Sunday, March 20, 2011

Google onttrekt Linux code in Android aan

Copyleft regels.
"Do No Evil", klinkt als propaganda en is het ook.
Code wordt via een zelfgemaakt programma gestript van commentaar, waarna beweerd wordt dat er nieuwe code is gemaakt.
Wat Google hier opnieuw doet, net als bij pogingen de wereldbibliotheek te privatiseren is de grenzen van de gemeenschappelijk bezit proberen om te vormen en delen te koloniseren tot Google bezit en bron van winst.
Google is de rot in de commons benadering die streeft naar het heroveren, het opnieuw maken van het publieke terrein in geestelijk en materieel opzicht waarvan copyleft en de free software filosofie een uitdrukking is. Het is het zwarte gat, dat alle bereikte resultaten dreigt op te slokken als het enorme internetmonster dat het geworden is.

Naughton, een advocaat gespecialisieerd in intellectueel eigendom, zegt, "I have serious doubts that Google's approach to the Bionic Library works under U.S. copyright law." But "what is potentially even more interesting is what happens if Google is right. If that is the case, Google has found a way to take Linux away from the open source community and privatize it."

Naughton explains in a Huffington Post column that "Google built Android around Linux, which is an open source operating system licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). The GPLv2 is a 'copyleft' license: It grants everyone the freedom to copy and modify the Linux code, but that freedom carries conditions, including the requirement that any modified software code and any works 'based on' it must be made freely available to all. The very point of the GPLv2 is to make it impossible for anyone to take GPLv2-licensed code and make it private and proprietary."

Inspired by concerns raised by Nimmer (een prof in rechten), Naughton says he examined Google's use of Linux code in Android and, "What I found really surprised me: Google took a novel and quite aggressive approach to developing a key component of Android -- the Bionic Library. That library, a type of C Library, is used by all application developers who need to access the core functions of the Linux operating system. Google essentially copied hundreds of files of Linux code that were never meant to be used as is by application developers, 'cleaned' those files using a non-standard and questionable technical process, and then declared that the code was no longer subject to the GPLv2, so that developers could use it without becoming subject to copyleft effect that would normally apply to GPLv2-licensed code taken from the Linux kernel."

bron en meer: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031711-android-linux-gpl.html