On 2011-07-04, at 8:34 PM, Rob Echlin <rob [ at ] echlin [ dot ] ca> wrote: > Not Linux? > - It's the linux kernel (yes, it's a fork of it, but it is the linux kernel) > > - isn't it using the Gnu utilities? > - The drivers are proprietary, but that's true of lots of Linux-based devices. Are they not Linux either? > This whole discussion prompted me to dig deeper into the Android story. Re: Is it Linux? You would have to say that it is, at the very least, a derivative. There are some heavyweights that are claiming it is. Here is an _excellent_ summary of the facts, and some expert analysis too. http://m.networkworld.com/news/2011/031711-android-linux-gpl.html?page=1 What google did was, IMHO, totally against the spirit of the lgpl. The article spells out what might happen if this is shown to be the case in a court of law. It was a clever idea, but not at all "nice". Dalvik is another interesting story. They reengineered the java vm as a register based vm instead of a stack based vm. This is more elegant than the Linux toolkit mods, because someone actually had to write some new code, but you can see where Oracle has their back up re: their patent rights (and I don't want to talk about sw patents. We can leave that for another thread or day). If you consider a register approach as analogous to a stack approach, they should be considered the same thing from an IP perspective. In the end, it has helped me develop a deeper understanding of the google development philosophy, and I'm now keenly interested in the legal challenges they're facing. I will not be donating to their defense fund. Sent from a locked proprietary device. I'm working on my freedom and I'll be there one day.