Does Android Have a Linux Copyright Problem?

An anonymous reader writes "TheRegister says Google's attempt to purge copyright from header files has put mobile developers at risk of being forced to reveal their own source code, according to legal experts. This time it's not patents or Android's reinterpretation of Java that's causing problems, but the Linux code that compiles down into Android itself. The discussion started with a Huffington Post article by IP lawyer Edward Naughton, who has serious doubts about Google's approach to the Linux kernel header files. He in turn links to copyright law professor Ray Nimmer's blog post on disclosure risks on copyleft platforms. And IP blogger Florian Mueller believes Google faces a serious Linux copyright issue."

Comments

Re:Copyright is complex

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you're obviously not a copyright genius, otherwise you'd know that header files usually only contain structural information about functions that doesn't contain the level of creativity required to clear the threshold for copyright protection.

Florian Mueller, the F/LOSS-hating troll

[tomhudson]

While "filing off" copyright notices and comments does not suddenly make code less covered by the GPL, this is not what is being done.

Read the RATIONALE section at the bottom.

After you've read it, if you still have a problem, to put this into perspective ... let's take a proprietary platform, Windows. There is nothing to prevent me from creating a set of optimized headers that wrap around the windows api, leaving out unnecessary parameters, constants, and code definitions that will conflict with my userland application code, and defining new "convienence" methods, functions, classes and structures.

If I then use the "cleaned up" headers to create an application, that application is no less my work because I used the "cleaned up" version as opposed to the original kernel source.

Proprietary applications can use these "cleaned up" header files without falling afoul of the GPL, the same as if they had used the original headers. Otherwise, the "binary blob" device driver problem would clearly not exist.

From the GPL v2:

identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.

An application distributed separately, just like a driver distributed separately, is not "derived" from the kernel source.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

It's a tricky balance. The kernel is gpl, and the code is available, including the "cleaned up headers" code, as per the gpl.

Just remember, an application that calls kernel functions is not "derived from" the kernel any more than an application that calls the windows api is "derived from" windows.

I believe this is just more FUD on the part of certain parties ... ask yourself "cui bono", then follow the money to the usual suspects.