Slashdot Mirror
Linus Says Android License Claim Is 'Bogus'
jbrodkin writes "Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has scoffed at a new claim that Android violates the Linux license. Google's use of the Bionic Library does not result in a derivative work that has to be licensed under GPL, as some lawyers are claiming, Torvalds says. 'It seems totally bogus,' Torvalds said. 'We've always made it very clear that the kernel system call interfaces do not in any way result in a derived work as per the GPL.' While some claims against Android can be dismissed outright, Google and its partners still must fend off patent lawsuits filed by rivals Microsoft and Oracle."
Good grief.
Am I praising Google, or hating them today? It seems so hard to keep up with the trends. . .
. .
No, this is Linus Torvalds; he's an adult, so everything he says sounds like "Wha-wha wha-wha."
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
So, one more FUD refuted. Now Microsoft and Apple shills will have to look for something else.
Seriously. A lot of media pundits are nothing but paid writers employed by major companies - this is especially true for Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft seems to have been getting better slowly, but Apple is a whole different story.
*awaits troll moderation*
This might be the most interesting post this week. Will be exciting to see how this ends. Anyway, can anyone tell me ONE (1) person, company, product, service, license or ANYTHING else which someone is able to make money on that are NOT having a long tail of lawsuits..? ;-)
Kind regards,
Trond
My blog: http://www.moneyonline.net Twitter: @TrondLyngbo
Actually everybody who has contributed to the file are copyright holders (Linus being just one of them).
His opinion on this matter is the opinion of one man. And his opinion's in no way privileged. He's definitely not the sole copyright owner of Linux rights, so Linus is unable to make a statement about the disposition of Google's activities that would be binding on all the copyright owners.
Last I checked Torvalds was a Software engineer/Hacker not a legal scholar or lawyer with tons of experience with the GPL and Intellectual property law.
Not to discount Linus, but I think RMS or FSF lawyers would be more qualified than Linus to speak on this particular area.
Because whether Google could be held in violation of the GPL or not is ultimately going to be up to the lawyers, and the question will only really even be raised if a copyright owner is raising a stink and intends to seek legal remedy.
Seriously. If Linus is the deity and keeper of every line of Linux code, why didn't he just cut the Gordian knot that was this lawsuit? He's the one person who could stand up to SCO in a code argument and refute every claim standing up. Yet he didn't. Why is that? I never understood why he just didn't come and put a quick end to this.
Are you serious? SCO sued IBM not Linus. Linus added his commentary a few times. Also remember SCO avoided at all costs showing the source code to anyone. They delayed. Every time any code was leaked, it was immediately debunked. They deliberately refused to provide enough specifics even after multiple court orders to provide IBM with specificity. The judge threw out 2/3s of the claims because they refused to do so.
Even if Linus had the alleged source code in question and debunked every single line, do you really think SCO would have listened to him? SCO didn't even own the rights to Unix yet sued as if they did. The whole thing was a grab for money. It didn't matter to SCO that they even had a real case. They wanted IBM to pay them to go away. Except IBM is not one to back down.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I did say "oops my bad" in that discussion - more than once, even. I got my facts wrong initially, and was corrected by other posters who pointed out the copyright exception in COPYING file for kernel headers, and noted that in my own replies. You probably didn't read the threads as follow-up comments got posted. Specifically, here I corrected myself, noting that app developers definitely wouldn't be affected (and so that part of the story is FUD), but that Google still might be infringing. Then when there was a new story on the subject which dug out that Stallman's old comment where he explained that header file consisting of "structure definitions, typedefs, enumeration constants, macros with simple bodies" is not by itself copyrightable, I posted this comment where I plainly admitted that I was wrong before.
In any case, I don't see anything wrong with setting things right one more time, so here goes: I was wrong when I previously wrote in several Slashdot comments that Android Bionic headers could possibly constitute a derived work from GPL'd Linux kernel headers, and as such would have be licensed under GPL themselves. Consequently, I was also wrong when I wrote that Google was possibly infringing on kernel developers' copyright on those headers by stripping away the GPL copyright comment.
Well, at least Stallman (and FSF's lawyer) claims otherwise, and now also Linus claims otherwise, and I'm not a lawyer to judge their claims - especially as Linus has a direct stake in all this as a copyright holder of the code in question - so I'll trust their opinions, and assume that I was wrong until there's evidence to the contrary. I apologize if my comments mislead anyone.
Sounds good?
Shouldn't Google take a whack at them with their own patents? I mean I thought that is how everyone preaches the system work. Everyone won't touch each other for fear of reprisal. I would say Microsoft has more to lose in the end too if Google attacks Windows. If it starts to look sketchy for them a lot of companies might jump ship to another platform in case Microsoft is force to rework their OS. Google doesn't rely nearly as much on Android for income. Same thing could be said with Oracle.
I mistakenly accused him of being a troll - like many people, he knew that the kernel was GPL v2, but not that it was a modified GPL with, among other things, exceptions for userland programs. We both apologized, and it's all good :-)
I still think slashdot should have diverted some of the effort they put into messing up the user interface into giving us a way to edit comments so as to avoid the avoidable flame wars.
More interesting, if you go to the original source, you get this quote from Linus:
I don't see what the whole brouhaha would be all about. Except if it's somebody politically motivated (or motivated by some need of attention).
If it's some desperate cry for attention by somebody, I just wish those people would release their own sex tapes or something, rather than drag the Linux kernel into their sordid world.
Maybe now that the xxx TLD has been approved, Florian Mueller can move his blog to fosspatents.xxx ?
You're right. I missed that. Sorry.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It doesn't matter who has the copyright because Linus changed the license text to allow linking with the syscall interface back in the beginning, so everything is covered by that license until it is changed, and everyone submitting code does so knowingly that it will be released under that very license.