If you're like me and struggled to parse the title, my understanding is, "To obtain certain source code from Google, you could previously reference git tags, but now you have to fill out a form and wait for a human to give you a google drive link."
“In violation of GPL” is a stretch.
Can’t imagine Google is making the process of obtaining source code easier on themselves though.
Android has always been more source-open than “open source”. The vast majority of community contributions that make it into the codebase are security fixes and small bug fixes.
Everything else is essentially all the work of Google and (to some extent) Samsung.
GrapheneOS is arguing that however many commits squashed into a messy tarball are not the "preferred form of the work for making modifications", and that Google Drive is not a "medium customarily used for software interchange".
Open source doesn't imply open to contributions. And you could imagine source available software that's not open source but takes contributions (and this is not theoretical, I've seen this in the wild).
(However, that's quite orthogonal to being a dick about making the source code that you must share available)
> Everything else is essentially all the work of Google and (to some extent) Samsung.
There is plenty in Android which isn't the work of Google. For starters the Kotlin implementation and the Java implementation (OpenJDK).
Why would it be a "stretch"?
The basic requirement is whether the source code is available - and made available. Are you certain that Google's solution here is ensuring that the source code is easily made available? So many other projects just provide a wget-able link. Why does Google want to make it harder to obtain the source code than those other projects?
> Android has always been more source-open than “open source”.
And what exactly does that mean? I don't know what your words mean here. More source open than open source? Is that a tautology?
> Everything else is essentially all the work of Google and (to some extent) Samsung.
Is it GPLv2? If so then I fail to see why anyone should get higher rights. Everyone gets the same for GPLv2. That's the whole point. I don't understand your statements here.
> “In violation of GPL” is a stretch.
The originally envisioned distribution method, in fact, was "Send FSF a blank 9-track tape and they'll fill it and mail it back". Nor, obviously, does anything prevent someone who downloads this from Drive from mirroring it on GitHub or wherever.
This is arguably bad stewardship of a historically open source project. It's certainly not a license violation.
It's paying a bill in pennies.
It's not even that. Downstream projects host their own mirrors already, this is an annoying hoop to jump through for the maintainers (basically suck down a bunch of tarballs for every release, analogous to grabbing stuff from FTP sites back in the day), but not exactly a terrible hardship compared to the really very significant work of maintaining a large project.
> There might be some merit to a claim that Google Drive isn't a medium customarily used for software distribution these days
I suppose forcing a means to share the source code could have been too restrictive, but the GPL only speaks about the shape of the source code itself (it should be "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it"), not how it is shared, so indeed, not a violation of the letter of the GPL I think.
It's like what we had in France and the Hadopi, which requested ISPs to share the IP addresses of people torrenting a defined set of files. One of them sent them printed on paper... (But the malicious compliance was cool in this case).
While I don't find any requirements on how timely the source distribution must be upon request, one can reasonably say that there must be a line between 1 nanosecond and 1 century.
Quoting the first tweet:
> Google replaced pushing Git tags for certain source code with obtaining source code via Google Drive after making a request through Google Forms. It's completely ridiculous and they've gradually become very slow at handling requests. They're in clear violation of the GPLv2 now.
> They're in clear violation of the GPLv2 now.
I don't think they are? They could just as easily require requests for the source code to be made through the regular mail instead of a Google form. It's still (maliciously) compliant with the license.
> I don't think they are?
If filling out the source code request form via Google Forms and/or accessing the download link via Google Drive requires the requester to run non-free (or at least non-GPLv2) JavaScript, then maybe it is in violation of section 6 of the GPLv2 ("You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein") since the requester is then required to accept an entirely different set of licensing terms and conditions.
IANAL, but I don't think you're interpreting that correctly.
I believe section 3.b and 3.c are the rights this is referring to, where you can request the source, and even be changed for the physical act. Suggesting this extends to the license of the implementation of their contact system doesn't make sense. No method of contact, except physical, is going to meet your requirements, including sending postage, where the software used to sort your mail is not GPL.
If they do force you into google forms and you can't send a letter then that's a potential issue.
Making you run javascript is a weaker argument...
Don't they force you to sign up for a Google account to be able to gate access to a Google Drive file?
Didn't Google work very hard to avoid any GPL in Android, apart from the kernel? What is in there that is GPL?
I assume Linux.
I am very thankful linux is gpl. Because of GPL these tech giants are forced to release source code.
How slow is "very slow" ? What is "certain source code"? Why is the OP being so coy about describing the problem?
Here is the form:
https://source.android.com/opensourcerequest
This is interesting:
> We might charge you a fee to cover the cost of processing. Your request must be sent according to whichever of the following rules applies:
> Within three years of the date you received the product from Google that included the component or binary files that are the subject of your request.
That "three years" is the minimum named in the GPLv2: https://opensource.org/license/gpl-2.0
> How slow is "very slow?" The answer can be found two replies after: > Initially, Google would usually provide access to the tarballs within a couple hours. Lately, they're often taking weeks to get back to us. They're the ones who chose to use this archaic system instead of pushing Git tags and it's their responsibility to handle requests promptly.
> What is "certain source code"? The OP seems to be GrapheneOS, which heavy patches AOSP. I guess the context is Android source code and its security patches.
> Why is the OP being so coy about describing the problem? Not sure what you mean, I think they are explicit enough. I guess it's clear enough for developers how an upstream update should go. If people depend on big projects like AOSP, devs should be prompt in delivering source code, especially when it is mandatory by license.
Can you give us more details on how/why you think the OP is being coy?
GPL says that you can give that link to anyone you want.
If someone on HN has received one of these links, feel free to post it here.
isn't this just malicious compliance? not clear how this would violate GPLv2?
Yeah, I agree. While this is a terrible move IMHO, from my superficial reading of the GPLv2 it doesn't really constitute a violation: the license imposes that the source be distributed to anyone who asks, potentially even charge a fee to cover its distribution costs, but it doesn't require that development happen in the open.
I mean, the only way to test this is to require of Google here to release the source code. And then look at how a court will evaluate it. For instance, what if Google never sends the source code? What if they claim that no request made it in? Though I guess this can be ensured, e. g. via letter that is registered being sent and then looking at Google's response to it.
So right now I think we all probably do not know. Google MIGHT refuse to release the source code, but it could release it - we don't know yet. Someone has to test that.
Can't help but wonder if making it costly for themselves the entire point. So that they can later turn around and bill that distribution fee to the recipient.
I have feeling that is related to their upcoming changes that make sideloading harder
Can someone explain what this means? Am not familiar with the terminology
Google uses libraries licensed under GPLv2 in Android (I’m not sure which specific part of Android the author is talking about), and so is required to make the full source code available for anyone to view. They previously used to publish a tarball of git tags, but now require you to fill out a Google form and then (weeks later) will share the source with you on Google Drive.
Google apparently wants everybody to know how much they hate abiding by the terms of open source licenses.
The era of big tech cooperation around free software is obviously over.
Those kind of moves are petty but there are worst tricks they can pull unfortunately.
It seems Grapheneos is the rare actor willing to put up a fight nowadays, and their "partnership" with Motorola seems to be a first step. They need to ensure a hardware platform.
My guess is at some point they will have to fork AOSP, just because Google will take it in directions that go against Grapheneos principles.
That's like this fun fact where Microsoft needs to send you source code via post when you mail them a 5$ check. lol
Google needs to lose in court here. This company is getting more and more evil by the day.
Every year a new low.
Shameful acts.
I think leadership in Google is getting worst day by day. The main reason to use Android is mostly sideloading and open source and they are trying to sabotage both.
What is the alternative?
GrapheneOS
Source code of which components is that? It's not very clear from the mastodon thread.
I don't think the real focus is on the tags, but on the delay here via a form as well as human interaction.
Worded differently, the simplest way to provide the source code is IMO via a URL that you can just wget. At the least this is done by so many projects out there. Google refusing to do so means Google wants to violate the GPLv2, since their alternatives are inferior.
https://distrowatch.com/ has many convenient links to URLs on the left side; I often use that to download the latest and greatest and compile it away, e. g. https://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind9/9.20.27/bind-9.20.27.tar.xz as a current example, taken from the left panel.
Let's just forget about the tags, the point is that they're not publishing what Graphene OS needs on any git repository that they can access.
Even before that it had been jokes of repositories, but at least you didn't have to ask for someone every time and wait for them to respond to the request.
(that's my understanding)