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Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter)Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter)Posted Nov 6, 2009 17:04 UTC (Fri) by trasz (guest, #45786)In reply to: Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter) by pboddie Parent article: Welte: Android Mythbusters (Matt Porter)
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.
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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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