6 ms·
Oops: No copied Java code or weapons of mass destruction found in Android
- moondowner 16y agoTo cut to the chase, the Engadget's poster isn't a developer (according to ZDNet's poster) and he forgot to mention that the files that we're similar do not ship with Android, they are either used for testing or debugging. UPDATE: FlorianMueller posted comments on the ZDNet post.
- blinkingled 16y agoHis comment doesn't seem to amount to anything. His contention is that the files are still there in AOSP git tree when the key point was that those are "TESTS" which means they are likely not "shipped" with Android and so the assumed impact if any is not anywhere near as dire as the original Engadget post or Folrian's own blog post made it out to be. EDIT: Ryan Paul's take - http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/new-alleged-evidence-of-android-infringement-isnt-a-smoking-gun.ars http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/new-alleged-... . He confirms that the files in question are non-shipping ones.
- moondowner 16y agoRyan's post is good, he explains things more thoroughly. Very important: "It's not clear how the zip file got included in the AOSP, but it's obvious that it wasn't intended to be there and isn't actually used by Android in any capacity."
- pixelbath 16y agoHis comments amount roughly to: "I am too a real developer," and lots of "maybe this code was shipped," but nothing concrete. edit: Thought the blog post was removed from Techmeme, but was mistaken.
- Magnin 16y agoI love that he protests the "He is not a lawyer" with "Some of my blog posts have been recommended by leading legal websites"
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- trustfundbaby 16y agoJust serves to reinforce the point made here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2128038 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2128038
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rue 16y agoOr really any more recent developments. I daresay most Ruby, Python &c. projects ship with tests or specs.
- ubercore 16y agoThe exception that proves the rule. I think the Python community is, to a certain degree, split on the usefulness of doctests, and in my experience most devs see them as useful documentation first, and tests second.
- jedsmith 16y agoI use unittest (and the 2.7 features backported in unittest2) unconditionally over doctest. I don't think I'm alone there, as most of the Python devs I know do the same thing. The learned skill of unit testing the Java way carried over nicely.
- rbanffy 16y agoDoctests make very useful, always up-to-date and tested, documentation.
- joe_the_user 16y agoConsidering Florian Mueller has too breathless-and-dubious anti-Google pieces here in the last two days and given my survey of his site (no problem with handing Novell's patents to Microsoft, etc, etc), calling him a pro-patent Shill actually seems fitting.
- thomasz 16y agoW T F!? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_M%C3%BCller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_M%C3%BCller
- kenjackson 16y agoI don't get it? UPDATE: thanks for the reply. I thought the WTF was something directly related to this story.
- rimantas 16y agojoe_the_user: "calling him a pro-patent Shill actually seems fitting." Wikipedia: "founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign."
- joe_the_user 16y agoFrom the wikipedia article above: "In 2004, Müller received the support of corporate sponsors 1&1, Red Hat and MySQL for launching NoSoftwarePatents.com" So he lobbied against patents in the past and been paid by a corporation for supporting a particular cause in the past. I would invite you to look at the positions he's taken on his blog and decide which he's doing at present.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Kylekramer 16y agoFlorian's whole shtick comes from supposed free software cred. But he does have a somewhat spotty history when it comes to supporting Microsoft and spreading FUD about GNU/Linux. It is a tough call what his true motives are, but things aren't always what they seem.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Jacob4u2 16y agoFlorian continues to comment on the post, posts this link for confirmation of the source files still being in Android source http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/libcore.git;a=tree;f=support/src/test/java/org/apache/harmony/security/tests/support/acl;h=569f09ad5547efdf94fc000cc5a4e7ffa0764c63;hb=refs/heads/froyo-plus-aosp http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/libcore.git;a=tree...
- yuhong 16y agoThe nice thing about open source is that the public can investigate what exactly is happening here, which is exactly what I am trying to do.
- yuhong 16y agoClue: Go up to the support directory and click the HEAD link and notice the difference.
- orangecat 16y agoNice. Specific commit: http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/libcore.git;a=commitdiff;h=a13e4f2c06c4673a1d6fe52409432ccc576c2fe3 http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/libcore.git;a=comm...
- yuhong 16y agoNote however that deleting the files don't suddenly make the copyright infringement claims invalid.
- EthanEtienne 16y agoUnit tests still is code used for dev., this time copied code from Java?
- stcredzero 16y agoSadly, while sensational articles like Engadget’s and Mueller’s will get splashed all over the web and lavished with thousands of views and hundreds of comments, the boring truth will rate no such attention. I think this speaks to the poor quality of tech journalism. A part of the problem are poorly informed consumers.
- Semiapies 16y agoIt might, if it wasn't actually a problem in all forms of journalism. The bleeding lede wins, and most of the people who come across an incorrect story won't even hear about the correction.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoIndeed. Ever notice how when you read something in the news on a subject you are very familiar with the piece is often misleading and filled with inaccuracies? Ever wonder how that works out for every other news story?
- Semiapies 16y agoThe one bright point is with that terrible, fast-updating internet journalism, people can at least try to get out that a story is plain wrong within a few hours, as opposed to days, weeks, or months later (when few people care much about the story).
- Hexstream 16y agoNevermind that, at least one study showed that if someone with view X is presented with "evidence" that it's indeed true, and then later presented with a full debunking of it, view X will be reinforced.
- yuhong 16y agoYea, how many tech journalists know how source code control systems works?
- jdp23 16y ago
- mwg66 16y ago"As any programmer will tell you, you don’t ship your unit tests with your product. Unit tests are tools used internally to ensure the quality of the software before you ship it." Two things. 1. When you do Open Source - you ship the source. 2. I don't remember copyright law being concerned with "shipping". I think "distribution" is what counts and if it's in the git tree - that's distribution.
- jacquesm 16y agoYes, but if the final built product does not contain those elements then at least the final product can continue to ship because it is not infringing. The tests can then be removed and any damage claims will likely be settled and/or workarounds will be created. If the code is in the core of android and ends up in the product as shipped by the various handset manufacturers then it's a completely different story.
- mwg66 16y agoI'd like to see what a judge has to say about this. I'm not convinced that there will be much distinction between the infringing works being in the binaries or not. They are in the source tree and that is essentially part of the build process. What's more, the source tree is distributed to all Android manufacturers. Google are shipping the source code. I'm sure Oracle don't see it that way. What we should be talking about is how they got into the git tree in the first place.
- c2 16y agoAlso interesting how the original oops submission had close to 100 comments whereas this one has less then 50. I am guilty of this too - being drawn to inflammatory headlines - but to be honest, the truth is much less interesting in this case.
- Semiapies 16y agoIt's been up-voted more, however. On the plus side, the story got here only 4 hours after the original one.
- jessriedel 16y ago> It's been up-voted more, however. Exactly. The headline "Surprising Event Happens" is bound to draw more discussion than it's mere overturning....unless the discussion becomes about the meta issue of journalism.
- shareme 16y agoand how many clueless entities down voted all of us stating that the article this morning was not the full story? Proof positive that even among HN readers the crowd is a bit less than intelligent
- grellas 16y agoA few observations from a lawyer perspective: 1. At the risk of sounding simplistic, it is the patents, and not the copyrights, that matter most here. 2. Copyright infringement might provide a basis for a damage award but this, in a worst case, could readily be absorbed by Google, even as it works around any copyrighted code issues in future Android releases. What is more, the main copyright claims appear to center on a bizarre technical point, at least as framed by the court pleadings - that is, that the so-called open-sourcing done by Sun of the Java SE specification was, in effect, illusory because no such license was valid unless a vendor (such as ASF) could show "compatibility" with the Java specification via test suites made available by Sun through a license of its TCK, which in turn required that vendor to pay license fees and to agree to restrict distribution to the desktop only. Whether that claim stands remains to be seen but it would seem to me that Google (even if had to pay damages) could clean up any infringing code without too much harm to its prospects for the Android market in doing its future releases. 3. The patent claims pose the greatest risks for Google. Should it lose here, Google could be permanently enjoined from doing further Android distribution and would (I assume) find it exceedingly hard to do any workarounds. In that case, Google stands to lose potentially a vast, critical market and would effectively have to make Oracle its strategic partner for all of the mobile space in order to solve this problem. Very bad news indeed. 4. The good news is that Google has a strong track record of fighting off extortionist patent claims and has hit back hard (see, e.g., the HN discussion on a piece entitled "Google Bowls a Googly," http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1899156 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1899156). I would be interested in how those who are technically knowledgeable assess the risks to Google from the legal framework set forth above or in how you might clarify or reframe those legal issues based on technical points that I have missed.
- jacquesm 16y agoIf this is all there is (and we're definitely not sure about that yet) then google does have some egg on its face, but only a little bit. As far as I can see at this moment none of this code ever made it in to the actual distribution that is used to operate the android devices, it is but a series of tests to ensure that compiled code functions correctly. Still, these tests shouldn't have been in that tree and google will have to remove them and possibly will end up settling for the damages, though what those damages are will be very tough to argue. How does one quantify the damage of having these tests copied? In programmer hours required to re-create the code? So, I agree with you that the copyrights are not the issue and even if a lot more code surfaces that google does not have a right to redistribute and it did end up in the android kernel they have the resources to work around it and to absorb the damages. If the patent claims will stick and google will be prohibited from further distribution there will be an immediate and hard to resolve issue. A case like that could drag on for a very long time and it would be next to impossible to stop infringing on a patent that is specified vaguely enough to require such litigation in the first place. I'm probably slightly evil for hoping that this case actually will revolve around the patent and will prove once and for all how bad the patent system really is and that software patents do little to nothing to encourage innovation and actually do a lot of harm. If there is one party that has the resources to fight such a battle successfully it is google. The big winner in a fight like that would be Apple with the Apple system being untainted by any of these claims and presumably unencumbered by these particular patents. Of course Apple has its own patent issues to contend with (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/dec/16/nokia-apple-patent http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/dec/16/nokia-apple...), on the whole it looks as though the mobile world is an all out battle ground for patent lawyers.
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