Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions. [LWN.net]

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 11:48 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048)
In reply to: Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions. by dgm
Parent article: Has Bionic stepped over the GPL line?

1. we are not talking about random code files, but a very special case.

How will you separate this special case from other cases of copyright laundering? Are you sure Google hasn't already done this in other cases, too?Are you sure nobody else has done or will now consider doing this, following Google's example?

2. it has become apparent that the elements copied are NOT subject to copyright.

How come that neither Eben Moglen in his answer to ZDNet nor Brad Kuhn in his blog post nor LWN (on this very page) rule out the possibility of an infringement? Apparently what you think is not apparent.

3. It's fine and in the spirit of what the authors meant, and probably the GPL too, but the first part should be more than enough.

This is a totally unsupported claim of yours.

Your position is very, very weak. You can only argue about legal subtleties, and even there you're not in firm ground.

Unfortunately, such "legal subtleties" can be outcome-determinative. I don't claim that I know 100% for sure that there is an infringement. I read Edward Naughton's paper and I think he has a reasonable basis for raising concerns. I'd love to see Google take care of those concerns by replacing those headers with glibc.

Why do you insist in spreading the FUD?

The word FUD is wrong here for various reasons. I'll name two. One, as the aforementioned, non-committal positions by Eben Moglen, Brad Kuhn and LWN show, there is a lack of certainty out there. So it's not like FUD in the sense of artificially creating or suggesting uncertainty. Two, I don't say that this is the end of Android. I believe a fix is doable, and it's imperative. The sooner it's done, the better. The easier it is to do, the better. But it must be done.

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Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 12:05 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

Why are Eben Moglen, Brad Kuhn and LWN not saying categorically that there is no infringement? Because they cannot say so without auditing 2.5 MB of headers. All they can say is that there are no reasonable grounds to suspect a problem -- which is what they are saying.

No, they don't say there are no reasonable gorunds to suspect an infringement. Brad Kuhn and LWN explicitly admit the possibility of a copyright infringement. Eben Moglen tried to beat around the bush.

All anyone can reasonably do is fix problems once they are alerted. [...] But you, sir, have not demonstrated ANY problem that needs fixing

I believe the Naughton paper provides indications that there is a need for fixing. Have you even read it in its entirety? I mean the paper, not just the Huffington Post article?

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 14:33 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

If you were a lawyer you'd realize there is no such thing as 'black and white' in laws like this. Everything is up for interpretation. It's extremely difficult to say for certain.

It's very unlikely that it's really a infringement issue.

In reality is that unless one of the copyright owners actually gives a crap about bionic using the header files then the entire issue is completely irrelevant.

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 14:43 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

I don't need legal education from you, @drag. Of course there's no black and white. However, while you say "[i]t's very unlikely that it's really a [sic] infringement issue", they say there may be one, and LWN and Brad Kuhn talk about what they consider an easy fix, which is an admission in and of itself.

While you say it's irrelevant until someone sues, you can be sure that there are defenders of the copyleft principle who think that potential and actual violations are an issue all by themselves, and more importantly, the way you argue is not the way corporate decision makers in the ecosystem can afford to look at such matters.

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 15:53 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I really couldn't give a shit about copyleft in this case.

The only people that have any rights in this case are the copyright holders. I am certainly not going to care more then the people that wrote the code.

And the way I argue is expressing the reality of the situation. If 'corporate decision makers' want to look at it differently they are being delusional.

Nobody can know for certain, mistakes happens. Shit happens constantly. Then problems are fixed.

People believing in pseudo-legalistic bullshit and making big issues out of non-issues is a severe problem. It needs to be nipped in the bud as all it generates is useless drama and bad feelings.

> they say there may be one

The fact that you can keep saying shit like this with a straight face shows that you understand far less then you think you do. Either that or your being intentionally obtuse.

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 19:48 UTC (Mon) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

> People believing in pseudo-legalistic bullshit and making big issues out of non-issues is a severe problem. It needs to be nipped in the bud as all it generates is useless drama and bad feelings.

+1. ISTM Florian seems to be making a really bad habit out of this. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt for a long time, but come on...

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 18:24 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

I don't need legal education from you, @drag. Of course there's no black and white. However, while you say "[i]t's very unlikely that it's really a [sic] infringement issue", they say there may be one, and LWN and Brad Kuhn talk about what they consider an easy fix, which is an admission in and of itself.

You need a legal education from someone if you are going to spout off about legal matters and sow FUD in the community. Unless they are providing legal counsel their response is the one required or they will fall afoul of the US Bar and could be liable if their "advice" turns out incorrect. That's legal 101. I doubt the FSF has even bothered to review the issue as they haven't been asked to by the copyright holders so they result to the typical non-committal lawyer speech when they can't answer a question. Finally, suggesting a fix doesn't mean there is a problem. The fix could be to eliminate concern or it could simply be to eliminate FUD or even just be suggestion without merit.

While you say it's irrelevant until someone sues, you can be sure that there are defenders of the copyleft principle who think that potential and actual violations are an issue all by themselves, and more importantly, the way you argue is not the way corporate decision makers in the ecosystem can afford to look at such matters.

Unless the copyright holders wish to take action then it doesn't matter what anyone in the community thinks. It's not their concern because they can't legally take action. The kernel has always included the user space exception since very very early on. You've been spreading FUD. Why don't you tell everyone why you are so concerned about this issue that you have run around on a press gauntlet screaming about how dangerous Android is to use? Explain your motives and maybe people will take you more seriously. Because there is a significant percentage of the community that thinks you are whoring FUD for your current employer. So what is your motivation in this?

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 21, 2011 18:29 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

When did Brad Kuhn become a member of the Bar? The answer: never. And Jake Edge? I don't see any indication he's admitted as an attorney at law. Therefore, you can't claim they're limited in expressing their opinions. @rahvin, your post is generally unreasonable and doesn't contribute anything of substance to the discussion.

Naughton didn't do enough research to justify his conclusions.

Posted Mar 27, 2011 0:43 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]

Florian, you are just being freaking ridiculous here. You have yet to state an actual cause for action, but you post again and again and AGAIN, in every Android thread, screaming about possible infringement. I mean, you've actually used the term 'copyright laundering' with a straight face.

Here's the deal. If you think there's infringement, prove that there's infringement. It'll take a hell of a lot of work. But that's the ONLY basis from which you can be making those kinds of claims

Your current claim seems to amount to this: certain specific people aren't stating with absolute certainty that there's no infringement. Therefore, there must be infringement. This is stupid.

They don't want to do all that digging in header files they didn't author; they don't want to do the work any more than you do.
Even if they did all that work, and then registered the strong opinion that there was no infringement, it wouldn't matter, because they don't have standing to make that determination.
Only the people who wrote the headers can make an infringement claim. And if they don't care, if they've released the headers under a permissive license, then there is no issue. Only their opinion is important. Bradley Kuhn's and Jake Edge's are entirely irrelevant.
Yet, you insist on screaming that because unrelated people without legal standing won't put many hours of work into analyzing headers, that means Android is untrustworthy.

This is called "pushing an agenda", Florian. You look like a paid astroturfer to me.