On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 5:00 AM, <linuxusers-requ...@socallinux.org> wrote:
> Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:31:44 -0700 > From: Randall Whitman <909li...@whizman.com> > Subject: Re: [LinuxUsers] Google's Android faces *F*U*D* > To: SoCal LUG Users List <linuxusers@socallinux.org> > Message-ID: <7994.1300383104@randall-desktop> > > > > fosspatents.blogspot .com/... > > Just cuz someone claims something does not mean the claim is true > or even has plausible credibility ... > "How Not to Get Snookered by Claims of "Proof" of Copyright Infringement" > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110122054409107 > > "For the uninitiated: "FOSS Patents" implies the authorship of Florian > Mueller" > > http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20110214223625850&title=For+the+uninitiated%3A+%26quot%3BFOSS+Patents%26quot%3B+implies+the+authorship+of+Florian+Mueller.&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=902597#c902613 > > "SCO Drops Its Claim That the GPL is Unconstitutional" > http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20040428235932742 > > "[SCO] are smoking crack" > > https://www.msu.edu/~bravend2/2003/08/they-are-smoking-crack-computers.html > > "Fear, uncertainty and doubt" > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt > > > Just because the article comes from Florian Mueller, it doesn't mean it is really FUD (although likelihood may be increased). I read the first article you sent from Groklaw, dang was it long. But it had a lot of good information. Thank you. The Groklaw article is about many things, but the most important information that I got from it are various tests that can be used to determine copyright infringement, past rulings, the gray areas of determining if something violates GPLv2 (or GPLv3) as well as 3rd party implications. Nevertheless, it doesn't address Florian's Mueller claims about Google's Bionic library, which is *not* FUD. It is a real - valid - question mark with serious implications. Google released Bionic under a permissive open source license (Apache) because they wanted to keep the user space free from all the rights, obligations and encumbrances of GPL code. Its in the Android repository readme<http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/bionic.git;a=blob_plain;f=libc/kernel/README.TXT;hb=froyo-release> So instead of using glibc (which is an LGPL licensed project), they created Bionic. How? Well, it is in the second and third paragraph of the README. Here is the paragraph: "these clean headers are automatically generated by several scripts located in the 'bionic/kernel/tools' directory, which process a set of original and unmodified kernel headers in order to get rid of many annoying declarations and constructs that usually result in compilation failure. the 'clean headers' only contain type and macro definitions, with the exception of a couple static inline functions used for performance reason (e.g. optimized CPU-specific byte-swapping routines)" Macros and inline functions are not simple "header files" anymore. And mind you, these are not simple *CPU-specific* byte-swapping functions, they are implemented in very clever non-trivial ways (look it up in the code). And the question is... Can they do that? Can I write some code that scans through headers and de-GPL-ifies code. A question with serious implications for everyone linking with Bionic (*plenty* of Android apps). Not FUD. - Ragi
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