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Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

android.googlesource.com

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Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#21

Post by peterwwillis »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

The Linux kernel does not accept anonymous contributions due to legal reasons. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html > It is imperative that all code contributed to the kernel be legitimately free software. > For that reason, code from anonymous (or pseudonymous) contributors will not be accepted. > All contributors are required to “sign off” on their code, stating that the code can be distribut…

Linux Kernel changes are released under GPLv2, and would therefore not include anonymous commits. Everything else is Apachev2 licensed, and presumably Google can do whatever it wants with its own project and IP.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#23

Post by hurpaDurpa »

07d046 wrote: post #2

For the young whippersnappers, "anonymous coward" comes from Slashdot, where it was the name for anonymous posters.

In this instance, one might wager that it was somebody's "Alan Smithee" moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#24

Post by ajross »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

The Linux kernel does not accept anonymous contributions due to legal reasons. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html > It is imperative that all code contributed to the kernel be legitimately free software. > For that reason, code from anonymous (or pseudonymous) contributors will not be accepted. > All contributors are required to “sign off” on their code, stating that the code can be distribut…

That is because of the desire for the kernel to be able to prove authorship (i.e. that it wasn't "stolen" code that got committed).

This is a Google commit, it's not owned by the author. Clearly Google owns the copyright, it was done at Google's direction and for reasons that are relatively obvoiusly in line with Google's interests. There's no meaningful ambiguity here.

Corporations donate code all the time, even to Linux, and the "true" human author doesn't necessarily correlate with the names on the git commit. This is no different.

Fundamentally this is just a joke. Anyone who put their name on that commit would open themselves up to ridicule, so the project management lampshaded the issue with a faceless commit.

So, yes, the same reasoning applies to Android. And this is perfectly fine. There are things to complain about, but IP hygine doesn't qualify.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#25

Post by userbinator »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

The Linux kernel does not accept anonymous contributions due to legal reasons. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html > It is imperative that all code contributed to the kernel be legitimately free software. > For that reason, code from anonymous (or pseudonymous) contributors will not be accepted. > All contributors are required to “sign off” on their code, stating that the code can be distribut…

For that reason, code from anonymous (or pseudonymous) contributors will not be accepted

Do they require government-issued proof of identity? If not, they can't stop "pseudonymous" contributions at all (and IMHO that is a very good thing.)

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#26

Post by mrep »

peterwwillis wrote: post #20

So, their browser on their operating system has features which only work with their search engine. How does this not violate antitrust laws? Product tying, at the least?

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want.

How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#27

Post by mikekchar »

ajross wrote: post #24
matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

The Linux kernel does not accept anonymous contributions due to legal reasons. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html > It is imperative that all code contributed to the kernel be legitimately free software. > For that reason, code from anonymous (or pseudonymous) contributors will not be accepted. > All contributors are required to “sign off” on their code, stating that the code can be distribut…

That is because of the desire for the kernel to be able to prove authorship (i.e. that it wasn't "stolen" code that got committed). This is a Google commit, it's not owned by the author. Clearly Google owns the copyright, it was done at Google's direction and for reasons that are relatively obvoiusly in line with Google's interests. There's no meaningful ambiguity here. Corporations donate code all the time, even to…

Yeah, the requirement for an identifiable entity in order to merge code is ass covering and nothing more. They want to know who the author is in case of copyright infringement. In that case they can say, "If you want to sue someone, sue them. They claimed that they were able to merge this code." There's no legal requirement to do this; it's just a good idea.

You can allow random people to merge code into your repository, but if there is a legal problem, expect people to knock on your door. As you say, in the case of the Android change, it's obvious that the commit is anonymous on purpose.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#28

Post by PhasmaFelis »

geofft wrote: post #14
scrollaway wrote: post #6

This is why I love open source (as in source-available, not necessarily free-software). Transparency trumps everything. Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". It doesn't prevent things like that from happening but it makes you question if it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that's the best we can hope for.

> Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". That isn't necessarily true (although it definitely seems possible in this case, especially given the choice of name). The other possible reason is that they knew they were doing something perfectly reasonable but controversial, that other people would dislike, and they…

Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It may be largely inconsequential, it may be cynically obvious, it may be not worth fussing about, but not "perfectly reasonable".

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#29

Post by DennisAleynikov »

ajross wrote: post #24
matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

The Linux kernel does not accept anonymous contributions due to legal reasons. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html > It is imperative that all code contributed to the kernel be legitimately free software. > For that reason, code from anonymous (or pseudonymous) contributors will not be accepted. > All contributors are required to “sign off” on their code, stating that the code can be distribut…

That is because of the desire for the kernel to be able to prove authorship (i.e. that it wasn't "stolen" code that got committed). This is a Google commit, it's not owned by the author. Clearly Google owns the copyright, it was done at Google's direction and for reasons that are relatively obvoiusly in line with Google's interests. There's no meaningful ambiguity here. Corporations donate code all the time, even to…

Yeah it's definitely not a big issue that this is commited under Anonymous Coward since you know the decision was made by Google to axe this and it would matter very little which engineer specifically removed these lines of code.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#30

Post by fyfy18 »

mrep wrote: post #26
peterwwillis wrote: post #20

So, their browser on their operating system has features which only work with their search engine. How does this not violate antitrust laws? Product tying, at the least?

Because you can choose a different phone OS, and you can choose a different browser on that OS. Also, both of those things are open source so you can fork them if you want. How do you think it violates antitrust laws? Do you propose that all companies should be required to make all of their features available on all possible variational usage of their service?

This is no different than when Microsoft got hit by fines and was forced to include the browser chooser. You were still free to install Firefox or Linux, but the issue was that the defaults on new PCs used Microsoft products, and most people use the default options.
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