

Android, GPL violations and Google - cjbprime
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/8991.html

======
cdibona
We've gone over this a few times, but let me point out a few things about
copyleft compliance for android devices from Google's perspective:

We make it easy for companies to comply with the notice requirements (via
build scripts that populate inside the about phone section of the OS) and we
often advocate for what we consider to be our high level of compliance wrt
code mirroring.

If you review the manufacturers of devices that actually make it into people's
pockets, you'll find that they are fairly decent about compliance
(notification and providing source on request) and a few are very good and
doing more than the licenses actually require (posting mirrored code online at
time of shipment, like we do).

Some are not as fast about code provision. In those cases, I suggest joining
gpl-violations and starting there. Email me too and I'll pass word along if
they are one of the manufacturers that we have a decent relationship with.

For most of the small run manufacturers, we have little or no relationship and
gpl-violations might be a better place to start.

We aren't the world's linux cop and I know from experience it's the last thing
people want Google to be.

There are some companies that don't care about doing compliance right, and
they'll take what is in my opinion a long time to comply with the license, or
work certain corners of the license (like sveasoft did many years ago) to
wiggle out from under the code provision requirements of the gpl. It's
actually quite difficult to see what could productively done about these bad
actors.

I take umbrage from people who say crap like 'Google makes money off other
peoples violation of the gpl' . It isn't true and It shows a lack of
thoughtfulness on the part of MJG on this issue.

Finally; As one of the people who contacts developers and manufacturers using
our software outside of the provisions of the apache, bsd, lgpl and gpl
licenses, compliance is almost always about education and not about malice.

~~~
rwmj
You say _I take umbrage from people who say crap like 'Google makes money off
other peoples violation of the gpl'_.

Which bit of that isn't true? Does Google turn off advert revenue from devices
which violate the GPL?

~~~
saurik
The statement "Google makes money off other peoples violation of the gpl"
means "(Google makes money) [because of / from] (other peoples /violation/ (of
the gpl))", not "(Google makes money) [because of / from] (other /people/ (who
violate the gpl))", which is a fundamentally different moral question (one
that rapidly argues for your local supermarket to stop selling food to people
whose morals they disagree with, which honestly is something I find scary).

------
azakai
> In other words: unscrupulous hardware vendors save money by ignoring their
> GPL obligations.

I doubt that very much. It doesn't take any significant amount of money to
comply with the GPL. Close to none, for a company that is shipping an actual
product that uses this kind of code.

> Google makes money off other people's violation of the GPL.

Not really. Those companies could comply, and Google would still make the same
amount of money. It doesn't matter to Google if they comply or not comply,
monetarily or otherwise.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
But Google would make less money (and incur more costs) if they went after
companies not in compliance with the GPL.

I do agree Google could come up with a way to twist Android trademark
licensees to be compliant. I don't know if I agree that Google is evil if they
don't.

~~~
azakai
> But Google would make less money (and incur more costs) if they went after
> companies not in compliance with the GPL.

Who is "they" here? Google? Or other copyright holders on the GPL'd code?

Regardless, I don't see how this matters. If __anyone __went after these
companies, after some hassle they would comply with the GPL. And that's it.

I am a long-time open source supporter, and it annoys me when people don't
comply with the FOSS licenses to the code they ship. But, let's be honest - in
most cases in the current context, the companies have no code that would be
useful to the community, so we would gain basically nothing if they did
comply, and they do not comply out of either a misunderstanding of the GPL or
laziness. So it really doesn't matter.

It could be argued though that out of the principle of the thing, they should
be forced to comply, so there isn't a culture of ignoring open source
licenses. I'd agree to that, but it doesn't matter if I do, someone with
copyrights to the relevant code + time + money needs to agree and actually sue
them.

------
edgardcastro
Most of the Android (and Google's code) is licensed under Apache License V2
which DOES allow proprietary redistribution.

There are portions GPL'd indeed (Kernel for example), but saying that Google
should take action on it is over the top to me. If that happened people would
start the "GOOGLE IS EVIL AND IS SUING SMALL INDEPENDENT MANUFACTURERS!"
mantra for sure.

Android (name and logo) are trademarked by Google and cannot be used without
explicit permission. They can however use "for Android".

Also, the Android robot is under CC-BY license. No harm done here.

------
zobzu
While I don't doubt there are violations, and that Google will never prosecute
the vendors - is there actually a list of the actual violations?

Thanks

------
drivebyacct2
This is getting silly. Google is now evil because they don't sue for GPL
violations? Where is the threshold for this argument?

I had GPL code that appeared in another GPL-incompatible project. I didn't
sue. Am I evil? Google's profit is not affected by Motorola's release of the
kernel source for the DROID RAZR.

