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Popular Android ROM Accused of GPL Violation
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."
not just their modifications, but all the gpl sources. they only need to make this available to their own customers.
More popular than Cyanogenmod? As popular? Less popular? I've never heard of this thing. Must be popular in China.
Ah, yes. The GPL. The only copyright most readers here defend.
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..."
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'
Not correct, at least not for the version of the GPL in question. Read the GPL v2 and look at section 3 which covers distribution. Your options:
You'd be correct for GPL v3, but the Linux kernel license lacks the "or any later version" language so v3's off the table as far as the kernel as a whole is concerned.
Question: Who exactly is the Android Community? Is it Google? Is it the folks at XDA? This statement is just confusing and vague!
What can the authors of the above statement really do? Sue the Xiaomi folks? Impose sanctions on China if it fails to toe the line?
Good luck with that!
IIRC, it's a fork of Cyanogenmod, and (the non-Android part of) CM is also GPL, so they'd have to also distribute the modifications to CM. This, I think, is the larger infringement that people are annoyed about?
I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
Its easy to calculate losses of GPL violations.
Since the original author makes no money from the distribution of their code, they suffer no losses. Damages awarded: $0.00
No. It doesnt matter what they intend. They still have to make their modifications public regardless.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
GPL does NOT, I repeat, does NOT require PUBLIC release of derivative works. It only requires disclosure to the actual users of the software.
It is perfectly legal to create a derivative work of a GPL work and release the source code to the product users under NDA, forbidding public disclosure.
Let's look at the FAQ for the GPL...
Does The GPL Allow NDA?
Does the GPL allow me to distribute copies under a nondisclosure agreement?
No. The GPL says that anyone who receives a copy from you has the right to redistribute copies, modified or not. You are not allowed to distribute the work on any more restrictive basis. If someone asks you to sign an NDA for receiving GPL-covered software copyrighted by the FSF, please inform us immediately by writing to license-violation@fsf.org. If the violation involves GPL-covered code that has some other copyright holder, please inform that copyright holder, just as you would for any other kind of violation of the GPL.
coding is life
over my little pony toys.
Why do you collect small pony toys, and why do you let him ejaculate over them in the first place? :o
Yes and they're complete idiots for ignoring how much of the original work they got for free because of that same license and how many thousands of people lost their 'leet' exclusivity themselves to get them this far.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I can tell you are not a laywer, but even you should know that "value" doesn't mean "money". For instance, everything that is valuable that is not money, such as the things one trades money for, are themselves valuable.
So too are intangables valuable. For instance, you pay for the right (within limits) to determin who is allowed to access the contents of your house, apartment, and/or other real property. This is the same as how one might buy a mambership to a club so that one receives the right to enter the premises of owned by that club.
So a copyright is "valuable" as it allows the owner of that right to say how many of that thing may be brought into existence and under what circumstances.
When someone brings more of those things into existence than the owner wishes to allow, or does so in a way the owner doesn't wish to allow, they owners valuable right is diminished by misuse.
Much the way I might diminsih the value of any of your properties by misuse (like by ruining your carpet or driving your car into a ravine).
These are not difficult concepts, and many times as you grew to this age, you experienced a diminishment of yoru intangibles. Every time you ever said "That's Not Fair" and no cash was involved, you experienced circumstantial devaluation enough to prompt outcry.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I believe only one or two cases have actually made it to court - the vast majority of GPL violators voluntarily release their modified code once somebody complains to them and their legal department takes a look at the license. So yeah, so long as there's a strong legal framework to work in they can be "forced" - the penalties for bald-faced copyright violation are simply too high for a company to bear - especially if they want to continue distributing their product. Think of the outrageous threats made by the RIAA based on the skimpiest of evidence, then imagine they actually had rock-solid evidence of violations and that you're a company with deep enough pockets to actually pay the full amount. Those laws were after all originally written to keep companies in check, not individual file-sharers.
In the face of the Chinese lax approach to copyright law though... it'd probably come down to how badly they wanted to sell phones outside China - neither Microsoft nor Hollywood has managed to make any appreciable dent in the internal copyright violations, I doubt a handful of FOSS advocates would succeed where they failed.
On the other hand, if the company simply doesn't realize that in this case they're actually ENCOURAGED to copy the software in exchange for access to the (probably minor) modifications they've made... well the potential positive feedback loop might tempt them into compliance anyway.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
That's because the GPL is essentially the antithesis of copyright, hence that whole "copyleft" thing. It's essentially a way to fight copyright within the confines of copyright itself.
oh no you mentioned hosts
Ah, yes. The GPL. The only copyright most readers here defend.
It may become as a surprise to you but most people are only interested in what they see as "their Social Group", if you feel like your life is/was a struggle then you will mostly be interested in people who struggle. If you are a billionaire you will most likely only be interested in billionaire's problems.
On the other side of the coin are people who don't believe the GPL is even a valid license.
Everyone will voluntarily defend their believes.
Welcome to slashdot!
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
I'm curious as to how many of you are using the XiaoMi phones
As far as I know the XiaoMi only sells their phones in PRC - and even inside PRC their phones are in short supply
Not saying that they shouldn't release their MIUI code .... but if one does not have XiaoMi phones, MIUI won't do any good at all
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
From the article:
The article is correct. Xioami only needs to make their kernel modifications public. The fact that there happens to be a GPL program in Android (the kernel) doesn't mean all of Android is tainted by it. Showing whatever else they've modified is nice, but not required.
Crutchy, the brave apk-baiter...
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
>It is not copyright. It is a license.
Yeah, see that is why /. is so confused. Let me explain, so you understand why the stronger copyright is, the stronger the GPL is. The right that the license is granting is the copyright. Without the copyright, you don't need the license and can use it for whatever you want.
Source code is protected partially by copyright. The copyright holder has the right to prevent others from using/copying/distributing/performing/etc their work under copyright law. Thus, without copyright, if your source code leaks, there is nothing you can do to prevent others from abusing it to death, because you have no rights against them to stop it. Copyright is your ownership as an author of the source code. Thus, when you distribute it as open source, you usually grant a license that allows others to use your copyright material without fully surrendering your right. Those holdbacks are the conditions of the license. Again, if there is no copyright law of any strength, then I don't need a license to rip off your source code, I can just do it and there is nothing you can do to stop me.
Conversely, if copyrights are all-powerful, then I can't rip off your source code unless I comply exactly with the granted license that gives me limited rights to your copyright.
I sincerely hope that offers some clarity to you, and the others who don't understand copyrights. You can't argue that on one hand, copyright isn't theft when it is downloading an mp3 and listening to it, but then on the other hand, copyright is theft when you "steal" an open source library without following the GPL. They are the same law and rights.
The GPL may be an unconventional usage but it requires copyright. If there was no copyright (i.e., all works were public domain), then companies would be able to take code, modify it, and obfuscate it with impunity. We would see the behavior evidenced in the article, in short. In short, RMS would have encountered that same software issue and been in the same boat that caused him to start the FSF (the key difference would have been that it was legal to disassemble the binary).
That is, free (as in libre) software requires legal protection to exist.
Of course, that is true of many crimes. If you take an apple from a store without paying, is it only theft if it can be proved that the apple would otherwise have been sold? No, of course not. If you tap into your neighbors cable, is it only theft of service if the cable company is now unable to supply another customer? No. If you kill someone, does the punishment vary based on proof of how long the person would otherwise have lived? No.
This is why laws specify specific prohibited actions, not altered potential futures, and the consequences of performing those actions.