Copied code not in Android source after all (updated)
Posted on Friday, Jan 21, 2011 by Jerry Hildenbrand
androidcentral.com
what copied code?
You might have stumbled across a story or two on the web today about Florian Mueller from FOSSpatents finding 43 more files in the Android source that look to be copied from Sun. I know I did, and had a heart wrenching editorial all ready to go, all about Google's open source strategy in their fight against Oracle, how it might fail, and how I was going to shave my beard and cry.
Then I stumbled across Ed Burnette's story on ZDNet.
All the fuss, all the hysteria, and most importantly all the cries against Google proclaiming them as thieves aren't what they seem. There are two sets of files in question -- a series of seven (PolicyNodeImpl.java, AclEntryImpl.java, AclImpl.java, GroupImpl.java, OwnerImpl.java, PermissionImpl.java, and PrincipalImpl.java) that contain proprietary code from Sun, and do exist, but they are in the unit test area of the AOSP source tree. This means they are only used to test software after it's built, and before it's shipped. To be clear -- these files are not used to build Android, nor are the shipped with Android. To take things a step further, these files were published by Sun on their own website to assist developers to test and debug -- exactly what Google is using them for.
The other 37 files exist as well, but are inside a zip file in an area of the source tree used for one particular audio chipset. These files look like they were uploaded by mistake, and also aren't used to build Android or ship with any Android devices. These will probably just be deleted from the tree, as they don't do anything. |
