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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 17 2012 @ 02:30 PM EDT |
"The tone of your post suggests that if Alibaba were to supply pirated
applications for Aliyun, a measure of blame ought to be placed on Google
because
of the terms under which Android is made available to handset manufacturers. I
find that to be an incoherent position. In any case here are some ground facts
that I think we should be able to agree on."
Sorry, but I was not suggesting that at all. My post was out of recent
frustration in trying to get source code for my new Android based car stereo.
Once the device arrived I immediately asked for the source because I want to
build CyanogenMod for it. The response? They told me NO.
I was going to fight it until I did my due diligence and saw the licenses for
myself. In the end obviously Google chose to license using a non-copyleft
license because its what they needed to do to get traction. What we are seeing
with Alibaba is that they are forking and taking advantage of that permissive
license. Is Google to blame for that? Yes (sorry PJ), had Google licensed
using GPL or LGPL this wouldn't be the case. Oviously Alibaba has to be
accountable for any pirated apps.
"1. Apache 2.0 is an open source license. You have a great deal of freedom
as to
what you do with source provided on that basis, including making a GPL'd fork
with suitable attribution."
Agreed. It also allows Alibaba to close the source and only include
attribution.
"2. The Linux OS is GPL'd. If Aliyun uses Linux, Alibaba must comply with
the
terms of the GPL."
Of course, we must also agree on this as well. The reports from Alibaba do say
that it is running Linux, so the kernel source needs to be provided. If you
received a phone running Aliyun then you are entitled to the kernel source that
they used or else they are in violation.
"3. If Alibaba claims Aliyun is open source but refuses to supply the
source
code, then they are lying."
Yes, they do claim its open source and yes it would seem they are lying. This
doesn't change the fact that Google chose a license that allows them to not
share (apart from the kernel).
"4. Google has contributed its OS patches back to Linux, and the use of
device-specific "blobs" extrinsic to the kernel does not differ from
what everyone else does in this regard."
Everyone can agree that Google has been a huge supporter of open source. Is it
ok for them to include blobs? Yes. Just more of that frustration that
apparently turned me into a troll today :(
PJ: feel free to delete this thread if you'd like[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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