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Yeah, I see your point. But I think it would be lame for me to make fun of them for a year (or however long Honeycomb has existed in closed-source form) and the

Yeah, I see your point. But I think it would be lame for me to make fun of them for a year (or however long Honeycomb has existed in closed-source form) and then not at least acknowledge that they did finally release the source. I said "well done," but maybe "at least you're in compliance with the GPL" would be more appropriate.

ubernostrum 15y ago
"Well done, you've put in the bare minimum amount of effort required to still get away with the open-source moniker" is not particularly flattering...
- pingswept 15y ago
  You are correct. That is approximately my feeling about the situation, but, like giving a dog a treat when it behaves well, I think it's good to praise companies for behaving adequately because I think it increases the chances that they will keep doing it. You hear that, diBona? Keep releasing the code!
orangecat 15y ago
They've always been in compliance with the GPL; the Honeycomb kernel sources were always available.
- pingswept 15y ago
  I hadn't heard that. Is that verifiable by any means at this point? It still doesn't justify the "open source" moniker, but it's still good.
  - wmf 15y ago
    The kernel source was at http://android.git.kernel.org/ http://android.git.kernel.org/ but that server was subsequently destroyed in an unrelated incident and at this point you'd need a time machine to verify that it was really there and hasn't just been backdated, but yeah, it was available.
  - dtparr 15y ago
    I suppose they could have backdated google groups, but here is JBQ's announcement of the 3.2 GPL's parts being released in July. http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/6410b44798c19d61 http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/6410b447... And here's a thread discussing building the 3.1 GPL'd code in May. http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/browse_thread/thread/9a3f97ae7c69c10e/87e46e061c26aecf http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/browse_threa...
    - pingswept 15y ago
      Thanks for the links; they're convincing. I'm surprised that Google hasn't made their GPL compliance here more prominent. It's something I've heard criticized, but it sounds like the criticisms are illegitimate.

ubernostrum 15y ago

"Well done, you've put in the bare minimum amount of effort required to still get away with the open-source moniker" is not particularly flattering...

pingswept 15y ago
You are correct. That is approximately my feeling about the situation, but, like giving a dog a treat when it behaves well, I think it's good to praise companies for behaving adequately because I think it increases the chances that they will keep doing it. You hear that, diBona? Keep releasing the code!

orangecat 15y ago

They've always been in compliance with the GPL; the Honeycomb kernel sources were always available.

pingswept 15y ago
I hadn't heard that. Is that verifiable by any means at this point? It still doesn't justify the "open source" moniker, but it's still good.
- wmf 15y ago
  The kernel source was at http://android.git.kernel.org/ http://android.git.kernel.org/ but that server was subsequently destroyed in an unrelated incident and at this point you'd need a time machine to verify that it was really there and hasn't just been backdated, but yeah, it was available.
- dtparr 15y ago
  I suppose they could have backdated google groups, but here is JBQ's announcement of the 3.2 GPL's parts being released in July. http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/6410b44798c19d61 http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/6410b447... And here's a thread discussing building the 3.1 GPL'd code in May. http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/browse_thread/thread/9a3f97ae7c69c10e/87e46e061c26aecf http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/browse_threa...
  - pingswept 15y ago
    Thanks for the links; they're convincing. I'm surprised that Google hasn't made their GPL compliance here more prominent. It's something I've heard criticized, but it sounds like the criticisms are illegitimate.