FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License 344
Stian Engen writes "Bradley Kuhn of the FSF does not recommend the release of new software using the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0 despite its
newly accuired Free Software License."
And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, I'm pretty sure that if you find out flaws in the GPL, or devise a new license including ideas that the FSF didn't think of, the FSF will certainly consider these ideas, and eventually include them in the GPL if they are valid.
Re:And?!? (Score:2)
Re:And?!? (Score:2)
Vague? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think FSF're vague, but Apple... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, Apple are at heart more or less as greedy and controlling as the next company, but consider how much of MS-Windows, OS/400 or Solaris has been distributed on terms anything like as good as these. Then can you tell me that a step forward hasn't been made here?
I believe that FSF are right to point out the remaining deficiencies in the licence, but they really could have put more effort into thanking Apple for coming to the party as much as they have.
Here's a suggestion for the FSF: set up a Corporate Heroes page, and put stuff like OpenVMS, OpenOffice.org and so on which has been GPLed by a corporation up in there in big print with links and logos. Then add a link to an "honourable mentions" page which mentions (in fine print, no logos) efforts like Apple's which are incomplete or grudging, but yet are progress in the right direction. ANy who care will get the hint. (-:
Damn hippies (Score:2)
I hope I haven't put on the Mccarthy's list!
Re:And?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Af
look at the first non-GPL compatable liscense. They clearly accept changes that match their Dogma.
Re:And?!? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
and be compensated by the fsf? if it looks like a duck...
Re:And?!? (Score:2)
It's not about "free" anything. It's about Socialism, to use one of the kinder labels available.
Yeah, I know, you're thinking socialism = communism. It's not. And socialism can coexist perfectly well with capitalism. Just look at most European countries.
Not that this is in any way relevant - the FSF is about freedom and making sure that people can get the most out of software, and making software more useful for people.
Free Foftware is as communist as church! (Score:5, Insightful)
When a congregation collectively works together to feed the poor by cooking and delivering large amounts of free food, is that communism too? The restaurant owner next door might lose some business. How about when the congregation runs a car wash to collect money toward housing renovations for the poor? Is that communism? The car wash owner down the street might think so. Is it communism when individuals donate a few bucks after Sunday service? Isn't that -- by your line of logic -- communism too?
It's not though. Communism is -- by definition -- ideology enforced by governmental institution and bears no relationship to individuals, acting on principals of free association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce (in this case the freedom to donate one's time and effort) toward a collective goal. You're simply red baiting free software authors for committing acts of FREEDOM in a free society. It is my right to donate money to church, the ACLU, EFF, or - *gasp* - even the FSF. Just as it's my right to donate code under whatever license I might choose. A very different proposition from the government forcing me to give my code away under communism, or for that matter, a government which prevents me from giving my code away. In both cases, we're talking about government restricting individual freedom and rights to enforce a certain ideology.
Communism my ass.
--Maynard
Re:Free Foftware is as communist as church! (Score:4, Insightful)
What a crock. Communism "evolves" through freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of commerce? Take a "concept" and then "enforce" it? How? RMS et all picking up arms and forcing free software upon us all at the point of a barrel? Are you kidding me? You're spewing bullshit and don't even take the trouble to form a coherent argument linking point A to B to C in a chain. It's net.kook ramblings rather than any kind of meaningful exchange.
Here, instead I'll ask you: What policy change would you enact to stop this dangerous spread of free software "communism", while at the same time maintaining our basic constitutional rights and freedoms? Just how do you call society "free" if individuals are prevented from giving away (or selling, both are commerce) that which they create?
Somehow I doubt I'll receive a rational answer.
--Maynard
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what?
Maybe it's just me, but I really don't get the problem here. If you don't agree with their license, then you have a very simple option:
Don't Give Them Your Code
You're not being forced at gunpoint to write software for them under the APSL -- nobody is. It's the developer's personal choice. Your opinions frankly don't come into it at all.
Apple don't have to release any of their software as Open Source. They chose to do so. That's not good enough for you? I take it you'd prefer that they give away everything for free? Including the hardware? Or do you only view intellectual property as being worthless?
Re:And?!? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't Give Them Your Code
To which one might add, in order not to support them:
Don't Use Their Code
And, you know what,
That's all RMS is saying.
Apple don't have to release any of their software as Open Source.
No, they don't. But just because they do doesn't mean anybody owes them anything. Furthermore, just because some company throws out some piece of software "for free" doesn't mean they are above criticism or analysis. And if their software comes with too many strings attached, then that is certainly worth pointing out.
Or do you only view intellectual property as being worthless?
Well, I don't. Companies like Apple are free to do with their intellectual property what they like, and people like RMS are free to point out the problems with their licenses. OK?
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
What it seems to me that Apple sees some benefits to open source, and some disadvantages. For different products, the pros and cons of each lead to a determination of what sort of license to use.
Using open source packages like Apache, Python, Perl, OpenSSL, OpenSSH, OpenLDAP, KHTML, and FreeBSD's userland tools decreases their development time. Making systems like NetInfo, Rendezvous, Quicktime Streaming Server Open Source adds to potential wider adoption of their technologies. Using Open Source in these is a benefit to them
Keeping large portions of the OS X and OS X Server systems closed source allows them to collect significant financial rewards from their sale.
Apple seems to be viewing the complete financial picture when deciding a license for a product. The sales point of view: How many units can they sell? The engineering point of view: How long will it take to build. The marketing point of view:Are there enough products out there that work with ours that would make someone buy it. These points are weighed and a course of action chosen.
They aren't the only company with a dual closed source/open source strategy. The Zope company comes to mind. They fund Python development with their PythonLabs subsidiary. (That has always sort of reminded me of the way that SGI bought MIPS to ensure that the CPU their products were built on had continued development.) They create open source packages like ZODB, Zope, and CMF. They also sell packages built off these technologies like ZRS (Zope Replication Server, for replicated ZODBs) Zope4Media (A content management a publishing system) Again, Zope seems to carefully weigh the benefits of community development and wider adoption against the benefits of direct financial remuneration.
Re:And?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a historian, I must point out here that people's idea of socialism (as in my parent post) are often very wrong. We were all brought up to believe (those of us currently older than 12) that Russia is the devil, and that socialism and communism and marxism and stalinism are all equivilant, and all bad.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Merriam-Webster defines socialism as: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
Between Winston Churchill and Margret Thatcher (30 years), the UK was essentially a socialist system. The labour party, voted into office at the end of the war (in '45), recognized themselves as socailists, and their immediate goal was to set up a welfare state.
Did socialist Britain involve concentration camps, millions of civillians dead at the hands of their government, and widespread poverty? No. In fact, their goal (guided by the beverage report) was to establish the abolition of want.
The '45 government implemented the nationalization of the Bank of England (like our federal reserve), the Coal industry, the electric and gas industry, and various other industries, including steel and air transport (British Airways). They also passed the Insurance Act which provided unilaterial insurance for unemployment, sickness, and maternity leave, and they also passed the Health Services Act, which guaranteed free health care at the doctor of choice, including dental and eyecare.
Sounds good for me, I'm all about equality. If you can afford better, that's cool, but every one should enjoy a base-line equality that's above any sub-standard conditions.
And they did it without significantly raising the taxes above what people were already paying under Churchill in '44 to suppliment the war effort.
Socialism can go awry, just like capitalism can. The reason socialism sometimes gets a bad rap is because 1.) anti-russian upbringing in the US, 2.) when socialist governments go bad, people get screwed hard, because socialist ideology places *gasp* trust in human nature.
Linux isn't about socialism, it's capitalism in it's finest form.
How so? I don't think that linux is a political entity. However, it's CERTAINLY not capitalist. The very definition of capitalism involves free market enterprise, and giving away your product for free when you've worked long hard hours on it is a very anti-capitalist thing to do. Merriam Webster again: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. In a capitalist sense, linux should not exist, because price is indicitive of relative worth. Since linux is worthless (monitarily), it therefore follows that it should be worthless (as a product). If it had worth, as it's competition does, it would also cost a comparable amount to it's competition. In theory, if the product were not worthless (as a product), then people would be willing to pay for it, and therefore someone would sell it. Yet, no one sells linux. People sell proprietary drivers, support, and custom applications, but no one sells a kernel called "Linux".
And yet, despite the competition being, according to capitalist theory, "better" (by virtue of costing more), 63% of websites that netcraft tracks are running Apache.
This'll probably get me modded down to the basement...
I hope so. Not for your pro-microsoft statements (which most intelligent users of slashdot will agree with: in general, office is an excellent business productivit
Re:Darwinism vs. Socialism (Score:3, Informative)
(ok, synthesizing things from geography, british and russian history, economics, and poli-sci... done).
In china, at lease people are breeding because they want to have a male child. China is the home of the "20 million missing girls", based on the chinese birth rate, historically, of males:females, and the number of males:females that survive to age 1.
But, here in america, we're breeding based on height, weight, eye color, hair, and dancing ability.
I don't think that socialism or capitalism has to do with people breeding when they shouldn't. And I don't blame china for their economic policy regarding 1 child per family. From what I learned in human geography, China's population will continue to grow, even at 1 child per family and no children until age 22, until 2016. They will reach very hard economic times based simply on population growth, but if they had done nothing, there would have been widespread famine very quickly. They will hit 1.5 billion people before going down (they're at 1.2 now), and if they go much higher than 1.6, it's expected that many, many of them will die, and at 2.0 billion, it's expected that hundreds of millions will die because of starvation.
The relationship to communism isn't hard to see here, but it's hardly to blame. When Mao took over, he wanted to create a chinese world power, which he did. He encouraged the Chinese to have multiple childre, not realizing how fast it would backfire.
Think now, though, growing up with not only no brothers and sisters, but no cousins and uncles.
Anyway,
I just wanted to say that my eariler post on socialism wasn't just from crap i'd read online. I'm a history major, about to graduate. I've had over 30 hours of history, plus 6 of geography, 9 of political science, and 6 of economics. I tried to make it as well reasoned and articulate as I could.
Random thoughts, i'm tired..
Re:And?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
In which case socialism is capitalism in its finest form.
Try not to get brainwashed by the legacy of McCarthy. Socialism is to communism what republicanism is to fascism. Tony Blair, Bush's great aly (heck, his only aly that hasn't been bought) heads a socialist party. If as you claim Blair is planning to errect gulags across the UK then maybe people in the US should be a bit more worried about the intentions of his aly Bush and KKKomandant Ashcroft.
Socialism isn't evil, it is obsolete. Like any hundred plus year old ideology the assumptions it rests on are no longer operative. Capital is no longer scarce. At the time that Robert Owen took over the New Lanarkshire Mills practically the entire population of the UK lived in poverty by modern standards. Owen was by far the most successful capitalist of his day, he appears in US textbooks as 'the father of the factory system'. In UK textbooks he is also mentioned as the father of socialism.
The problems we face today are completely different to those of Owen's day. Today 'common ownership' has been achieved, its called your 401K or your pension plan, not 100% of the country participate but its close enough. The problem today is corporate looters who pay themselves vast salaries with our money and do business in corrupt ways (Enron, Harken, Haliburton)
Oh and lying about the reasons for going to war.
Wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Remember Ogg Vorbis? (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem. The FSF actually recommended that the Ogg Vorbis toolkit remain under a BSD license, rather than insisting that it go GPL. This was all done, apparently, with Richard M. Stallman's blessing! Yes folks, RMS actually encouraged the Xiphophorous [xiph.org] people to use the BSD license rather than the GPL! The story here [slashdot.org].
No, the FSF does not recommend exclusive use of the GPL at all times. They can encourage use of other more permissive free licenses if they believe that it will aid the cause of Free Software.
Re:Remember Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Remember Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
No, no, no. They did not "recommend" it at all... RMS begrudgingly accepted it, no more.
And thoses are incredibly rare cases.
Re:Remember Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to correct myself a bit here. The Ogg Vorbis toolkit was originally licensed under the GPL, from what I remember, and they later shifted to a BSD-style license, which move was not begrudgingly accepted by RMS and the rest of the Free Software Foundation. They actively encouraged the move, IIRC, as Ogg Vorbis is a technologically superior format unencumbered by patents, unlike the dominant MP3 format, for which a legal codec would be impossible for Free Software (LAME and Bladeenc are legally a gray area, and that isn't a good thing). Think GIF vs. PNG. RMS and the FSF have always understood that software patents pose an even greater threat to the cause of Free Software than proprietary software does. The GPL is designed to protect against software from going proprietary, but is of no help at all when dealing with patents (for which there can be no effective legal defense, short of having your own cross-licensable patent pool or having software patents abolished totally, which the FSF and the LPF [mit.edu] are actively working to do).
Care to give a link that shows that RMS and the Free Software Foundation did not fully endorse Xiph's decision to move the licensing from GPL to BSD-style? Another link [lwn.net] I've found, again RMS's own words, shows more pragmatism than anything. For reference, here's the original link [xiph.org] from which i got the first RMS quote.
You are right of course that yes, rare are the cases where another license would serve the cause of Free Software better than the GPL would, but these cases are not unknown. For another example, someone else points out that the FSF actually discourages people from GPLing components at the core of the X Window System. The FSF as a whole and even Stallman in particular are not as inflexible and unpragmatic as many here seem to think.
Circular reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, it's incompatible with the GPL because it's incompatible with the GPL. But it gets better:First of all, who said anything about judging a company? The issue here is whether a particular license is useful for the free software community, not whether Apple will go to corporate heaven. You can't say the APSL is flawed because Apple doesn't use the APSL for all its software. Obviously Apple is being strategic about what license it chooses for which products (and Apple stockholders probably prefer it that way). It doesn't mean the free software community can't acknowledge positive developments about Apple licensing, even if it's not ideal for everyone.
Re:Circular reasoning (Score:4, Funny)
What do you expect when the G in GNU stands for GNU?
FSF's goals are more synonymous with public's need (Score:2)
The LGPL is not always recommended, but it can be [gnu.org]. I'm not sure if what you're saying is meant to suggest the FSF is blinded to anything but the GNU GPL (version 2 as I write this) or if you appreciate the obstacles involved and understand their goals and strategies.
The FSF has okayed use of non-copylefted free software licenses in some instances (I vaguely recall them saying Xiph's approach with their Ogg Vorbis library was appropriately licensed under a non-copyleft free software license resembling the new BSD license). They take a very fine-grained look at licensing. They consider long-term ramifications others sometimes dismiss (like the software freedom for users of derivative works of non-copylefted free software programs). The thought that went into the copyleft concept is something I haven't seen prior to the GNU project.
A lot of licenses work to benefit the corporation that wrote the license, not a public software commons (including consideration of how software patents can adversely impact the public). The GNU GPL is notable for this and has been for decades now.
not so orwellian anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:2)
What about their 'Rendezvouz' specification? What about AAC, if they decide to release it under APSL? Numerous others I can think of.
Apple (and other commercial entities) need to realise they're better off supporting GPL than writing their own licenses. Else, let them fight it out with SCO, Microsoft et al, and see what market share that gets them.
-
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:2)
If (and it's a big IF) such commercial software vendors are 'destroyed' then I say, so be it. God created people with brains, not separately. The brain is useless without a body, and vice versa. It's flexible as well, we're able to imbibe new ideas without changing brains every two years.
What you're suggesting is a well-designed pseudo-free brain that gets remote-controlled. The FSF doesn't believe in this model.
-
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:2)
Oh.. I forgot to include this for folks like you:
include brain.h
Sorry.
-
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:2)
Thanks... BTW, English is my second language. I hope it's not likewise with your brain
-
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems entirely reasonable to me. FSF is telling people not to use the APSL because they will be giving some of their rights to Apple. Duh! No one would do this anyway.
Slashdot: say something obvious and get flamed for it.
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:2, Interesting)
This seems entirely reasonable to me. FSF is telling people not to use the APSL because they will be giving some of their rights to Apple. Duh! No one would do this anyway.
They're also telling people not to use the APSL because it (like Linux) allows people to link code released under it to proprietary code.
Sounds a bit disingenuous to me. After all, where would GNU be without Linux... which has the same 'problems'?
Simon
Re:not so orwellian anymore (Score:2)
Unless they wanted to work for Apple. Or friends of Apple. IANAP(rogrammer), but I would think that if the APSL meant work and the GPL didn't, the differences in "freedom" between the two licenses aren't significant enough for the FSF to make you feel guilty using the one that gets you paid.
Same problam as with original BSD license (Score:4, Informative)
Heh. The FSF has this to say about the original BSD license; I suspect you would see the same thing happen with APSL2-licensed stuff...
There are many variants of simple non-copyleft free software licenses, including the X10 license, the X11/XFree86 license, the FreeBSD license, and the two BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) licenses. Most of them are equivalent except for details of wording, but the license used for BSD until 1999 had a special problem: the ``obnoxious BSD advertising clause''. It said that every advertisement mentioning the software must include a particular sentence:
3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
Initially the obnoxious BSD advertising clause was used only in the Berkeley Software Distribution. That did not cause any particular problem, because including one sentence in an ad is not a great practical difficulty.
If other developers who used BSD-like licenses had copied the BSD advertising clause verbatim--including the sentence that refers to the University of California--then they would not have made the problem any bigger.
But, as you might expect, other developers did not copy the clause verbatim. They changed it, replacing ``University of California'' with their own institution or their own names. The result is a plethora of licenses, requiring a plethora of different sentences.
When people put many such programs together in an operating system, the result is a serious problem. Imagine if a software system required 75 different sentences, each one naming a different author or group of authors. To advertise that, you would need a full-page ad.
This might seem like extrapolation ad absurdum, but it is actual fact. NetBSD comes with a long list of different sentences, required by the various licenses for parts of the system. In a 1997 version of NetBSD, I counted 75 of these sentences. I would not be surprised if the list has grown by now. [Remember, this was written in 1998; this has obviously not happened.]
Jay (=
doh (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:doh (Score:2)
Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:5, Insightful)
We can hope that they are cool about being open (I think they have been, for the most part). But who really expects them to be Free?
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS and the FSF. Then again, the GNU/Hippy crowd often reminds me of a greedy, petulent child. When MacOS was completely proprietary, Apple was evil for not letting the code roam free in wild fields as it is apparently entitled to. When Apple opened up some code, they were chastisted for not opening it in the manner that the FSF demands... err, politely asks. Now Apple has changed its license to appease the FSF, but the first thing the FSF does is spout off about how the changes aren't good enough, and even if they were Apple would still be condemned for not opening up all of OS X.
Frankly, I think Steve should tell RMS to shove it. Apple has already given back a lot of code (ZeroConf, KHTML updates, etc.), but the FSF is never going to be happy. Apple should just continue to make jobs for lots of developers and make quality products, be they proprietary or open source.
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know who expects them to give their users freedom. I haven't really expected. Hoped, for about five seconds when the announcements of Apple "going open source" first came in.
But I've noticed several that do continuously tout how Mac OS X is everything GNU/Linux was ever supposed to. That may well be, I've not used it enough to say (and am skeptical) but there is one major thing that GNU/Linux is and it obviously is not: *free*, in any meaning of the word.
Now at least the small parts of it that they've chosen to release under an "open source license" are actually free software. The vast majority of it still isn't and no-one should think of MacOS X as anything even close to a free operating system.
Could it be if Apple wanted to let it be? Sure, this is the company that tells us to "Think different" and sells much more than just your average PCs and a Windows-workalike to go with them. I don't see why anyone would use OS X on anything else than Apple hardware anyway.
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of it is in fact open source, Darwin is a complete OS in it's own right. What Apple have chosen not to release into open source is their window client/server Quartz which is understandable if you ask me and a whole load of Apps that ship with the commercial OS which aren't actually part of the OS iTunes, iMovie, etc. The other notable exception that springs to mind is QuickTime, but that would be pretty useless anyway unless the community licensed the Sorensen and MPEG4 codecs used to play and create it's content.
Now maybe you think that Apple can survive like Redhat, the whole PC market in this case only supports that company of ~600 employees (http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/presskit
Now maybe you're just a troll or maybe you're just an impulse poster. Sometimes I wish people would think a little before they post.
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:2)
That would ruin all the fun.
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:2)
You say that you understand Apple's decision to keep Quartz non-free. Care to elaborate? They build on a lots of important software components that are free software and have been available for them to just take and incorporate into the OS. To me, it would seem only fair to give as much back.
Your straight comparison to Red Hat is flawed because the product Apple sells is completely different to the one Red Hat has. A large part of what Apple sells is the hardware. OS X won't even run on anything but their computers. Red Hat is just a software company, sharing the entire PC market with a giant that has a near-monopoly.
Even if Apple was just a software company, why would they need to have the same number of developers? It's only natural that with free software time isn't spent on reinventing the wheel and there's some less work for programmers to do. You don't determine the viability of a business model with the number of employees needed, do you?
I rarely troll and if I do, I appreciate someone clearly and unquestionably pointing out the flaws in my thinking instead of calling me a troll at first sight, thank you.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:2, Interesting)
I use Apple's products partly to manage a lot of my personal data, like my address book. If I had no way of using this data with other software, I'd be pretty screwed if Apple fell of the face of the Earth. I think that's more important than whether or not the Address Book is an open source package.
That is all I'd really hope from a commercial company in terms of being 'Free'.
Re:Let's get down to brass tacks here. (Score:4, Funny)
You mean, they're not the last bulwark against the brutal tyranny of OS imperialism? Then why were they throwing that hammer at that TV???!!
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:2)
This is no big deal (Score:3, Informative)
Even a handful of Copy-lefted ones.
This is essentially a copy left for everyone escept Apple, who gets BSD like (from the FSF comments, I couldn't find that in the actual liscense though).
practically every non GPL compatible Copy-Left on their site says "though it is OK to use this software we recomend against using the liscense for new software".
And all the BSDish ones recomend using the X11 liscense instead. I don't see how this is news one bit.
Yet another duplicate story (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, I can't really imagine the FSF recommending any license other than their very own GPL, now the darling of IBM and the open source movement in general. Not that it isn't deserving of this adoration, as it may have saved Linux from SCO.
Re:Yet another duplicate story (Score:2, Informative)
It's Just an Opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's Just an Opinion (Score:2)
I don't think so; its real value is the elegant combination of the two. I think it would be huge - and profitable - if Apple embraced open source fully and released all of OSX under GPL. I don't think it would hurt them at all, and programmers would flock to the platform. But it ain't gonna happen.
Re:It's Just an Opinion (Score:2)
This would be nice, if it wasn't for the minor problem that porting projects for OS to i386 would emerge instantly. And that would kill Apple.
Insofar I think it's a little bit off from the FSF to critizice Apple for not doing what would eventually mean corporate suicide.
How am I meant to feel now? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't help feeling the Apple license over OSX is a bit better than the SCO license over Linux
(yes. it was a joke)
Nothing suprising (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm happy that the FSF are considering other licenses for discussion, this can only be a Good Thing and foster the exchange of opinions in the community (this /. article for example).
I would not be too surprised if they do not recommend it. Even from a business point of view they have the most substantial investments in the GPL.
Since I'm already getting railed on about Sun... (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer:I own an iBook.
Yes, Apple's liscense isn't really the most free of them all. This is because Apple's primary motivations in using Open Source solutions are to: a)harness the man power and combined talent of the open source movement to aide their own software, thus making profit from software they would otherwise have to write themselves
So maybe we have a new category: free as in, you're free to help Apple.
Re:Since I'm already getting railed on about Sun.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So maybe we have a new category: free as in, you're free to help Apple.
Funny... I don't see it that way.
The way I see it is this:
Apple wanted to use a mature kernel for their OS. So they used it. As a mark of respect and good faith to the Open Source community whose work they used, they decided to release the changes they made (which they were not obliged to) back to the community. The caveats they added ensure that they can use any derivatives of the work which they did, and that their true intellectual property (the Mac GUI and libraries) which they've spent 20 years developing remains theirs. (Otherwise, if the license was true GPL, they'd have to release all of their other work under the GPL as well).
So their license limits their involvement to the changes to the kernel. They don't want to release their GUI under a 'free'* license? Good for them. They don't have to. They were acting in good faith, and that should be the end of it.
Simon
* I use 'free' in quotes, lowercase, because I highly disagree with the FSF's definition of 'free'. Particularly because the only license which meets that description is not a license at all - it's called Public Domain.
Re:Since I'm already getting railed on about Sun.. (Score:2)
I once read an interview with Hubbard, one of the former top coders on the FreeBSD project. He revealed some interesting things, for instance:
* The only code FreeBSD got out of Apple were some minor bugfixes/style changes and some test cases.
* He waited for Apple to offer him a job, and when they didn't he had to go ask (beg?) himself.
* The FreeBSD/PPC port barely boots, and is not really usable.
I don't think FreeBSD got a great deal out of that, really.
* I use 'free' in quotes, lowercase, because I highly disagree with the FSF's definition of 'free'. Particularly because the only license which meets that description is not a license at all - it's called Public Domain.
A common misconception. That's like claiming the only form of political freedom is anarchy - clearly the interests of a free people are best served by living under the rule of law, rather than there being no restrictions on what one can do at all.
Re:Since I'm already getting railed on about Sun.. (Score:2)
The GPL was specifically designed to be the very definition of free...
The FSF/RMS would say it's free as in "You will always be free to use it", but it's really 'free' as in "You are free to with it exactly what we say you can do with it."
Instead of worrying about all the words they've re-defined, I just ignore their recomendations, and I would suggest other's do the same (lest we all get into the double plus good senario)
How many open source contributions to Darwin? (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't heard of many features or bugs in Darwin being fixed outside of Apple.
So, anyone have any good stories for how the open source parts of Darwin are being used?
A couple of points (Score:5, Interesting)
Remind me, since when did companies have a legal or ethical obligation to release the source for any of their work? Apple is certainly a friend of the open source community, since they pay people to write OSS. This "all your code are belong to us" ideological BS isn't going to help anyone.
Note that "does not recommend APSL 2.0 for new software" != "APSL is bad". The FSF is against almost all licenses other than (L)GPL, including (especially?) BSD. What this means is that if you are writing OSS, then the GPL is your best chance to ensure that your work will always be Free. However, this does not mean that if someone distributes software under some other OSS license, then their intent is to screw you over.
Re:A couple of points (Score:3, Interesting)
You're missing that Gnu is an organization which is all about ethics. You could just as well say, "Since when did lawyers have an ethical obligation to work pro bono?" but there are lawyer groups who do this for ethical reasons. I've known some who felt obliged to do this with their lives.
Re:A couple of points (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A couple of points (Score:2)
Re:A couple of points (Score:2)
There are legal cases where companies had an obligation to release the source of their work, but this is because of licensing agreements (building off of GPL'd code for example).
However ethically I think you are missing the entire point of the FSF. The FSF believes that software companies have an ethical responsibility to include the source to programs they sell in the case they go out of business and/or are unwilling/unable to fix flaws in the code. With this view the FSF equates only including part of the source with only selling you half of a car or half of a blender. Quite frankly I see their point and am in agreement with most cases.
-- iCEBaLM
Have to wonder (Score:3, Insightful)
This has probably been said before but . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
After all, no hacker wants to idle away his time polishing the mundane details of a user interface. I sure as hell don't want to, but I might if someone paid me. Why not let hackers build the fascinating technologies, open source them, and then let companies pay people (and make money) off of polished user interfaces? We hackers will always have our own (unpolished) interfaces, so we aren't tied down. Granted, the user interfaces are going to have all the problems of close source software - bugs that we can't fix, ect - but it seems like a very reasonable compromise.
Anyway think whatever you want, this model is the one that will carry the most real-world punch in the years to come. The 2.0 is just symbolic of Apple's intention to play the game.
Re:This has probably been said before but . . . (Score:2)
That said, while the classic hacker is a coder, there can just as well be UI hackers. Hacker isn't necessarily a word only restricted to coding.
Is it just me or ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not true anymore... (Score:4, Informative)
FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish FSF would spend more time to promote current leaders of open source and encourage others to follow in their footsteps. But all I see on their page is critisism:
Aside from this, we must remember that only part of Mac OS X is being released under the APSL. Even though the fatal flaws of the APSL were fixed, and even if the practical problems were addressed, that does no good for the other parts of Mac OS X whose source code is not being released at all. We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do.
So basically, they are more interested in "ideological purity" than promoting realistic progress towards their goal. This is fine as a PHD thesis of some MIT student. But it does show that RMS/FSF are worthless as a realistic leader of today's free software movement. The question is, who and which organizations are up to the task?
You needs a dose of SCO... (Score:2, Interesting)
We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do.
I think you need to thank the FSF for highlighting this fact. No one in their right minds would say Apple is doing illegal things by hiring programmers to write OSS, but the fact remains that Appleware must not be mistaken for Freeware.
If Apple were to get sidelined and their market share dwindles (I hear they have about 1.5% now, and operate in less than 6 countries), they might try to do a SCO. And then all hell breaks loose, and you'd be yelling at the FSF for not having warned you in advance.
FSF is merely cautioning folks from wrongly concluding that Appleware is Freeware. Openware maybe, but not Freeware.
-
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:2)
Companies are out there for one thing: to make money. They are taking the risk to release their software under the Open Source license to make MORE money (by getting some of "their" programmers to work for free). I don't believe a second that Apple's primarly purpose is to help the Open Source movement if they get nothing back for their effort.
I think FSF has to be free to criticise all who's not supporting their definition of "Free Software" - because they "kindof" invented the definition - and they have been true to their belief for a long time.
And if we should listen to the FSF? Let the rest of the Open Software world decide that..
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:2)
The FSF won't promote anything "open source" -- it's the Free Software Foundation. But anyway, you want the FSF to help promote leaders of FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) projects? I guess that might sound cool, and they do in their own little way with the annual Free Software Awards. However, this isn't what the FSF is for. The FSF provides the licenses, has lawyers if you need them, provides funding for the GNU project and so on. Yes, the FSF are very much concerned with the philosophy of it all, and "ideological purity" is keeping the freedom of software in the first room. I guess sometimes the tone and message coming from the FSF gets a bit tiring, but there's no reason you have to be "ideologically pure" or always follow their advice. It's probably a very good thing that we have the FSF's hard-line approach and OSI's apolitcal, more pragmatic approach balancing each other.
Personally, I do think the FSF and RMS are the perfect leaders, because like them, I tend to think about things politically and idelogically. The line that the OSI is driving -- "how do we make this appealing do decision-makers in the board-rooms" -- doesn't appeal to me at all.
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:2)
Their goal, AFAIK, is to give computer users freedom by making sure that everyone can run free software - not just some free software, but entirely free software. The operating system by itself is not enough, but it seemed like a good place to start. Given that goal, they seem to promote realistic progrses towards it and to act practically in pursuit of it.
It depends on how you define 'movement' I suppose. The only alternative leader would probably be Linus (ESR being too much of a wackjob).
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:5, Insightful)
If all you see on their page is criticism, you need to get a grip, or you're clearly biased. They call the APSL Free. That is very, very positive. Anything that's free is not evil, from the FSF's point of view. It is, however, not smart to use it. That is TRUE. It grants Apple some important rights that you don't get. I wouldn't want to use that kind of license if I didn't have to, and I'm sure many people think the same. You should THANK the FSF for being objective like this, instead of convering it up just to please Apple.
Thirdly, the FSF is the one institute that CAN lead the free software movement (note: I said FS, not OSS). Why? Because they ARE idealistic and they do NOT make compromises to kiss megacorp ass. If you start out with a compromise, you'll end up with nothing. Cheers to the FSF for remaining completely true to their goals.
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:2)
The last thing we need is for more companies to act like Apple or TransGaming, who think that turning code into proprietary products and "giving back" by doing enormous (and inconvenient) patch dumps is good enough.
There are many companies out there that really are fully paid up members of the community, and who work to ensure it remains healthy. By contrast, if we all ended up using a partly open source OS, we'd have got essentially nowhere - it'd be Windows all over again.
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:2)
Beggers can't be choosers.
Apple isn't under any obligation to release any of their source code under any license.
But, instead of keeping everything propritary, they do give away a good chunk of their work, and what do they get??? Criticism from the FSF and people like yourself who complain that they aren't giving enough.
Besides, nobody is suggesting you use Mac OS X... Maybe you just want to use Darwin, which would be perfectly fine. Personally, I'd say, since better OSes are available under better licenses, I don't know why anyone would be interested in Darwin.
How much would you want to help out starving individuals if they complained that anything you gave them wasn't ever good enough for them, or wasn't enough? If it was me, I probably wouldn't even try anymore, and I wouldn't doubt that Apple might take the same policy...
Re:FSF needs a dose of reality (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with this statement, except I must point out that the FSF objects to lenient perspective of Open Source (vs Free Software). FSF's historically justified fear is that Open Source can be undermined and eventually become mostly closed. FSF injects a little preventative kick into the GPL to prevent this. It seems that most Open Source developers understand this fear, which is why they use a Free Software license (GPL) even though they object to FSF's boat rocking.
I'm not sure how to say this. FSF rocks the boat. Over the last ten years, they've shifted most of the software industry's "realistic" perspective. They haven't done it through fanatical ranting and raving. They've done it through solid reasoning, logical arguments, and promotion the very American concept of equal distribution of rights.
When you say "realistic", I think you're saying "consistent with the world I grew up in". I think you're afraid of the changes they're advocating. I think you're afraid of what IBM and Apple are doing. I think this is why you advocate a change of guard: a change to someone more moderate, someone who doesn't want things to change quite so much.
I say this, because evidence contradicts the grounds you're advocating. Namely, "RMS/FSF are worthless as a realistic leader of today's free software movement." (This sounds like Party language to me, with special non-literal meanings for every word.) This arguement is barbed. Firstly, I want to object to the FSF being called a leader, though they provide some of the services of a leader. Second, how "worthless?" Exactly what does the FSF support, and how much progress have they made, contrasted with "realistic" expectations? The FSF has beaten down brick walls of opposition where technical merrit couldn't. The FSF has played an important role encourage each of the national governments that have adopted Free and Open software agendas. RMS is inflamatory, and gets on people's nerves, for exactly the right reasons: to make people think about things they'd "meh" about. You have to think to shoot down his arguements, and you know when you're reaching or blindly dismissing.
On another front, the FSF's articles and reviews are hardly inflamatory on their own. As several other posters noted, the FSF isn't shooting down licenses as bad, or evil--simply unfair. It seems it's always a third party that gets excited, percieves the article as some sort of attack, and reacts.
The FSF's agenda is damned simple, and damned agreeable in a Platonic sense. The FSF is realistic, understands that it can't achieve its goals with JUST the GPL. For example, they advocated placing the Vorbis tools under the BSD license over the (L)GPL. They wrote the LGPL to encourage the use of GPL software, even by proprietary software. Of course they oppose these licenses: they can be undermined, the software can be hijacked, existing rights can be selectively revoked for users if this happens.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogrove, but your momerathes are completely outgrabe.FSF doesn't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks to Llywelyn [slashdot.org]:
My experience from reading GNU's work is that they aren't terribly fond of anything that isn't GNU.
From that webpage:
-------------
The FSF now considers the APSL to be a free software license with three major practical problems, reminiscent of the NPL:
*It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with other files which may be entirely proprietary.
*It is unfair, since it requires you to give Apple rights to your changes which Apple will not give you for its code.
*It is incompatible with the GPL.
-------------
Let's go over these point by point.
>*It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with
>other files which may be entirely proprietary.
So does BSD. This does not, in my book, qualify as a "major practical problem."
>It is unfair, since it requires you to give Apple rights to
>your changes which Apple will not give you for its code.
Yes, it requires this. I'm not sure why this makes it "unfair" though: this seems like more of a "legal cover our asses" clause on Apple's part so that they can use the changes elsewhere.
>It is incompatible with the GPL.
Would someone look up the definition of "circular reasoning"?
It seems, from everything I've seen come out of GNU, that they fit every definition of "Zealots". They almost seem to be *reaching* for something bad to say about the license simply because a proprietary software company is behind it.
This is still progress (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, it is an improvement over the more restrictive license earlier, and much, much better than the days before Jobs' return from NeXT. At that time, none of the source code was available.
Furthermore, I think this is a Good Thing. A commercial vendor releasing the source code to any central part of their operating system was unheard of years ago. Sun and Microsoft have yet to do this; complaints about Apple's specific license are paltry in comparison to the strict use of binaries in place in other operating systems.
FSF bashing , yet again (Score:5, Insightful)
Eric Hughes said it very well. (Score:5, Interesting)
APSL takes but does not give! (Score:2)
And how is this any better than Microsoft's "shared source" idea, where all the changes get sucked one way?
This is interesting... (Score:4, Informative)
As is every other license on the planet... The GPL is pretty much the only exception.
Fair enough, that's one big red check-mark.
That's being quite hypocritical there. Their policy is that software released under every other license should be able to be GPL'd, but it's fine that, once GPL'd, it can't be used with software under any other license... Really, really one-sided guys.
Of course, if that was a problem, they could very well change the GPL now couldn't they??? No, they'd rather have the rest of the world change to what they want.
Not another RMS bashing thread... (Score:2)
If Linux kernel was not GPL and was instead BSD, it would be far easier for SCO to hijack it than it is now.
All of the counter-lawsuits against SCO so far are pointing out that SCO distributed their own distro of Linux and hence are bound by the GPL.
Re:Not another RMS bashing thread... (Score:2)
realize who your friends are (Score:4, Insightful)
I think GNU-Linux and the open source and free software movmement is an incredible thing that should be encouraged and nurtured. I cheer at their successes. I use Linux both at work and at home. Yay for them. For us all. But I think this community can clearly go too far in what it expects/demands of proprietary software development companies who try to adopt open source principles.
Apparently releasing half your software under an open source license isn't any better than releasing none of it. It's all seen as some sort of subterfugue, an attempt to "dupe" the open source community into thinking the company is "cool." You people need to chill the hell out and realize who your friends and allies are.
For an organization... (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore - a company such as apple is in the business of making money. In many ways operating a software business "is incompatible with the GPL." [kuhn]. It's nice to see - for a change - an organization that is at least making an effort to give back some of their innovations to the development community. The only other method of protecting their IP is through patent law, and we know how GNU feels about that [petitiononline.com] (link on GNU's home page)
Instead of taking such a cynical and negative stance on an effort to change the way the software industry works - why don't we support it?
I think many have mist the point. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think Apple has any intention of other people releasing their own code under the APSL. The way I look at all of this is that the license is intend to allow people to modify the darwin core of Mac OS X freely, while at the same time provide provisions that protect Apple's non-open improvements.
Some talk about the provisions that allow Apple to effectively take your code, but when you think about it if you make any great and/or useful modifications you'd probably try to commit them to Apple so everyone could use them, wouldn't you?
I prefer the ASPL to nothing, and it is undeniable that the source is open. Only the distribution and code ownership is effected.
Why both Apple and FSF are right on this (Score:3, Interesting)
I credit Apple with the work they did with FSF to come up with a license that can be called Free, and consider significant the set of software they have released under the license.
However, I also understand why they haven't release the whole of Mac OS X under the license. While Apple may be mostly a hardware company in terms of revenue, I don't know a lot of Mac users, myself included, who would buy the hardware if it weren't for the software that goes along with it. And who, conversely, would be happy to buy hardware from a different vendor if the software were available for it.
Thus, though reasonably up to date hardware doesn't hurt, it's the software that keeps the hardware selling. Just imagine where Apple would be if they had to compete with Sony or Dell systems running Mac OS X.
So, I'm glad Apple keeps some significant things (like Quartz) close to its vest, even though I would love to run Quartz on Linux instead of X11. This is what keeps Apple alive as a company that can continue to be creative and innovative in both hardware and software.
And, on the other side, I'm glad that FSF is taking the line it is. I think the GPL is a great thing and without it and the contributions RMS and the FSF have brought to both free software and the cause of free software, the software world would be a far more proprietary place today. And I'm grateful that they continue to push this cause, even if in this case this means they would prefer a course of action that I would prefer Apple not to follow.
So, I like the tension. I'm glad the FSF is the FSF and the hard pull they provide to the cause of Free software. And I'm glad Apple takes a more nuanced and evolutionary approach that helps them survive as a company and the Mac as a compelling platform.
They both provide an important service, and I think the state of software today would be much poorer without them both. So, Apple and FSF, keep it up. Please.
Re:Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed, all their users are quite merry.
Re:ugh.. (Score:2)
Using free software in your products is not the same as being a part of the movement.
Re:Waa Waa Waa Waa (Score:4, Funny)