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Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

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Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#81

Post by phire »

flotzam wrote: post #70
phire wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google are absolutely within the letter of the GPL, pedantically so. But maybe not the sprit. We didn't have git tags when GPL was written in 1989, and while we did have sccs and rcs, (and early versions of cvs) they just weren't that widely used, and generally not used for distribution. Even when GPL 3.0 was written in 2005-2007, source tarballs were still the primary form of distribution, even though it was startin…

> We didn't have git tags when GPL was written in 1989 The GPLv2 requires "a medium customarily used for software interchange", not "a medium customarily used in 1989 for software interchange". Customs are the customs of the time someone is releasing the work.

“a medium customarily used for software interchange“

Interesting choice of cropping for that quote.

If you had included the previous word, it would be blindly obvious that “on a medium“ is only talking about the transport layer, not the format of the data. So it would exclude distributing source code on tape, or even optical discs, as nobody uses those anymore. About the only medium used for source code distribution these days is “the internet”

You could potentially stretch this to excluding google drive, though google will argue that the medium is http, not google drive; But you can’t stretch this to requiring it be formatted as git.

And even if you did manage to successfully argue that, google would just ship it as one (tagged) commit per release. The history would still be missing.

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#82

Post by aleph_minus_one »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #7
ajross wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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 paying a bill in pennies.

This is actually a problem that is solved in German law:

§ 3 Münzgesetz (MünzG), Absatz 1 [§ 3 Coins Act, article 1]

"§ 3 Annahme- und Umtauschpflicht

(1) Niemand ist verpflichtet, deutsche Euro-Gedenkmünzen im Betrag von mehr als 200 Euro bei einer einzelnen Zahlung anzunehmen. Erfolgt eine einzelne Zahlung sowohl in Euro-Münzen als auch in deutschen Euro-Gedenkmünzen, ist niemand verpflichtet, mehr als 50 Münzen anzunehmen; dies gilt auch dann, wenn der Gesamtbetrag 200 Euro unterschreitet."

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/m_nzg_2002/__3.html

Translation based on the one created by DeepL:

"§ 3 Obligation to Accept and Exchange

(1) No one is obliged to accept German commemorative euro coins totalling more than 200 euros in a single payment. If a single payment is made using both euro coins and German commemorative euro coins, no one is obliged to accept more than 50 coins; this also applies if the total amount is less than 200 euros."

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#83

Post by KetoManx64 »

dminik wrote: post #66

I really don't understand the thought process here. Judging by public statements, Google is one of the 3 big western AI companies. Surely they should be rolling in cash and working hard towards AGI. And yet, for whatever reason, they can't help themselves from further restricting user freedoms on Android. Why? I don't want to be conspiratorial, but surely it's not money, right? It has to be control. Someone high up a…

Both. Google has plenty of government contracts, they are undoubtedly pushing for more surveillance, and also on the inverse side, we are now in an age where users can create their own apps to do whatever they want within a few hours, sothis risks their Google Play Store profits

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#84

Post by mjg59 »

flotzam wrote: post #45
jmole wrote: post #4

“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 throwing away the metadata of however many commits and squashing them into a messy tarball is not the "preferred form of the work for making modifications", and that a manual process where you have to fill out a form in order to get a Google Drive link a week later is not "a medium customarily used for software interchange" in current times. Those are quotes from the GPLv2.

If distributing under 3(b) then it's legitimate to only supply source on request. Historically source has been distributed without revision control history or metadata and been considered acceptable (the source tarballs on gnu.org are snapshots, for instance) so I think the preferred form argument is also tricky. I agree that there's huge value in having the individual commits, but from a GPL perspective we had this argument when Red Hat started flattening all patches in the RHEL kernel source 15 years ago.

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#85

Post by aleph_minus_one »

mjg59 wrote: post #78
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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." Couldn't simply someone mirror these Google Drive folders?

Yes, but that person still needs to file a request and wait several days

But after one person does this, the source code access is a solved problem.

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#86

Post by exe34 »

mjg59 wrote: post #80
mikestorrent wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait for pallets of paper to get shipped out to comply maliciously

The license requires that it be distributed on a medium customarily used for software interchange, and I don't think you'd stand a good chance of arguing that paper satisfies that.

Floppy disks.

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#87

Post by phire »

lambda wrote: post #63
paxys wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t Apple do the same?

I specifically use Android because of this, among other requirements, that Apple imposes on software development on their platform. I do not own general purpose computers that I am not allowed to develop software for without permission. I have always avoided consoles for that reason as well (Steam Machine and other similar platforms would be fine, but I've been avoiding consoles for long enough that it's not somethin…

I switched to an iPhone last year, mostly because I was getting sick of Samsung’s shit, and google doesn’t sell their pixel phones locally (and I don’t like Oppo).

But the other reason is that most of Android’s openness is quickly disappearing, so my main argument against iPhone is gone. And on the topic of privacy, I actually trust Apple way more than I trust the company that makes most of their revenue via advertising.

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#88

Post by mjg59 »

exe34 wrote: post #86
mjg59 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license requires that it be distributed on a medium customarily used for software interchange, and I don't think you'd stand a good chance of arguing that paper satisfies that.

Floppy disks.

1) floppy disks are not customarily used for software interchange - where they are still used (aircraft software updates, bits of San Francisco's streetcar infrastructure) it's weird enough to be remarked upon. 2) the cost to Google of finding enough working floppies and paying someone to dump that much code onto them, then mailing them out, then having the other end just say "disk 323 was corrupted by USPS X rays, please send again" 20 times, would massively outweigh the benefits of making this awkward

Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code

#89

Post by mjg59 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #85
mjg59 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that person still needs to file a request and wait several days

But after one person does this, the source code access is a solved problem.

But nobody has done this, which is why it's a problem for Graphene
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