And so the story regarding Android supposedly violating the GPL continues. Linus Torvalds has responded to the story in his usual straightforward manner - he thinks it's "totally bogus". In the meantime, Groklaw - not exactly my favourite place but alas, good points are good points - found out that the IP lawyer who started this story, Edward Naughton, used to be a lawyer for Microsoft in dozens of cases, a fact he tried to erase from his online resume.We've already covered the details of this case yesterday, so I suggest you go and read that if you're not yet familiar with what's going on. Brian Proffitt - the guy with the most awesome last name ever - asked Torvalds what he thought about all of this, and as usual, Torvalds' answer was characteristically straightforward. Quoted in full for the full effect.
So I haven't looked at exactly what Google does with the kernel headers, but I can't see that they'd want to do anything fundamentally different from glibc in this respect.
Of course, we do have our own 'internal' headers too, and we have stuff that is meant to be relevant only for the kernel. But there would be no point for Google to even use those, since they are useless outside of the kernel, so I don't see what the whole brouhaha would be all about. Except if it's somebody politically motivated (or motivated by some need of attention). If it's some desperate cry for attention by somebody, I just wish those people would release their own sex tapes or something, rather than drag the Linux kernel into their sordid world.
Well, that's pretty conclusive, but hardly surprising. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that what Google has done isn't anything to get excited about, since it's already been done before. Still, it makes you wonder - why bring it up? Well, while it could be merely a coincidence, Groklaw has discovered that Edward Naughton, whose research paper started this thing, used to be a lawyer for Microsoft in dozens of cases - a fact he is now trying to hide from his resume.
Instances of 'Microsoft' were replaced by "a Fortune 50 software company" as recently as this month; Google Cache for March 8 still states 'Microsoft', which is only a few days before his research paper hit.
I wouldn't have thought much of it - but the fact that he changed Microsoft to a Fortune 50 software company right before his research paper hit the web is very suspicious, to say the least. It seems like the anti-Android FUD-machine is firing on all cylinders.
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From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
"The key takeaway we've reached (after two less than 24 hours playing with the iOS 7 Beta release) is this - every App must consider even basic updates to its UI to survive in a post-iOS 6 world." Great. Telling developers to update their entire application - user interface and behaviour alike - to target a look and behaviour that isn't final yet. Seems like potential for a lot of wasted work here."Overall the app is really basic, and designed for on the go editing. Microsoft says it's not planning to create an iPad version, noting that tablet users can utilize the Office Web Apps instead. We'd like to see some additional options for editing, including more clear options for text formatting and the ability to insert and change images, but it's a solid attempt for something you're only really going to use for editing in emergencies." A resounding meh can be heard from all over the world."Today, most people are using modern browsers that support the majority of the latest web technologies. Better yet, the usage of legacy browsers is declining significantly and newer browsers stay up to date automatically, which means the leading edge has become mainstream. Given these factors we've decided to retire Chrome Frame, and will cease support and updates for the product in January 2014." Eh.The Next Web: "First of all, many of the new icons were primarily designed by members of Apple's marketing and communications department, not the app design teams. From what we've heard, SVP of Design Jony Ive (also now Apple's head of Human Interaction) brought the print and web marketing design team in to set the look and color palette of the stock app icons. They then handed those off to the app design teams who did their own work on the 'interiors', with those palettes as a guide. We've also been hearing that there wasn't a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design. Those may well be hammered out in days ahead." What. Reminds me of how Microsoft does (used to do?) things.
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