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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
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?
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.
Linus did not say "Anything Google does is fine with all the copyright owners." He did very specifically address the issues with the Bionic library and the API calls. As a software engineer and the founder of Linux, he would know exactly what the entailed. Specifically in the summary above he clearly denotes that.
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.
Only no one who ever wrote any of the Linux code is claiming that Google did anything wrong. It's hard to have lawyers when there are no clients. Right now the case against Google is with Oracle. All these Linux matters are being brought up as FUD.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Right now the case against Google is with Oracle. All these Linux matters are being brought up as FUD.
Oracle? Oracle has about as much right to slam Google of violationg the GPL as Satan would have slamming St. Peter for allegedly having coveted his neighbor's Xbox 360.
When it comes to Open source development, Oracle is akin to the planet killer from the StarTrek season 2, episode #35 The Doomsday Machine.
As in... Oracle is a giant open source project eater. They buy out valuable open source sponsors, and spit out s****. Look at their track record: Sleepycat Software (BerkelyDB), Innobase (InnoDB), Sun (Java, OpenSolaris, MySQL, Glassfish)
What do we have to show for it? Open source projects vanishing or perverted. In all likelihood these will all soon show to be abandonware or obsoleted.
Hell... OpenSolaris is already dead not just in theory.
And Java is on its way out, due to the way Oracle's f"""cking up suing folks over adapting Java to their needs.... (what happened to 'open source'... 'community'?)
Sun forums going away..... Oracle not talking to the community, except in marketing faux blogs.
Translation; Oracle.......... "Open source community"; except the community's being taken out, oh, and by the way, the source / development isn't open anymore.
You're right. I missed that. Sorry.
Help stamp out iliturcy.