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Popular Android ROM Accused of GPL Violation

Posted by Soulskill on from the small-details-like-compliance dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A petition has recently been started to get the developer of the popular Android 'MIUI' ROM, Chinese based Xiaomi, to comply with the GPL. While Android itself is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License, and therefore does not actually require derivative works to be FOSS, the Linux kernel itself is GPL-licensed and needs to remain open. Unless Xiaomi intends to develop a replacement for the Linux kernel, they need to make their modifications public."

4 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. they need to make the entire kernel available by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not just their modifications, but all the gpl sources. they only need to make this available to their own customers.

  2. Re:they are just bits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ah, yes. The GPL. The only copyright most readers here defend.

  3. Petitioning China? by FSWKU · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You go ahead and sign that online petition to "force" a Chinese company to play fair. Hope you have better success than the hundreds of other companies from whom Chinese businesses have taken what they liked and given nothing back...

    --
    "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
  4. Re:they are just bits by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Copying something that is copyrighted without permission *does* deprive the copyright holder of some of the value behind their copyright.

    Copyright literally is a "right to copy"... although it's a legally granted and not a natural right... but the value inherent in it comes from its exclusivity. The copyright holder has an exclusive right to control copies of their work, and everybody else is supposed to obtain permission first. "Exclusive", by definition, means that nobody else is doing it, so when somebody does copy it work without permission, that exclusivity is compromised, and the value of it lessened.

    And after all... if the mere right to copy wasn't really of any value to creators, then why would people who bother to make freely distributable works bother to copyright it at all? Why not just put the work into public domain?

    The point, therefore, is that copyright *DOES* have value... it's difficult to quantify, but when somebody does infringe on copyright, some measure of that value is actually lost to the copyright holder.

    Just because what is lost to the copyright holder is of no value to the person who takes it, doesn't mean that it isn't stolen.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'