
Linus Torvalds says Android kernel headers claims totally bogus - bconway
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linus-on-Android-headers-claims-seem-totally-bogus-1212280.html
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bryanlarsen
Best part: they quoted Linus where he said the whole affair is about some
people's need for attention and that he wished "those people would release
their own sex tapes or something, rather than drag the Linux kernel into their
sordid world."

H-online then made sure the next words they wrote were "Florian Meuller".

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jarin
What's this a reference to? Or is it just about Florian Mueller being an
attention whore?

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bryanlarsen
That's right. The original claim is from Naughton and Nimmer, but it's Mueller
who's publicizing and spreading it widely.

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tzs
Nope. Nimmer had nothing to do with the original claim. He was merely quoted
giving some general (and correct) statements on the copyrightable of header
files, and said that whether or not Google did anything wrong depends on
exactly what they did, which he had not seen so could not say.

For those not familiar with the legal world, Nimmer is approximately to
copyright law what Knuth is to data structures.

~~~
cdibona
It's a different Nimmer. (David Nimmer is the real McCoy, Ray Nimmer is just
some guy)

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nextparadigms
I hope this means the Hacker News community will never again promote Florian
Mueller's bogus claims and FUD in here.

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anon1385
Discussing something is promoting it? If anything we don't like ever happens,
we must not comment for fear of promoting it? When an idea we don't like or
agree with is put forward, we should keep silent rather than providing a
counter argument?

Although I would see why you might want to limit comments on this particular
story, most of the criticism has been ad hominem attacks about which companies
the authors have worked for in the past (or work for now).

It hasn't been a victory for rational discourse on either side.

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Kylekramer
Hacker News is a site where the users control what stories are discussed. By
the nature of the site, discussing something is promoting it. I see nothing
wrong with trying to limit stories from sources with clear agendas backed by a
history of dubious claims. Especially when there are many other stories worth
of attention that get ignored.

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ChuckMcM
It would be nice to definitively shut down this line of attack against Linux.
Having references with Stallman and Linus both claiming that using header
files doesn't constitute deriving a work seems pretty iron clad to me.

I'm not a lawyer of course.

~~~
tzs
Linus has also said you can't use the kernel header files to create non-GPL
programs: <http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/5/13>

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tonfa
As noted elsewhere, this thread is about creating non-GPL kernel modules and
using the internal kernel headers, not the one used by glibc and bionic.

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jerf
The other thing to consider is, who would have standing to sue for their
copyrights being violated and would have a desire to sue Google in what would
be a risky lawsuit with little upside for the filer even if they win? The sets
of "people with standing" and "people with any desire to sue Google for this"
seem disjoint.

~~~
chwahoo
I don't know anything about the people who initially brought up the potential
copyright infringement, but it seems like the only potential beneficiaries of
the allegation are folks who would like companies to worry about Android's IP
footing.

~~~
blub
Well, Android's IP footing is worrysome considering the lawsuits and all. :)

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halo
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't kernel header files almost the exact case
that SCO was suing Linux users over?

I don't think it's in anyone's interest to start claiming that header files
are copyrightable.

~~~
shareme
no it was however a fourth for SCO's case though..

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anon1385
Slightly off topic, but I think related: what's the legality of linking to a
GPL library from a non-GPL binary, if you aren't distributing both together?
(Or even if you do distribute both)

Lawyers representing ffmpeg/x264 seem to actively look to sue anybody that
links to x264 from non-GPL binaries (x264 sell a commercial licence based on
the fact that you can't link to x264 from non-GPL code). Yet statements like
this, and the similar comments from Richard Stallman, seem to indicate that
they won't have a case: using their headers does not subject you to the GPL
since the headers are not covered by copyright, and if you don't include the
library with your program but make it separate then you aren't distributing.
At most you are asking your users to create a derivative work at runtime which
may be covered by the terms of the GPL, but the GPL explicitly allows users to
do what they like, as long as they don't distribute the result.

As far as I know this "no linking" aspect of the GPL has never been tested in
court and appears to be very shaky.

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zerohp
This situation is different from ffmpeg. Kernels do not link to your program
in the way that libraries do. When using a library, even a dynamically linked
one, the memory image of your program is a combined work. As the CPU is
evaluating your program, it does not see the library or treat it differently
than any other functions in your program.

System calls can be thought of like RPC. The two programs (yours and the
kernel) communicate but do not link together in a single memory image.

~~~
anon1385
Yes, as I said the issue are slightly different. My question is: what legal
basis does the developer of a GPL library have to sue somebody who released a
program linked with that library. If the two only come together to form a
combined work on the users machine, at the users command, then how does the
GPL apply to me, the distributor of the the non-GPL program? I am not
distributing a combined or derivative work. At most I am using the headers and
distributing the symbol names, which are not covered by copyright. When I make
no copies, how does copyright law affect me?

If the headers were covered by copyright, that would have provided a way for a
developer to prevent use of their GPL library by non-GPL programs.

~~~
caf
Your argument applies in the case where you do not distribute the GPL'd
library - as zerohp points out, opinions differ on this case, and it hinges on
whether your compiled program would be considered a "derivative work".

However, if you distribute the GPL'd library, then it's a lot more clear-cut.
"Derivative work" doesn't enter into it anymore - to distribute the GPL'd
library itself you must have a license to do so. If the license you're relying
on there is the GPL, you must abide by its terms, including those about
linking.

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ch0wn
It's cool to see Linus being pragmatic here.

~~~
VladRussian
actually he is pragmatic pretty much anywhere Linux/programming. Pragmatically
speaking, i'd gather all his emails, comments, etc... and made it a point for
CS students to study it - not that it is 100% truth or one should agree with
everything there, yet it is a coherent pragmatic system and the skills of
building such should be studied and developed, like Golden Gate Bridge (vs.
say Bay Bridge).

~~~
thwarted
There's a certain concreteness in what you've describe as he's applied it to
technology problems. Taking a step (or two) back and examining the system to
notice commonalities or abstractions that can enable the current system. He
did this with revision control and we have a general tool now embodied in git.
He did this with fork and realized that all the attributes of processes could
be selectively shared, not just the subset that fork provides, and now there's
a much better, general tool, clone(2), that more constructs, forking and
threading, can be implemented on top of without them being exceptions and
special cases.

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jarin
I always love it when Linus takes the FOSS extremists down a peg.

~~~
corbet
We are not dealing with "FOSS extremists" here. This is a focused FUD campaign
against Android, coming from people whose only "FOSS extremism" comes in the
form of antipathy.

