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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 07:06 PM EDT |
If you are tempted to conclude that the only place hardware customizations occur
on an android device are in the core api libraries and the linux kernel drivers,
then I suggest you spend a bit more time exploring actual android devices from
downstream vendors.
Nor is there the slightest reason to assume that all libraries shipping on a
device need to have the same license. Even within a Google build, you are
mixing apache (for most of the java stuff) and BSD (for much of the unix-level
stuff). A typical alternative rom will add substantial (L)GPL components. A
typical vendor rom will add substantial closed, proprietary components which are
not derivative works of the core components.
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| Authored by: bugstomper on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 05:52 AM EDT |
Oracle does release OpenJDK under GPLv2 plus Classpath Exception. Oracle claims
that any clean room independent implementation of the Java class libraries to
make a functionally compatible set of class libraries is a derivative work of
the Java class libraries because they have the same SSO.
Therefore if Oracle's interpretation of copyright law were true, Google would be
allowed to write the 37 packages (I refuse to use the misleading terminology
"37 APIs" because there is no reasonable way to map the 37 packages to
37 APIs) and distribute them under GPLv2 + Classpath Exception, and because of
the Classpath Exception would be free to use an Apache License for all the other
Java classes in Android.
If Google is correct and the making 37 packages with the same names containing
classes of the same names containing methods of the same signatures and return
types is not copying of copyrightable material, then the Classpath exception is
not relevant.
But if Oracle is correct, then Google's implementation of the 37 packages are a
derivative work of a portion of OpenJDK. Google should have complied with the
provisions of the GPLv2 + CPE by doing everything that they did plus acknowledge
Oracle's copyrights in the Structure Sequence and Organization of the 37
packages and pass on the copyleft provisions of GPLv2 + CPE in the licensing
terms of those 37 packages.
I don't pretend to know what the legal ramifications are and what the legal
remedies are when someone takes GPLv2 code and distributes a derivative work
without attribution and under an Apache license. Are there monetary damages
possible? Can it be cured by changing to a GPLv2 license or is it too late if
the original copyright holder does not want to reinstate the GPLv2 license? With
GPLv2 rather than GPLv3 that could become messy. But I'm sure that it would not
result in the billions or even millions that Oracle hoped to get out of this
case.
Is that what the case according to Oracle has boiled down to? That Google
released under an Apache License and without attribution 37 packages of Java
code that they should release under a GPLv2+CPE license because they copy SSO of
JDK classes, while the CPE allows the rest of Android to continue to be released
under an Apache License?
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