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How to profile "native code" in Android?

What would happen if I copy an open app's source code and publish it as my own? (Android)

  • So, recently I found out there are a great deal of very successful Android app's who have simply put out their wonder product's source code for the world to see. These are on websites like code.google, (SVN), github... etc I was thinking what would happen if someone simply changed a few things, chenged the layout, look and feel, color of buttons and backgrounds and texts...Added a few of his own. Would this mischievous person be in trouble when he publishes the app ?? It could possible go unreported forever...how will the original author find out ? And you can publish literally anything, there's even tons of porn apps there, that means Google probably doesn't have time to check the source code of each and every single app for some copyright violation.. And if the app looks different, Users will have no idea it's even related, so nobody would even think of a copyright violation. Example : A simple game like Snake, Tic-Tac-Toe has virtually the same code in all the dozens of apps that are on the play store... I mean there could be 10 apps on the game Pac-Man, and since the base concept is the same, the Java,XML code will also be quite similar.. What if someone just copy pastes an open source code, modifies it and publishes it as his own ? What protects the original author ? And what if he gets caught ?

  • Answer:

    no, not at all... all thanks to it being an open source! for example, i get to have a software(open source), i do the additional coding to it, make it more approachable. i can publish it as mine without having a right to patent it! since it would again be an open source! :-)

Anusha Sridharan at Quora Visit the source

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If the Android application is Opensource, you can do anything you want. Opensource doesn't mean you can just access the code. You can use/modify/share the source.

Anonymous

Open source is not the same as public domain, which would allow you to do what you want. With open source software, what you can do depends on the licence. The GPL was designed to prevent exactly what you're proposing. The source is open, but the creators use their copyright to prevent others from taking credit. Open source does not mean that the developers give up their copyright. They just licence people to copy under different conditions than proprietary software developers do. However, there are some open source licences that allow you to copy without attribution, like the BSD licence. Just pay careful attention to the licence that the software is released under. I'd also point out that copyright is not at all the same thing as copywriting.

Graeme Caldwell

That would be a derivative work. If the original application is under MIT or BSD license or similar, you are fine. If the original application is under GPL and you do not release your changes to the code, you are in a world of trouble.

Leonid S. Knyshov

In general you are doing nothing wrong and are not being mischievous by modifying open source code for an Android app and re-publishing it. That's the point of open source. But it all depends on the open source license in question. In some cases you will need to provide attribution in the description of the app or on the title or about screens. In other cases you will need to publish your source code as open source. In almost all cases you cannot claim that the software is all your copyright. If you get caught you will be asked to comply with the terms of the license, or remove the app from the internet, or face a court case. Microsoft has been caught several times violating open source licenses by mistake and has chosen to comply with the license.

James Dixon

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