Android open sourced

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:48:25 +0200 Didier Raboud <didier at raboud.com> babbled:

> http://source.android.com/license/individual-contributor-license---android-open-source-project
> 
> You have to grant your copyright to Google...
> 
> I don't want to work non-paid for Google. But please do ! ;)

i do agree that android does not seem to be open AND free in the same
spirit/way the average linux distro (from ubuntu to debian to fedora to
openmoko etc.) is, as the sdk is restrictive - BUT i will say, that you are
wrong - you do not GRANT google copyright. you grant them a LICENCE to use the
code you contribute (without restriction). it's basically the same as
contributing to a BSD to mit/x11 licensed project. you still own your code that
you contributed and retain all your rights, but you have granted unrestricted
use of that, with no conditions (that includes no need to keep the code open.
at this point it is a matter of trust if you trust google to always keep the
code available or not, as the license does not enforce that, BUT you don't
grant copyright ownership to google).

so to be fair - it's not as bad as you made it out to be :) but i also don't
like the other clauses. like "can't reverse engineer" (which is bullshit in my
jurisdiction - last i checked reverse engineering was explicitly legal "for
compatibility purposes", and any license is overidden by law and your innate
rights), or "for no other purpose".

-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com