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I wonder if the code was copied before Google bought Android or after. And would they be able to just pay licensing to Oracle for the code? I don't get one thi
by gawker 16y ago
I wonder if the code was copied before Google bought Android or after. And would they be able to just pay licensing to Oracle for the code?
I don't get one thing. I thought Java is supposedly open-source? How come there's proprietary source code? Or are these files part of a particular Java library developed by Sun that are not part of the Java that they open-sourced?
- SeveredCross 16y agoThe issue is not with the open-source portion, it's with relicensing. The implication is that parts of the code that are in Android's Java implementation were copied outright and then relicensed to APL, which is not allowed--the original code is GPL, and must stay GPL, unless the original author decides to license it under a different license.
- yuhong 16y agoAlso, the code was not copied from OpenJDK, but decompiled from an old proprietary version of Java.
- protomyth 16y agoRelicensing is also not allowed when something says PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL" and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" except by the code owner.
- bad_user 16y agoRelicensing is also not allowed when something doesn't ship with a license or doesn't explicitly allow relicensing. Basically you can't do shit if it isn't explicitly allowed.
- lepton 16y agoOpen-source code is still copyrighted.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y agoThe timing is irrelevant. It's almost certain that when Google bought Android, they'd have taken on any legal liabilities that went with it. It's possible that the previous owners might have agreed to keep them but it would be very unusual for that to be the case. As for could the just pay Oracle to license the code - they could have done at the time had Oracle, or Sun as it would have been at the time, agreed but they didn't. It would seem highly unlikely given that Oracle are currently suing them that they'd be willing to enter into such a license with Google now.
- gawker 16y agoSo I'm guessing Google can't claim ignorance (i.e. did not check all code line by line for copyright material) when they bought Android as a defence statement?
- Tyrannosaurs 16y agoNope, that's what due diligence is for. My guess is that the only out they'd have with this is if the purchase contract specified that any legal liability might remain with the previous owners but it's unusual to find anyone who will agree to that with a sale.
- jacquesm 16y agoGoogle is damned about that bit either way. The possibilities are that they did not perform proper due diligence on the code that they bought, which should have brought this to light (and a giant the size of google really should know how to do a code audit) (bad), the second possibility is that they did do proper due diligence, were aware of the provenance of this chunk of code and chose to ignore it (bad), the third is that the code got incorporated after the sale (bad). There are no 'goods' here, the central question is if this is a part that is critical. That said, I'm fairly sure that any large enough software project that has had contributions from large numbers of sources is subject to this kind of pollution, unless very strict measures are taken to avoid it.
- metageek 16y ago>The timing is irrelevant. Not entirely; it might make a difference in how hard it is for Oracle to prove willful infringement (which increases the damages. And even if it's irrelevant to the case, it's still an interesting question.
- fluidcruft 16y agoI think these are from the Java compliance test suite used to test that a Java implementation conforms to the specification. Sun had committed to releasing the compliance tests, but then dragged its feet and it never happened.