Re: Serious Legal Concerns About Android-x86.org Builds

[Harshad Joshi]

My understanding - some people are  concerned that they will get into trouble if they include gapps in their custom oem build android iso/disk image for devices eg - a gaming device.., and maybe they are too busy to deal with Google for commercial agreements etc and these people are trying to discuss this situation with other people using android on x86, including Intel  android-ia team.

Nothing personal against Mr price or his product/team, but I think this topic is getting too much paranoid now.

sent from Google Nexus device

On Sep 1, 2013 2:48 PM, "fgdn17" <dick....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey been following this thread and am trying to understand the outcry on copyright after 4-5 years.....

then I looked at the threads and realized maybe things aren't as we perceive.....

1) isn't it interesting that on aug 20 there was an announcement in these forums
   on a new Android-x86 powered Gaming Console by Chih-Wei.....

2) someone referencing iconsole.tv(a android powered gaming console) bantered back and forth in that thread with a developer from
   that team for a while......

3) 2 days later that same someone from that thread started a new thread on Serious Legal Concerns About Android-x86.org Builds
         (is this is what's meant by divide and conquer???)

4) within a day the "leader" of the iconsole.tv team started hammering the thread....and still keeps hammering it eight days later!?

5) I feel a lot of people looking for technical information on android-x86 may be getting turned-off when the
   administrators allow a thread like this to remain open..........this thread should be closed before Mr. Price and his
   "team" are allowed to do more possible damage to this open source product because of their own vested interest.....


On Saturday, August 24, 2013 3:26:09 AM UTC-4, Masaki Muranaka wrote:

Hello,
As far as I checked, there seems to be no license violation in
git.android-x86.org.
So OEMs can build their clean distributions by themselves. This is a
important point.

And I also worry about libhoudini and GApps in ISO images.


2013/8/24 Christopher Price <ch...@christopherprice.net>:
> Hi all,
>
> Figured I'd add my two cents here. From my read of things, nobody is
> challenging the triumphs of Android-x86.org. Personally, had it not been for
> Android-x86.org, I'd probably be working at some conglomerate right now.
>
> I for one thing it would be great if Google allowed Google Play to be
> downloadable from Google.com. But, it isn't. Google uses the Google
> Experience to control Android devices, and shape how they are built.
>
> Having a pirated copy of the Google Experience inside Android-x86.org is bad
> on several layers. In my opinion, it shouldn't be there, even if Google gave
> some backchannel blessing.
>
> First, it creates utter confusion. OEMs get scared, and can't start
> contributing. No PC maker can touch the stuff, and then Android-x86.org
> builds start to become better than what an OEM can come out of the gate
> with. So any accomplishments they make... building their own app stores,
> making Android awesome without Google, seem lame in comparison.
>
> Second, it is legally dangerous. Some manager changes positions inside
> Google, and before you know it, the Android-x86.org project goes down...
> this time, for good, because Google will always have the power to ban
> Android-x86.org on legitimate grounds. It's a Sword of Damocles that this
> community just doesn't need.
>
> Third, and most importantly, it's not needed. Sideloading makes Android
> awesome. You can sideload app stores, and you can sideload alternatives to
> every single Google app. You can even sideload in Google Play.
>
> I support the guide outlined above - offer instructions on how to install
> Google Play, but please, let's comply with the law and keep Google Play out
> of binaries hosted.
>
> Finally, on libhoudini, it's actually pretty much the same situation. Intel
> has no problem with leaving hooks there... heck, Android-IA has the same
> hooks. I wouldn't be surprised if Chih-Wei Huang didn't copy-paste them over
> from Android-IA. But, like Google, Intel has said hosting libhoudini.so is
> not allowed. Period. End of story.
>
> Do I agree with it? Politically speaking, it's not for me to say. I just can
> operate in this environment and push on with or without their support. It's
> because Android-x86.org has stuck to following the rules that I'm able to
> raise funds and continue work on iConsole.tv today - it would be utterly
> depressing to see things not get back to that standard.
>
> On Thursday, August 22, 2013 11:23:52 PM UTC-7, anandr...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>> First, the assertion that you need GApps to test Android-x86 against is
>> completely incorrect. The Android CTS was designed so that you would never
>> need private Google code.
>>
>> CyanogenMod was ordered to remove Google Play from their firmware.
>> XDA-Developers was prohibited from hosting it on their site. I really don't
>> see how Android-x86.org is any different.
>>
>> I don't believe there are topics that developers should not discuss. I
>> think if Android-x86.org becomes dependent on pirating software to gain
>> users, that it won't be able to grow. I think a much easier process would be
>> what I proposed - post walkthroughs on how to add Google Apps yourself
>> should you have permission to do so, and also walk people through adding
>> Android app stores that are legally licensed for sideloading (Amazon
>> Appstore, etc).
>>
>> The Android 4.3 build appeared to have libhoudini, though I may be wrong,
>> I only checked briefly. I know there's an effort to tap QEMU's ARM
>> translator, but I haven't seen it in-use yet anywhere.
>>
>> Finally, Android-x86 must strip Google Play if it doesn't have permission
>> because it's bad for the whole community. OEMs will run away from embracing
>> Android on x86 if they hear that it's loaded with pirated apps.
>>
>> On Thursday, August 22, 2013 4:49:59 PM UTC-7, Greg McGee wrote:
>>>
>>> Development and testing is ~ impossible w/o access to the std Google apps
>>> set to test against.
>>> If it's not legal, Google needs to make it explicitly so or the AOSP
>>> can't really go anywhere.
>>>
>>> The threats I have seen made were vs. commercial vendors selling
>>> flake/untested devices with Play etc.
>>>
>>> libhoudini is apparently being functionally replaced with qemu, and most
>>> apps (not written against the NDK) just work in any case.
>>>
>>> OTOH the question "how to add/where to source" the gapps has come up many
>>> times and it appears to be Something We Don't Talk About.
>>>
>>> On Thursday, August 22, 2013 9:55:45 AM UTC-5, anandr...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Hate to be the one that puts this out there, but I'm a bit concerned
>>>> that Android-x86.org builds are committing a ton of copyright infringement.
>>>>
>>>> The builds posted on the site include both libhoudini.so (Intel
>>>> copywritten) and Google Play Store, Gmail, Youtube (Google copywritten).
>>>>
>>>> Google has threatened legal action against those pirating Google Play on
>>>> unapproved Android devices, and I doubt we're allowed to ship libhoudini in
>>>> Android-x86.org builds.
>>>>
>>>> For Android-x86.org to be successful, it has to play fair too… I really
>>>> urge the maintainers to pull these items from Android-x86.org builds. I know
>>>> it isn't in the source code repo, but it's just as wrong to ship builds to
>>>> end users with that pirated code.
>>>>
>>>> There are other options for getting Android apps, the Amazon Appstore
>>>> works great, and thanks to the growing number of x86 devices with Android,
>>>> the need for libhoudini is pretty small at this point anyways.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>> P.S. If there has been some sort of backroom deal between Google and
>>>> Android-x86.org to ship the code, I would expect that the team would at
>>>> least acknowledge such, and have no complaint otherwise if that's the case.
>>>>
>>>> P.P.S. An alternative would be to post guides on how to add
>>>> libhoudini.so and Google Play Store to an existing Android-x86.org
>>>> installation, if you are licensed to do so. There are certain devices
>>>> (Samsung ACTV Q for example) that may qualify for this, so the information
>>>> (but not the binaries) would be free to share.
>
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Masaki Muranaka
Monami-ya LLC, Japan.

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