Apple Changes the APSL Rules

aitikin writes "Apple recently changed their license for the OS X kernel. According to semthex's post, Apple has reworded the APSL to prevent him and others from open sourcing the kernel hacking under the APSL: 'This file contains Original Code and/or Modifications of Original Code as defined in and that are subject to the Apple Public Source License Version 2.0 (the 'License'). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. The rights granted to you under the License may not be used to create, or enable the creation or redistribution of, unlawful or unlicensed copies of an Apple operating system, or to circumvent, violate, or enable the circumvention or violation of, any terms of an Apple operating system software license agreement.'"

"Operating system"

I suppose if you stretch the meaning of the words "operating system" like you stretched your mom's belly in the womb, you could somehow come to the conclusion that Apple is trying to restrict you from developing and releasing your little application. If you read it like a normal human being who's stretching your mom's baby hole, you'd understand that Apple doesn't want you to release the suite of open applications as a whole.

I am disturbed to see that people would jump so hard on this non-issue.

Re:"Operating system"

I wouldn't exactly call this a non issue but basically you are right I can still develop my little application and I can still screw around with the OS just like I have been. I suppose I won't be able to go out and buy a dual socket motherboard and two of Intel's new quad core chips and gobs of memory and expect to easily or legitimately run Mac OS on it. But I'm fairly sure that does not impinge on my liberty or my human rights.

Nice bad analogy... btw.

Re:"Operating system"

Indeed. I fail to see how this affects anyone's kernel hacking, unless of course they were hacking in such a way that it enabled the violation of other Apple licenses, and they intended to release it. If thats what this guy was doing, all I can say is tough shit, hippy.

Once you pay for a product, according to first sale law, you are permitted to make modifications to it.

The DMCA prohibits most reverse engineering, except that which is done for the purposes of interoperability. While this does not involve reverse engineering (the code is provided) I feel that this indicates a legal attitude that interoperability is valuable and protected.

Making the software run on hardware not approved by Apple is an interoperability issue.

Running the software on non-Apple hardware is a violation of the license.

A kernel patch that would allow the software to run on non-Apple hardware would seem to provide only interoperability, and would seem to be valid under first sale law, which protects your rights to make modifications to things which you have purchased.

Apple is both relying on the legal validity of a shrink-wrap license which you do not sign, AND doing all they can to take away your first sale rights.

Apple is seeking to separate you from your rights. This is wrong no matter what you say about it. Apple is also strengthening the validity of the shrinkwrap license if they pull this off, which benefits no user.

If you accept this kind of behavior from Apple, they will continue to step on your rights.

Re:"Operating system"

Let me make this clear. You do not purchase the product but rather a license to use the software.

Let me make this clear. That is far from a given and it can be argued either way in court. Please read this wikipedia bit on The first-sale doctrine and computer software [wikipedia.org] before you come on like a hard-on again - while I am not a lawyer, clearly you are not either, and you should be sure you know what you're talking about before you open your big fat mouth. To wit, from the linked page:

Federal district courts in California and Texas have issued decisions applying the doctrine of first sale for bundled computer software in Softman v. Adobe (2001) and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. (2000) even if the software contains a EULA prohibiting resale. In the Softman case, after purchasing bundled software (A box containing many programs that are also available individually) from Adobe Systems, Softman unbundled it and then resold the component programs. The court ruled that Softman could resell the bundled software, no matter what the EULA stipulates, because Softman had never assented to the EULA. Specifically, the ruling decreed that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other words, the court ruling argued that California consumers should have the same rights they would enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book.

In a more recent case involving software EULA's and first-sale rights [Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway Inc (2004)][2], the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued a ruling which appears to contradict the position of the district courts in California and Texas. The first sale reasoning of the Softman court was challenged, with the court ruling "The first sale doctrine is only triggered by an actual sale. Accordingly, a copyright owner does not forfeit his right of distribution by entering into a licensing agreement." In addition, the court found the plaintiff's EULA, which prohibited resale, was binding on the defendants because "The defendants .. expressly consented to the terms of the EULA and Terms of Use by clicking 'I Agree' and 'Agree.'" This runs counter to Softman v. Adobe. The difference in these rulings has yet to be resolved by a higher court.

Or, as I said, it could be seen either way. It has not yet been resolved, so this falls into the area of legal ambiguity.

Ultimately, as Greg Graffin says in the song he wrote for the punk band he's fronted since the eighties, Bad Religion, entitled "YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT":

You are the government.
You are jurisprudence.
You are the volition.
You are juridiction.
And I make a difference too.

You are clearly purchasing a product when you buy software, especially if you are given the physical media. Outside of copyright law, you have the right to do anything you like with the physical media. When I buy a magazine, I am not interested in the physical magazine so much as the data, yet I can do anything I like with either one so long as I am not violating copyright law.

How is software any different? I have purchased a physical copy of the media; the law says that so long as I transfer it and any copies, it is irrelevant whether it is software, music, or a book; I may sell it to another.

If you think that's it's okay that this is the way the system works, then that's fine. Live within its confines and, as it closes on you, reflect that YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT.

I think if there's one thing we can do to bring about societal change, it should be to inform all citizens that, as potential jurors, they can vote "not guilty" not only if they feel that a person did not violate the letter of the law, but also if they feel they

Ah well.

Apple attempts to plug license hole which was used to circumvent Apple's valid (even if unwelcome) desire to protect own commercial interests. Locals up in arms. Villagers outraged.

Re:Ah well.

Apple is a corporation. The only "interests" they keep in mind are their profits. Too many people talk about Apple like they're some sort of fracking philanthropy that only makes money as a side-effect of their noble works. They're not. They're a business and they have an obligation to make money by selling their products, not just giving them away.

Apple doesn't want you porting their OS over to your generic Intel system. They want you to buy one of THEIR systems. Deal with it.

-Eric

Excellent phrasing

I think Apple has done a very smart thing for a CSL (customer source license) by specifically limiting the use in such ways.

I would be more restrictive -- the source is available for debugging purposes only, and may only be modified through it's core project. I view using/linking CSL code as a variant on LGPL -- I don't care about the specifics of how code is linked (static, DLL, dynamic, whatever), just that any and all changes to such code must be submitted to the core project regardless of where someone deploys the changes.

i.e. No GPL escape clause of "internal use only" that lets weasels try to lawyer their way out of releasing changes by hiding apps behind web interfaces (the equivalent of screen scrapers IMNSHO.)

Re:Excellent phrasing

So far Apple has done open source as a publicity stunt

Linux weenies consistently miss the point of Darwin. It's not another BSD distro, it's ther for the convenience of Mac developers who have to work with kernel code, such as driver writers and third-party hardware manufacturers.

-jcr

Someone at Apple woke up...

Someone at Apple woke up one morning and said..

"Wait.. you mean that by opening this up we won't have iron clad control over everything the user does with the product? And who is this in bed with me?!?!?!"

More licensing options

I _really_ wish Apple would work out more licensing options --- if they're not going to make a replacement for my Newton MessagePad, the least they could do would be to allow licensing Mac OS X for use on hardware which doesn't compete w/ their products.

As much as I like my NeXT Cube at home, and Mac OS X at work or on my wife's Powerbook, I'm simply not willing to give up the flexibility of having a tablet computer w/ integrated graphics tablet capability (I currently use a Fujitsu Stylistic), or to go back to schlepping a graphics tablet around w/ my laptop as I did before I got my NCR-3125.

William
(who really wishes that there was a better handwriting recognition system for Linux than xscribble)

Summary:

Summary: "This licence can't be used to create unlicenced copies".

DUH. That doesn't rule out much. You can't do that on the GPL either.

indignant surprise in 3... 2... 1

Reminds me of the old "frog and scorpion" or "Navajo and the snake" stories... someone gets together with a known enemy (OSS advocates cozying up to Apple), and then later, when the enemy screws them over, they get all indignant and surprised.

No longer open source?

The fact that the license prohibits you from doing illegal things may not be a problem. However, it also appears to to claim that you may not modify the software in such a way that it allows the circumvention of EULAs. Depending on jurisdiction, there appears to be some degree of uncertainty about whether EULAs are legally enforcable. So, in effect, one of the limitations of this license may be that it prevents you from doing some things that are perfectly legal, but which Apple don't want you to do. It's pretty easy to argue that that sort of restriction prevents it from genuinely being an open source license, in much the same way that a license that said "You may not use this code to produce a Windows version of the product" wouldn't be an open source license.

Note that I'm not passing any sort of judgement on Apple here. It's their code, and they absolutely have the right to do what they want with it. I'm surprised that they feel that unauthorised use of the OS on PCs is sufficiently important that they need to restrict their license terms to make it harder, but, well.

The GPL doesn't limit this sort of thing - you're permitted to use the code for anything, but there are certain limitations on how the resulting work may be distributed. The distinction is subtle, but real.

Darwin is no longer Open Source

People are missing an important fact here: Darwin is no longer Open Source under the Open Source Definition [opensource.org]:

• 3. Derived Works
  

  
  The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
  
  

• 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
  

  
  The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
  
  

• 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
  

  
  The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
  

What does this mean for the APSL?

Does it mean the new APSL is no longer OSI complient?
Does it mean that its no longer "free software" (and that the GNU project will start listing it on its "licences to avoid" list again?)

On the other hand, it should mean that apple will continue to provide kernel source code for both x86 and ppc quite quickly after kernel releases since if someone does use it to pirate osx, apple can sue them right away (and force removal of the source code)

Not an APSL change - but strange things afoot

I don't think we've seen an APSL change yet, given that statement is from the header from each file - not the APSL. (Header in full posted below.) However, what is more puzzling to me is the shift from APSL 2.0 back to APSL 1.1 (the non-Free one) with regards to Xnu done sometime before 10.3.9 but post 10.3. It was not immediately clear if this was a mistake or a marks a policy shift. While on one hand, the APSL that you have to agree to is 2.0, and what few other projects that ship with the APSL file is 2.0, and the Xnu project itself is also labelled with the 2.0 license, the file included is 1.1 which I find hard to believe could have gone this long without someone noticing if it was a mistake.
"/*
* Copyright (c) 2000 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.
*
* @APPLE_LICENSE_OSREFERENCE_HEADER_START@
*
* This file contains Original Code and/or Modifications of Original Code
* as defined in and that are subject to the Apple Public Source License
* Version 2.0 (the 'License'). You may not use this file except in
* compliance with the License. The rights granted to you under the
* License may not be used to create, or enable the creation or
* redistribution of, unlawful or unlicensed copies of an Apple operating
* system, or to circumvent, violate, or enable the circumvention or
* violation of, any terms of an Apple operating system software license
* agreement.
*
* Please obtain a copy of the License at
* http://www.opensource.apple.com/apsl/ [apple.com] and read it before using this
* file.
*
* The Original Code and all software distributed under the License are
* distributed on an 'AS IS' basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AND APPLE HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL SUCH WARRANTIES,
* INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, QUIET ENJOYMENT OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
* Please see the License for the specific language governing rights and
* limitations under the License.
* * @APPLE_LICENSE_OSREFERENCE_HEADER_END@
*/

Still the same license?

IANAL, but does this just count as additional limitation under the same license, or would the reworked license count as a new license altogether (i.e. not the same version 2.0 [opensource.org] that OSI approved)

If not, would it not need to be recertified?

"unlicensed copies of an Apple operating system"

I am not sure what this means. Does it mean that an open source OS must be named differently?
Probably clarification from Apple is needed.

aitikin is a dumbass

The OSx86 project is far more than "kernel hacking." Nothing whatsoever prevents you from hacking Darwin as much as you want. Admittedly, it would have been less ambiguous for them to prohibit unlawful or unlicensed copies of an Apple-branded operating system, or a commercially available Apple operating system, but its meaning is clear enough to stand up in court if they were to sue you for hacking on Darwin.

Semthex's OSx86 project may be out-of-luck-ish (I don't know the OS X EULA - if running OS X on non-Apple hardware doesn't trigger the "unlawful or unlicensed" condition, then it seems fine to me).

Incidentally, Apple's legal department isn't that great. As far as I know, they still haven't updated the AppleCare terms and conditions to cover displays bought with MacBooks and MacBook Pros. "Apple covers the Covered Equipment and one Apple branded display if purchased at the same time and registered with a covered Mac mini, PowerBook, or Power Mac computer." Apple Computer, AppleCare Protection Plan Section 1(a)(i), available at http://www.apple.com/legal/applecare/appna.pdf [apple.com].

PS - Anyone know why the section symbol ( ), entity §, isn't showing up?

Dual licensed software

Look at the dual licensed software out there. Copyright owners have a right to license as they see fit. Abusing the spirit of the APSL by distributing patches that allowed for patching pirated versions of OS X with Darwin code would be the same as taking any additional documentation supplied in a dual licensed situation and including it with the Open Sourced code.

This kernel hacker was violating the copyrights of Apple. It does not matter what license they used, their copyrights remain intact. Circumventing the dual licensed MySQL would be just a illegal as what this guy was doing.

It's hard to take the poster seriously

I did RTFA but it's hard to take the poster seriously when he starts off with three typos in the first sentence:

"Appe silently as usal changed the APSL text distributed with the latest released sources to make further work on it imposssible."

A History of Hypocrites ...

I have two comments to make.

1. In the late 1990's, Sun decreed that ANY employee who ported Linux to a Sun workstation would be FIRED. Hey, look at SUN now !! Aint they do'in great ??

2. When Xerox invented the laser printer, it was a 4-week job by the PARC PhD's who did brain surgery on a copier, adding a spinning mirror and a computer interface. It took THREE MONTHS, however, to write the software. Now Apple, the "THINK DIFFERENT" company that will supposedly "SET YOU FREE", is restricting what you can do with their products. What a buncha Scooter Libbeys !!! (I was gonna say "Benedict Arnolds" but realized the overseas people might not understand what I was talking about ...)

'nuff said

Re:Must Preserve That Apple Tax

Expense, yes, but quality no. I'd love to have more Macs around if I could afford them. The ones I have just wont die, and I never tire of looking at them. Of course, I'm perfectly happy typing this response on my Dell Insprion 9300, running Ubuntu.

Re:Must Preserve That Apple Tax

It's their right... they developed the software. Your trollish comments about expense or quality have absolutely no bearing on the situation.

Re:They should give up their right.

Apple is not a software company. They write software - some of it quite good - but they are a hardware company. At this point, they are phenomenally profitable for a PC vendor, and probably care little about trying to achieve profitability down the road-less-traveled. Arguing that Apple should open source their operating system is like arguing that one of the car manufacturers should open up their engine-control software - it removes a core advantage of their hardware and makes you less likely to buy it. If you are tired of car analogies, use Boeing's flight control software or IBM's mainframe code.

Now if you want to argue that it is in Apple's best interest to become a software company, you'd have plenty of company. Personally, I think it would be nuts to try to compete with Microsoft and all of the various UNIX-type OSes out there.

Oy.

Apple's purpose in releasing any of their source is to make sure people can write apps and add-ons that make OSX an uber-amazing OS that runs on museum-worthy hardware and makes people want to buy more of their systems.

You can modify 99% of what happens on a Mac through writing apps and add-ons and tweaking the system through available source.

Apple, and every other for-profit computer company has to balance the attractive value of the modifications they allow against the remaining allowances that would torpedo their business model.

Hence opening everything would not be in their best interest. Beyond that, the serial grousing about the APSL limits is a bit like grousing that your fork isn't on the left. It will still get food to your mouth.

And let's see - that last paragraph pretty much says "that's a nice computer company youse got there - wouldn't want nothin' to happen to it, if you know what I mean - I'm not sayin' anything, I'm just sayin'..."

Please. You're going to stop recommending Apple to grandma and her gamer grandkids who will never EVER need the sort of kernel mods that you are discussing here. Never mind that when they get to the Apple store how much influence do you think the dire warnings of their local Nick Burns (or was that Christopher Moltisanti?) is going to have in the face of great hardware that can run the three major OSs? How soon do you think we'll hear "Sorry, Steve, but Boeing's going to WalMart for Linspire boxes - hey, but you call us when we can totally hack your kernel."

Re:They should give up their right.

Apple's licensing is from an age that has (thankfully) passed us by: the age of proprietary software.
What color are the little elves and pixies on your planet? Are they friendly?

-jcr

Re:Slashtards

The key difference being, those who choose (notice the emphasis on choose) to run OS X to fulfill their computer needs enjoy their experience. I support Apple because I think OS X kicks ass, and have no trouble paying to enable further development of a solid OS and cool hardware. Seeing teenagers download my favorite OS for free, or seeing the experience cheapened in the eyes of others because its running on unsupported hardware bothers me.

And Microsoft already does do this; last time I checked I couldn't recompile XP to run on my PPC PowerMac. None of Microsoft's licenses are even close to open source, while a number of Apple's key technology are.

Re:Slashtards

My little sister's a whore. But it's not too late to keep my OS pure. It's all I've got left.

Re:Slashtards

That's because Microsoft is honest about their position towards FOSS and Apple isn't. At least you know where you stand with Microsoft, but with Apple, they do the bare minimum with FOSS -- just enough to let the Apple fanboys use the argument "Apple DOES do Open Source!

Microsoft has been promoting their software as open for years with their "shared source" initiative. Apple has been producing and selling both open and closed source software for years as it fits with their business interests. The situation is only unlcear if you try to oversimplify as "Microsoft..closed...bad, Apple...open..good." The real world does not work that way. Apple releases a lot of software as open because they recognize the advantages of open source and believe in that model. This is not philanthropy, it is good business. The same goes for IBM. Nothing forced Apple to release their zeroconf implementation as open source, or even to help port it to Linux. They didn't do it because they want people to like them either. They did it to promote the technology and interoperability and new standards. We all benefit, and so does Apple. That is how open source is supposed to work.

What it isn't open ENOUGH for you? Fanatic.

I think anyone arguing here that Apple is screwing people over is probably a fanatic. Apple is in compliance with the license chosen by the people who wrote the code. Anyone who thinks they know better than those coders and everything should be treated like GPL is being fanatical.

Not that I don't think people should not complain about what Apple is doing if they want to or try to convince them to be less restrictive (although in this case I don't care). Just be clear that whiners don't have some sort of moral high ground here. It is just as ethical for Apple to close their kernel as it is for them to keep it open. Anyone who wants it released one way or another is arguing their own (perceived) best interest, and nothing more. I'd like Apple to give me 10 million bucks, but I don't think they have a moral obligation to do so.

Re:This is the sort of thing keeping me away.

You are so full of shit my cable modem is starting to smell.

If you bought a Mac, the license change has pretty much no effect on you, since it only targets changes to software that DOES NOT RUN ON APPLE HARDWARE.

Re:Apple is more heavy-handed then Microsoft

Yeah, why doesn't Apple just release its kernel under the GPL like Microsoft? Oh wait.

They're being pretty damn generous even letting you see the source code. If you don't like the license, don't view the source, it's not necissary.

Re:Apple is more heavy-handed then[sic] Microsoft

Oh wait, what's that? News flash, Apple borrows FreeBSD code to base their kernel on and what does the Open Source community get for it?

I won't argue the accuracy of your statement because it is irrelevant, but I think it important to answer your question. The "Open Source Community" and specifically the developers who wrote the BSD licensed code Apple adopted for their OS got exactly what they asked for. They got their code more widely used and on a lot more desktops than they could otherwise have hoped for. They helped define the standard, promoted interoperability, and gained in reputation.

The BSD license doesn't force you to keep the source open, but for fuck's sake, you got it for free.

You seem to be of the opinion that those who developed the code were morons. They intended to license their code as GPL, but they were just too dumb, or they copy and pasted the wrong thing or some such thing. They really wanted the code to remain open to all, even if that made companies like Apple choose something else. I submit that you're assuming that the "community" should ethically be able to restrict code and keep it open, even when the developers who put in all the hard work specifically licensed it otherwise.

You're saying you wouldn't at all feel obligated to support the industry that provided you with the basis of your entire wildly popular operating system?

Apple supports the "industry" but that is not relevant here. Apple supported the individuals who developed the code they used in exactly the way those developers asked them to. They have kept it open in that people can see it and suggest modifications/fixes which is a huge step up on some other possibilities. It also keeps them in step with the rest of the industry. Because they have some of the same underlying code it means developers can target both OS X and FreeBSD more easily with less work.

If you have a beef, bring it up with the people who wrote the code and licensed it via a BSD license. They did all the work and make all the rules. Your assumption that the rules they chose are wrong is presumptuous.

Re:Slashtards

No, just the usual band of Apple apologists. Just about the only positive thing you can say is that it probably has no useful validity in practice.

Apple really wants to have its cake and eat it. It wants to benefit from Open Source as a PR thing (its shown no signs of actually wanting contributions from the community), and as a way to get cheap source code (as in drawing in large tracts of BSD code to help build the first Darwin), but it really doesn't like this "Freedom" thing much.

You know, if Microsoft did this, I don't think anyone would care. Microsoft isn't actually promoting itself as a provider of open source. Apple is. They really should remove this [apple.com] and this [apple.com] images from their web pages. [apple.com] It would at least be a little more honest.

Re:Must Preserve That Apple Tax

I reckon Apple would do better to have Mac OS XI as true open source -- as in GPL or, if they've really got the bollocks, BSD licence. They could continue to make truly wonderful hardware like the iPod range, and supply the all-important drivers to allow it to be used to its full potential with OS XI Macs. Imagine Apple printers, built like old HPs and running on cheap generic bulk ink. Imagine Apple scanners, that actually work. Right now, nobody is making peripherals that are anything but crap; and the market has no choice but to put up with this. An Open Source Mac OS XI could be spread far and wide. Running it on cheap no-name hardware is going to be a no-brainer. Being Open Source, Apple won't then have to worry about piracy. Instead they can concentrate on making stuff that actually works.

Till you come up with a better way to make money..

Apple would do better for WHO? You or Apple? Do you open source people even think these suggestions through from the standpoint of the business making the code? Do you know anything about business? Seriously?

As for peripherials I don't know what crap your using but my Hewlett Packard 3-in-1 Printer/Copier/Scanner works by just plugging it into my Mac. No installing software or drivers or anything....It Just Works. So why does Apple need to GPL its OS again?

You are aware that Apple is a hardware company right? They make most of their profits from hardware. Insane margins like 25% on hardware sales. From Macs, not iPods. Just exactly how are they going to replicate that lost revenue if they open source the OS allowing it to be run on any cheap generic PC? Do you REALLY think they'll be able to sell enough copies of OS X to make up for that? And at what price? Right now OS X sells for $130. Apple would have to up the price to $250 or more, maybe even $400. Who's going to buy an alternative OS thats that expensive when they can just stick with Windows?