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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

#151

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

paxys wrote: post #48
TheMiddleMan wrote: post #47

Relevant: 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.

Doesn’t Apple do the same?

Yes, and this is the reason that many of us have not, and will not, ever buy an Apple product. They are the ultimate technodictators, and their products are only for people who like to trade their freedom for moderate convenience.

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

#152

Post by hedora »

zephen wrote: post #139
hedora wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, but that’s the only reference android device, so the whole ecosystem is getting pretty close to completely locked down. Google is going to require devs to register, pay and get permission to publish Android software sometime next year. Locking pixel owners out of third party operating systems means they get to force pixel owners to hand control over their devices and applications to Google.

The motorola / GrapheneOS partnership gives me some hope though. Maybe when the pendulum swings back in 2028, the US will pass consumer protection laws, and we’ll have the right to import devices that allow open ROMs, and demand they be supported by cell networks.

(I doubt the moderate democrats would support this, but I’d guess the DSA candidates could be convinced to.)

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

#153

Post by grapheneos »

mjg59 wrote: post #136
grapheneos wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also isn't only them pushing the boundaries of the GPL.

Pixel 9a and earlier were sold as the official Android Open Source Project (AOSP) reference devices. They made a commitment to providing 7 years of updates for the Pixel 8 and later. Android 16 declared Pixels were no longer AOSP reference devices and stopped providing any support for them. From our perspective, Google hasn't fulfilled their update commitment for the Pixel 6 through Pixel 9a. It's fair to say the Pixel 10 and later weren't sold as AOSP reference devices and didn't have any commitment to providing sources as part of the updates, but that isn't the case for the earlier devices.

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

#154

Post by mvdtnz »

grapheneos wrote: post #105
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, and we do mirror their source code on GitLab. We put the upstream 17 code in the 17-base branch and our code on top of it in the 17 branch: https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel/-/tree/17-base https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel_muzel/-/tree/17-b... We also have mirrors of the QPR1 Beta and QPR2 Beta code there too. It's not meant to be distributed as a tarball or a single Git repository. The build s…

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

#155

Post by grapheneos »

HarlequinHair wrote: post #16
gowld wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inclu…

> 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, whi…

It isn't about AOSP but rather the Pixel OS. Android 16 dropped support for Pixels from AOSP but we're still entitled to receiving the subset of the code derived from GPL/LGPL projects. We need the Pixel kernel driver sources for each stable and beta release. We're entitled to getting those in a reasonable amount of time. Weeks of delays is not reasonable for one of the largest tech companies in the world.

They could simply share a folder with us and put all of the releases in that folder so we don't need to request each release. They're going out of the way to make it difficult by requiring us to separately request it for every single release we want. Initially, it was consistently provided in under a business day. Recently, they've regularly been taking weeks or more to provide it. It's likely going to take longer now that more people are aware of it since they're going to receive more requests for it. They could simply push it to a repository on GitHub instead of assigning employees to do this manually. If for some reason they don't want to do that, they could at least automate it. For example, they could give us access to a folder with all the releases. Needing to request every single release tag is ridiculous.

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

#156

Post by ProAm »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #140
pas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google literally has infinite money.

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

#157

Post by grapheneos »

gowld wrote: post #11
dgellow wrote: post #2

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.

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 inclu…

It applies to anything Google releases based on Android without pushing tags to AOSP for that fork of the code. It isn't a limited set of products but rather everything they make based on it. It applies to Android Wear, Android TV, Pixel phones and anything else not pushed to AOSP. We aren't being specific since we don't know everything they release based on Android. If they release a Beta emulator image for an upcoming version of Android without pushing tags, it applies to that too.

Google used to push all of the Pixel code from AOSP to it every month. They now only push AOSP releases intended to be used by other OEMs. That means they went from pushing each monthly, quarterly and yearly release of Android shipped by Pixels to only pushing 2 major releases per year (yearly release and QPR2) which are the only major releases used by other OEMs. They also provide security backports to those 2 major releases. They're still obligated to give us the GPL/LGPL licensed code for each Pixel OS release.

Google sold the Pixel 6 through Pixel 9a as being AOSP reference devices with 5-7 years of support from launch. They should be pushing the AOSP releases for those devices each month to fulfill their update commitment. GPL compliance is a clear legal requirement, but we think there's more than that too. Pixel 10 and later were not launched as AOSP reference devices since this changed was already made, so sure they have no obligation to provide anything beyond GPL code for those.

We didn't want to explain all this in our thread but we did explain it has to do with Pixels. It isn't only the kernel drivers. It's also the assorted set of stuff within the OS that's GPL/LGPL beyond that. There's more than there used to be since they moved to the OpenJDK libraries during the Oracle lawsuit.

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

#158

Post by processunknown »

mvdtnz wrote: post #154
grapheneos wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and we do mirror their source code on GitLab. We put the upstream 17 code in the 17-base branch and our code on top of it in the 17 branch: https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel/-/tree/17-base https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel_muzel/-/tree/17-b... We also have mirrors of the QPR1 Beta and QPR2 Beta code there too. It's not meant to be distributed as a tarball or a single Git repository. The build s…

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There is a giant list of reasons here https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

mvdtnz wrote: post #154
grapheneos wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and we do mirror their source code on GitLab. We put the upstream 17 code in the 17-base branch and our code on top of it in the 17 branch: https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel/-/tree/17-base https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel_muzel/-/tree/17-b... We also have mirrors of the QPR1 Beta and QPR2 Beta code there too. It's not meant to be distributed as a tarball or a single Git repository. The build s…

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[deleted]

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

#160

Post by geokon »

grapheneos wrote: post #105
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, and we do mirror their source code on GitLab. We put the upstream 17 code in the 17-base branch and our code on top of it in the 17 branch: https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel/-/tree/17-base https://gitlab.com/grapheneos/kernel_pixel_muzel/-/tree/17-b... We also have mirrors of the QPR1 Beta and QPR2 Beta code there too. It's not meant to be distributed as a tarball or a single Git repository. The build s…

Maybe a naiive question, but couldn't you request the source code from phone companies? Say you request it from Xiaomi - sure they're not the original writers of the code, but they too "distributing GPL code" and therefore must release the code on request. They may be more amenable to your request since they have leverage with Google and are in an adversarial relationship
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