

Most Android vendors lost Linux dist rights, could face shakedown or shutdown - glhaynes
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/most-android-vendors-lost-their-linux.html

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ZeroGravitas
Both this article and the one by Naughton that it links to confuse Google
keeping their Apache 2 Honeycomb source closed with them not releasing their
GPL'd linux underpinnings, which is a fundamental error. It throws doubt on
everything else they build on that premise, or rather it would if they were
genuine attempts at discussion rather than astroturfers and professional
trolls.

There's probably interesting stuff to discuss about what the GPL means in some
corner cases and Android vendors compliance, but this is just the latest in a
long line of increasingly desperate PR moves in an underhand campaign against
Android and should be read in that light.

~~~
pja
Yup: so long as the manufacturers in question have access to kernel sources,
there's no GPL violation here. The Android code is not under the GPL and lies
on the user-space side of the kernel interfaces, and so can take advantage of
the explicit exemption from the GPL those interfaces enjoy.

The trouble is, some Android manufacturers _do_ have a record of not giving
access to kernel sources, as Matthew Garrett has documented: those
manufacturers really are setting themselves up for trouble down the line if
any kernel developer decides to make an example of them.

