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iCommune Retools Itself as Standalone Open Source App
Doctor Beavis writes "As noted previously, Apple ordered developer James Speth to return his iTunes software developer kit and to stop distributing the iCommune plug-in for iTunes. Today, CNET has a story with further details and developments. Speth said that he will honor Apple's request to stop distributing his software, but he will build the same features into a standalone application. The next version of iCommune will work with iTunes and potentially other digital music players and will use Rendezvous, Apple's implementation of a protocol for automatic discovery of network-connected devices. Speth also said that the new version will be Open Source under the GPL."
The iCommune page says it will not depend on any Apple proprietary interfaces or libraries, and it mentions CPAN. So does this mean it will be in Perl and usable with any kind of Unix?
but as we have leared with AIM, SMB, and plenty of other proprietary protocols, or even proprietary implementations of open protocols (think M$)... what happens when the protocol provider changes the rules?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Apple took a bunch of BSD code and other Open Source utilities and added a few layers on top and called it a genuine Apple product. They are now making millions of dollars a year.
Some little programmer comes along and tries to share music with fellow Apple users, and Apple sends their suit-clad lawyers after him, threatening to ruin him and take all he's got.
Hey Apple, do you only embrace Open Source when it involves your developers stealing code from other projects?
Ten bucks says Apple releases their own P2P audio sharing utility in like 2 weeks using this guy's old code.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
cause it's GPL and it has the word "commune" (think communism) built right into it! :P
I think Apple has trademarked the letter i, i(TM)f I'm not mistaken.
If you want to keep it on the Mac call it iFacist or something.
...most open source projects are created out of love, but many more, out of spite.
Yeah, when Apple moves to squash a P2P client's author, it's because the nasty RIAA forced them to. When MSFT does it, it's because they're inherently evil.
It's bullshit.
Apple moved to kill iCommune because it would compete with a commercial product they plan to offer with limited (read DRM-but-since-its-Apple-we-wont-call-it-DRM) capabilities. They pulled some obscure 'you may not write front-ends for our software' clause to do it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I looked at the webpage, but it doesn't say. Can anyone tell me what iCommune did?
Offtopic: Anyone have any good suggestions for a linux mp3 player? Looking for one that is easy for my wife to use, but lets you search for different songs. (not xmms)
They misunderestimated me. -- George W. Bush
Man, getting Apple to shut you down, only to then recover is like the best thing that can happen as a developer. I wish they'd do it to me. All this publicity...
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won..." ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
Seems like yet another case of a company not realizing exactly what it's unleashed until it's too late. Fortunately, in this case we will all reap the benefits.
I'm perhaps a little worried about the naming choice, as "iCommune" is not exactly the best retort to the people who complain about the Marxist philosophy of Open Source, but I think the paradigms and conceptual leaps here will prove longer lived than the name.
Now we may gain the power to unite again under one crown, as in the days of old.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Slashdot readers have a habit of forgetting details of an issue if the details are inconvenient:
[quote]
Now this guy used the iTools SDK, develops something the terms said he couldn't, and he's the hero? Apple obeys the terms of the license, this guy didn't.
[/quote]
He violated the terms of using Apple's SDK! Or cource Apple's going to be be angry.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
But then, Apple would never sink to using such underhanded tactics.... Would they?
Ñ'
Both AppleEvents and Rendezvous have published API's that don't have (to my knowledge) restrictions on their use.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Apple gives it users unprecedented freedom to rip, mix, burn. You are FREE to do whatever you want with YOUR CDs that you PURCHASE. Ripping MP3s from another Mac OS X box with iCommune is no different than using XNap, LimeWire, Kazaa, or other P2P file sharing software. The music industry already hates Apple for what it allows its users to do, and Apple has to draw the line between personal freedom and breaking the law.
6 5.ENR:
n c_1
READ THIS LAW:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.22
and story here on CNet:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.html?tag=fd_
and tell me this guy is not allowing millions of people to break the law. Don't get me wrong, the music industry charges way too much for music and other video content, but when MY freedom is threatened with a law and I hear that the Feds are going after the little guys now (200+songs downloaded), I'd think twice, and then again about sharing P2P in the future.
I think that the iCommune peeps should have given up while they were only marginally behind. They produced some extension to Apple's product, and Apple deemed it to be illegal so they sent a C+D and asked for their SDK back.
So the iCommune peeps decide that they're going to rewrite some software to do the same thing (give or take some added extras), release it under the same name only this time it'll be GPL'd. So the headlines in the popular techpress go from Apple tells author of small software plug-in to stop distributing to GNU Public software breaks Apple copyright, violates trademark.
This won't be good for FS/OSS publicity as the public will perceive GPL authors (they read:entire OSS lot) as a group of lawbreaking Communist zealots who flout C+D notices issued by hard-working companies just trynig to make a buck in today's world. Remember: the clueless person on the street doesn't see the problem with laws like the DMCA; they think it's just protection (try and explain to someone that it nearly made the marker pen an illegal tool).
BTW does no-one read my journal?
uh... not really. they're just limiting the capability to streaming, and the scope to Rendezvous (zeroconf) networks, so it's a local area network thing.
DRM usually implies that a piece of "content" can have specific licensing restrictions that are enforced digitally on a granular basis (not across the board). there's nothing DRM about what apple's doing with iTunes at all...
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Anybody working on one? If we can find a good way to add support to GNUstep, I bet we could port this app fairly easily. (If it's a Cocoa app, natch.)
I know because I used to hang work with his ex-roommate and hung out with them occasionally. He was always working on easy ways to share music over HTTP. I find it funny that they took away his developer kit, he probably gets it comped to him since he is an Apple employee. Hell of a nice guy and a great programmer to boot.
Dan Shahin
Hijinx Comics
The World's Greatest Comic Book Store!
to mail me, first remove the evil spam.
It seems to me that Apple was just trying to protect their own flank in this one. I mean, they're already getting flack from the dark side for strongly supporting a format which allows easy copying of copyrighted material, and now a guy comes along and takes one of their programs and turns it into something where the blatant purpose is simply copying music. Of course they came down on him, because they don't want to get hit themselves. It's not their responsibility when a person writes a third-party trading app and makes it run on OS X, but when their own programs are being used for the purpose, their butts are in the bulls-eye. Frankly, I think they've been doing a very good job of supporting the free music movement, but I certainly don't expect them to become the new champions. After all, they are a company, and their biggest responsiblity has to be to their investors. Law-suits cause stock prices to drop. Pure and simple.
...the guy violated the license for the SDK, and they put a halt to his charade, boo hoo... I dont' feel bad for him at all, now he has to write the way he should have in the 1st place... as for Open Source, Apple has steadily been comitting the new code back as per the licensing it agreed to... KHTML is bound to be tons better because of this, as well as BSD itself..
Yup, just started one a week or two ago, and just got it working today for the first time... still a long ways to go, but the code is designed to be super-simplistic C and embeddable into any OS app. You can check it out and the progress from my site or live view of the raw code.
I hope to have it start getting polished up in the next week, with some demo apps and utilities, make a project site for it, etc. Just jabber/email me at jer@jabber.org if your interested.
Did your brother have an accident with a contriceptive and a time machine?
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
To put it another way, what if I took GPL'd software and used it in a commercial product and didn't distribute the source. Pretend that I happen to disagree with that clause in the GPL. Do I have a right to do that? I think not.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
why does he get an article for this.
the guy violates terms of agreement to iTools, is ordered to back off, decides to push his code into stand-alone functionality and gets more coverage as it seems he was "forced" to do this ?
what the hell does he get such coverage for? the app he made while cool is hardly worth all this attention. The app he's creating to be independant of iTools is no more special, and he is only doing what he was supposed to in the first place, write an app that doesnt violate the Terms Of Agreement he signed, and make it work as best as he can.
Of course the real issue is everyone wants to make apple look like the bad guy that forced this developer to rework his entire code base, and to withdraw an existing product from the market place only because apple legal had a hard-on for him. Come on, he was promoting illicit use of apple's freely distributed product. And he was specificly asked NOT to do that. He doesnt deserve all this undo attention.
--Enter The Sig--
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
iCommune violated the terms of the SDK, plain and simple. Apple was well within their rights to tell them to C&D both with the BSD license, and their license on the SDK.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
How do they know he returned his original iTunes SDK, and not a copy?
c-hack.com |
If you accept the APSL as "free", then you can go and use Apple's implementation:
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/rendezv ous/
why they have no market share.
What's wrong with you? Do you have any idea what iCommune does? How the heck would it interface with any sort of MP3 player?
I agree. I'm a big Mac fan and like to read Apple news, but this is hardly front page information. There is an Apple section for things like this. The front page Apple news ought to be the things that are interesting to people beyond the Mac community. I have to think that this news isn't even a big deal to most Mac users, themselves.
Oh well.
You should especially not download it from here.
Could someone post or provide a pointer to the alleged "license" that allegedly constrains the use of the iTunes SDK? Is this a legitimate contract that must be entered into and signed before you get your hands on the SDK, or is it yet another one of those worthless "shrinkwrap licenses"?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
first you are not getting a copy of the music. you are literally sharing it much like people in the same room share the music that is filling the room. The music resides on someone elses hard disk, when they go away (unplug from the internet ) your access to the music vanishes. You dont wind up with a copy.
Moreover rendevous is not globe spanning. instead it is local to your immediate network neighborhood. You only sharing music with people who have a fairly tightly defined relationship to you. compare this to limewire, where you and ndugu from nigeria may be swapping copies of brittany's latest. It is instead more analogous to being in a big building and looking at books on other people's shelves to see if you want to borrow one.
such use might still violate a EULA but probably not violate FAIR USE and thus is unlikey to be challenged (since a loss my invaldate the broader restrictions of the EULA.)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"Of course they came down on him, because they don't want to get hit themselves"
;)
Indeed. "Darwinism" at it's finest, survival of the fittest...and all that good stuff.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
Maybe sony would get wise and say for an extra buck give you a cd with a 10-user site liscence.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Don't forget that Jobs is so far up Disney's ass he only sees daylight when the Mouse yawns...
(slightly off the original topic, yes, but whatever)
Up Disney's ass?
Get your facts straight... Jobs was lauded for standing *up* to Disney after Toy Story's succes, and getting a new contract for the split of future revenues. You'll probably see Pixar go it alone after their 5 movie deal is up, much to the financially shaky Disney's dismay.
Trust me, there's no love lost between those two.
As for Apple absorbing public hacks into their OS's, I won't pick a fight with you there.
------------------
"Never Attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity..."
Everything Mac still has the OLD version (iTunes plugin) mirrored right here (iCommune.tgz).
I think we've all seen it in various scripts and plots of movies and novels: A genius or otherwise intelligent individual has a great idea and a certain leaning towards a particular goal. However, they are so enamoured by the lab, the people, or perhaps even the very materials that he works with that he forgets that he had agreed to certain rules.
While iCommune isn't being taken over, the ideas and goals that the coder had were not compatible with the "rules" that the SDK imposed. Perhaps he is in the clear, but that would require legal recourse.
But the thing is... Apple is in it for the money, no matter how pretty the products are or how flowery the company's leader's words are. Some things which they think they can allow into the wild, they release the code for. Some things which they think they would like to keep for themselves, they hold back. That's their right and perogative.
I would presume the coder liked the Apple look and feel. That he probably owned an Apple and supports the Apple community spirit. And in his enthusiasm in exploring ideas and writing code, ultimately slipped past the boundaries of the base he has picked to write and develop that program on.
Apple and he did the right thing. He returning their SDK and starting from scratch and going under the GPL.
All in all... there's nothing wrong with writing programs for the Apple platform. But then again, it's a case of "live and learn" and as the case turns out... "Coder beware..."
Winged Power Photography
It's the same as the GPL.
If you write a gpl'd library/app, you are saying that no one can link a non gpl-compatable app to it. If you think this api isn't/shoudnl't be enforcable, then neither should the gpl be.
Not exactly the same thing, but you might take a look at Andromeda which (along with Apache/PHP) lets you stream your MP3/OGG/etc collection. I made Andromeda, so sorry about the self-plug, but I do have a bunch of OS X'ers running it. Also, I do charge for Andromeda (it's my job). Anyways, I hope you check it out... -Scott
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
A lot of people have pointed out that Apple is about to release their own P2P program. This will not be exactly the same as iCommune. The plugin allows you to copy music over the network; the rendezvous-enabled iTunes will only stream it.
uh... not really. they're just limiting the capability to streaming, and the scope to Rendezvous (zeroconf) networks, so it's a local area network thing.
I don't know enough about Rendezvous/zerconfig, but is it limited within a particular zone or is the machine/entity visible over the whole LAN?
I can envision some rather large AppleTalk enabled LANs (e.g., universities) that are split into dozens of zones. I can see a lot of this bandwidth being burned by IP based "radio" stations.
Press 'j' to 'jump to file'. This lets you search the text of the playlist, so just make sure the playlist has album, artist and song title in it.
Does my bum look big in this?
Honestly, what did Apple really do to this guy? Sure, he has to return the SDK, but that just means that, in the future, he'll be unable to refer to it--if his code is well-documented (or, perhaps, when his code becomes well-documented between now and the time he returns the iSDK ;-)), then it won't be an issue.
As for the order to stop distributing, that shouldn't hurt too much either. In a couple of weeks, "a friend of his" could "write a similar thing". Or the source might "find its way onto a public server". Apple could have done a lot worse than a cease-and-desist style ultimatum, with the legions of lawyers at their command, so I think this represents a measure of compassion towards Mac developers.
As for those of you pre-flaming Apple for the possibility that Apple developers will use iCommune code in the potentially file-sharing-enabled "iTunes x", isn't that what Open Source and Free Software are supposed to be about?
Yep. From Jobs' speech at the 2002 Grammy awards, If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own,
The parent does not know what he is talking about. He does not understand the most basic concepts about licensing.
Please ensure his comment goes -1.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
kerberos
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish: Three Strikes And You're Out
Microsoft extended Kerberos with undocumented proprietary features in an effort to prevent interoperability