satine.org

by Charles Ying

The Skia Source Code Dilemma

March 5th, 2007

I have good friends who work on “secret” projects at Google (among other companies). Recently, news about Google’s acquisition of Mike Reed’s company, Skia, was leaked. Thus, I believe I can talk more freely about it now.

So here’s the thing. Last year, Google open sourced the Skia vector graphics engine and placed the code up on Google Code under an Apache license. I heard about it through the grapevine (not from Mike) and downloaded a copy to take a peek. Shortly thereafter, the code disappeared.

So here’s the general dilemma I pose to our virtual community:

  • What is the legal standing of the Skia source code at this point? It was made available briefly under an Apache license, possibly for several weeks. Is it still Apache licensed code, even though the code has been removed?
  • What do you think would happen if I were to post it again for posterity? What do you think Google would do?
  • What are the implications of this to open source in general?
And remember, don’t be evil! :-)

[Update #1] It seems that not many people know what the Skia engine is capable of. Skia built a vector graphics renderer core very similar to the one that Openwave Mobile Phone Suite V7 uses. (Mike built both, and I worked for him at Openwave) Skia is capable of full Java2D or PostScript (group opacity, bezier curve paths and clipping, kickass type rendering, gradients, filters) on typical “feature phone” hardware (average clocked ARM9ish processor, decent memory bandwidth) with a ~300K footprint. It’s like OS X’s Core Graphics, without the GPU rendering.

[Update #2] Simeon Simeonov, Engadget and CrunchGear all have follow on stories.

[Update #3] An interesting twist / pickle emerges: When I looked through the source archive this morning, I found that the actual Apache license is not included with the source code. It was only published on the Google Code web site! Not only that, but no copyright information exists or even authorship is in the codebase. So what now? I definitely need to speak to a IP lawyer.

[Update #4] According to a few authoritative sources, source code with an Apache license cannot be revoked once published. Source code without an accompanying license isn’t as clear cut a case and is still being examined.

[Update #5] I’ve decided not to release the source code at present, not for legal issues, but as a favor. I’m confident that this source code situation will, however, be resolved at some point by Google. :-)

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

11 Responses to “The Skia Source Code Dilemma”

  1. More Light on The Google Phone Mystery « HighContrast Says:

    […] March 6, 2007 Posted by Simeon Simeonov in startups, Industry News, Mobile, Google, opensource. trackback Charles Ying saw my post linking the Skia acquisition with the real Google phone plans and heresponded with a very interesting piece of information: Last year, Google open sourced the Skia vector graphics engine and placed the code up on Google Code under an Apache license. I heard about it through the grapevine (not from Mike) and downloaded a copy to take a peek. Shortly thereafter, the code disappeared. […]

  2. Google/Skia Update « HighContrast Says:

    […] March 7, 2007 Posted by Simeon Simeonov in Industry News, Google, opensource. trackback Charles Ying first mentioned that Skia’s code was available on Google Code inresponse to my post about the Google Phone, aka Switch, which the blogosphere has already nicknamed G-Phone or gPhone. Charles and I had an email exchange about this and (after the involvement of a couple of lawyers) here is where things stand… […]

  3. Larry Hosken Says:

    Did the source code bear any resemblance to … oh, wait, I guess there’s no published SDK for the Open Handset Alliance. Yet.

  4. Jeongsoo Yang Says:

    Hi.

    Is it possible to get skia source code? If you can send to me, please mail to me. (yangjeongsoo@nate.com)

    Thanks.

  5. inside looking out » Blog Archive » Skia Source Code Released Says:

    […] a ride on the Google Chrome / Chromium release today, the Skia graphics rendering engine that is the graphics heart of Android and Google Chrome (when there’s no GPU around) and part […]

  6. zetaclear Says:

    Is the skia source available for public use?

  7. sample student resumes Says:

    it would be great if we were to get the code. thanks.

  8. Understanding design & software freedom: Android @font-face complex script support Says:

    […] in 2007 the Skia sourcecode was accidentally published, and “kickass type rendering” was one of the features mentioned. But I couldn’t […]

  9. Hannes Baldursson Says:

    The Skia library has been hosted at google code for a while now.

    http://code.google.com/p/skia/

  10. Seth Says:

    If skia is what’s powering my dev android galaxy s, the results are impressively poor. I was confounded by how bad things looked on such a powerful device compared to iPhone’s webkit , which may or may not use something likeopenvg. really terrible. It feels like nothing hooks to the gpu- which is more Powerful than iphone

  11. funginix Says:

    I admit that skia results looks impressively poor. They have to work on it.