Google's Honeycomb Source Code Release Is On Ice

itwbennett writes "'Ice Cream Sandwich', that is. Apparently it's source code delay week, as Google joins Apple in delaying the release of source code for open source licensed software. Except, unlike Apple, which promptly released the LGPL WebKit code in question Monday afternoon, Google stated yesterday that it will not release the source code for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) until after the release of the next version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich). This is not necessarily news, since Google said last month that source code would be held for an indeterminate time and released when it was ready. It's just that now 'indeterminate' has an actual date: post-launch of Ice Cream Sandwich. The question, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is: 'How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?'"

How can they do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is: 'How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?"

Because they have lots of monies?

What do I win?

ASL for this reason.

[ustolemyname]

'How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?

Actually, this is precisely why they use the ASL instead of the GPL.

google cach of old ars article with good explanation. [googleusercontent.com]



And seriously, the name Brian "Proffitt" sounds like someone trying to generate clicks.

Re:New low for slashdot

[Bill Dimm]

Wrong on two counts:
1) It was covered yesterday [slashdot.org], not today.
2) It is not a new low for Slashdot. Slashdot reaches such lows with great regularity.

Answering your own question

[Anonymous Coward]

How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?

Because it's licensed under the Apache Software License, which does not require that the source code be offered?

Sure they can do it

[dido]

Two things. Number one: Google is the copyright holder for most of the software in question. Any community contributors presumably have copyright assignments to Google. Even if the code was released under GPLv3 (and it isn't) they would be under no obligation to release the code because they own it and can do whatever they like. The copyright holder cannot by definition, violate a license they grant. For the stuff that they aren't the copyright holder (e.g. the kernel), they have complied with the license and released the source code where required. Number two: the Apache Software License Version 2 is a non-copyleft license. Read it carefully [apache.org] and please tell me where it says that redistribution requires source code release.

For him, it's a legitimate question...

[msauve]

Since he apparently can't find or read Apache's FAQ [apache.org], which plainly states, with regard to their license:

It does not require you to: include the source of the Apache software itself, or of any modifications you may have made to it, in any redistribution you may assemble that includes it...

Re:Sure they can do it

[ustolemyname]

Not if they are the copyright holder, having had all contributions assigned to them. Then the GPL is simply terms they can choose to use in distributing the source to others, but they can distribute their own binaries of their own code however they want to under any license they want. Many things are multiply licensed like this (ie, what ID Software does with their old game engines).