FSF Uses Android FUD To Push GPLv3 282
jfruhlinger writes "We've already seen claims from Edward Naughton and Florian Mueller that most Android distributors are in violation of the GPL — claims that the open source community has, for the most part, rejected. Therefore it's disheartening to see that the FSF is using this line of reasoning to push the GPL v3 over the supposedly more troublesome GPL v2. The FSF's press release on the subject emphasizes 'worries' without bringing up a specific concrete case of infringement — a classic FUD technique."
Re:Locked Bootloaders (Score:1, Interesting)
If Android were GPLv3 then they wouldn't be in violation because they would not be selling Android based phones.
Re:ah FSF (Score:3, Interesting)
How the hell you got +5 Insightful is beyond me!
Yes, "The GPL does however prevent people from distributing derivative works without the source", but how is that not a positive thing for the community, the users, and other developers? Copyright, all by itself, prohibits distributing both the work and derivative works with or without the source. Only public domain goods and BSD-ish licenses have fewer restrictions (ie. virtually all the Windows/Apple/etc software have more restrictions).
Anything you do with closed source software and libraries you can also do with GPL software. IE. negotiate your licensing terms with the author(s), and if you both agree on something, great. If not, you're stuck with the default license. For closed source stuff, that means you can't do squat about it. For GPL stuff, you can still use it if you agree to the GPL (or LGPL, as is often the case with libraries - which allows linking to closed source stuff).
Someone else already covered the tivoization, so I'll skip that.
Some might consider the ability to link in GPL code in otherwise non-GPL code and vice versa to be a fundamental freedom that open source is supposed to provide.
Really? Like what? If you're just doing it for yourself, you're allowed, so this implies that you must be talking about distribution (or you simply have no idea what you're talking about to begin with). If you're talking about distribution, then what non-GPL code are you referring to? If it's stuff you wrote and you want to make use of GPL code that you did not write, then you simply have to license your code the same way (under GPL)... why would one think they can just nab it and do whatever the hell they please with it? If one is of that mindset, then they already have no regard for copyright (same mindset that thinks its fine to distribute hacked closed source stuff as well), so why would the GPL give them any pause for concern?
If you're talking about linking to some other closed source stuff, you should really be going after the closed source camp. You'd already have to have some licensing agreement in place to distribute the closed source stuff, so why would they presume there are no rules for other software they are including?
A third possibility is that you're referring to one of the few incompatible open source licenses. Those cases are unfortunate, but authors are often willing to work with people to make exceptions and/or dual license. This is, IMO, the only valid complaint here but, in practice, this rarely comes up and, when it does, is often easily remedied. The only big one that comes to mind for me is "ZFS" and the Linux Kernel. There's an easy immediate solution (using fuse), a recompile option (users can compile it in themselves - it just can't be distributed linked-in), and a redevelopment effort (ext4's growing feature set), and either party could change licenses if it was really that critical (in a smaller project, that'd probably have happened).
Maybe by "some" you meant an extremely small minority? Which is why I think your post should be +5 Troll rather than Insightful - it is a very good Troll, if that was your intention :-)