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Android Devices Are Hives of License Violations

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the license-to-license dept.

inkscapee writes "Android developers are paying little attention to Free/Open Source software licenses and have a 71% violation rate. Come on folks, FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certainly easier than proprietary software licenses, and less punitive. But it seems even the tiny hoops that FOSS requires are too much for devs eager to cash in."

9 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. What the hell? by Stratoukos · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article doesn't mention Android separately. It has one set of numbers for both Android and iOS. Exact quote:

    A new study from open source services vendor OpenLogic reports that 71 percent of Apple iOS and Google Android apps are not in compliance. OpenLogic scanned 635 apps, including both free and paid on the Apple App store and Google Android Marketplace. Of those 635 scanned apps, 52 apps include Apache licensed code while 16 included GPL/LGPL licensed code.

    Who the hell wrote that summary?

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    1. Re:What the hell? by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Informative

      Of the 635 apps that they looked at, they confidently identified 68 as having Apache or GPL'd code. Of the 68 apps with open source code 71%, or 48 in absolute terms, were in violation. I admit that it would have been clearer and more interesting to say that 7.6% of the apps they looked at were in violation. If they had a truly random sampling and that number held out, you'd be looking at more than 20,000 apps that are violating the Apache and GPL licenses.

    2. Re:What the hell? by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Informative

      APL, Section 4.1 ... you must include a copy of the apache license.

      Section 4.4 ... if you give attribution to anyone, you must give attribution to the original work you used. I.E. if you credit yourself you have to credit the original authors as well.

      Its REALLY easy to comply with, but I've failed to comply in early releases of both open and closed source software myself simply because I forgot to add attribution and the license file. Of course, as soon as I or anyone else noticed, I fixed it as it is an honest mistake but ... its still REALLY easy to violate the license in a clearly defined way.

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  2. 71 percent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    How does 52 apps out of 635 add up to 71%??

  3. Re:Do no evil (directly) by teh31337one · · Score: 4, Informative

    You flag the app, and Google will remove the apps from the android market. Why are Google to blame here? iOS has violations too. http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/The+Blocks+Cometh/news.asp?c=26696

  4. Re:What about iOS? by s0litaire · · Score: 3, Informative

    It was an iPhone user who wrote the headlines...

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  5. 27% for Android - 32% for iPhone by Infonaut · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the press release for the study:

    OpenLogic found that among the applications that use the Apache or GPL/LGPL licenses, the compliance rate was only 29%. Android compliance was 27% and iPhone/iOS compliance was 32%. Overall compliance of Android applications using the GPL/LGPL was 0%.

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  6. Re:Do no evil (directly) by basotl · · Score: 3, Informative

    The linked article says "A new study from open source services vendor OpenLogic reports that 71 percent of Apple iOS and Google Android apps are not in compliance." So I guess they ARE saying around 177,500 iOS apps are also offenders.

    But I am taking the whole article with some skepticism.

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  7. Big claims, no proof == slashvertisement by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Informative
    1. While they claim that 71% of almost 700 apps they scanned were in violation, they didn't list a single example.

    2. They offer to sell developers scanning software so devs can make sure their apps are in compliance.

    3. PROFIT!?!

    Color me skeptical.