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Who's Behind the Google-Linux License Ruckus?

Posted by Soulskill on from the my-money's-on-the-joker dept.

jfruhlinger writes "Yesterday, news broke that Android might have a Linux copyright problem, which would be big trouble for Google, already locked in an IP struggle with Oracle over the mobile platform. Blogger Brian Proffitt looks deeper into the alleged violations. He notes that, while it's possible that Google's on shaky ground, the motivations behind the news release are murky: the lawyer who outlined the violation is an ex-Microsoft hand, and the news was widely propagated by gadfly Florian Mueller, who's tangled with Google over patent issues in the past. Moreover, the alleged violations are in header files, and it's not clear that those are copyrightable; if they are, no actual copyright holders have come forward to complain."

4 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. What copyright holders? by n2rjt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Brian Proffitt blog spells it out nicely. The bionic library has standard header files. That's the API definition, not copyrightable sorry. So, even though glibc has very similar header files, using the same names and everything, Bionic did not steal anything from glibc. They simply implement the same API, so they must, by definition, have the essentially the same header files.
    Nothing to see here, move along. But before you do, read the blog. I'd score it a 5 if it were on slashdot.

  2. And Bionic is different from glibc how? by tbird20d · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This whole thing just makes me angry, because it ignores legal standards that have applied to Linux and been accepted by all parties, for years. If Naughton's legal analysis is correct, and use of the Linux header files causes the GPL to apply to the utilizing work, then glibc is in more danger than Bionic is. glibc is LGPL, not GPL, and has been using "full" Linux kernel headers for years. How could Bionic, using a stripped down subset of the same headers, be subject to the GPL, if glibc is not?

  3. Re:What I'd like to see with the GPL by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is simply this... when a new version of the GPL comes out and you wish to continue using the GPL, all future licensed software must be released under the new GPL license. GPL 3 is amazing, but too few people are using it.

    First, the GPL forbids that sort of restriction.

    Second, what if some future version of the GPL contains something that makes it less free?

    Third, the GPL v3 has some flaws. Android wouldn't be commercially possible if linux were GPL v3.

  4. Florian Mueller? by Trufagus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Florian Mueller has zero credibility left.

    Remember? He was the guy who claimed that Android included source stolen from Oracle's Java. After getting enormous publicity the whole thing was debunked:
    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oops-no-copied-java-code-or-weapons-of-mass-destruction-found-in-android/2162

    So, why are we still listening to him? There are millions of voices on the Internet, shouldn't we listen to one of the ones that still has credibility?