avoid hassle. Only occasionally does something get big enough to cause a community uproar to get the lines more clearly drawn. This thing with Dell is an example of Dell not wanting to push the issue really after the community pushed back.
Most of the community are not likely to push much harder as most people accept that certain bits of code for hardware can't be released even if Dell wants to because they simply don't have the right to do so. Rather than forcing Dell to play by the rules, which would mean the end of Android on that particular device, the community backs off and lets them get by.
Most everyone wins in the end, with a few rare corner cases and a handful of geeks that bitch about 'not getting everything' because they want to convince people they really do need to tweak some driver because they 'know better' ... never mind the fact that their fully 'tweaked' systems have uptimes too short to post a message this long on slashdot before it crashes.
You can't please everyone, this is the middle ground.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I'd just like to add for those readers not in the know that Android uses Apache licensing. They're not required to publish any modifications to Android, only to the kernel since it's GPL and not Apache. As such, it's highly likely that we'll never see the entire ROM's source code.
b) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the software in the product that is covered by this License, on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge.
But it's not what the license actually says:
There's no timeframe specified, and the license was written at a time where these things would quite often be done on postal timeframes.
I'm all for holding companies that actually violate the GPL to the fire, but when people pitch a fit about a simple delay it makes us all look like jackasses.
The nVidia blob is not a derived work of the kernel. The nVidia shim is, and so it must be GPL'd. The combined work of the blob, the shim, and the kernel, must be GPL'd if distributed together, but because nVidia only distributes the blob, not the kernel, this does not apply.
This is a problem for distributions, because they can not include the nVidia blob (most include a script that lets the user fetch and install it after install). It would also be a problem for anyone wanting to ship computers with Linux preinstalled and nVidia graphics.
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Yes, Dell screwed up. Yes, they should have known better. However, once someone pointed out the error of their ways, they moved to resolve the problem about as fast as any large company can.
Compare what Dell did to what Cisco has done. The FSF was finally forced to file a lawsuit to get their attention because Cisco couldn't even be bothered to _talk_ to the the FSF about their GPL violations, let alone resolve them.