[dhodell]

Well, sure. Because people who want to develop products on some platform also want some kind of warranty, which is explicitly not provided.

Google establishes with the public a warranty- and guarantee-free use license. If someone feels they've been harmed by the software, they're prevented by the open source license from suing Google, but they're (more importantly) also giving up their right to sue the individual contributors.

At the same time, vendors want to be able to hold suppliers accountable for support and warranty on products that are supplied. Permitting sublicensing allows Google to sell the software to OEMs and vendors with support agreements that allow those vendors to hold Google responsible for that support (rather than the individual contributors).

There's a lot of complaint about the sublicensing going on, but I think most vendors aren't going to build systems where they can't get support, and I don't think contributors actually want to be liable under tort law for the code they provided for free.

Then again, maybe the objection is to giving code to Google that Google can profit from. I guess that's fair, but you don't _have_ to contribute code and you're also not prevented from sublicensing and trying to turn a profit yourself.

(edit: typo)