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Who's Behind the Google-Linux License Ruckus?
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."
Florian and the lawyer pointing this out are Microsoft paid shills. They are attempting to sell WP7. This makes whatever point they were making pretty much irrelevant. If it was a big issue, the kernel devs would be making noise, not these whores.
For details about Florian, just Google...
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This is not about userspace API headers (which are partially defined by POSIX spec, but partially Linux specific, by the way).
This is about kernel headers. Their content is not defined by any standard.
You're wrong. This is about a cleaned-up header file that lets user-space programs call kernel services, as permitted by the COPYING file (a non-standard modified version of the GPL that specifically says user-space programs can call kernel services without invoking the "derived works" clause) that comes with the linux kernel source code.
And the content of the cleaned-up file IS stuff defined by POSIX or other standards, structures, etc. This is not about including chunks of the kernel in user-space programs.
Astro-turf much?
(okay, you might have made an honest mistake, but wouldn't it have been easy to check first?)
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?
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.
There may be no specific complains yet, but Linus has been quite explicit and unambiguous in the past about how he thinks the GPL applies to Linux kernel headers:
In short: you do _NOT_ have the right to use a kernel header file (or any other part of the kernel sources), unless that use results in a GPL'd program. ...
BUT YOU CAN NOT USE THE KERNEL HEADER FILES TO CREATE NON-GPL'D BINARIES.
Of course, Linus is not a lawyer, and his interpretation of GPL may not be correct. But the gist of the original story was that it was legal analysis made by an IP lawyer, and he essentially agreed with Linus.
Oh, I know, I know! Linus is a paid Microsoft shill! Right?
Okay, now you're definitely trolling, seeing as we've dealt with that question numerous times, and the COPYING file makes it clear that you CAN use kernel headers to make user-land binaries without triggering the "distribution" clause.
What you can't do is make a closed kernel.
So, since the limitations of the GPL (distribution of source) have been expressly waived for userland programs that only call kernel services, there is NO copyright violation for using the header files in such a fashion, ever.
But keep shilling. It gives more opportunity to refute your arguments.