Petition Asks the Developers of Phoenix OS to Open Source the Kernel (xda-developers.com)

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Petition Asks the Developers of Phoenix OS to Open Source the Kernel (xda-developers.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday September 1, 2017 @08:10AM from the for-the-love-of-god dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Android is mainly considered an open source mobile operating system, but there are a number of closed source elements that hundreds of millions of people use every day. The actual requirements of Android is that the kernel be open sourced for the public. This is enforced by the GPL but sadly this is one of those gray areas where someone actually needs to take legal action to enforce it. Some companies have violated this time and time again, and a new petition is calling for the developers of Phoenix OS to do the right thing. For those who are unaware, Phoenix OS is one of the only full desktop versions of Android that is still being maintained. [...] So a dedicated fan of the platform, Karol Putra, has created a Change.org petition in hopes that it will change their minds.

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If Phoenix is based on Android... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:15 · Score: 0

...and Android based on Linux and Linux is based on Unix, why not just use Unix, the real deal? Why waste time with fourth rate pretenders?
1. Re:If Phoenix is based on Android... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Unix is based on my penis. Why waste time with fifth rate pretenders?
2. Re: If Phoenix is based on Android... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:24 · Score: 0
  
  Linux is not based on Unix. In fact, the Linux community pretty much rejects the Unix philosophy these days. Systemd and PulseAudio are Gnome 3 are more like Windows than they are anything Unix-like.
3. Re: If Phoenix is based on Android... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:29 · Score: 0
  
  Linux is not based on Unix.
  
  Aha! Lies! How else can you hide your IP stealin'?
4. Re: If Phoenix is based on Android... by NicknameUnavailable · 2017-09-01 08:49 · Score: 0
  
  Please don't take systemd or pulseaudio as paragons of rejecting the unix philosophy. They are sloppy imitations of monolithic architecture, which is absolutely perfect and beautiful when done correctly. The issue comes from the fact nobody agrees 100% on the definition of "correctly" which necessarily corrupts any collaborative effort and makes the project too large for a single developer given a Human lifespan.
5. Re: If Phoenix is based on Android... by KiloByte · 2017-09-01 11:00 · Score: 1
  
  In fact, the Linux community pretty much rejects the Unix philosophy these days. Systemd and PulseAudio are Gnome 3 are more like Windows than they are anything Unix-like.
  That's not the Linux community, that's the FreeDesktop community. That'd be like claiming that a single political party is same as a country. Windows is like North Korea, but Linux is not.
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
6. Re:If Phoenix is based on Android... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-02 02:00 · Score: 0
  
  I hope you're using it with some protection. Even UNIX can get infected, and Robert Tappan Morris is out there. I'd be more worried about what he might have picked up in jail if he'd ever served a day in jail, but hey. When your daddy is head of the NSA, it's an amazing get out of jail free card.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm
  I still think that Aaron Schartz tried his stunts from the MIT network closet thinking that working for Harvard was his get out of jail free card, but he didn't study the history of hacks on MIT campus well enough. It wasn't a "get out of court free" card.
Thus solving the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:20 · Score: 1

So a dedicated fan of the platform, Karol Putra, has created a Change.org petition in hopes that it will change their minds.
Because just because an approach has failed 1,000,000 times out of 1,000,000, it doesn't mean that it will fail THIS time!!!
UPDATE: It worked! by StreamingEagle · 2017-09-01 08:22 · Score: 5, Informative

UPDATE: It worked! Phoenix OS is now on Github and kernel source is available. We're still gathering signatures, because we must first verify that the source is legit and not just a copy of Android-x86 with no custom Phoenix OS modifications. We'll let you know when we've verified.
1. Re: UPDATE: It worked! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:35 · Score: 0
  
  Is this the Phoenix repo you are talking about?
2. Re:UPDATE: It worked! by millette · 2017-09-01 08:39 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Repo link: https://github.com/PhoenixOS/k...
3. Re: UPDATE: It worked! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:43 · Score: 0
  
  You fell for it! Hahahahaha
4. Re:UPDATE: It worked! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 21:36 · Score: 0
  
  We're still gathering signatures, because we must first verify that the source is legit and not just a copy of Android-x86 with no custom Phoenix OS modifications.
  How do you know that the Phoenix OS modifications were released under GPL?
  If the modifications were a patch under a different license, like BSD or a proprietary license then they might not have to share it. (Or even be able to legally do so.)
  If merging GPL code with non GPL code requires the other license to be removed then a lot of open source code would become uncompilable since they would also have to strip all BSD licensed code from it.
  It could very well be that the only legally correct option here is for them to redistribute the Android-x86 source with no custom Phoenix OS modifications.
5. Re:UPDATE: It worked! by LatePaul · 2017-09-01 22:06 · Score: 1
  
  The Phoenix OS kernel is a derivative work of the Linux kernel. Linux is released under GPLv2. Therefore under the GPL they must release the source for their changes.
  The only way it would be possible to release their modifications under a different license would be:
  a) Go back and get agreement from everyone who has copyright in the Linux kernel and persuade them to agree to re-releasing under a new license.
  b) License their changes under a GPL-compatible license - which would mean releasing their source anyway.
Your penis is a nuisance. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:25 · Score: 4, Funny

The only thing that the I.R.S. has not taxed is the penis. This is due to the fact that 40% of the time it's hanging around unemployed, 20% of the time it's pissed off, 30% of the time it's hard up, 10% of the time it's in the hole.
On top of all this, it has two dependents, and they're both nuts.
Accordingly, starting January 1, 1999, penises will be taxed according to size!
To determine the category, please consult the chart below and confirm this
information on page 2, Section 7, Line 3, of the standard 1040P form.
10 to 12 inches - Luxury Tax...............$50.00
8 to 10 inches - Pole Tax..................$30
6 to 8 inches - Privilege Tax............$15.
4 to 6 inches - Nuisance Tax.......... $5.00
PLEASE NOTE: Anyone under 4 inches is eligible for a refund.
PLEASE DO NOT ASK FOR AN EXTENSION ! ! ! ! ! ! !
***** Males exceeding 12 inches must file Capital Gains
Sincerely,
Pecker Checker
Internal Revenue Service
Android is mainly considered an ... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:25 · Score: 0

... ineffably flawed implementation of fragmented vendorware mixed with an open-source apertif, served in an old shoe that you pay too much for and which can't credibly promise a modestly secure environment, period.
1. Re:Android is mainly considered an ... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  Most people prefer the smelly old shoe to using Linux and Android.
  I read that on Dr Dobbs I think.
Legal action about license issues.... by cloud.pt · 2017-09-01 10:06 · Score: 1

...bringing about the GPL-poison effect no less.... ...(and if that wasn't enough) against an organization based in China?????
AAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAH AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHHAHAHA HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
I'm sorry to put it like that, but really, that's a lost cause. OSX has more chances to have its source freed than litigation like this to have an initial hearing. Nonetheless, the petition by itself might be a wake up call to the maintainers of Phoenix OS - who knows, they might just open it out of the good in their hearts (since it likely isn't making any money anyways out of being proprietary).
1. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2017-09-02 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  > ...bringing about the GPL-poison effect no less.... ...(and if that wasn't enough) against an organization based in China?????
  Since they sell the devices in the USA, there would seem to be grounds to bring them to court in the USA if they were violating the GPL.
  And If I may say so, it seems disingenuous to refer to the GPL as a "poison effect". A client recently gave me an excellent simile for it. GPL poisoning your work is like vaccines causing autism. It's a fear that made sense in a scholarly analysis at one time, and which many alarmed people took to hear. But that unjustified fear has lead to people dangerously isolating their own work and poisoning _other_ work,
  Fortunately, the current maintainers have already published their source on github.com.
2. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by cloud.pt · 2017-09-07 01:37 · Score: 1
  
  Owh, that's nice to hear!
  Actually, I don't consider GPL as poison in the pejorative sense of the word. It's just the word used for its spreading capabilities, since not many licenses force every module of the system they are included to BECOME licensed with the same license as the part. Of course, a much more coherent word would be the likes of virus, epidemic, wildfire, etc (BORG?) - i.e. much worse pejorative semantics. It's just the way it is - you can't have a FTJ where you code proprietary and NOT consider GPL as a poison of sorts (actually, I see it more like a full fledged tabu, as it is a big no-no where I work and I'm in no position to object). You can't really use a metaphor for vaccination denial on this one. Unless I didn't catch those big associative logic jumps.
3. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by cloud.pt · 2017-09-07 10:53 · Score: 1
  
  Oh wait I think I got the simile - he basically meant that it no longer makes sense to consider GPL as "poison" (actually "having a poison effect" is what I stated), because this, as an hypothesis has been proven wrong through the scientific method. What I didn't get is where exactly is that proof. I mean, isn't this article itself proof that GPL is indeed "poison"? Weren't the people actually petitioning that the "poison effect is enforced"?
  No jokes here, I am actually interested in understanding that simile.
  BTW pardon the ignorance of not acknowledging "simile", I am not a native English speaker and both the word "simile", which I was oblivious to, and actually noticing the simile "hotwords" in English is actually harder than it looks when you produce text, on your mind simultaneously, in two very similar (no pun intended!) grammars from different languages. We actually just call similes comparisons here :D (metaphors are just metaphors)
4. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2017-09-08 15:13 · Score: 1
  
  I'll try to explain what I meant.
  Individual users, or companies, consider their proprietary code so important, and the risk to their personal projects, so large that they refuse to use the very carefully thought out and clear GPL licenses. The then endanger others who may accidentally copy parts of their software, or reverse engineer it without intent, or who may copy software which was not clearly distinguished and labeled as GPL. They put others at risk, and companies who collaborate or who privately share code with them may put _them_ at risk because the licenses are much more restrictive, confusing, or even dangerous.
  I've been a major advocate in my workplace of using genuinely free software, with a GPL wherever possible, precisely so that competitors cannot proprietize work that we publish. I've encountered workplaces where various open source licenses were used for proprietized software which became unsupportable, precisely because the proprietized components became incompatible with the upstream over time and because they lacked the userbase to do thorough debugging and quality control of internal modifications. From experience, I consider _that_ poison.
  I've encountered personnel who've considered the GPL poison. I've encountered far more projects where the proprietary extensions became deadly and unusable, and ruined the original project's development.
5. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by cloud.pt · 2017-09-11 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you very much for clearing that up!
  I get it, completely. I was just under a different mindset. So what your client meant was that to actually make your (or your company's) code proprietary (as in ownership) and consequentially not open it up to accidental infringement, is to open-source it with clear disclaimers about distribution and monetizing - basically the poison is your poison - only you get to distribute it with the original "brand of trust". This as long been (from my understanding) the main argument for FOSS pushed by the FSF - if everyone goes FOSS, nobody but you will be credited as the original author. But as we all know, it still is highly debated.
  For one, you can't really ignore the authoritativeness of the premise: for the argument to work, everybody needs to abide to the rules. That means FOSS it all out, even when your or your companies health and revenue depend on it. It basically means blindingly trust in the system. We know for a fact that kind of "diplomacy" doesn't work - just look at international agreements being violated every day: environmental, nuclear non-proliferation, peace, borders, heck even human rights.
  And that leads us to the second, and undoubtedly most relevant counter-argument: when you "FOSS it", you make it public to friend and foe. Foe might be legally bound to act according to the GPL, but he is never legally bound to generally out his (non-public) code under the GPL, so he WILL use your 10k+ man-hours FOSS'd algorithms sociopathically just like everybody pirates movies, software and any intellectual property freely available, and then compile it up in a way nobody ever knows he broke the rules.
  To my eyes, and this is gonna sound really American from an open-minded European like me, but the GPL argument as much the same needs as a communism state: it needs Big Brother-level supervision to work, because there is no ubiquitous loyalty to GPL rules. It basically only works on "simple" things in the monetizing sense - "things" you can sell support for easily (e.g. you are the only player with the know-how); things there is nobody else interested on the market; things where you have enough a monopoly which ensures you keep it going; things you have no interest that there is a market (you destroy the market by making it trivial). Even better, the Google's way - things you want the market to proliferate, yet you still control the back-end monetizing at multiple levels (marketing, retail, big data...). And even Google still can't release the source of some client-bound stuff that runs on your supposedly AOSP device - or else, Pixel/Nexus devices would have a nice, bit-by-bit buildable source tree for their ROMs (and no, I don't trust release keys are the only "diff" on a Google-flavoured ROM).
6. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by cloud.pt · 2017-09-11 13:46 · Score: 1
  
  I think my keyboard's H key needs some fixing up.
7. Re:Legal action about license issues.... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2017-09-11 14:36 · Score: 1
  
  The discussion is interesting, but _please_ stop mixing open source with free software. They have different goals, different history, and different licensing. FOSS is not one license, or one model of development. The largest split is between "free software" and "open source software".
  If I may suggest a better model, please review the "tragedy of the commons" and approaches used to prevent it. Companies and individuals have started from "free to use" software, such as BSD UNIX and the openly published parts of a great number of projects in CPAN, in Maven and Ant and Gradle repositories, and in the modern pypi.org repository, Many people refuse to share their modifications, their "secret sauce", even with the clients who paid for the work or who are given the resulting binaries for C, C++, or Java. It also applies to back end software sold as a service. The result is that the "secret sauce" gets splintered and becomes very difficult to support, to integrate for publicly available source code. It also becomes very difficult to assess for performance issues, for security vulnerabilities, and for _software patent violations_.
  The difficulties have been notable on numerous occasions. Tivo's attempt to patent their software and work their way around the GPL is now infamous. I've worked with five major projects in the last decade where a vendor took their codebaase private from an open source project and destabilized it by migrating the project away from the community standards in their own proprietary fork, which within a few years _did not work properly_ anymore. The pain and expense of detangling it from the proprietized source code to activate desired new features was quite large, and paid for considerable chunks of my salary at the time.
they have a very nice website by FudRucker · 2017-09-01 10:14 · Score: 1

they must have a lot of resources going into this project, (website & OS)

where is this from? from some of the screenshots it looks like the far east (china?, korea?, japan?), i never heard of this OS before this slashdot article, yeah, i would like to see the source code open too before i slap a copy on a spare laptop. people cant be too careful when it comes to just installing an operating system and letting it on the network, it needs to be checked to make sure nothing malicious is hiding in there

--
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
1. Re:they have a very nice website by x_t0ken_407 · 2017-09-01 11:08 · Score: 1
  
  China, apparently: http://news.softpedia.com/news...
While they are at it by OneHundredAndTen · 2017-09-01 12:05 · Score: 1

Ask the PhoenixOS people to get their heads out of their assholes and come up with an installation mechanism that does not require having Windows already installed.
One of the only? by pele · 2017-09-01 17:48 · Score: 1

Is this the pinnacle of literacy for y-generation?
Still just a copypasta without improvements to me. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-02 06:34 · Score: 0

Even slight improvements to AMD support would qualify as a meaningful step forward. If they don't actually make fundamental changes then why is GPL or no a bigger deal?