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Does Google Pin Copyright Violations On the ASF?

Posted by Soulskill on from the plot-thickens dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Florian Mueller claims to have produced new evidence that he believes supports Oracle's case against Google on the copyright side of the lawsuit. Oracle originally presented one example to the court, and that file was found to have been part of older Android distributions, with an Apache license header. Mueller has just published six more files of that kind and believes the Apache Software Foundation will disown those just like the first one because those were never part of the Apache Harmony code base. Furthermore, various source files from the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit were found in the Android codebase, containing a total of 38 copyright notices that mark them as proprietary and confidential, but Google apparently published their source code regardless."

12 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. This post proprietary and confidential by ByOhTek · · Score: 4, Funny

    This post is proprietary and confidential. By accepting it, Slashdot agrees to not publish it to any third parties without my explicit permission. Violations of this contract will result in Commander Taco being legally bound to turn into a tunicate for not less than 36 hour greater than the duration at which this post is made available to any unauthorized third parties.

    --
    Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  2. Really? by Spykk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another "anonymous" submission linking to this troll's blog? You know better than to feed the trolls slashdot...

    1. Re:Really? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Funny

      You know better than to feed the trolls slashdot...

      o_O Please don't feed Slashdot to the trolls!

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:Really? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google used the Apache Software License, which is not the same as attributing the code to the Apache Foundation.

      Google had originally said that the code came from Apache Harmony (which Android Java libraries are derived from), which is attributing the code to ASF.

  3. I am confused. by Even+on+Slashdot+FOE · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If I publish a book that has a section with someone else's copyright notice printed in it, can I blame the person who holds that copyright for any issues it causes? And if not, why can Google do it?

    1. Re:I am confused. by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Except that as far as I've seen (troll blog post notwithstanding) Google didn't try to blame anything on anyone -- they used the Apache license. ASF independently clarified saying that the choice of Apache license does not mean that it was a part of the ASF-owned Harmony project.

      From the referenced ASF blog:

      Recent reports on various blogs have attributed to the ASF a number of the source files identified by Oracle as ones that they believe infringe on their copyrights. The code in question has an header that mentions Apache, and perhaps that is the source of the confusion. The code itself is using a license that is named after our foundation, is in fact the license that we ourselves use. Many others use it too, as the license was explicitly designed to allow such uses. Even though the code in question has an Apache license, it is not part of Harmony. PolicyNodeImpl.java is simply not a Harmony class.

      That's all. No "blaming" involved on Google's part. No "disowning" on ASF's part. Just one annoying blogger trying for ad impressions.

    2. Re:I am confused. by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you look at the second link, it gives an example of some code that is in the Android git repository. It does have a basic copyright notice on it, along with the words "SUN CONFIDENTIAL - DO NOT DISTRIBUTE." So Google could be in some kind of legal trouble here. They distributed code that is owned by someone else, against their wishes. HOWEVER - the damages are not likely to be very big, because Oracle is still distributing the same code for free. As far as I can tell, it's not a part of the Java source code.

      Google does have serious problems with Android, mainly because Oracle owns a lot of patents relating to virtual machines. Microsoft ended up paying $700million or so because of that, for C#. It will not be easy for the Android creators to get out of it.

      (Note: if you're going to reply telling me that Microsoft had to pay because they were copying Java, you are right, but please go find some links talking about Sun's other lawsuit over C# and inform yourself before replying).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:I am confused. by bonch · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just one annoying blogger trying for ad impressions.

      Since Slashdotters have more than once tried to dismiss this guy as some troll or just some blogger, perhaps you should do a little research. Florian Muller is the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign, fighting the EU's directive on the patentability of computer-related inventions, which they eventually rejected. He's received several awards for his intellectual property activism and is considered one of the most influential in the field.

      But yeah, because this is a potentially negative Google submission, people around here are going to attack the messenger and try to dismiss him outright, because they're biased toward pro-Linux companies like Google. This site's comment section is becoming a real trash heap.

    4. Re:I am confused. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I like how you left off the part about him lying to the EU commission about the effect on MySQL during the Oracle buyout of Sun:
          http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20091204095942328
      When the FSF's Eblen Moglen has to side with Oracle against his FUD, clearly something is up.

      Florian set up a FUD campaign against IBM in the TurboHercules:
          http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20100408153953613
      Pamela Jones stated "It seems Groklaw will have to open a new category, answering Florian Mueller FUD."

      Florian managed to delay and possibly kill the high-profile Munich migration to Linux:
          http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/application-development/2006/03/29/munich-linux-migration-delayed-by-pr-stunt-39260037/
      Then he bragged about it:
          http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20091021164738392
      His attitude seems to be "the end justifies the means".

      Of course, I'm sure it's a coincidence that Florian is connected with CCIA, which is a Microsoft-funded proxy:
          http://techrights.org/2010/04/11/florian-mueller-and-erika-mann/

      Florian seems to have a lot to write about... well anyone that Microsoft needs to spread some FUD about. It's always quite timely too, where he can start streaming out articles on something he never seemed to care about a short time earlier.

      Believe who you want, but I'm with the FSF and Groklaw on this one. In many cases I may not like the companies Florian is attacking (Oracle, for one), but that doesn't mean you can just start making stuff up (FUD about the Sun acquisition).

  4. It isn't eveil if it benefits Google by pcause · · Score: 3, Funny

    Another example of what "do no evil" really means: if Google benefits it isn't evil, right? Pretty amazing and inept theft of IP on Google's part and for being this inept and stealing so blatantly, Oracle will get billions. Shame that we Android users will have to pay for Google's theft.

  5. No they do not by DMiax · · Score: 5, Informative

    Using the apache software license is not the same as attributing code to the apache software foundation, you know just like people is not giving their copiright to Berkeley or MIT or the GNU project... Seriously, this is the second story from this troll in a couple of days... This is not even flamebait, if so at least I could enjoy the show, instead: why post it?

  6. Licenses seem incorrect... by Jahava · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In Florian's paper, he points these out as Sun PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL. However, it looks like several of the sources come from Sun's mmademo, linked here. In this rendition of the document, each source file's license is a permissive one by Sun (i.e., not proprietary / confidential).

    The ones from microedition seem to be mentioned elsewhere under GPL.

    Some sources seem to come from here, where some of the files (e.g., Control.java) have the proprietary markings, but these are interfaces. Control, for example, is an empty interface. Not sure if that affects anything.

    I'm not qualified to make any sense out of this, but it seems like several of the sources Florian mentions are actually GPL'd sources with incorrect headers. There are a few trivial ones that (in the source I found) seem to be correctly marked proprietary. As much as I admire Florian's ability to grep, I think he's just found an error in some headers, not actual violations.