Alibaba and Aliyun...some thoughts.

For a while, I thought that maybe this dispute between Google, Acer and Alibaba was more about politics than anything else.  It seemed at the time that Google was trying to prevent another case of Amazon from occurring.  But at the same time, I also thought that there was a lot of information Google had not been saying, and that eventually we'd hear the finer details of what the dispute was about.  I was holding off on chiming in on this issue until more details had come out.

We've just reached that point where we now know a good amount of details of what this dispute is all about, thanks to ZDNet and Android Police.  Below follows a summary of those two articles and some background.

It comes down to two issues:

1. Alibaba violated Open Source license requirements.
1. Alibaba has the right to fork Android OS or its own Linux-based OS;
2. Open Source license requirements apply to both OSes;
1. Subsequent works require providing your own work to the public for free;
2. Credit must be given to the original developer, from which you borrowed from;
3. Alibaba claims that Google "doesn't know" what they're talking about, but this seems to point then, to one of two open source license violations;
1. If Google "doesn't know" what's going on inside Alibaba, then Alibaba seems to have held Aliyun as proprietary software, contrary to open source license requirements;
2. It should be clear, if Google has been able to review Aliyun OS, whether or not certain elements were taken from Google;
1. If credit was not retained even though code was borrowed from Google to make apps compatible with Android, then Alibaba violated the terms of the license;
2. If Alibaba used Google code and kept the lines of code that credited Google, then it would be a public indictment of Alibaba's public statements that they had not used Android inside of Aliyun, and would be an indictment of the next point (below).
2. Alibaba's apps store hosts pirated apps.
1. Alibaba's store has apps that were taken directly from Google Play Store;
1. Those apps were not authorized for use by Alibaba;
2. Some of those apps are paid apps, and their owners are being cheated by Alibaba;
3. Several of Google's own apps -- all of which are proprietary -- were stolen;
2. Alibaba used elements of Google's Android (referenced to above issue #1.3.2.2);
1. Days after developers had updated their apps in the Google Play Store, they would also appear in Alibaba's apps store, localized, which of course were done without the developer's knowledge;
2. The speed in which apps were pirated (requiring just localization), indicates that Alibaba had directly built in elements of Android including Android runtime (as Google's Andy Rubin indicated), showing that Alibaba lied.

The bottom line: Alibaba tried to lie in public, and got caught by people other than Google (after Google laid out hints as to Alibaba's lies).  Alibaba has been exposed for piracy...as if anyone would be surprised.  Their primary business is to connect pirated works with global buyers.  Don't believe me?  Check out these special iPads, iPhones and Macbooks.  How about Gucci? Wait a minute, I thought Wigwam socks were made in America?