CUPS Purchased By Apple Inc.

Rick Richardson writes to note a posting on cups.org that reveals that Apple, which in 2002 first licensed CUPS for printing in OS X, purchased the source code last February and hired its main developer, Michael R. Sweet. Sweet writes: "CUPS will still be released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms, and I will continue to develop and support CUPS at Apple." There are no comments on the post. What exactly did Apple purchase? It was and is an open source project. Trademarks aren't mentioned.

Trademarks Mentioned Here

http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L180+I0+TFAQ+M10+ P1+Q [cups.org]

Apple Inc. has trademarked the Common UNIX Printing System, CUPS, and CUPS logo. These names and logos may be used freely in any direct port or binary distribution of CUPS. To use them in derivative products, please contract Apple Inc. for written permission. Our intention is to protect the value of these trademarks and ensure that any derivative product meets the same high-quality standards as the original.

Keeping Up With the Jones'

CUPS Purchased By Apple Inc.

In a blind attempt to compete, Microsoft has announced they have purchased MUGS [mugheaven.com].

What exactly did Apple purchase?

Well, Microsoft doesn't know and Microsoft doesn't care ... gentlemen, the race to be the ultimate provider of a liquid serving technology has begun.

What's transferred

What exactly did Apple purchase?

It says right there in the post. "Apple Inc. acquired ownership the CUPS source code." So they are now the copyright holder rather than Michael Sweet. This allows them to provide the code under other licenses, and does not bind Apple's use of the code. To prevent issues with contributions interfering with this, they hired Mr. Sweet to maintain the source code, thus making it a work-for-hire arrangement.

Open Source projects are usually encumbered from this sort of aquisition because of the large number of contributors. In the case of CUPS, it was originally developed by Sweet's company: Easy Software Products. Since he had a company set up around it, it's likely that he ensured that any accepted contributions were provided with special rights to his company.

Trademarks aren't mentioned.

According to the USPTO, the trademark registration for "Common UNIX Printing System" has expired. I was unable to find a registration for "CUPS". Thus my guess is that the unregistered trademark will follow the code as that is simply its name. It *is* Common Unix Printing System. So unless they change the name now (which it doesn't sound like they will) Apple will probably own the mark as well.

CUPS web interface not up to par

Clearly, Apple didn't like CUPS' poop-brown web interface. Their only option was to buy it and make it white/blue/brushed aluminum.

Re:CUPS web interface not up to par

In fact the CUPS on OS X is so flawlessly working that nobody has clue they have "CUPS" or ever visited the famous 127.0.0.1:631 on their browser. I bet most would be surprised to see that page.

I think now Apple in control, they may make it same way on Linux that only actual system admins would care about the CUPS interface and end users may have a similar feeling on Linux/FreeBSD.

CUPS must be also used at large corporate Windows based hosts or anywhere that actually have a real postscript printer. I mean of course there must be a actual printing server running its Professional edition.

This may really prove good for Linux and FreeBSD. Look how they made a Mach/NeXT/FreeBSD hybrid (OS X) usable.

"What exactly did Apple purchase?"

"What exactly did Apple purchase? It was and is an open source project. Trademarks aren't mentioned. "

Perhaps, oh, the source code? Just like it says?

Under the GPL, the author does NOT give up his rights to do whatever the hell he wants with the code, including sell it. The GPL simply grants others the right to copy and distribute the code, subject to certain limitations.

Now Apple owns the copyright to the code. They can take it closed, relicense it, dual license it, or use it for ass paper. But the stuff already release under the GPL remains there. Why is any of this so hard to understand?

Apple purchased two things

1) The developer and his skill. My guess is they want it worked on and expanded. Much easier to get that done when you are paying a guy to do it full time. There's only so much you can do for a hobby.

2) The ability to use the code under other licenses. If Apple now owns the source and the developer, they can use (and license) the code under a non-GPL license if they wish. Somewhat similar to QT.

Don't give up your copyright to a single person

The real issue for open source development I see was that Sweet violated an implicit understanding. Everyone transferred their copyrights to him, but there was the idea that the project was open source. How many of those developers would have done the work if they knew or thought Sweet would do this? I bet many of them would not have contributed. By giving up their copyright they lost their entire stake in the matter.

The real lesson here is that the idea that the developers should pool their copyrights into one person is flawed. That person can then cash out. The get all the profits for everyone else's work. The other developers lose out on both getting a piece of the pie if they would have wanted that, and they lose out in the moral sense in that if they didn't want their code to suddenly become part of a closed source project, they have no say in it anymore.

I think that in the future open source developers should be more cautious about giving away their copyrights. Also, I hope that open source developers will start forking projects that are being developed by companies and groups that require that the copyright be transferred.

Re:RMS Proffing

As he was the primary developer he had rights to license his code it in multiple ways as he saw fit.

Actually, the primary developer does not have that right. The reason why CUPS has that right is because they required that the copyright to code modifications be transferred to Easy Software Products before the modification will be accepted into the main branch.

Re:RMS Proffing

So your saying that the primary developer did have that right because all the copyrights where transfered to the primary developer. A practice started and encouraged by the FSF by the way.

All in all this is probably just a GPLv2/GPLv3 worry. Apple uses CUPS for it's printing setup. As long as the project stays GPL v2 it will only benefit from having someone who can push printers to a standard printer, thus making printing even better in Linux, and the BSD's.

Re:RMS Proffing

A few days ago, I said that the only way to successfully fork a large, complex project (which you may well wish to do if you don't like a license change) is to hire a developer who's important to it [slashdot.org].

Sounds like this is exactly what Apple's done. GPLv3 has a few clauses in there that Apple probably don't much like (eg. the patents bit) and they probably don't much fancy reinventing the printing wheel - the risk of CUPS going GPLv3 versus the cost of just buying ESP outright is probably well worth it.

so you're saying...

that this all comes down to RMS and some printer drivers... again? :)

Re:RMS Proffing

In what way was it hostile? Apple offered to pay the primary developer for his rights. He agreed.

You may not like Apple bought the rights or you may not like that the developer "sold out", but unless Apple applied some type of pressure that was neither written about nor implied by TFA, how was the transaction hostile?

Re:RMS Proffing

It uses GCC, but they hate it, or better yet, they hate that they have to use a product under the GPL. Steve Jobs tried to get special rights from the FSF to use GCC in NextStep, and the FSF said no, never. So, NeXT used GCC - the runtime part of Objective-C was proprietary though - and had to share the Objective-C support. I have little doubts that Apple will try to use/make another compiler as soon as they can so they can avoid having to share their changes.

Re:RMS Proffing

I have little doubts that Apple will try to use/make another compiler as soon as they can so they can avoid having to share their changes.

Indeed, Apple is active in the LLVM [llvm.org] project, a non-copyleft optimizing compiler backend. Currently, to make any real-world use of it, you have to use GCC as the frontend, but Apple is working on that problem, too [osnews.com].

Re:RMS Proffing

I know that Apple if active in GCC development. They are putting work into it, and work which I personally take advantage of and I am particulary thankful for. That's no the question though... Apple has done one nice thing, which was working with the rest of the GCC team to integrate their changes: they are *not* required to do this by the GPL. This is great, mainly for Objective-C support, and also for Apple since they can reap the beneficts of other changes in newer GCC versions. The thing is, when all is said and done they do part of this because they are required to by the GPL. I'm not at all sure they would do the same if they weren't required to, and with LLVM they are aiming at not depending on GCC and call their own shots (undertandable from a business POV, even though they could more or less do the same with GCC given their involvement).

In the end it's a matter of control: Apple contributes to GCC but I think they feel a bit "forced" to do it, and would prefer to work on something of their own, something which they could control what parts get shared and which don't, and under which terms.

Re:RMS Proffing

This is however different for two main reasons...

1) The individual that sold the rights to the code to Apple had full rights to all of the source code even if some of it had been contributed by others (he required this).

2) If (1) wasn't true then that individual couldn't sell the rights to code he himself didn't have the rights to and given the use of the GPL then Apple would have to remove the use of all code that they didn't purchase if they desired to do any type of relicensing, etc.

In other words Apple couldn't get the whole thing by just buying out a simple majority of the stake holders. So this in reality is rather different then a hostile take over in the traditional meaning of the term.

Re:RMS Proffing

Wait, what? How can some fork and relicense as GPL v3? The current license is GPL/LGPL v2 only. Without the "or later" clause, wouldn't that be a license violation? Am I missing something?

Re:RMS Proffing

Legally, I suppose it would be within your right to create a fork under GPL2 but ethically and morally it would be stealing since the original copyright holder (Michael R Sweet) was the main contributor and any other patch contributors assigned rights to him before they were included in the repository. You would basically be carrying out a coupe and violating the spirit of the license if not the letter of it by taking something none of you owned and creating a fork of it.

Bullshit. Taking the GPL2 codebase and forking it (still under the GPL2 since only the copyright owner can change the licensing) wouldn't be stealing at all. When CUPS was licensed under the GPL, the owner was declaring to the world that anyone is allowed to take the code and, within the rights granted by the GPL, do whatever they want with it. This includes forking.

Seriously, if the project hadn't been GPL'd in the first place, do you think it would have received such broad support from the community and gotten where it is today functionality-wise?

Re:No big deal

Nope. From the FAQ: (emphasis added by me)

CUPS was written by Michael R Sweet, an owner of Easy Software Products. In February of 2007 Apple Inc. hired Michael and acquired ownership the CUPS source code. While Michael is primarily working on non-CUPS projects, he will continue to develop and support CUPS, which is still being released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms.

Re:Open source != Public Domain

Except that Sweet required that copyrights for all code be transferred to his company.

Re:GPL License Exceptions

You may therefore distribute linked combinations of the CUPS imaging library with Apple OS-Developed Software without releasing the source code of the Apple OS-Developed Software.

Note, this exception has been there for the last 5 years:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/05/msg00 033.html [debian.org]

Re:GPL License Exceptions

How you doin', Socrates?

Free/Open Source Software is just used by Apple as a way to outsource development -- for free (as in beer). This proves it.

And how does it prove it?

They bought CUPS and hired Michael Sweet just to ensure that they don't have to open-source any portion of Mac OS X that's not already open source.

Oh. Okay.

So. Apple buying the rights to CUPS and hiring its lead developer is proof that Apple uses open-sourced software for zero-cost development?

The only thing you're missing is "Soviet Russia."

Re:Apple's History with "Open Source"

" For example, integrating colorsync or letting the gui die from benign neglect as Apple adds code that breaks the gui."

Apple will correct colours whatever opportunity they will have. Even their Windows Safari comes with colour correction. Colorsync is all XML based format and Apple is not Pantone, never said they can't use/implement Colorsync. In fact in early days of Mozilla while nobody cares about it except few remaining Netscape fans, they offered Colorsync free to it. It took 5-6 years for the current Firefox finally implement it. Dozens of DTP professionals, credible graphics artists and even companies like IBM feedback didn't help to take it serious.

"I'd like to hear from some people who work on Konqueror how much Apple is contributing. "

I was on webkit channel for a while, all I saw is Apple Inc. coders giving up everything they have in hand and helping free /opensource OS developers to implement/manage webkit compile process on other operating systems. Forget that, the Konqueror 4 in KDE 4 will have very very similar rendering engine with Safari.

Another thing. Webkit reviewers http://webkit.org/blog/95/lots-of-new-reviewers/ [webkit.org]

"Lars Knoll - Lars is the original creator of KHTML, and has been doing a lot of work in the WebKit tree to port it back to Qt, and has also submitted some general refactoring patches and bug fixes. "

"Nikolas Zimmermann - Niko is the co-creator of KSVG2, with Rob Buis. In addition to all his original work on KSVG2 (and KDOM), Niko has been working in the WebKit tree for a while now, mostly on SVG fixes and improvements but also in other areas."

"George Staikos - New port reviewer for Qt port. George started the effort to port WebKit back to Qt, in the form of the Unity project."

As ordinary user, not a developer, I see Apple offers the core of Tiger operating system, launchd open source (really open) completely free and nobody implementing it to their distros.

I begun to suspect that "Apple never gives back to open source" is something similar to "one button mouse" never ending story.

Re:Was it really open source?

You appear to be confused. How does Adobe "own" PostScript? The newer revisions may be hindered by patents, but the earlier language levels are decades old at this point and long past the point of having patents. The language is highly standardized and well documented.

That CUPS is "built around" PostScript is unsurprising, as it's been the Unix standard for printing for decades. Applications write PostScript and hand it off to a printer demon. And this is hardly a CUPS issue. If your printer natively handles PostScript, CUPS doesn't do any PostScript processing; it just merrily hands your input off to the printer. CUPS only cares if your printer doesn't support PostScript, in which case it hands the PostScript input to GNU GhostScript (another old open source product) which interprets the PostScript and converts it to something your printer can handle. If PostScript were somehow proprietary, I'm pretty sure the Free Software Foundation wouldn't be shipping GhostScript [gnu.org].