"Free" as in "free to play by our rules or suffer"
Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
131–140 of 350 posts
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#132Many commenters agree this is not a nice move by google. But is there any reason that google might have that they feel is legitimate? For example, delaying releasing source until they've had a chance to update all the pixels with security patches might be good from their perspective, to reduce zero-day exploits for people they are supporting.
This just breaks legitimate downstream distros that target Pixel devices.
Ransomware gangs, etc still get red carpet service.
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 advertis…
Exactly this. Once the writing was on the wall that deGoogled / FOSS Android was on borrowed time (at best), a ton of the argument against iOS dissolved overnight. We can argue that Apple's anti-repair policies and anti-user-customization policies are their own evils, sure, but at least my phone works for its core tasks, and works phenomenally well at that. My deGoogled Android phones were mostly hobbled together pil…
Yeah, I was a loyal Android user for 15 years.
For the first half, custom ROMs were a massive boost to the experience, but I never really bothered after 2018; You had to install so much of google's stuff to get anywhere near proper experience that it just wasn't worth it, and even then many apps were starting to throw a fit when they detected a rooted device.
And at the same time, the stock android experience from most vendors was now good enough. I didn't even check custom ROM compatibly for my last Android two purchases (both Samsung). But it was nice to have the option of rooting and maybe finding/making a custom ROM Samsung removed that in their last update to One UI :(
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#134I 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…
> Google refusing to do so means Google wants to violate the GPLv2 Not an expert in GPL, but does it say that the source code needs to be provided by a url?
No, and it doesn't even have to be provided for free as long as the price is reasonable with regard to the delivery costs. The GPL was made when mailing disks was a common way of delivering software and it is still a valid way to do it.
But the most important part is that once you have that source code, no one can stop you from redistributing it in a cheaper and more convenient way. It means that in theory, only a single person has to request the files, that person can then publish them in a public repository.
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#135Relevant: https://keepandroidopen.org/ > Starting in 2027*, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID.
Man, all of these little steps Google is taking to take the control away from the users, not to take over the world or anything else, but to force on you more accurate advertisements. What are we even doing?
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but that person still needs to file a request and wait several days
It was initially taking under a business day for them to respond, but our recent requests have often taken weeks for them to get back to us. We want the code for all the Beta releases and are entitled to it. This is the relevant code for Android 17: https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel/-/tree/17-base https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel_muzel/-/tree/17-b... There are other branches there with it for Andro…
I wholeheartedly agree. Making it more difficult to obtain GPLed source code than it was before is fundamentally a dick move.
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#137Google's intent is to make web development and mobile development so complex that you have to rely on their browser or other means to get anything done.
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
“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…
> 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. I can see your point. But OTOH if providing the "preferred form of the work for making modifications" requires not squashing commits into a big mess to frustrate someone trying to make sense of the code (I'm sure the Google engineers making modifications prefer…
Yeah, that argument is much better; Maybe google are violating the GPL.
What that part of the GPL does absolutely forbid is stripping out the comments from the source code, or only shipping generated source files (but not the code which generated it). And arguably, git history is much of the same thing as comments. Especially when we have IDEs that can be configured to give us easy access to blame to help us understand the code.
The fact that commit history is not inline with the source code (or even stored as human readable files) makes it a little harder to see/argue that git history could be considered to be part of the source code, and I do wonder where this argument stops? Should the contents of bug trackers and PRs be considered to be part of the source code? What about design documents?
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#139Many commenters agree this is not a nice move by google. But is there any reason that google might have that they feel is legitimate? For example, delaying releasing source until they've had a chance to update all the pixels with security patches might be good from their perspective, to reduce zero-day exploits for people they are supporting.
This just breaks legitimate downstream distros that target Pixel devices. Ransomware gangs, etc still get red carpet service.
So all the non-pixel-specific stuff is in a publicly accessible repo? So the pixel team just decided that they wanted to keep their kimono mostly closed?
Re: Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
i.e. its no longer open source, now access is granted by permission.
what does the license say? provide source when asked or publish source? OSI is not clear on this either. ("Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, [...]")
I hate to be that guy but publishing source online for free theoretically involves unbounded distribution costs that can't be recovered. That isn't the issue here but it should be considered before changing a license.