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Google Caught in Open Source Code Controversy...
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- DeepHorus
Google recently became embroiled in open source community controversy over an AI mobile automation tool. A startup called Minitap publicly accused Google of extensively using code, prompt designs, and test cases from its open source project "mobile-use" while developing its internal project Artemis, without retaining the original author's attribution information as required by the open source license.
Minitap is a company focused on AI control technology for mobile devices. Its open source project mobile-use enables artificial intelligence to control real Android devices through natural language instructions to complete operations, such as opening apps, sending messages, or executing complex tasks. Minitap co-founder and CEO Nicolas Dehandschower stated that Artemis and mobile-use are highly consistent across multiple key modules. Google not only borrowed the overall concept but also directly adopted core implementation solutions for Android device connection, agent instruction design, and WhatsApp automation task handling.
According to Minitap, some code content even appears verbatim identical. At the same time, information originally recording authorship in the project was allegedly removed by a forced commit operation in August this year, making the code's origin no longer obvious. After the incident was exposed, Google modified the relevant code and added a statement to the project indicating that it contains source code developed by Minitap. Minitap believes this addition indirectly proves that Google acknowledged the code came from its open source project, but failed to properly fulfill attribution obligations during initial use.
The core of the dispute is not whether the code can be used, but whether open source license requirements were complied with. The project in question is released under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows third parties to freely use, modify, and redistribute the code, but requires retaining copyright notices and clearly indicating changes made. Minitap believes that Google failed to fulfill these basic obligations when initially integrating the code, thus violating the license terms.
Beyond the code issues, the two parties also have contradictions regarding benchmark test rankings. Minitap said the company has been hoping to update its test results on the AndroidWorld leaderboard, but the relevant data has not been updated for a long time. Meanwhile, the Artemis project maintained by Google recently received new test scores and ranked near the top of the leaderboard, further intensifying Minitap's doubts about the project's fairness.
Dehandschower also said that since the open source version was released, Minitap has undergone extensive technical iteration, and the system currently in operation uses a new closed-source architecture, significantly different from the original public version. He believes that some of the design concepts adopted by Google's project lag behind Minitap's current products by about seven months. This incident has once again sparked discussions in the tech industry about the relationship between large technology companies and the open source community. How to respect the rights of original authors while utilizing community resources has become a topic of ongoing concern for the industry.
