- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
The trouble with open source is that most coders aren't lawyers and most lawyers aren't coders. And even if everyone did wear both hats, there would still be ample room for disagreement. The law, you must remember, is subjective.
Two intellectual-property lawyers have told the world that Android is at risk of legal attack because it uses Googly versions of the original Linux header files. But Linux daddy Linus Torvalds says this is "totally bogus". The truth lies somewhere in between. But good luck finding it.
Earlier this month, Edward Naughton, an intellectual-property attorney with the Boston-based firm Brown Rudnick, penned a piece for the Huffington Post in which he argued that Google's use of the original Linux "header files" in Android made the OS vulnerable under US copyright law. "Google's Android contains legal landmines for developers and device manufacturers," the headline read.
According to Naughton, when building Android's Bionic library – which provides application developers with access to Android's underlying Linux kernel – Google stretched the boundaries of copyright law by making use of the Linux header files open sourced under the GNU Public License (GPLv2), which has a strong copyleft provision. Google stripped programmer commentary and other information from the files, arguing that these "cleaned" files are no longer subject to copyright. Then, as part of Android, it open sourced the files under a license with no copyleft provision. But Naughton contends that the GPL may still apply .
More details - link
Two intellectual-property lawyers have told the world that Android is at risk of legal attack because it uses Googly versions of the original Linux header files. But Linux daddy Linus Torvalds says this is "totally bogus". The truth lies somewhere in between. But good luck finding it.
Earlier this month, Edward Naughton, an intellectual-property attorney with the Boston-based firm Brown Rudnick, penned a piece for the Huffington Post in which he argued that Google's use of the original Linux "header files" in Android made the OS vulnerable under US copyright law. "Google's Android contains legal landmines for developers and device manufacturers," the headline read.
According to Naughton, when building Android's Bionic library – which provides application developers with access to Android's underlying Linux kernel – Google stretched the boundaries of copyright law by making use of the Linux header files open sourced under the GNU Public License (GPLv2), which has a strong copyleft provision. Google stripped programmer commentary and other information from the files, arguing that these "cleaned" files are no longer subject to copyright. Then, as part of Android, it open sourced the files under a license with no copyleft provision. But Naughton contends that the GPL may still apply .
More details - link
