Android source code, Java and copyright infringement: continued

This topic is a kind of continuation of yesterday's topic “ Even more evidence that Android contains copied Java code ”.

Yesterday in many IT media, including on Habré, information appeared that Florian Muller found 43 Android source files directly copied from Java. Muller thought that Oracle could present this material in court as examples of copyright infringement in the Android code.

However, it turned out that everything is not as simple as it seemed.
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Ed Burnet (who calls himself an expert developer and does not consider Florian Muller as such) wrote to ZDNet that he had studied all the files described by Muller and came to a completely different conclusion.

So, the question is in two groups of files.

The first group of seven files (PolicyNodeImpl.java, AclEntryImpl.java, AclImpl.java, GroupImpl.java, OwnerImpl.java, PermissionImpl.java and PrincipalImpl.java) is located in the directory with unit tests . Any programmer will confirm that unit tests are not shipped with the product, they ensure the quality of the code during the development process.

One odd thing is that Sun published these 7 files on his website to help developers debug and test their code. For some reason, either an Android developer, or a Harmony developer, decompiled these files instead of taking the originals from the site. Later, the text about the Apache license got into the files mistakenly, perhaps because of some kind of automatic script.

In any case, the PolicyNodeImpl.java file has already been deleted on October 30, and the remaining 6 java-files and several others have been deleted on January 14. Commentary on the removal of the developer Dan Bornstein says: "Removing meaningless tests."

The second group of 37 files is actually archived in a MMAPI.zip file and located in the directory with audio drivers . And these files also do not come with the product. Someone uploaded this archive by mistake, and you can simply delete it.

On this, it would seem, you can already put an end, but as I wrote at the beginning of the topic: everything is not so simple.

Nilay Patel in his article in Engadget agreed that from a technical point of view, these objections are completely correct. The files we are discussing are obviously really just test files, some of them are even deleted and it’s not so easy to find out if any of them got into Android phones. But - and this important “but” is only from a technical point of view.

From a legal point of view, it is very likely that these files will increase the responsibility for Google. The current state of copyright law is such that it does not take into account how the source trees work, the script or not put in other licenses, whether these files are in the phones or not.

The only significant legal question is whether or not Oracle has authorized the copying and distribution of these files. And the answer is clear: “No” - even if Oracle licensed the code under the GPL license. Why? Because at some point in time, Google took the Oracle code, replaced the GPL license with the incompatible Apache, and distributed the code under this license publicly. That's enough - if Google violated the GPL by changing the license, then it violated the copyright of Oracle. It doesn’t matter whether a Google employee, script, bot or cat of Eric Schmidt did it — once you create and distribute an unauthorized copy, you are responsible for the violation.

In any case, there are still many controversial points in this story. Ultimately, the only person who will resolve the conflict is the judge, and it will take a very long time.