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Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter)Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter)Posted Nov 5, 2009 12:42 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784)In reply to: Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) by ncm Parent article: Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter)
I didn't think that glibc was the only choice for Embedded Linux - indeed, I thought that there was a range of fairly mature options at that level. All this reinvention on Google's part suggests that they either want to own as much of the technology stack as possible, that they indulge various internal developers too much, or that they're needlessly scared of the licensing of code where even the FSF will tell you that there are few if any licensing obligations when linking to such libraries:
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Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 5, 2009 23:52 UTC (Thu) by jgg (guest, #55211) [Link]
IMHO, android's libc is probably the best next option to glibc. The other choices leave alot to be desired, and are fairly disused these days.
Indulging internal developers is quite an interesting point.. Who ever created some of this stuff is really good. There are not many people in the world who could sit down and write a new ELF dynamic loader, libc and related toolchain goop - let alone start out that way and not be afraid of failing. This is arcane stuff.
I'd be quite interested to know how long it took to make, IMHO, a super expert, done this before, kind of thing, could probably knock it out in a month. You'd probably burn more time than that just fussing with glibc to make it smaller.
Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 6, 2009 13:35 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
uClibc is 'fairly disused'? Not in my embedded world :)
(oh, and most of this stuff is dull and fiddly but not *hard*. At least
Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 6, 2009 13:40 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
Can you comment on dietlibc, newlib and uClibc? I wasn't aware that these were particularly deficient, although I'm sure that there are good reasons for not choosing them in certain situations.
Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 6, 2009 17:04 UTC (Fri) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
For some reason you assume that FSF lawyers know GPL better than Google lawyers. This is obviously wrong (Google simply can pay their lawyers better and get better ones), so your conclusion about Google's assumptions about effects and consequences of GPL is wrong.
Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 6, 2009 17:28 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
I might have known you'd have something to "add" to this discussion, but my point was that if some project has released code under the GPL (or even the LGPL), then there are several limitations in place, widely accepted even by Google (who have released proprietary software for GNU/Linux), that prevent any effect on the licensing of programs which interact with such code. Even the FSF acknowledge these limitations, which is what the link I provided refers to.
Given that your analysis of my conclusion is based on peripheral matters and not on any reasonable attempt to understand either the licence texts or the clarifications written by the people who wrote the licence texts (and that, in any case, the lawyers of various other corporations are presumably better paid than those working for the FSF, yet those lawyers have had to comply with the GPL when challenged), I'd be more careful liberally pointing the finger and using the word "wrong" if I were you.
Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 6, 2009 22:10 UTC (Fri) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
I was replying to the claim that Google is _needlessly_ scared about the GPL license. There is no reason to assume their knowledge of the GPL license is in any way worse than the FSFs.
Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) Posted Nov 9, 2009 12:51 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
Well, they can be "needlessly scared" on behalf of their telecoms partners, who tend to be needlessly scared about a bunch of stuff, albeit stuff which is often of their own making.
Google's "LGPL violation fly-by" involving ffmpeg and the redistribution of works under exclusive patent agreements might sit well within Google (and show that their lawyers think they know where the loopholes might be, albeit ones that have been closed in later versions of the licences concerned), but their partners might back off at the prospect of doing similar things with products that have their name on it.
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