Google's Honeycomb Source Code Release Is On Ice

itwbennett writes "'Ice Cream Sandwich', that is. Apparently it's source code delay week, as Google joins Apple in delaying the release of source code for open source licensed software. Except, unlike Apple, which promptly released the LGPL WebKit code in question Monday afternoon, Google stated yesterday that it will not release the source code for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) until after the release of the next version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich). This is not necessarily news, since Google said last month that source code would be held for an indeterminate time and released when it was ready. It's just that now 'indeterminate' has an actual date: post-launch of Ice Cream Sandwich. The question, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is: 'How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?'"

Comments

ASL for this reason.

[ustolemyname]

'How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?

Actually, this is precisely why they use the ASL instead of the GPL.

google cach of old ars article with good explanation.



And seriously, the name Brian "Proffitt" sounds like someone trying to generate clicks.

Sure they can do it

[dido]

Two things. Number one: Google is the copyright holder for most of the software in question. Any community contributors presumably have copyright assignments to Google. Even if the code was released under GPLv3 (and it isn't) they would be under no obligation to release the code because they own it and can do whatever they like. The copyright holder cannot by definition, violate a license they grant. For the stuff that they aren't the copyright holder (e.g. the kernel), they have complied with the license and released the source code where required. Number two: the Apache Software License Version 2 is a non-copyleft license. Read it carefully and please tell me where it says that redistribution requires source code release.

Re:Simple answer

[GweeDo]

Or because the Apache license is a BSD style license that allows for this.

End of Thread

[spun]

Thanks, now we have nothing on-topic left to discuss. I suggest we devote the rest of this thread to discussions of ponies. I like them stewed, how about you?