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?"

Comments

Utter Stupidity

[j1mmy]

They're dropping these libraries but they haven't got anything worthwhile to replace them. This is a great way to kill their project.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[HiQ]

Looks like evolution has taken a turn for the worse here!

Re:Utter Stupidity

[grammar nazi]

I agree. Also, we can't fault Apple with *trying* the GPL. People can get mad at apple for being to restrictive with which code can be licensed in which way. But name one other company that has attempted to embrace the GPL with their own code that wasn't already under the GPL.

Or even easier, name one non-Linux company that has embraced the GPL at all.

Apple is trying something new. As they decide what they feel comfortable releasing and retracting, they will make mistakes. Some of their decisions will be marketing related, some will be legal related, and we may not be happy with many of the decisions... but at least they are trying. The best that we can do is constructively support and offer recommendations.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[squiggleslash]

Or even easier, name one non-Linux company that has embraced the GPL at all.

Netscape.

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.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[spatrick_123]

People can get mad at apple for being to restrictive

Boy, you'd think the "grammar nazi" would know which form of to/too/two should be used in this case. :-)

Re:Utter Stupidity

[David Gerard]

"name one non-Linux company that has embraced the GPL at all."

Although it's now owned by Red Hat, Cygnus embraced the GPL before Linux existed.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[kraksmoka]

apple hasn't tried the gpl. all of the darwin stuff is that isn't apple original is BSD, my very favorite liscence on earth. there is some gpl software included with the distro and tools and whatnot.

favorite thing about BSD license is that it's really really really free. restricts just about 0 uses of the code (which is why WinDoze has some of it lurkin around under the hood too, tho bastardized it may be). u can be commercial, or non-profit or mad scientist with it, and not have anyone sue you.

but the gnu-darwin geniuses are killing the distro. a damn shame.

are they smoking someting better than i have????? if they were so concerned with these issues, why didn't you just get to work on debian?? oh, wait, HP made a DMCA threat to someone also, oh, can't do debian anymore.

they knew how it is, and was, and will be. why are they bothering to commit hari kari? just quit the project like a normal bunch zealots and go to work for richard stallman on the ever popular GNU Hurd.

i have created free software my self, and it pains me to see such blind idiocy by someone who should be more responsible. apple even releases an x86 darwin themselves, so the project is more meaningless.

/rant

Re:Utter Stupidity

[cygnus]

Although it's now owned by Red Hat, Cygnus embraced the GPL before Linux existed.

heh. thanks for sticking up for me!

Re:Utter Stupidity

[Genady]

But name one other company that has attempted to embrace the GPL with their own code that wasn't already under the GPL.

Here's two. IBM, SGI.

IBM has released it's JFS under the GPL, SGI has released XFS. I'm sure that there are other libraries/programs that these companies have made GPL. I don't fault Apple for not doing so, but there are companies out there at do release code into the GPL.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[FreeUser]

I thought that Netscape started off as a combination of open source (though not GPL, of course) projects.

No.

Netscape was not 'based' on mosaic ... 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).

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 ... 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.

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 ... 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.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[ajs]

"[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.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[axxackall]

I thought that Netscape started off as a combination of open source (though not GPL, of course) projects. I'm fairly certain that this is true, though I can't quite remember the name. Mostik? Not quite...

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.

Re:Utter Stupidity

[hackstraw]

Oh, I remember Netscape. Didn't they make a web browser or something like that?

Re:Utter Stupidity

[jcr]

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

Apples adoption of GPL technology?

[selectspec]

Since when did apple adopt GPL technology? Darwin is based on BSD not gnu. Does OS-X even ship the gnu tool set by default?

Re:Apples adoption of GPL technology?

[zanerock]

The reason Apple didn't use the GPL is that they felt they couldn't, and I for one think their choice has plenyt of merit. The viral nature of the GPL and the severe restrictions it places on developers are an impedement to both it's adoption and support. Apple will not, because it cannot, embrace the GPL.

And why should they? The GPL's stated political and social agenda may be respectable, but the form that the GPL takes to further those goals is inimical to the standard economical model and way of doing business. I've got no problem with the GPL, but to cry foul because Apple doesn't want to support GPL efforts is ludicrous. The GPL is about very specific political and social goals. These are fine goals, but they are not Apple's goals. I don't whine about the fact that some random company doesn't support my personal political or social ambitions.

Re:Apples adoption of GPL technology?

[imadork]

I agree with you that Apple's choice of the BSD license has plenty of merit, and that the GPL has specific political and social goals that not all may agree with. But I keep hearing "Viral nature" and "severe restrictions" in relation to the GPL, and I just don't get it.

Apple uses plenty of GPL'd software -- gcc ships with OS X after all. And my understanding of the GPL you can use as much GPL software as you like with no restrictions whatsoever. There's nothing viral about that! The only restriction is that if you modify and distribute binaries based on those modifications , you have to make the changes you made to the source available. Which seems reasonable; you're modifying someone else's work after all, you should reciprocate. While this is a restriction, please show me how this is any more restrictive than any other license short of the Public Domain.

The GPL could pose problems for a company such as Apple, who probably have other people's licensed proprietary code in their code base, and who really can't open up the whole thing in a GPL-like way. 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, and RMS hasn't forcefully added them to the GNU collective yet.

Re:Apples adoption of GPL technology?

[zanerock]

You're correct, you can use GPL stuff all you want without any worry, if all you do is use it (in it's original and unmodified form... oh, and don't statically link to it either... maybe...). But, Apple is trying to develop new products, and so has to have some sort of value add. That's where the problem comes in. To do that value add, you *must* modify the source. Now, if you want to get paid for that value you added through the traditional means of selling the software (a very reasonable expectation), you're out of luck. That's what I, and others, mean when they say "viral nature."

Now, you cannot sell that new value that you've added. The GPL has "infected" (though I wouldn't use that term, it follows the "viral" metaphor) your new code. There's nothing wrong with that, that's the price you pay for basing your stuff on GPL software, but it's also viral in nature, and the reason why Apple was (more or less) forced to BSD (and the fact that Next used BSD stuff as well... which might be for the same reasons).

Oh, and just to clarify that I do understand, you can sell your software, but the fact that you also have to give it away, under the GPL, sorta obviates the fact that you *can* charge for it.

Re:Apples adoption of GPL technology?

[HiThere]

Actually, the linkage argument isn't at all clear. A lawyer I read said that no linkage, no matter what kind, turned something into a derivitive work. That required amalgamation. So all that would be required is that certain routines be GPL'd with the source code available.

Now I will admit that this isn't the universal opinion. Many have much more restrictive opinions. Which is why the LGPL was created. But appearantly there's some doubt that there was even a need for it.

However: It is certainly the case that one could create a routine that linked to GPL code, and issue it under a dual license (GPL and your choice). And then call that routine from your proprietary code. So there's a way around this if you want. (I beleive that this approach was discussed in an article about kernel driver implementations, and how to add GPL routines as drivers where there were binary only drivers released. [GPL wrappers to binary drivers].)

Problems With The APSL

[Carnage4Life]

For those who were wondering what the specific problems the GNU folks have with the APSL are, the GNU site lists their problems with the Apple License

Re:Problems With The APSL

[Espen]

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.

Woops

[ldspartan]

Sounds like a project about to go down the tubes. Principles are nice, but when they get in the way of being an effective entity, it rapidly becomes prodigious to get rid of them rather than to cling to them. Any belief held too tightly can be harmful.

--
lds

Re:Woops

[Tellarin]

i do agree that having too rigid beliefs can be harmful

but this does not mean that if sticking to your principles will make your life somewhat harder, you should just drop them

some flexibilty helps, but forgetting them is stupid

Re:Woops

[epukinsk]

If you only stick to your principles when it's covenient, you haven't any principles at all.

Great Statement, I hope Apple listens.

[Krondor]

"First, Apple continues the wall-of-silence with respect to their repugnant DMCA-based legal action, and there is no reason whatsoever for us to think that they will not undertake similar action in the future. It is regrettable that the DMCA was Apple-sponsored legislation, and it is now time for them to disavow it and promise never to employ it."

I think it's about time for Apple's actions to catch up with them. Frankly, they've made a lot of people mad over the years and it's nice to see a project so politically active. I just hope it doesn't destroy the project in the long run.

Re:Great Statement, I hope Apple listens.

[Eagle7]

I think it's about time for Apple's actions to catch up with them.

How is this? What does Apple care with GNU-Darwin decides to shoot themselves in the foot? Apple releases a Darwin distro, and folks can use Fink to build it up to do useful stuff on thier Apple machines.

The only folks this will hurt are those die-hard GNU-ites who use GNU-Darwin for political or philosophical reasons. Anyone who is more pragmatic about thier software will just migrate to an Apple Darwin distro and Fink, or come up with an OpenDarwin distro, and be fine.

The GNU Darwin folks (and a lot the GNU folks) need to learn a little less from Stallman (follow your narrow principles singlemindedly wherever they lead) and a little more from Torvalds (be pragmatic and realistic about your circumstances to advance toward your goals). And don't ruffle your feathers and act "activist" over a software license. Be happy, write letters, but if you insist on being activist, do it for something that is going to really change the world and/or affect everyone - like human rights, free speach, privacy rights, or even the free flow of information (i.e. copyright, biological patents, etc). But really, concentrating all this energy and mindshare into the differences between some software licenses - geesh. There are more important battles to be fought folks - if you feel that this is that important, than fight for reasonable copyright and patent laws, fight for personal privacy and individual freedoms, fight for an open flow of information - and good software licensing will fallout from that. But worrying about the differences between Open and Free - it's really not that important in the grand scheme of things, what with the Patriot Act, DMCA, a religious political agenda being pushing (and succeding!) in our supposedly secular society, laws like NY's Rockafeller drug laws on the books - there really are bigger problems.

Re:Great Statement, I hope Apple listens.

[feldsteins]

And I think it's about time that the open source community give credit where credit is due. Apple is one of the biggest commercial entities in the industry to have embraced large portions of your way of thinking to date. Five years ago we might have been discussing what Apple would have to do to earn some of that respect and it might have sounded something like "Yeah well, if they were to open source some of their OS, that would be cool..." and "it would rock if they used some of the open source software that's out there, participated in the development, and gave back to the community..."

Well guess what? Here we are. And some folks still insist that Apple is on the "bad side" because they don't kill their entire business by adopting the GPL and bringing their revenues down to Redhat levels. Give me a fucking break.

As far as Apple and the DMCA, the only time I can think that they did anything shitty there was to go after Other World Computing who was basically making a patch for iDVD allowing it to work with 3rd party DVD burners. The thing that most people never realized, however, was that the only people who would ever want to do such a thing were people who were ripping off the software. Think it through - the iDVD software was free when you bought Apple's DVD-burning Mac. It was not legally acquireable in any other way. Therefore, those who owned a legal license to use the software already had an Apple-branded DVD-burner.

I cringe when I reflect that Apple's legal department used this crappy law to do anything, it's true. I think that was clearly a mistake and deserves to be widely criticized. But let's be clear - going after OWC in general was the right thing to do.

There are two sides to this licensing issue. There is the GPL side in which commercial software is the devil and should eventually go extinct. Then there is the commercial software industry's position that open source is evil and will be the death not only of their business but of the software industry.

Clearly both of these positions are wrong. In order for the industry to go forward someone has to develop means of getting along...and middle-roads to take. Apple is standing at that meeting point, taking risks, putting their money where their mouth is, giving to the community, getting something back... They may not get everything right, but jesus, give them a little credit and stop insisting that the militant open source dogma is the only acceptable way.

Re:Great Statement, I hope Apple listens.

[HiThere]

Nobody who supports the DMCA has any right to expect approval. That goes double for a company that uses it.

By using the DMCA, Apple has disgraced itself. By supporting it, Apple has disgraced itself. I have to wonder about the ethics of anyone who defends such actions. I can imagine possible ameliorating circumstances. But there's a big gulf between imagining them and believing in them, and I've seen no justification.

I don't care what worthwhile things Apple has done, using the DMCA is vile!

Using BSD software does not justify or ameliorate the foulness of using the DMCA.

The DMCA is a vile law, and any company that appeals to is should rightfully be disbanded immediately. Any congress person who voted for it or president who signed it should be convicted of treason for violation of their oath of office.

Likewise any judge who upholds it.

The legal system can make something a force in the land, but it cannot make it just.

Re:Great Statement, I hope Apple listens.

[feldsteins]

What about shutting down themes sites...the Sorenson fiasco...Apple's memberhip in the BSA...

I confess that I wasn't aware that those were DMCA issues.

Apple is not a "nice" company

I totally agree. Companies are incapable of being nice. This is the nature of companies - they exist to maximize profit.

Apple, does, however, have a great PR department and Mac fanatics believe Apple can't do any wrong. Their support of the DMCA is just one example of how self-serving they are.

I really don't know where to start with that one. The fact that Apple's PR department is irrelevant? The fact that Mac fanatics are just as you describe - by definition - but what about the rest of us? Shall we discuss GNU-Linux "fanatics" and "fanboys" who are totally irrational and won't see the truth even if it is under their noses? Would that be equally fair and accurate? The fact that "self-serving" as a criticism for a company really doesn't go very far?

While we're on the subject of how ethical Apple is, where is the outcry of support for Apple as they stand virtually alone resisting DRM? Surely the freedom-loving open source community is all over that, right? Perhaps I missed it. The criticism that people like myself are "fanatics who don't see the truth" is a dangerous one that can easily be turned back on the likes of the GNU-Linux community in spades. In the end, however, I think it gets us nowhere. Let's skip that part next time, shall we?

Waste of time..

[Moridineas]

I couldn't get to the MacSlash article but I have to question the motivations of these GPL people. They say that Apple doesn't seem to be properly embracing GPL. Well that was never apple's motivation! They have been using the BSD license, and they use it a lot!! They both employ prominent members of the BSD community and have given back to the community in code as well.

I have to say I don't even understand the purpose of darwin-x86 myself. It seems like stupid factionalization again. If you want to run BSD and x86, run FreeBSD. If you want to run a secure server or a routing box, etc, go for OpenBSD. If you want to run on anything else, go for NetBSD. And if you want to run OSX...darwin! As it comes closer and closer into synch with FreeBSD, I just don't see the point.

I quite frankly hope that the gnu-darwin project falls into oblivion.

Re:Waste of time..

[Arandir]

The GNU/Darwin folk have been off in their own little world for quite some time now.

What's with their name? They aren't affiliated with GNU, the underlying OS is not GNU, and RMS never requested that they change the name.

The GPL does not prohibit linkage to proprietary libraries if they are part of the system, not even in spirit. There is nothing that is comparable to the core OSX GUI toolkits, not even GNUstep, so there's no moral (in the GNU sense) rationale for forbidding their use.

Imagine the OpenCD project banned software that linked to win32 or gdi. This is what GNU/Darwin has done. It's silly, spiteful and will ultimately harm only themselves.

Go Fink and DarwinPorts!

Its a logical stand, but

[ACK!!]

it won't help their project much.

Sure, they can't call the thing GNU if they keep all the proprietary stuff from the Cocoa angles in.

Apple is NOT ready to go all open-source with their stuff so its an impasse.

Can't really blame either side. The OSnews folks are plugging this in the commentaries as an example of closed-minded attitude of the GNU folks or either the greed of a silly corporation who has no clue.

I think that is the wrong response. It had to happen if the Gnu/Darwin project was going to stay true to its ideals. Still, moving Apple to be open-minded to open-source ideas is like moving a mountain with a spoon. It is happening but very slowly. I have worked for too many corporations to just get all knee-jerk and blast them immediately. They act of moving such a huge thing in a new direction is a slow process at best.

This is especially difficult when Apple is not really sure if it wants to change direction. On one hand it wants to open-source the tech or guts of the OS while at the same time protect its look and feel. It would be easier if Apple was totally sure of what it wanted.

________________________________________________ __

Re:Its a logical stand, but

[Psiren]

yeah, wanting code that anyone can alter at will is really blinkered. Everyone knows that giving money to strangers and hoping they`ll do something at some point in the future is the way to go.

Thats a fair point, but as the guy said above, this sort of thing is a gradual process. It's real-world stuff. It's similar to the differences between I.T. and Computer Science. CompSci aren't bothered about costs, infrastructure, maintennance, support etc, they just want to do research. Trouble is, they bug the hell out of I.T. to provide them with the facilities to do so, without considering what's involved. It think the GNU guys think in the same way.

I'm sure in some ways Apple would like to go fully-open source, as I'm pretty sure they are aware of the benefits of it. But at the end of the day, they need to make money, and protect their investment. Maybe they can do that with open source, maybe not, buts it's not something to be rushed into.

To all who say it's a bad idea

[scruggs_style]

What, the slashdot crowd says that standing on pricipals, even if it's like kicking yourself in the nuts, is a bad idea? How strange...

The problems are

[Anonymous Coward]

Updates
Apple first released an updated version, 1.1, of the APSL but it remained unacceptable. They changed the termination clause into a ``suspension'' clause, but it still had the same kind of bad effects.

In January 2001, Apple released another version, ASPL 1.2. This version fixes two of the fatal flaws, but one still remains: any modified version "deployed" in an organization must be published. The APSL 1.2 has taken two large steps towards a free software license, but still has one more large step to take before it qualifies.

Below, is the original commentary on the first version of the APSL, version 1.0.

Original APSL Commentary
After studying Apple's new source code license, the APSL, I have concluded that it falls short of being a free software license. It has three fatal flaws, any of which would be sufficient to make the software less than free.

Disrespect for privacy
The APSL does not allow you to make a modified version and use it for your own private purposes, without publishing your changes.

Central control
Anyone who releases (or even uses, other than for R&D) a modified version is required to notify one specific organization, which happens to be Apple.

Possibility of revocation at any time
The termination clause says that Apple can revoke this license, and forbid you to keep using all or some part of the software, any time someone makes an accusation of patent or copyright infringement.
In this way, if Apple declines to fight a questionable patent (or one whose applicability to the code at hand is questionable), you will not be able to have your own day in court to fight it, because you would have to fight Apple's copyright as well.

Such a termination clause is especially bad for users outside the US, since it makes them indirectly vulnerable to the insane US patent system and the incompetent US patent office, which ordinarily could not touch them in their own countries.

Any one of these flaws makes a license unacceptable.

If these three flaws were solved, the APSL would 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.
Of course, the major difference between the NPL and the APSL is that the NPL *is* a free software license. These problems are significant in the case of the NPL because the NPL has no fatal flaws. Would that the same were true of the APSL.

At a fundamental level, the APSL makes a claim that, if it became accepted, would stretch copyright powers in a dangerous way: it claims to be able to set conditions for simply *running* the software. As I understand it, copyright law in the US does not permit this, except when encryption or a license manager is used to enforce the conditions. It would be terribly ironic if a failed attempt at making a free software license resulted in an extension of the effective range of copyright power.

Aside from this, we must remember that only part of MacOS is being released under the APSL. Even if the fatal flaws and practical problems of the APSL were fixed, even if it were changed into a very good free software license, that would do no good for the other parts of MacOS whose source code is not being released at all. We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do.

Overall, I think that Apple's action is an example of the effects of the year-old "open source" movement: of its plan to appeal to business with the purely materialistic goal of faster development, while putting aside the deeper issues of freedom, community, cooperation, and what kind of society we want to live in.

Apple has grasped perfectly the concept with which "open source" is promoted, which is "show users the source and they will help you fix bugs". What Apple has not grasped--or has dismissed--is the spirit of free software, which is that we form a community to cooperate on the commons of software.

Why does GNU-Darwin think Apple will care?

[elliotj]

Could someone explain why the GNU-Darwin people think Apple will care what they do? I'm not against the protest per-se, in fact I think they're protesting some valid issues. But really, why would Apple pay any notice?

It's great to see people trying to hold companies to account for their actions. This is a bit silly though because they run the risk of becoming irrelevant by not supporting PPC and not including certain packages.

If this is good for anyone, it's the folks at Fink.

Re:Why does GNU-Darwin think Apple will care?

[TheCrazyFinn]

That's the Darwin Project, they use the BSD License.

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 /tmp where they will be deleted after 7 days, and breaks gcc's Cocoa and Objective-C compatibility.

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)

Useless Trumped Up Developer Puffery

[reallocate]

People who actually use computers are done a great disservice by this kind of petty political bickering. It's the open source equivalent of Microsoft's marketing gimmicks: Just noise that wastes my time.

Some developers appear to be so isolated from the real world of computing that they are convinced that users care about all this trumped up ideological puffery about licensing. As a current Apple user (and a former Linux user), I don't care. What I want is better, more innovative software. Yapping about licensing schemes doesn't get me better software, proprietary or free. These developers should stop pretending to be lawyers and start developing.

Re:Useless Trumped Up Developer Puffery

[defile]

What I want is better, more innovative software. Yapping about licensing schemes doesn't get me better software, proprietary or free. These developers should stop pretending to be lawyers and start developing.

Your concern for the principles we software developers hold dear is just so moving. I can't wait to spend 10,000 man hours developing innovative software for appreciative people like you. Why can't every user be this compassionate?

For real fun...

[Pathwalker]

Look at the installer.

First they want you to run it by doing curl http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/one_stop | csh as root, allowing them to run whatever they want as root on your machine.

Next, it downloads a bunch of GNU utilities (wget, killall, tar, and a couple of others) and replaces the standard system utilities with them, without checking checksums, or providing an easy way to back out the changes if something goes wrong ( some - but not all - are copied to /tmp before they are overwritten).

Then, these unchecked progams, are run as root, to download the rest of the packages. I see no attempt to verify that anything was downloaded correctly, let alone compromised.

You would think they could have at least used md5 or even cksum to try to make sure that they are downloading what they think they are downloading, or back up the system files they overwrite to some place besides /tmp...

Re:For real fun...

[DrXym]

Does it really replace them or install them somewhere else? Fink shoves everything into a /sw/ folder so it won't overwrite anything. It won't even be picked up by the system by accident since you must explicitly set paths by sourcing a shell script in your .profile to set it up.

It still requires you run sudo to install it however, though presumably you might be able to make it install with lesser privileges if you did some chown ground work on /sw first.

Re:For real fun...

[Pathwalker]

It replaces them - here's a sample:

cp -f /usr/bin/tar /tmp
wget http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/packages/tar -O tar
cp -f tar /usr/bin
chmod 755 /usr/bin/tar

Re:GNU license

[tps12]

Obviously this is just an attempt at a troll (and not a very good one, at that). But I feel I need to correct a few of your points so that nobody is confused.

GNU license is vile and repugnant.

The [L]GPL is just another license; developers can read it, understand it, and evaluate it before choosing to license their software under its terms. Some of its properties (specifically the "viral" aspect) make some people uncomfortable, but we must assume that the software creators are aware of these, and choose the GPL anyway. And in the end, we must respect the wishes of the authors.

*BSD is dying.

LOL. Mac OS X seems to be doing fine, on the desktop no less, and OpenBSD practically owns the firewall market. *BSD is a lot healthier than GNU's operating system, the HURD.

FreeBSD is already dead.

I don't know what you mean by this. They have had some difficulties with leadership in the last year, but they are far from dead. The latest news on their web site is from just a few weeks ago. The ports collection continues to grow, and the developer community is burgeoning. FreeBSD is far from dead.

Re:GPL?

[the eric conspiracy]

commercial entity (Apple) is heavily using open source in their latest software offering, even though their behaviour clearly indicates they are not interested in the philosophy of open source.

I am sorry, but I have no sympathy for this sort of political posture. If you want to maintain control of your software and how it is used, why are you using the BSD license? The BSD license allows anyone to use the code you release with very minimal restrictions. If you don't want it used freely like this, then don't use this license.

Re:Problems With The APSL (GNU hipocritical)

[zanerock]

GNU is free to have their opinion, and I agree that the "we can stop you from using your stuff at any time" is a little silly and makes software licensed under earlier versions of questionable value, but after 1.2, I don't see the big deal. So what if they require you to send back your changes? The fact that GNU is complaining about freedom to do what you want with software is both laughable and hipocritical. The GPL places severe restirictions on what I can and cannot do with my software by requiring me to provide source. I've got no problem with the fact that they require me to, nor would I have a problem with the fact that Apple requires me to send them changes. If I accept the license and use the software, that is the cost of doing so. They created the software and can put whatever license they please on it, that's their right.

However, for the creators of one highly restrictive license to call foul on another is nothing less than pathetic. The APSL does not "disrespect privacy" any more than the GPL disrpespects freedom. Each is a license with a purpose.

GM isn't Supporting my Personal Political Agenda!

[zanerock]

What the hell does this mean?

Second, APSL is languishing, and it is unacceptable to the free software community. It is now time for an APSL revision, which brings the license in line with the free software definition in accordance with the expectations of GNU Project.

Since when did GNU define what "free software" is? I don't mind GNU, and I respect their goals, but certainly BSD and Apache software is far more free than GPL. GPL is highly restrictive. They have their social and political goals, which are well and good, but why is it that they expect everyone to agree or support them?

I really don't see any difference between this and myself whining the GM and MicroSoft don't support my personal political views or send my their source code for free, because I want them too. In my opinion, it's arrogant, petulant crap that this that tarnishes OSS more than anytihng else.

Why Darwin is Cool: The IOKit

[MichaelCrawford]

Lots of people are posting comments here wondering why anyone would use a Darwin system and not just regular BSD.

I've been up all night doing some Mac OS X device programming. Entirely from userspace code, using the gdb-based ProjectBuilder GUI debugger to debug it. No lockups and no rebooting (although that can happen by programming the IOKit. But it's less common than with kernel space programming.)

It is quite nice.

You can write device drivers for OS X, but you often don't need to, there are interfaces exported to userspace to allow you to do a lot of stuff.

The userspace interface for OS X' IOKit is based on (ducking) Microsoft COM. I've never heard much that's real positive about COM, but the way it's used here seems to make sense, in that you can instantiate C++ objects that talk to the kernel.

That is, the user code access to the kernel is largely done through C++ class interfaces. There are a few file-based hardware interfaces like in traditional Unix. I think that's mostly for compatibility with legacy code, and you still have to use the IOKit to obtain a file descriptor, rather than opening a file by giving its pathname.

While the kernel is indeed a BSD-derivative on top of Mach, the driver architecture has been completely replaced. In its place is a system of "kernel extensions" whose code is written in C++.

If you want to write a driver that extends an existing driver in some way, you subclass the existing one and add your specialization in the subclass.

Let's see if I can find you some documentation on this...

• kernel extensions tutorials
• IOKit Fundamentals
• Writing an IOKit Device Driver
• Accessing Hardware from Applications (that is, from userspace)

I think the IOKit driver architecture is a signficant advance over the driver architecture employed by any traditional Unix or Linux kernel. May I timidly suggest that some of them would do well to adopt it.

Of course there is the question of license compatibility between the BSD or GPL and APSL. But you could adopt the architecture by rewriting the code, rather than adopting the actual Darwin source code.

Of course, most Linux hackers aren't into programming C++.

From GNU's position paper:

[tmark]

Overall, I think that Apple's action is an example of the effects of the year-old "open source" movement: of its plan to appeal to business with the purely materialistic goal of faster development, while putting aside the deeper issues of freedom, community, cooperation, and what kind of society we want to live in.

This passage made me sick. The notion that any "movement" that is not compatible with FSF philosophies necessarily puts "aside the deeper issues" is so self-important and self-righteous, even coming from Stallman's mouthpiece. Sorry, there are plenty of people who have considered the issue who do NOT feel that our society must engender all the rules and restrictions that you would have placed on us. The FSF's world-view is not the only considered one. Many people who adopt non-"free" (as defined by FSF gospel) licenses do so after careful consideration of all the issues and deciding that non-"free" licenses more closely reflect the world *they* want to live in. Who the hell is the FSF to decide ? Keep your self-righteous ramblings to issues like GPL violations ...

Re:Strange or stupid

[clifyt]

No -- why, because Apple pays an encoding license to the folks that license the DVD technology for every drive they sell. It would be cost prohibitive to buy that license for EVERY machine they sell. The encoding license from what I understand is far more expensive than just to decode the stuff.

As such, iDVD is only legal to use on Apple hardware -- which means the licenses was paid. To allow it to run on ANY drive would mean they would be in violation of their license.

Evil -- you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Unfortanate -- yeah -- because I'd like to edit dvds on portables without having to have access to my G4 Tower all the time. Evil...definately not.

procius's answer on MacSlash

[jakobgrimstveit]

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/

Re:procius's answer on MacSlash

[TellarHK]

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).

Until Darwin is freed? Are you confusing the OS with the dolphin from that lame SeaQuest show? Guy. Here's a clue (take two, they're small): Apple made Darwin as free as they apparently could and still survive. Granted, I sometimes wish Apple would do more, and maybe they can, but calling yourself an activist and taking a pretty weak stab like this at them is not going to help anyone. At all. Ever.

If Apple changes their stance on the DMCA, or opens more source, you can have your little self-congratulatory wankfest, but you won't have influenced them one little bit. People that run Mac oriented news sites, and people that write for Mac oriented magazines and other publications are the people that have a chance to be noticed. Mac owners aren't blind to these things as much as some zealots like to keep claiming, but they did make the decision they just don't care that much. Make them care without being a whiner and doing something stupid like this.

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.

You've got your "truly free OS", the HURD. (Hah!) Go play with it and leave Darwin alone if you're a zealot, which is plainly obvious here.

Now pardon me while I go check my smoke alarm batteries. I think it's getting rather warm in this thread.

What GNU-Darwin really is ...

[Tsk]

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.

Re:Seems to me...

[znu]

And this isn't just a one-way thing. Apple (well, NeXT, but it's the same people) is largely responsible for GCC's Objective-C support, and continues to contribute code to the project.

Best comment from MacSlash about this incident

[NDPTAL85]

This comment comes from an AC over at MacSlash. Its hilarious:

" It's called "grandstanding," and it's one of the few actual skills the GNU bozos have. Their skills aren't in software -- they have yet to create a single program that anyone outside the nerd clique wants to use. They literally can't give their stuff away."

Re:Best comment from MacSlash about this incident

[OverCode@work]

Except, for, oh... Apple's C compiler?

Re:Best comment from MacSlash about this incident

[tim_maroney]

It's called "grandstanding," and it's one of the few actual skills the GNU bozos have. Their skills aren't in software -- they have yet to create a single program that anyone outside the nerd clique wants to use. They literally can't give their stuff away.

That was one of my comments. See if you can spot the others, and win valuable prizes!

Just as on MacSlash, somehow various people on /. failed to read or grasp the critical phrase "outside the nerd clique," citing supposed counterexamples that in fact are very much nerd-targeted, and completely unrelated to the desires or requirements of ordinary people.

Even for nerd-targeted software, GNU hasn't done well. They laboriously cloned a bunch of programs that were mostly written by a handful of actual innovators on PDP-11's a quarter-century ago. Big whoop.

The only original, which is to say non-cloned, programs from GNU that even nerds use in any significant numbers are autoconf and emacs -- gcc is a cc clone, but way behind commercial compilers in compilation speed and code quality. Autoconf is boring and trivial, while emacs is perhaps the most nightmarish and misbegotten program ever written. Other non-cloned GNU programs have sunk with few ripples for the most part. Not a stunning track record for the "vanguard of innovation and freedom." I have high standards for software, and I don't have much respect for this crowd of cloners and crap artists.

GNU-Darwin's problem with Apple:

[watchful.babbler]

Is section 2.2(c) of the APSL:

You must make Source Code of all Your Deployed Modifications publicly available under the terms of this License * * * for as long as you Deploy the Covered Code or twelve (12) months from the date of initial Deployment, whichever is longer. You should preferably distribute the Source Code of Your Deployed Modifications electronically (e.g. download from a web site)

So, basically, their beef is that any derivative version "deployed" ("to use, sublicense or distribute Covered Code other than for Your internal research and development (R&D) and/or Personal Use") has to have its code placed back into public view for public consumption. Yet Proclus (the GNU-Darwin maintainer) also maintains that "I find ... secrecy to be ... distasteful and wrong" when it comes to Apple's software. So, there seems to be a fundamental disconnect: Proclus wants Apple to lift the kilt on all its software, but give other people the right to keep their modifications to Apple's work secret.

When several people pointed out this problem in his argument, Proclus defended his position by saying, "Consenting adults should be permitted to modify and copy software in privacy," which is an effective soundbite, but no more than a shibboleth; Proclus doesn't explain why this is such a critical public policy issue, and, judging from his replies, I don't think he can. We're not talking about an invasion of the bedroom -- this is a business contract for the use of specific software. If he doesn't like the license, he doesn't have to use the software, but it's tedious to have to listen to someone who insists on turning what is a contracts dispute into an ideological war.

Why you bang off your shoes

[pgpckt]

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.

Re:Someone has to say it

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I'll probably get modded or flamed into oblivion for this, but here goes anyway...

I've always felt that any post that starts with a line like that deserves to get modded into oblivion, just on principle. If you're going to say something you think will be controversial, just say it; don't spend time trying to impress us with how brave you are for speaking your mind.

That being said, I agree completely with the rest of your post. ;)

Not every GPL project is good or well managed

[goombah99]

Just because a project has good aspirations does not make it a well run project or a good product. Folding@home good project well run. Genome@home total disaster waste of CPU cycles.

compare fink to Gnu-darwin. From the end user perspective gnu darwin stinks. They dont respond well to critisism and they have never been very compatible with OSX. THe reason I think is they never really wanted to be part of OSX they wanted to replace it with a tottally GNU system rather than embrace OSX and bring GNU to OSX. For example, install GNU darwin and it overwrites lots of the BSD bin functions like make and tar. that's pretty absurd. No warnings no documentation worth reading.

I'm glad its gone. Now everthing will port via fink which is intended as an add on to OSX that brings GNU to OSX without replacing OSX.

SO this is good news

Re:Problems With The APSL (GNU hipocritical)

[HiThere]

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".

Re:A matter of self-preservation (Re:Utter Stupidi

[Lars T.]

A) How exactly is Apple "choosing to enforce the DMCA"?
B) The GPL only has meaning because of copyright. Using the GPL to fight against copyright is like fucking for virginity. And you can only see Apple's behavior as contradictory?

More FUD

[IamTheRealMike]

So what if they require you to send back your changes?

Originally the GPL had that clause as well, but it was removed in order to preserve peoples sanity. It's a stupid clause. What if you make an experimental change that doesn't work? Do you have to send a useless patch to Apple? What about if you alter the indents to make it look neater in your opinion? They don't really care about that. What about changes that are site specific? The list goes on and on.

The "viral" nature of the GPL is there to stop organisations forking it and then "taking over" the product by adding proprietary modifications that then may become popular, so effectively closing the source. If you never redistribute the code, that can't happen, so there's no need for it.

I see so much FUD about the GPL, really pathetic FUD. Stuff like "the GPL takes away my freedoms". That's BS - it takes away your "freedom" insomuch as laws against murder take away your freedom to kill people. Absolute freedom to do whatever you like simply doesn't exist in reality, why should software licensing be any different.

The GPL places severe restirictions on what I can and cannot do with my software by requiring me to provide source.

No it doesn't. The GPL places some very easily satisfied conditions on you if you modify then redistribute those modifications to somebody elses code. You can use that software for whatever you like, you can modify it in any way you want, but if you want to give other people that software it must be licensed in the same way as it was originally. Big deal.

Re:More FUD

[zanerock]

I never said that the GPL takes away my freedom. I merely state that there are restrictions on using GPL software. There is no question on that. I am perfectly free *not* to use GPL code, which I rarely do, to develop that is. Please try to respond to what I write.

What I said is:

The fact that GNU is complaining about freedom to do what you want with software is both laughable and hipocritical.

And this is true. With GNU, I am not free to add value and then charge for that value. Technically, it is true, I can, but since I must also provide that value free of charge, the fact is sort of obviated. Yet this does not restrict my freedom, it just restircts me from using GPL software in my own development projects, which is how I earn a living. There are very clear and strong restrictions on what I can do with GPL software, and that is the hippocrisy, that they complain about restrictions on APSL software simple because those restrictions are incompatible with their own restrictions.

I respect the GPL and what they are doing, and I understand what the GPL is about very well. As to whether the restrictions are "severe" or not, you seem to miss the point that it's all about context. In the context that I develop code and need to distribute it (and charge for my distribution) in order to survive, then the GPL is very restrictive indeed. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, they can be restrictive if they want, it's their license, but restrictive it is none-the-less.

Re:Problems With The APSL (GNU hipocritical)

[zanerock]

But I never said anything about having problems with restrictions. I agree that releasing a binary only, proprietary licenses is very restrictive, more so than the GPL (well, most likely). My problem is not with GPL restrictions, or APSL restrictions, or any restrictions at all. My only problem is with GPL proponents complaining about the restrictions of other licenses when their own licenses impose restrictions of their own. (If BSD or Apache proponents wanted to complain, that would be a different matter.

As for context, maybe you couldn't get it from this post... my thinking was actually the three (original, not the replies to the replies) posts in the thread. Not that I'd expect you to have read them all... my point being not so much that you "should have read it this way," but more by the way of supporting my assertion that my rewritten version was the original intent.

Anyway...

I still don't understand how saying the GPL places restrictions on software derived from it is stupid. I'm not saying restrictions are bad, I'm not saying the GPL is bad. I'm just saying the it places restrictions on derived software, which seems to me, not only reasonable, but factually true.

I agree that there is a lot of fuzzy thinking and such around GPL and coypiright law, and IP law in general. In fact, my entire reaction was to the common mistake that GPL==free software. What incensed me in the GNU-Darwin point, and, to a lesser extend, GNU's web page, is their explicit and implicit claim they and they alone can define what free software is and what a good license is.

To a large part, they have been successful. Much common media equates GPL with free software without understanding the implications or the foolishness of such a conclusion. GPLed software is a subset of free software, and though important, and even large, is dwarfed (in terms of users) by BSD/Apache style software.

If anything, BSD/Apache style free software should be considered the archtypical. Not only does it have fewer restrictions (in that it has practically none), but it's usage is huge. There's BSD software in Windows, Apache is the biggest web server, the most used Java libraries/frameworks are Apache style, etc.

As for you divergence, I agree. I personally wish that I could share my code without fear of having it stolen. To be able to do so would be a great value to myself, and, I like to believe, others as well.

Actually...

[pschmied]

...I'm willing to entertain that he used "to" correctly. However, someone should inform him that "being" is intransitive. :-)

-Peter

Back to Basics

[jpellino]

Let's see - the original manifesto reads like this:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

- Yep. You can do this and still have Apple technologies (Cocoa, Carbon, Core Audio) handle the grunt work they were designed for. Pretty good compromise to attach all these ease-of-use goodies to your main event...

* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

- Yep also. Unless you need to have the control boxes mauve, puce and burnt sienna instead of red, yellow, and green. Or you need to reconfigure MIDI so that all the white keys are black. But really, how often does such low-level tinkering drive an app? This smacks of kids who play with the fonts instead of writing their paper...

* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

- Absolutely. Linking to core services doesn't stop this in the least.

* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

- Again - no problem. Gets done every day.

This amounts to shoe banging.

As I said over on MacSlash, GNU's Not Unix, and It Ain't Intuit, Either. This sort of behavior will not get a doorstop-style, Jehovah's Wittness visit from Steve. Alienating the platform in question will not get anyone to open-source the proprietary technologies that they get to make money on.

Don't hand out recipes and then punish me because I need to Cuisinart to make it happen at my house.

Here's what yiour actions predict: Apple will continue with certain core technologies, make money to buy bananas, maybe never invoke the DCMA again for anything, do quite well in either case, and you guys will be the backwater of open source software for a darn good platform.

FUD comment scores +5

[solferino]

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