Popular Android ROM Accused of GPL Violation

An anonymous reader writes "A petition has recently been started to get the developer of the popular Android 'MIUI' ROM, Chinese based Xiaomi, to comply with the GPL. While Android itself is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License, and therefore does not actually require derivative works to be FOSS, the Linux kernel itself is GPL-licensed and needs to remain open. Unless Xiaomi intends to develop a replacement for the Linux kernel, they need to make their modifications public."

Re:Fundamental Misunderstanding of GPL

[Todd Knarr]

Not correct, at least not for the version of the GPL in question. Read the GPL v2 [gnu.org] and look at section 3 which covers distribution. Your options:

• 3a: Distribute the source code along with the binaries. Using this option you only have to provide source to your customers.
• 3b: Distribute the source code separate from the binaries. This option explicitly requires you to make the offer of source available to any third party, regardless of whether they received binaries from you or not.
• 3c: Pass on the offer you received. This is only available for non-commercial distribution, so a company selling phones or software wouldn't qualify to use it.

You'd be correct for GPL v3, but the Linux kernel license lacks the "or any later version" language so v3's off the table as far as the kernel as a whole is concerned.

Cyanogen fork

[aaron552]

IIRC, it's a fork of Cyanogenmod, and (the non-Android part of) CM is also GPL, so they'd have to also distribute the modifications to CM. This, I think, is the larger infringement that people are annoyed about?

Re:Popular?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Xiaomi was launched last year to great applause in China. It was lauded as an original Chinese innovation in smartphones, the company was great, CEO smart, etc. I almost bought one myself, but decided I couldn't live without a physical keyboard (HTC Desire Z). They're coming out with a new phone soon [engadget.com].

It's not that they are being selfish by refusing to share. It simply has never occurred to anyone at the company that there might be rules to follow and a community to participate in. To Chinese, IP is just something that may be freely copied by anyone, slightly modified, and released as your own (when it is no longer OK to copy it, naturally). Ten feet from where I am sitting right now, a man is watching videos of packaging machines in operation and drawing the mechanisms on a CAD program. He is in the R&D department.