Slashdot Mirror

Bear in mind we're talking about Apple, the company that maintains Linux's printing subsystem.

I'd really like Apple to put Swift and Metal out there as open source - it will only increase the adoption rate. But past performance leads me to doubt...

What, do you mean like with WebKit or CUPS?

Sorry, but past performance shows you are wrong. FWIW, Apple never promised to make FaceTime Open Source; what they said was that they were going to openly publish the protocol. I'm rather cheesed that never happened as well, but they never promised to open their source code to FaceTime.

On the other hand, Webkit is a huge OSS project, which is used by a variety of products and companies, and which has a lot of non-Apple/non-Webkit contributors. Indeed, if not for WebKit, there wouldn't be Google Chrome. CUPS is, of course, the print subsystem used by virtually every Linux distro.

Those are the projects you need to judge Apple's OSS track record on.

Yaz

And don't forget about Darwin and Bonjour and OpenCL, and GrandCentralDispatch, and launchd, and LLVM and ResearchKit and ALAC and DarwinStreamingServer and...

I'd really like Apple to put Swift and Metal out there as open source - it will only increase the adoption rate. But past performance leads me to doubt...

What, do you mean like with WebKit or CUPS?

Sorry, but past performance shows you are wrong. FWIW, Apple never promised to make FaceTime Open Source; what they said was that they were going to openly publish the protocol. I'm rather cheesed that never happened as well, but they never promised to open their source code to FaceTime.

On the other hand, Webkit is a huge OSS project, which is used by a variety of products and companies, and which has a lot of non-Apple/non-Webkit contributors. Indeed, if not for WebKit, there wouldn't be Google Chrome. CUPS is, of course, the print subsystem used by virtually every Linux distro.

Those are the projects you need to judge Apple's OSS track record on.

Yaz

The top result in google for "cups 2.0" is https://www.cups.org/ click the software tab.

Says who? Apple bought CUPS - it's still going strong at http://www.cups.org/

Apple uses FreeBSD as it core, and still pushes patches back to FreeBSD. Apple did fork KDE's browser, but KDE itself is now using the fork, WebKit. LLVM, etc.

Apple wrote Grand Central Dispatch themselves, and open sourced it as well.

http://opensource.apple.com/

Yes. This is exactly why Apple picked up CUPS. There was no possiblity of Apple doing something similar with LLVM/Clang. None at all.

They do contribute to common bits, such as Cups. After a lot of yelling, they contributed webkit improvements to khtml. They also released a caldav server under the apache license.

Yep, Apple sure is hostile to open software.

http://www.macosforge.org/
http://www.webkit.org/ - Oh look! GPL licensed!
http://opensource.apple.com/
http://www.cups.org/

How To Assign Printing Administration Capabilities To Users
CUPS administration
that just took me a minute or so to find these links.

Mr Torvalds - rtfm.

and i for one am happy that this is NOT the default, but that as an admin one has to make a conscious decision to give a user access.

In February of 2007, Apple Inc. acquired ownership the CUPS source code

http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L475

CUPS belongs to Apple since at least 2007. Check the footer on their website http://www.cups.org/

I suspect I am anticipating the answer to this, but then why does the CUPS homepage/ say "CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems."

Hell, Apple DEVELOPED cups for OSX and linux and bsd picked it up because it made sense and solved a real problem).

No, cups was developed independently starting on 1997, and on 2007, after many years being the default printing system on OSX and many linux distributions it was acquired by Apple.

Yeh, clearly apple only open sources things they have to. Because clang, alac, cups, ... don't exist.

"Darwin" would be a better choice than "cups" here; CUPS wasn't originally written by somebody at Apple (Apple hired Michael Sweet several years after CUPS came out), and was licensed under the GPL (and is now licensed under "the GNU General Public License ("GPL") and GNU Library General Public License ("LGPL"), Version 2, with exceptions for Apple operating systems and the OpenSSL toolkit").

CUPS was BSD licensed.

Before, or after, Apple hired Michael Sweet? If before, then it'd been changed to being GPLed before Apple hired him. If after, then Apple changed it to GPL after hiring him.

Apple bought CUPS for 2 reasons;

1. To have some control over a core component of their operating system.
1a. To stop the possibility of CUPS moving to GPLv3 (see point 1)
2. To hire someone who REALLY knows printing software.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Points of reference...
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/license.html
CUPS is still available under GPLv2

Like I say, it was open source GPL in many different Linux distros for years before Apple got involved.
Since it was GPL, just what did Apple buy? Oh, they bought the developer. Figuratively and Literally,
and pretty much induced him to walk away from his own GPL declaration "Just for them"..

Copyright 1997-2006 by Easy Software Products
44141 AIRPORT VIEW DR STE 204
HOLLYWOOD, MARYLAND 20636 USA
Voice: +1.301.373.9600
Email: cups-info@cups.org
WWW: http://www.cups.org/

Introduction

The Common UNIX Printing System^TM, ("CUPS^TM"), is provided under the
GNU General Public License ("GPL") and GNU Library General Public
License ("LGPL"), Version 2, with exceptions for Apple operating
systems and the OpenSSL toolkit. A copy of the exceptions and licenses
follow this introduction.

The GNU LGPL applies to the CUPS and CUPS Imaging libraries located in
the "cups" and "filter" subdirectories of the CUPS source distribution
and in the "cups" include directory and library files in the binary
distributions. The GNU GPL applies to the remainder of the CUPS
distribution, including the "pdftops" filter which is based upon Xpdf.

For those not familiar with the GNU GPL, the license basically allows
you to:
* Use the CUPS software at no charge.
* Distribute verbatim copies of the software in source or binary
form.
* Sell verbatim copies of the software for a media fee, or sell
support for the software.

What this license does not allow you to do is make changes or add
features to CUPS and then sell a binary distribution without source
code. You must provide source for any changes or additions to the
software, and all code must be provided under the GPL or LGPL as
appropriate. The only exceptions to this are the portions of the CUPS
software covered by the Apple operating system license exceptions
outlined later in this license agreement.

The GNU LGPL relaxes the "link-to" restriction, allowing you to develop
applications that use the CUPS and CUPS Imaging libraries under other
licenses and/or conditions as appropriate for your application, driver,
or filter.

License Exceptions

In addition, as the copyright holder of CUPS, Easy Software Products

The funny thing is that apple also uses cups for printing, right? x_x

It is more than that. Apple actually owns CUPS. They bought it in 2007

Give the credit to CUPS, the open source printing system that OS X and almost all Linux distributions use.

Yeah, I know because Apple never gives anything back to the open source community at all!

To be fair, "developed by Apple" in "CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems." in the CUPS home page means "Apple hired the guy who created CUPS, and it's now an Apple project", not "Apple were the original developers of CUPS".

Yeah, I know because Apple never gives anything back to the open source community at all!

If there was a fairy that allowed me to abolish Apple with the cost of getting rid of these products, I'd hit it.

We should really develop a new standard printing system. Hopefully the google cloud printing one will turn out to bewarthwhile. As for webkit - I love Chrome, but I could live with the new firefox.

Yeah, I know because Apple never gives anything back to the open source community at all!

Right, because Apple has such a bad track record with this kind of stuff.

How again is Apple more "evil" than Microsoft?

Almost all the the comments here about what Apple will or won't do are complete uninformed bullshit. None of us has a clue what Apple will or won't do with ARM.

Perhaps this is a defensive move to keep Google or someone else from acquiring ARM and shutting Apple out? That's just as valid a hypothesis as any here...

It seems like what they have re-invented is the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS). Like the new Google Cloud Print, CUPS encapsulates the drivers for printers, filters and converts jobs based on the type of printing needed, sets classes of printers where the first available will be used, and much more. You can read a summary of some of the top features at its Wikipedia page.

It's also open-source, licensed under the GPL and LGPL, and has been used in Gnome, KDE, Mac OS X, and several Linux variants for years.

Apple didn't create CUPS. They just recognized a good thing and got on board.

Apple also hosts and continues to support CUPS, the Open Source printing system, a project they bought from the developer that owned it. http://www.cups.org/

...and they hired said developer while they were at it.

Apple also hosts and continues to support CUPS, the Open Source printing system, a project they bought from the developer that owned it. http://www.cups.org/

Judging by the comments here, the situation with Linux power efficiency sounds like it's more or less where printing was, say, 4-5 years ago. That is, it actually works pretty well and gives you a lot of control, but how you set it up and control it is somewhat obscure.

To be honest, I like to think I'm a pretty hardcore Linux user (exclusively Linux on all my machines since 1997) but even now I haven't really messed with power management beyond figuring out how to change the current CPU frequency from the command prompt when I want to (and making some minor tweaks to the default settings in KDE's battery monitor plasmoid. Well, yes, and making sure my kernel was compiled tickless...). I get 4-5 hours out of the battery in the little netbook that is now my current main computer. Arguably, I ought to be able to get that up to 6-7 hours with some agressive modification and obvious things like "remember to turn off bluetooth and wifi when not in use", but why bother? It still beats the crap out of the 1.5 hours I got out of the now-old gigantic Compaq laptop and gives me plenty of off-the-wire time. ("Get off my lawn", etc...)

Anyway, the point is that it looks like there is a decent amount of power-management capability already existing in Linux systems, and what's missing is a simple way to make sure it's turned on and configured the way you want it.

Some links to projects trying to make the "CUPS" of Power Management would be appreciated if anyone knows of any...

What's more Apple owns it.

Have you seen them [apple] contribute to a GPLed project lately? Didn't think so.

Does http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/license.html count?

Yes. Yes it does. GP is flat wrong, and needs a spanking. Apple also contributes to the LLVM project, which is GPLed. And others.

Does http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/license.html count?

Would Apple be using, and contributing to, FreeBSD if it was GPL'ed, for instance..?

Yes, can you imagine the madness of Apple shipping GPLed software? The thought of Apple shipping GPLed software like GCC is laughable? Or developing a printing system and licensing it under the GPL. I think not. An entire suite of GPLed software? Never!

Would Apple be using, and contributing to, FreeBSD if it was GPL'ed, for instance..?

Yes, can you imagine the madness of Apple shipping GPLed software? The thought of Apple shipping GPLed software like GCC is laughable? Or developing a printing system and licensing it under the GPL. I think not. An entire suite of GPLed software? Never!

Uuuhh....CUPS is a printer spec, specifically the Common Unix Printing System. How exactly is that going to help my scanner scan or my fax to fax? And how is that easier than simply writing 3 drivers and never having to touch it again? If you have a 98/ME, a 2K/XP and a Vista/7 you have 11+ years completely covered in Windows. Stick a fork and you are done.

Can you guarantee the printer manufacturers that the CUPS that is in release right now will still work 11+ years from now with no maintenance? Can you guarantee even 5 years with zero maintenance? Considering how fast changes are coming to the kernel and the other underpinnings that make up Linux I kinda doubt it. The simple fact is Windows really rarely changes. All of the Win32 underpinnings that they write for today for Vista will in all likelihood for better or worse be there in another decade. That is why it is easy to write drivers for Windows. Nothing changes. Maybe in another 5 years when everything has settled down in Linux it too will become that easy.

But considering the fact that with every new release of Ubuntu on the crazy 6 month schedule you see the forums fill with those who had something horribly break now is not that time. Everything is changing so damned fast in Linux I just don't see it getting drivers from the Lexmarks of this world unless the Linux community does it themselves like they did with Ndis and the Winmodem. It is simply evolving too fast and has too few marketshare to make the expense worth it and as I said in the earlier post most companies are simply never going to release their specs, so if they can't release a single binary blob and be done with it like they can Windows then the one being hurt in the long run will be Linux adoption. Because the customers don't care that Linux is " free" and "non MSFT" all they care about is the hardware doesn't work and therefor Linux is broken. Which is why it is cheaper for me in retail to simply pay the Windows tax than it is to support Linux ATM. Maybe next year.

Cups.

I know slashdot hivemind loves to hate apple and I myself am not a fan of this whole iphone lock-in crap (I won't buy one just because they make you sign a $70/mo. contract with AT&T & they won't let you officially tether it), but just to make this discussion a little more even-handed, I'll point out a couple of cases where Apple has "played nice" with open source.

Exhibit A: CUPS. Apple owns it. Nothing bad has happened. In fact it has worked so well that I've been using free gutenberg printer drivers for a laser printer that Apple stopped supporting in Leopard. Works fine.
Exhibit B: Webkit. Apple forked khtml and now there are several browsers for windows, linux browsers are based off it. Nothing bad has happened, and I think we can all agree that webkit is a darn fast browser engine.
Exhibit C: Darwin is open source. That's right, the OS X operating system is open source and released by Apple. Granted, the window manager (quartz) is not, nor are a lot of the apps (like the Finder), but you can always use X11, which btw, apple provides also.

So, it's a little disingenuous to portray Apple as completely proprietary: How many open source projects does Microsoft participate in? Yes I agree that Apple does try to lock you into their hardware, and that sucks, but they're not being completely evil.

There isn't a shred of evidence that Apple has been beneficial for UNIX or Linux.

CUPS http://www.cups.org/
CUPS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Unix_Printing_System

Yes, it wasn't originally owned by Apple, but it is now, and OSX and Linux uses it as the print system. Do you know why? Because it's better than what came before.

Have a look at the list of supported hardware in the CUPS project (Common Unix Printing System).

Prior to buying CUPS outright, Apple licensed CUPS under a non-GPL distribution license. See CUPS License Exceptions.

Following up to myself here: maybe the foregoing was confusing, because printing is a bit special because the low-level functions (how long to wait etc.) are presumably standardized (either standard parallel port or send it over ethernet I guess), but here the high-level functions (i.e. how to encode the data to be sent to the printer) is not. And this high-level encoding is done in user-space by a program library called CUPS. And if the printer maker refuses to give the documentation necessary to write a CUPS driver (Adobe .ppd file) for your printer, well then you should just return the printer to them or complain to your country's consumer organization because you're S.O.L.

aside FrOm the above example, CUPS is nOw something that they own, so I guess that it Doesn't apply, but I was thinking of systeMs like that. you May also care to read this article that Mentions darwin being GLP/APSL but doesn't clarify issues.

I had a good clue about why Apple wants CUPS and its author in OPEN WAY.

This just appeared at Versiontracker.com ( http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 32100 )
"What's new in this version:
CUPS 1.3 adds Kerberos and mDNS (Bonjour) support along with over 30 new features. Full release notes can be found at http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L479 "

I think their "evil plan" started to work! How an evil thing to add Zeroconf (yes, it is open) and Kerberos to poor CUPS :)

I wanted to add this reply before story gets archived.

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.

Software that is developed by any person or entity for an Apple Operating System ("Apple OS-Developed Software"), including but not limited to Apple and third party printer drivers, filters, and backends for an Apple Operating System, that is linked to the CUPS imaging library or based on any sample filters or backends provided with CUPS shall not be considered to be a derivative work or collective work based on the CUPS program and is exempt from the mandatory source code release clauses of the GNU GPL. 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. You may also use sample filters and backends provided with CUPS to develop Apple OS-Developed Software without releasing the source code of the Apple OS-Developed Software.

I'm not sure that you could. wouldn't that require the license to cups to be available under "GPL version 2 or later"?
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/license.html

Apple bought it to ensure that it remained GPL2 as GPL3 is considered dangerous.

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. I don't think you would be allowed to license it under the GPL3 without the copyright holders permission since only the copyright holder can change license terms.

1. a GPL version 3 fork could not exist; this is only available as version 2 (no "or later" clause) (unless Michael Sweet explicitly re-released a version in GPL 3)
2. also note that any fork would have to have a new name
3. The older versions of CUPS will always be redistributable as GPL2 no matter what Apple and Mr. Sweet do from this point on.

Software that is developed by any person or entity for an Apple Operating System ("Apple OS-Developed Software"), including but not limited to Apple and third party printer drivers, filters, and backends for an Apple Operating System, that is linked to the CUPS imaging library or based on any sample filters or backends provided with CUPS shall not be considered to be a derivative work or collective work based on the CUPS program and is exempt from the mandatory source code release clauses of the GNU GPL.

To contribute code to the base CUPS distribution, please contact us via email at cups-info at cups dot org. Because we also provide CUPS under a binary distribution license, we will require that all ownership of the code be transferred to Easy Software Products, or that Easy Software Products be granted unlimited distribution rights to the code, possibly via payment of a fee to the contributor.

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

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.