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GNU-Darwin Dropping Cocoa, PPC Support
Johnny Mnemonic writes "MacSlash is reporting that the Gnu-Darwin ports project has taken issue with some of Apple's current policies, to the extent of: 'GNU-Darwin will not support or distribute any software which links to
proprietary libraries, and that includes Cocoa, Carbon, CoreAudio, etc.
There will be no native package manager from GNU-Darwin (pkg_add
suffices).
Second, we will be moving our operations to x86, and we are putting the
ppc collection into maintenance mode.' Astonished reaction on MacSlash, and recognition of the Fink alternative. Is this a worthy principled stand, or is it more like Kruschev banging his shoe in the UN? Will this help or hurt Apple's adoption of GPL technology?"
Actually, the commentary on this GNU page is for all practical purposes irrelevant since it only properly addresses a version of the licence which has been superceeded. Apple made some significant changes to APSL to specifically address the reservations the open souce community had about their first attempt at an open source licence. I believe the authors of this comment need to rewrite it make it relevant to the current version of APSL, and if they don't, I suggest people stop referring to this out-dated material.
Started off closed. Was mostly-opened via the NPL and MPL, and now is MPL/GPL dual licenced.
Off the top of my head, there's also Trolltech.
Out of interest, when did Apple try the GPL? I thought Darwin was still 100% APSL? If they're dual licencing too, then that's great news, but I haven't seen anything like that lately.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Although it's now owned by Red Hat, Cygnus embraced the GPL before Linux existed.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
clarifications anyone?
by proclus on Wednesday December 18, @07:05PM EST
Sorry, I just couldn't let the story to out this way, because truth is important to me.
All machines that are currently supported will continue to be supported in their current configurations, so we are not pulling out the rug as it were. The situation could be better than this, but the ball is now in Apple's court. I will say that Apple has been moving in the right direction with respect to these issues over the past few years. If projects like ours can stay engaged with them, there may be a chance. It is not easy, and may be overly optimistic, but there it is. I'd like to give some time for Apple to respond.
The main source for the Apple/DMCA story is at the following link, although it has been covered extensively on the web as an 'Apple DMCA' googlesearch will reveal.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955805.html
Based on my experience with the Adobe boycott and other anti-DMCA activism, I consider Declan as a trusted source. Here are some good stories about the impact of the DMCA in general and on Apple users.
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-656.html# lnk3
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06901
As for the APSL, this has been a long standing issue with the Distribution, which dates back to the founding.
http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/12/01/20282 54&mode=thread
Darwin is not free software, because the APSL is not consistent with the free software definition. For more information, check GNU Project.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
You may know Yves@gnu-darwin.org, who is a OSXFaq.com editorial contributor. His most recent installment is highly germain.
http://www.osxfaq.com/Editorial/open/index4.ws
Until Darwin is freed, activists such as myself will be leading users away from it instead of toward it. This antagonism towards Apple in the free software community has been aggravated by the DMCA fiasco. For example, Slashdot coverage of Apple has soured considerably since that time. We added the caveat to our Darwin distribution CD's soon after that (see grey box).
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/order.shtml
Clearly it is in Apple's best interest to repudiate the DMCA, to remove the onerous anti-privacy clause from the APSL, and to meet the standards of GNU Project, so that users can have a truly free OS, and so that activists can support Darwin instead of undermining it.
The message for users is to educate yourself about software freedom. In this world of economic contraction, the DMCA, RIAA, and the patriot act, that might take some effort, but it will be worthwhile in the event that free software becomes more difficult to maintain. Here is the starting point.
http://www.gnu.org
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
Jakob Breivik Grimstveit
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
Microsoft publishes GPLd software, too. google for Interix.
Gnu darwin packages some GNU software around the APSL licenced darwin OS from Apple. So really the benefits of GNU darwin is helping software mainainers to have their code compile straight out of the box on darwin and thus MacOSX.
OTOH you need to be aware of fink which brings the same kind of software to macosX and thus darwin.
Then you also have darwinports bringing to darwin the same has gnu darwin.
Gnu darwin will now only port x86 making the port "just" a little easier then the PPC one which involves endianess issue and other tricky stuff.
If developers are interested in darwin they should stick with the main developers of the OS (Apple), hence with PPC so interested party should join darwinports instead of Gnu darwin.
none Yet.
or is it more like Kruschev banging his shoe in the UN
For those of you who might not be familar with why a person would do this, I thought I should point out that this is from the bible. A person bangs off their shoes to condemn a place.
Luke 9:5
"If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them."
Luke 10:10-12
"But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.' I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. "
Acts 13:50-51
"But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium."
So you can see that banging your shoes off is quite a big deal in a bibical Just a little background info.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Except, for, oh... Apple's C compiler?
Is this a worthy principled stand, or is it more like Kruschev banging his shoe in the UN? Will this help or hurt Apple's adoption of GPL technology?
None of the above. GNU-Darwin is not Darwin, Apple, or even BSD. GNU-Darwin is completely irrelevant.
I have significant problems with licenses that require you to send back any changes. Now if it were the more reasonable "post to ftp site .... the code for any changes that you publically release", that would be much different.
Perhaps you are paraphrasing the license, but Borland actually stuck something like that in the Kylix license. You were legally required to maintain a site where all of your scratch work was publically available. As far as I could tell from reading the license, every single edit that you made was supposed to be permanently saved and publically available. STUPID. And quite costly and inconvenient, also. Now I never heard that they prosecuted anyone for not doing this (it would probably be quite difficult to prove), but it was in the license, so they COULD have. And that would cause me significant problems. Eventually I decided that I didnt' need the grief, and didn't use Kylix. So I definitly understand that another group might decide that some comparable set of restrictions was intolerable.
Also, a license doesn't need to be intrinsically bad to be incompatible with another. One of the conditions of the GPL is that you can't add any more conditions, so it's possible that the APSL is incompatible without making any assertions about it's intrinsic "goodness".
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
By encouraging GNU-Darwin, Apple helps GNU.
You make the assumption that Apple encourages GNU-Darwin.
Apple pretty much ignores GNU-Darwin; the only Darwin they care about is the one in Apple's CVS (and, by extension, OpenDarwin's CVS), not some guy's fork of it.
The thing that people seem to be missing in this discussion is that GNU-Darwin is *not* Apple's Darwin. They could care less about GNU-Darwin, and, in fact, pick BSD-licensed alternatives to GNU software if possible. Whether it's for idealism reasons or business ones, no one but the people making the decisions can say.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
I thought that Netscape started off as a combination of open source (though not GPL, of course) projects.
... they reimplemnted the browser from scratch using Motif instead of xaw widgets (for their *nix versions) and obviously windows equivelents for their 'doz versions. It was a complete rewrite, and entirely proprietary code until they chose to GPL it much later ... after Microsoft had nearly killed their market share through illegal leverage of their desktop monopoly (a crime for which Microsoft has been convicted, despite the current administration's unwillingness to uphold the law).
... the GPL ironically is a very protective license to those commercial entities which wish to open their code without having competitors take it and incorporate it into their proprietary products. It is an effective innoculation against such things, which makes it a very useful license for many companies who have much to gain from opening their code, but do not wish to empower their competitors directly in the process.
... including hardware, and recall that the Free Software Foundation has endorsed this with its full support), but it is a very solid license in many (perhaps most) free software circumstances, and its innoculation against future abuse and closing off of the source is a very important, and very effective, feature in insuring that the public commons of code continue to grow and flourish.
No.
Netscape was not 'based' on mosaic
Netscape certainly falls in the category of "non-Linux company to embrace the GPL", though they certainly are not alone. Cygwin, Trolltech, and others have done likewise
It isn't for everyone, or appropriate for all circumstances (recall that OggVorbis is being released under the BSD License so that it will be adopted far and wide, in both free and proprietary products
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
That's the Darwin Project, they use the BSD License.
/tmp where they will be deleted after 7 days, and breaks gcc's Cocoa and Objective-C compatibility.
GNU-Darwin is a GNU-Based ports clone, similar to the much supeprior (It's usable) Fink. This one is known to massively break your system (It replaced BSD binaries with GNU binaries, doesn't do any kind of check to see if the binaries are legit, copies the old ones to
These guys are idiots and fanatics and not even any good at what they're doing (See Fink, which actually doesn't break your system when it installs)
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
"But that doesn't mean that the GPL is "is inimical to the standard economical model and way of doing business.". Plenty of companies are contributing to GPL'd projects (where appropriate for their business models) and making money off of it."
Well, actually it does. Noone is arguing that there are companies who have found ways to contribute GPL'd code and still make a little money, usually by service and support. The post spoke of the standard economic model, which in a software product sense, continues to be licensing fee based, at least for software-product companies.
Also, to clarify MO!s point in the previous reply, here is the section of the GPL that causes fits for corporate lawyers:
"2.b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
Clearly any code that either statically or dynamically links to GPL code falls under this statement, but notice the intentionally vague use of the terms "contains or is derrived" instead of the word "links". I have heard this section imply that merely using a GPL'd JDBC driver in your java program causes the whole program to fall under the GPL (Note: I don't neccessarily agree with the interprettation, merely use it as an example of the confusion caused). This is why people speak of the GPLs "Viral Nature".
Further to Apples situation, the GPL goes on to say:
"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
The inclusion of the GNU tools (like gcc) falls under "aggregation", and thus has no effect on the Apple-proprietary code-base.
In general, when attempting to preserve the proprietary nature of a product, I will only use open-source code licensed under LGPL, BSD, or Apache style licenses, however, I'm not a lawyer, so your mileage my vary.
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
You can sublicense the code, that is why BSD is compatible with commercial software.
But this wasn't another little Dmitry vs. big bad Adobe. Other World Computing, a large Mac-oriented retailer, was providing software that allowed people to use pirated versions of iDVD. Pure and simple. (I don't want to hear, "well, they could have bought an Apple machine with a DVD-writer, then ripped out the DVD-writer and sold it, then bought another DVD-writer.") They were contributing to copyright infringment in a big way, biting the hand that feeds them, what have you. They got off with less than a slap on the wrist, (a lawyer's nastygram) which is lucky for them.
Oh, and Matt? Don't drink the GNUL-Aid. It can make a multi-million dollar company into seem like a wide-eyed innocent victim.
"[With the BSD license] u can be commercial, or non-profit or mad scientist with it, and not have anyone sue you"
Bravo, and cool stuff eh? Of course, you can still be sued for any number of reasons, but I do understand your core point (regardless of the fact that no one has ever been sued over the GPL).
Now pay attention because I'm about to say something that you don't want to believe. That's all true for the GPL and any other truly open-source license.
If you could not "be commercial" with a GPL-licensed package, Red Hat would certainly be in a world of hurt, and would not be turning a profit.
Let's also be clear that the BSD license is not about avoiding restrictions. It's about giving up rights. You have certain rights over your creations under copyright law. The BSD license sacrifices those rights in favor of (hopefully) wider distribution and usage. It does not go quite so far as to place the work under the Public Domain, but gets damn close. A aplaud the generosity of the folks who make this sacrifice in the same way that I aplaud scientists who are willing to give up the fruits of their research, but not everyone is willing to make such a sacrifice.
Enter the GPL. By contrast with such unilateral sacrifice, the GPL sacrifices very few rights and only does so as part of an exchange which is fair to both parties. What's more, the GPL is 100% optional for anyone who wants to use a piece of software. That's right, if you want to use GNU Emacs and not accept the terms of the GPL you can. Here's a mind-blower: if you want to DISTRIBUTE a copy of GNU Emacs and not accept the terms of the GPL you can. You just have to do so within the restrictions of copyright law (which means that you must be able to demonstrate that a) you are the copyright holder or b) you are acting withing the definition of fair use or c) you have specific license from the copyright holder). These restrictions are not the GPL's they are copyright law's.
I'm not a license zealot. I've used the Artistic license, GPL, BSD, and worked on many a proprietary package. However, it really ticks me off when people try to bad-mouth a license without understanding it.
Mosaic was the name of the first web browser, which source code was open, and which source code has been used by Netscape to create their first commercial (but yet available to download for free) close-source browser. Check it here and here and here and here.
That was my first web browser to use. It worked fine on both X11 and Win 3.1, a bit slow, like Mozilla on modern computers. By the way, it has some graphics before Netscape.
Less is more !
Actually, the most recent Jan., 2001 update to the APSL to v1.2 has been addressed and even discussed here before. The bottom line? It still doesn't pass muster with the FSF.
Actually, the commentary on this GNU page is for all practical purposes irrelevant since it only properly addresses a version of the licence which has been superceeded. Apple made some significant changes to APSL to specifically address the reservations the open souce community had about their first attempt at an open source licence. I believe the authors of this comment need to rewrite it make it relevant to the current version of APSL, and if they don't, I suggest people stop referring to this out-dated material.
:
the above post is complete FUD. The analysis offered on the gnu site is completely up-to-date. Here is the proof which is completely verifiable, as opposed to bald assertions which turn out to be untrue in the parent comment.
Specifically
- latest version of the apsl is 1.2,
according to apple's own site here,
released on jan 4, 2001
- gnu apsl anlysis page last updated 2002/10/15
(shown at bottom of page)
which specifically addresses remaining problems
with apsl 1.2 (the latest release)
and while it still provides comment
on the initial problems with the 1.0 release,
this comment is clearly referenced
as referring to an older release
for which later releases corrected
only some of the problems
(and probably the gnu analysis page played a large
role in having these problems fixed).
so, in summary, please stop posting fud,
and moderators please check a posters assertions
before modding him or her up
No, thats Internet Explorer. Here is the blurb in IE's about page: Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc. Contains security software licensed from RSA Data Security Inc. Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group. Multimedia software components, including Indeo(R); video, Indeo(R) audio, and Web Design Effects are provided by Intel Corp. Unix version contains software licensed from Mainsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mainsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Mainsoft is a trademark of Mainsoft Corporation.
Mosaic was the name of the first web browser
No, the first web browser was WorldWideWeb.app, and it was a NeXTStep program. This was followed in fairly short order by Lynx, OmniWeb, SpiderWoman, and NetSurfer. Of all browsers available today, OmniWeb is probably the one with the longest continuous development history.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."