Android Devices Are Hives of License Violations 299
inkscapee writes "Android developers are paying little attention to Free/Open Source software licenses and have a 71% violation rate. Come on folks, FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certainly easier than proprietary software licenses, and less punitive. But it seems even the tiny hoops that FOSS requires are too much for devs eager to cash in."
What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
The article doesn't mention Android separately. It has one set of numbers for both Android and iOS. Exact quote:
A new study from open source services vendor OpenLogic reports that 71 percent of Apple iOS and Google Android apps are not in compliance. OpenLogic scanned 635 apps, including both free and paid on the Apple App store and Google Android Marketplace. Of those 635 scanned apps, 52 apps include Apache licensed code while 16 included GPL/LGPL licensed code.
Who the hell wrote that summary?
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, the 71% figure has no apparent relationship with the other numbers mentioned in the article.
The article is nearly as brain-dead as the summary.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Of the 635 apps that they looked at, they confidently identified 68 as having Apache or GPL'd code. Of the 68 apps with open source code 71%, or 48 in absolute terms, were in violation. I admit that it would have been clearer and more interesting to say that 7.6% of the apps they looked at were in violation. If they had a truly random sampling and that number held out, you'd be looking at more than 20,000 apps that are violating the Apache and GPL licenses.
Re:Clearer vs. More Interesting (Score:2)
You might have found the successor to Fair and Balanced!
It would be more clear if it said 7.6% of the apps they looked at were in violation, but it's "more interesting" to state totally wild obfuscations because the most inaccurate writing seems to be winning lately. And those other stories a day or three ago were wondering what happened to our state of science education.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
And one set for GPL and Apache, too. That's pretty night and day as far as the requirements go, and it's not clear if all of those are really even violations.
I mean, GPL code, sure. That's pretty much toxic to closed source development. But Apache? How do you even violate the Apache license when you're distributing only object code?
Apache defines a derivative work very narrowly, such that (by my reading anyway) library code under an Apache license used as a small part of a larger work isn't one. Therefore, one could potentially argue that it doesn't even require attribution or a copy of the license....
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Informative)
APL, Section 4.1 ... you must include a copy of the apache license.
Section 4.4 ... if you give attribution to anyone, you must give attribution to the original work you used. I.E. if you credit yourself you have to credit the original authors as well.
Its REALLY easy to comply with, but I've failed to comply in early releases of both open and closed source software myself simply because I forgot to add attribution and the license file. Of course, as soon as I or anyone else noticed, I fixed it as it is an honest mistake but ... its still REALLY easy to violate the license in a clearly defined way.
And then some. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, something's fishy here... oh, wait. I see. It's right there in TFA:
OpenLogic sells a product called the OLEX App Store Edition which provides tooling that can be used by developers to do a self-service scan on their apps prior to submitting to the app store and by app stores to track open source compliance.
How convenient! A one-company study -- using undisclosed methodology -- draws broad and irrational conclusions that suggest that people really need to buy its products and services. Amazing!
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More than that - 71% of 635 apps on Android and iPhone is NOT the same as 71% of Android apps or even 71% of apps period.
It's not 71% of 635 apps. It's 71% of the 68 apps with they found containing GPL and/or Apache licensed code.
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Of course, Apache and GPL/LGPL are the only Open Source licenses? Of course, I'd be surprised if other licenses are that prevalent in this arena with at least 383 apps in the survey that had no Apache or GPL/LGPL code but had code from other OS licenses.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a negative one score, but there is nothing wrong with what you said. This summary is complete crap. Slashdot chose to publish it. So Slashdot is publishing crap. This happens often. It is then not unreasonable to say the site has stagnated. I sure am sick of all this bottom of the barrel content myself.
The submitted did not read the article, or was an idiot. The approver(s?) did not read the article or are idiots. Everyone involved in posts like this are doing a bad job or are an idiot. Why does slashdot keep doing this? I see extremely poorly written content all the time here. Its just dumb.
*ALSO*, most blogs nowadays read their own comments and post updates like "many people in the comments have pointed out...". I don't think I have ever seen this happen on Slashdot, or if I have, it does not happen often enough. You'll see times where 80% of the comments are rightfully pointing out that the story is BS, but it still does not get updated. Posting bad content and then not fixing it when it is clearly shown to be BS just shows that the people running the site do not care about the quality of the content, or at the least are very bad at showing it. You just see false stories hang out on the front page all day long. Its ridiculous.
Shape up slashdot!
-Taylor
Re: (Score:2)
Stop feeding the trolls.
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Stop feeding the trolls.
But he's not a troll, he was spot on and still modded down. I was pointing that out.
Unless you meant Slashdot is the troll, in which case, we're all feeding it.
Or if are *you* the troll, and you're pulling a Matrix like "don't worry about the vase" trick on me, because you knew I'd feed you for saying that...
Oh god, you're the oracle! And worse, I'm Keanu Reeves!
What about iOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a minute here, the linked article says "A new study from open source services vendor OpenLogic reports that 71 percent of Apple iOS and Google Android apps are not in compliance." Yet the headline for this story mentions only Android. I understand it's become fashionable to bash Android lately, but this seems a bit egregious. The problem appears to be endemic across all mobile devices.
Re:What about iOS? (Score:4, Informative)
It was an iPhone user who wrote the headlines...
You didn't get the memo (Score:3)
71 percent? (Score:4, Informative)
How does 52 apps out of 635 add up to 71%??
Re:71 percent? (Score:4, Funny)
Easy. 5+2 = 7, and you carry the one.
"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certainly" (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I find the Copy left licences have far more demands than any commercial licence. You can spend huge amounts of time figuring out if you can link or not link, how you must publish the code and how you can distribute the application.
With commercial software you are often presented with a library or set of tools you can or can't bundle with your product, past that there is no code to deal with most of the time..
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I find the Copy left licences have far more demands than any commercial licence. You can spend huge amounts of time figuring out if you can link or not link, how you must publish the code and how you can distribute the application.
As a commercial software developer myself, I'm glad at least one other person on Slashdot understands this!
For some of us, copyleft code is, by far, the most expensive code there is. In fact, it's pretty much poison.
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't go as far as "poison", but the GPL mission is clearly is more important than the efforts of the people who write the GPLed code, ie its aims must win out over the aims and IP of the creative contributors. For example, if I want to make my code easy to use commercially, then using or publishing code under a BSD licence is far easier than GPL. IMHO.
Rgds
Damon
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I find the Copy left licences have far more demands than any commercial licence. You can spend huge amounts of time figuring out if you can link or not link, how you must publish the code and how you can distribute the application.
As a commercial software developer myself, I'm glad at least one other person on Slashdot understands this!
For some of us, copyleft code is, by far, the most expensive code there is. In fact, it's pretty much poison.
Which was the intent, free to extend, not so free to commercialize. TANSTAAFL [wikipedia.org]
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As a commercial software developer myself, I'm glad at least one other person on Slashdot understands this!
The reason so few people "understand" it is because it's complete and utter bullshit.
For some of us, copyleft code is, by far, the most expensive code there is. In fact, it's pretty much poison.
No, it's simple. Don't use it. That costs you absoloutely nothing.
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It sounds to me as though the the GP finds it difficult to find loopholes in the GPL. That is what takes time.
The only legitimate problems I have come across are grey areas around proprietary plugins and mixing GPL code with proprietary libraries or GPL with open source libraries with GPL incompatible restrictions (e.g. an advertising clause). There is plenty of documentation provided by the FSF (and FAQ and a list of compatible licences) and I doubt there are many legitimate questions to which you cannot g
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It does not prevent commercial activity, but it does constrain commercial activity and impose legal requirements on adopters.
The average Joe without a massive legal department behind him to keep him honest does face an uphill battle if they chose to use or redistribute FOSS components.
That being said, because I work for one of the worlds largest corporations with a huge legal staff AND quite possibly the single largest corporate contributor to open source, all of my work is based on open frameworks and FOSS
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:4, Insightful)
As a computing professional, I find all of this whining about Free Software license complexity rather embarrassing frankly.
Electronic Arts and Oracle can manage navigating this "quagmire". Why can't you?
One really wonders what an SBA audit of you whiners would turn up.
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As a computing professional, I find all of this whining about Free Software license complexity rather embarrassing frankly.
Who's whining? Please, don't be unnecessarily rude.
I understand licenses such as the GPL very well. I'm not whining, and I don't find the license complex in the least. I'm simply pointing out that for commercial software developers, GPL'd code is often not an option.
I also write software for my wife's small business with no plans to distribute, but I avoid GPL code in those projects, too, in case I ever do decide to commercialize what I've created. I don't want to get trapped into too much reliance on somet
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As a computing professional, you should know that EA and Oracle are large corporations, with large, well-staffed legal departments. One of the jobs of said legal departments is navigating quagmires.
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One of the jobs of said legal departments is navigating quagmires.
Another job is to avoid creating one. The license bureaucrats will drown you all.
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You can use and distribute copyleft software like anyone else.
The expensive part is that you can't (easily/effective) sell it, though to be fair you likely didn't pay for it either.
For users copyleft software can be some of theleast expensive.
I don't have to upgrade, I don't have to pay for it, it doesn't have time bombs in it.
If tehre are problems I can get them fixed without relying on the origional vendor to do it, and my data isn't locked up in proprietary formats.
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For some of us, copyleft code is, by far, the most expensive code there is. In fact, it's pretty much poison.
What?!?
Explain, please, in 300 words or less, how using GPL software costs you money.
And no, opportunity cost does not count as costing you money. It wasn't your code to begin with, so you haven't lost money because you can't treat it as if it were. (That would be what a lot of software capitalists call 'Piracy'.)
And no, you don't lose money because someone else improved on your code. Other people got to benefit from your labour, but you get to benefit from theirs as well. It's quid pro quo all the way down
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You don't have to use it. Hell, how about you write your own fucking code?
Copyleft code is cheap, if BSD give credit, if GPL make source available for everything. Done and done. None of these cost much money at all.
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Where did he say he uses it? All he did was give a reason he doesn't use it.
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Using open source requires making some decisions and in certain sacrificing something. If you are hoping to get a freebie, then you will want to be using a BSD license, but if you decide to use code with GPL then you have to recognise the intent is about "giving back to your peers" - it is not really "something for nothing" as many people think it is. Healthy open source is about people participating in the process, rather than simply trying to get as much free stuff as possible and complaining that the ups
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Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh really? Can you please tell us what would be the cost of building a product on a proprietary closed-source software program which doesn't grant anyone the right to extend it, let alone commercialize any derivative work?
It appears that you are one of those ignorant FLOSS detractors who tries to bitch that hijacking other people's code is "most expensive" while the alternative is... you investing your own time to fill all the countless man-hours that it took other people to build the software you are trying to sell off as if it was your own? Because you sure can't just pick up, for example, Microsoft Office, tweak it's UI and sell it off as Teckla's Office suite.
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There's a huge difference though. With a proprietary library I pay for a license to use it under certain terms, which was the whole point of buying the license in the first place. With most open source libraries, they are freely offered to me, but with the complicated terms.
Thus if I don't like the open source terms, or if I'm not sure they will fit into my proprietary program, I should buy some code that does (maybe from the OSS author... he or she can relicense), or write my own code.
So if you want to c
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The problem with many of the open source licenses is that they are complex. A commercial license to source code or libraries typically gives you simple terms: certain people can use the code for certain purposes for a certain number of projects for a certain amount of money. Some open source licenses, GPL in particular, contain tons of legalese and conditions which IMO makes such licenses best avoided by most developers, regardless of whether they're used for commercial purposes or not.
I find it disingenuous to simplify proprietary licenses and then complain about the complexity of Open Source licensing. Most Open Source licenses, GPL included, can be simplified in the same manner you've simplified your proprietary license example; everyone can use the code for all purposes if they make their changes available on request. Of course, deviate from that and it becomes a matter of devil in the details. But once you complain about the legalese found in the GPL, you're going to have to tackl
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You can spend huge amounts of time figuring out if you can link or not link, how you must publish the code and how you can distribute the application.
One guy in the world whom speaks your native language has to do that one time for each version of each license, pretty much.
You can't seriously claim that every time you use a line of BSD'd or GPL'd code, you reread and reanalyze the entire license, even if it hasn't changed?
Also legal jargon is not a strictly interpreted sourcecode. But, none the less, its semi-logical and fairly straightforward. If the GPL mystifies you for a "huge amount of time" then I shiver to imagine how long it takes to figure out
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First, a lot of the GPL is open to interpretation. Same goes for pretty much any other license. For example, does a GUI wrapper that calls your GPLed tool fall under the category of a derivative work? It's not at all clear from the license. On the one hand, it uses public interfaces exclusively. On the other hand, it is wholly dependent on the tool for functionality. So it's lega
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure why you're modded Funny because your statement pretty much matches my experience.
I've found commercial licenses far easier to deal with than GPL, and that alone is why our company doesn't bother with anything that has GPL attached to it, its just not worth the effort.
Generally, there are BSD licensed equivilents of the major GPL libraries anyway so why screw with it?
Even Apples licensing is far easier to deal with than GPL, its just a minefield.
I realize I'm picking on GPL, but its true of just about all Copy-left licenses, which are most of the time more restrictive than commercial licenses I've dealt with.
Its sad that its far cheaper overall for our company to pay 100k in licensing fees than to use a copy-left license.
I'm sure I'll get marked as a troll but the reality of it is, copy-left is a fucking pain in the ass unless you are also copy-left. More software isn't than is.
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:5, Insightful)
copy-left is a fucking pain in the ass unless you are also copy-left
That's pretty much the point.
Re:"FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certain (Score:4, Insightful)
Oops, that's ambigious language.
copy-left is a fucking pain in the ass unless you are also copy-left
That's pretty much the intention.
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How is copyleft software costing you anything or is a pain?
Is someone forcing you to use it?
How about this, if you don't want to share alike then STFU and write your own code. Seems pretty simple really.
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Most small companies have lawyers on contract, i.e. they pay them per service. You have to be pretty big to afford having lawyers on salary that are just sitting around waiting for you to send them licenses to read through.
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> Actually I find the Copy left licences have far more demands than any
> commercial licence. You can spend huge amounts of time figuring
No. Not really.
Either what you're doing with the code is a derivative work or not. That's pretty clearly spelled out in the license.
If it's a derivative work, then it needs to be licensed just like whatever you're deriving from.
It's like "inheritance" is suddenly a mystery just because it's "legal".
This all gets hashed out every time some "gimme gimme, it's all mine"
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Sure it is. If there's any ambiguity, it's likely because you're trying to game the system.
There are very few cases where there is any real doubt whether the spirit of the GPL applies.
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Of course you see "far more demands" in free software licenses than in "any commercial license". After all, while in FLOSS licenses the copyright owners have to specify clearly that you can in fact use, copy,distribute, share, alter and even sell the software while typ
Tiny hoops (Score:3, Funny)
Wouldn't jumping through tiny hoops be harder?
Better than the alternative (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We must be cautious.
Egregious... (Score:2)
This title/summary really must be changed. It's clearly trying to establish a relationship between this and Oracle in the 'base platform', when the article is basically 'random application developers for *any* platform don't pay close attention to the license terms'.
Apps or Platform? (Score:2)
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Was the source available and buildable, or just binaries popped from the emulator?
Google is very good at making the AOSP and the community surrounding it second class citizens. Has this changed?
Isn't linking allowed? (Score:2)
God-damn, yet another misunderstanding of L/GPL? If I make an app where I can throw birds at pigs that happens to use a GPL'ed JSON library, it doesn't mean that the whole app has to be open-sourced does it?
Whereas if I take GNU Chess and put a pretty UI on top of it, that's a derivative product, and I do need to provide the source.
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Depends, is the library LGPL'd or GPL'd?
If it's GPL'd, yes. If it's LGPL'd, you only have distribute the source for (and changes to) the library. Think of it by looking (VERY CLOSELY) at glibc and Qt.
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God-damn, yet another misunderstanding of L/GPL? If I make an app where I can throw birds at pigs that happens to use a GPL'ed JSON library, it doesn't mean that the whole app has to be open-sourced does it?
Compliance has many aspects. If you're redistributing you may simply have to state it and reproduce the copyright statement.
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A GPL'd JSON library would require the app to be GPLd, a LGPLd library would not.
So clearly, its confusing as you didn't even get it right.
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If I make an app where I can throw birds at pigs that happens to use a GPL'ed JSON library, it doesn't mean that the whole app has to be open-sourced does it?
According to the GPL, the answer is yes, you need to make the whole app Free Software. In terms of copyright law it is a bit more of a gray area, so if you never distribute the JSON library or statically link with it, you can possibly get away with it, in at least some jurisdictions. You need to be able to say that you never accepted the GPL and therefore any distribution of the GPL'd code is right out. Even that may not be enough, but there is AFAIK no clear case law yet.
lolwut? (Score:2)
Come on folks, FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certainly easier than proprietary software licenses, and less punitive.
Really? You mean like not only complying with the letter of the license but having to receive all sorts of flak and hatred if you happen to violate all the unwritten rules and the "spirit" of the license? To be honest, it's FAR easier to comply with proprietary licenses because they don't have all the political baggage behind them.
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To be honest, it's FAR easier to comply with proprietary licenses because they don't have all the political baggage behind them.
Would it kill you to explain what 'political baggage' is, in your opinion, and why it's more draconian than, for example, the non-compete and non-disclosure clauses that come with the majority of commercial licenses?
Seriously: I'd like to know exactly what part of the GPL is 'political', in your opinion. There is a philosophical reason for the license, it's true, that says, 'share and share alike'. But that's not 'political'. It's certainly no more 'political' than contract law, which exerts a comparable pu
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Help in stopping?
How would you need help? Just stop offering the product. Seems pretty darn easy to me.
27% for Android - 32% for iPhone (Score:5, Informative)
From the press release [marketwire.com] for the study:
OpenLogic found that among the applications that use the Apache or GPL/LGPL licenses, the compliance rate was only 29%. Android compliance was 27% and iPhone/iOS compliance was 32%. Overall compliance of Android applications using the GPL/LGPL was 0%.
Easier than proprietary? How? (Score:3)
Generally, with proprietary licenses: If you have access to the code, you are allowed to use the code however you want. If you don't have any rights to the code, your employer hasn't negotiated a license, and so you will never see the code.
Really? (Score:2)
I smell a scam.
71% are in violation? Really? They scanned every app in the both stores?
This I feel says it all.
"OpenLogic sells a product called the OLEX App Store Edition which provides tooling that can be used by developers to do a self-service scan on their apps prior to submitting to the app store and by app stores to track open source compliance."
I would love to scan my app. I wrote 100% of the code except what I linked from Apple. I think the method may be flawed.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Well hidden slashvertisement? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.openlogic.com/products/olex.php [openlogic.com]
This product will certify your source code is compliant after it scans it...
This is part BS (Score:3)
The thing about attributions and Apache License are at least part BS. The Apache license (which I just re-read) only requires attributions when a DERIVATIVE work is distributed. In most cases, I'm betting that companies are not distributing derivative works, but the original work. It's a hole in the license, but that't not the user's fault.
Why is Anyone Surprised? (Score:2)
advertisement (Score:3)
OpenLogic sells a product called the OLEX App Store Edition which provides tooling that can be used by developers to do a self-service scan on their apps prior to submitting to the app store and by app stores to track open source compliance.
I don't doubt that violations are occurring, but I question data when not provided by an independent third party.
GPL is actually impossible to understand (Score:2)
Experiment: Get two people to read the GPL...
Ask the two people a series of questions relating to what point do they need to share their code even though it is totally unrelated to the GPL work.
When I invoke it from a shell?
When I invoke it from a shared library?
When I invoke it from a library linked to the application?
When I invoke it from a separate shim process using shared memory or domain sockets?
When I interact with something else that invokes it?
Why?
The GPL is unique in that it is a
Seriously? (Score:2)
Android development is not what you'd call license-centric. Stuff gets plugged together and shipped. I'd bet 99% of devs haven't so much as read a license that came with a library they had to go hunting for to get their buttons and spinners to work.
It's about time the FOSS clowns stopped whining about licensing so hard. Their hypocrisy is showing.
Run your search, count how many places you find your code, and brag about it. Otherwise, stop being a goit.
Would really like to see a list of frameworks... (Score:2)
As an iOS developer, I use a lot of open source frameworks. But most of them are BSD licences - I'm really curious what they found that they considered to be GPL or Apache or LGPL, as I'm not aware of any really popular frameworks using those licenses.
Another thing to consider is that the users of the frameworks may not be in violation of the INTENT of the license. I'm imagine there are a number of people that just publish code and slap a GPL on it because it's easy to find that license, not thinking abo
Well, Quid Pro Woe (Score:2)
Maybe FSF/GNU...Linux...Apache should send DMCA-like take-down notices to the Android Market Place (AMP).
A little code filtering for malicious-fraud/theft of L/FOSS would be very fun/funny to see, after all the MS, SCO... shit over the past couple decades.
Could AMP be forced to put up and sustain an androidforge.net site or L/FOSS used for AMP-apps?
Should AMP force all AMP-apps on the AMP-site to label/identify with an OSS-tag/link for code download?
I say someone should go fyckwidem soon.
Re:Do no evil (directly) (Score:5, Informative)
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Why are Google to blame here? iOS has violations too.
Because the licences don't have a clause saying:
5.1 Unless Apple's breaking the licence too, in which case do whatever you like.
Nor (as Slashdot might like) one saying
5.1 Unless you are Google, in which case of course we all know you "do no evil", so do what you like because by definition we mustn't think it's evil.
If Google are distributing it (and they are -- Android Market is owned and operated by Google) then they are most definitely on the hook. The GPL, amongst others, explicitly calls out distributo
Re:Do no evil (directly) (Score:4)
You flag the app, and Google will remove the apps from the android market. Why are Google to blame here? iOS has violations too. http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/The+Blocks+Cometh/news.asp?c=26696 [pocketgamer.co.uk]
Ok, that's one iOS example down, 177,499 to go to equal Android ( at 71% of the 250,000 current iPhone apps).
I retract my previous post. I didn't RTFA, and didn't realize the Summary was misleading.
Sorry, Androids, I apologize. I guess we're ALL in the license-violation-boat together...
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You flag the app, and Google will remove the apps from the android market. Why are Google to blame here?
iOS has violations too. http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/The+Blocks+Cometh/news.asp?c=26696 [pocketgamer.co.uk]
Ok, that's one iOS example down, 177,499 to go to equal Android ( at 71% of the 250,000 current iPhone apps).
I retract my previous post. I didn't RTFA, and didn't realize the Summary was misleading.
Sorry, Androids, I apologize. I guess we're ALL in the license-violation-boat together...
Honestly I'm a little surprised it wasn't obvious. Why would android be any different than other software? The android fanboy in me immediately noticed that it was probably unnecessary to single out that one OS. The article is now dead, but from what you say it sounds like I had the right idea.
-Taylor
Re:Do no evil (directly) (Score:4, Informative)
But I am taking the whole article with some skepticism.
Big claims, no proof == slashvertisement (Score:5, Informative)
2. They offer to sell developers scanning software so devs can make sure their apps are in compliance.
3. PROFIT!?!
Color me skeptical.
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"Do no evil, but don't get in the way of letting others do it."
In practice, that is preferable to policing others, yes.
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I agree with this person's sentiment. It makes me a bad person, but it's at least true. I have found software I wrote with an open source license used with the license stripped. I can't afford an attorney so I use the sour grapes model to get over myself. It works pretty darned good. Lets me get on with life*.
*: your inevitable life joke is hilarious. har.
Re:Whining never helps (Score:4, Insightful)
If you use a piece of Free Software in your software product and then distribute that product and you fail to follow the license then the folks that wrote that particular piece of software have you by the nuts. You might not like whining, but I can guarantee you that you'll like litigation a lot less. Especially because you will lose, and the penalties for copyright violation are ridiculous (at least in the U.S.). Assuming, of course, that the folks that wrote the Free Software that you "borrowed" actually care, which is probably not the case.
In fact, in this particular case the article is basically about a company that scans people's software for them, finds out if they have any licensing issues, and then offers to help you sort the licensing issues out if they find something bad. It's not really the Free Software developers that are whining. Instead it is a third party that wants you to pay them money to help you sort out a licensing issue on the off chance that the Free Software developers *do* decide to complain. You might not think that this is a service, but your legal counsel probably has a different opinion.
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The three layer model [creativecommons.org] used by Creative Commons is a great method of making licenses effective but unintimidating.
Have a look at this relatively burdensome lawyer-readable version:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode [creativecommons.org]
and then have a look at the "human-readable" version:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ [creativecommons.org]
Then concurrent with both of those, there is the machine-readable version, so automation is facilitated.
I understand that more-closed licenses have more particulars, but one
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It's pretty simple really.
If it's not yours, you probably should not treat it as such.
Never mind law school. Try making it to kindergarten.
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Sure. but unless you're writing your own runtime libraries, you're always going to be relying on the work of others.
Society doesn't advance if we have to reinvent the wheel each time we solve a problem.
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Great! So how do you define ownership in such a way that the definition applies to stored data, verbally transmitted data, concepts, names and the like?
Basic arithmetic first (Score:2)
...that a CS degree should require you to pass the bar exam before you write code.
Given that the article refers to scanning 635 apps of which 68 contain OSS licensed code and then uses this data to claim that 71% of apps are not in compliance I would say that basic arithmetic would be the first thing to require before worrying about more challenging topics like laws.
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Because, something like the GPL confers an obligation that your code be under the same license, that you will tell people it is using code under that license, and that you will make the code (and changes made by you) available for a 'reasonable' amount to cover shipping and media (for example).
Taking the code, using it, pretending you never did, and failing to comply with the license is considered to be a breech of the licensing terms.
This is why commercial software companies can find FOSS problematic since
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BSD and Apache license are FOSS. FOSS != copyleft
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Because in this context "free" sometimes means "freely available to use", sometimes it means "sorta freely available to use, but you need to mention us in your docs" and sometimes it means "impossible to use, due to proprietary license that may (or may not) allow you to link to this code at all".
Some of the more bizarrely licensed "free" code isn't even compatible with other "free" code, and they can't both be used in the same application. Or maybe they can, but you're not allowed to distribute the applicat
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Generally, most people don't tend to interpret "freely available to use" as "freely available to create commercial derivative works".
The people whining in these discussions aren't "users" but "developers" that can't be bothered to pay attention to or comply with other people's licenses.
It's terribly sad really. One would think that "professional developers" would be sensitive to these issues as they are often the victims of large scale piracy themselves.
Although for most stuff it's a moot point since for th
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"The people whining in these discussions aren't "users" but "developers" that can't be bothered to pay attention to or comply with other people's licenses."
Perhaps when every developer has his own legal team to sort out licenses, until then GPL is a virus to be avoided at all costs if there's any chance of the project going commercial. Better BSD, err, safe, than sorry.
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Pardon my lack of understanding, but if this software is free, why do I have to tell you when I'm using it? Why do you care if I tell you vs not?
None of the big licenses that I'm aware of require "tell you when I'm using it". I would go as far as claiming 99.99% of the FOSS out there does not require it. There is probably some lunatics license out there for some psuedo-shareware c++ music player last updated and last used in '94 that requires some hoop jumping.
On the other hand most of the licenses have some requirements about exactly how you redistribute the code. Mostly revolving around not claiming your own copyright on software they've alread
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"Freedom" and "you have to" are pretty much mutually exclusive, no matter how you try to spin it.
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Do we like it or not with the mobile market we for the first time have a set of places where stats can be collected from (usually for some money). Outside mobile market it is a complete jungle with most stats based on guesswork and secondary evidence.