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Apple Public Source License Now FSF Approved
BWJones writes "Apple has now made their public source license 2.0 free.
From the release "The Darwin team at Apple is pleased to announce that version 2.0 of the Apple Public Source License has been certified as a 'Free Software License.' APSL 2.0 includes numerous changes and simplifications to make it even easier to use Apple Open Source software as part of your programs. To indicate acceptance of APSL 2.0, you can now use your new or existing "Apple ID", rather than having a separate Darwin account.""
proclus adds "This
is great news for Darwin-based free software projects like
The GNU-Darwin Distribution
and
Fink.
GNU-Darwin has had an
ongoing discussion
about this development, and annouced and end to our
'Free Darwin
Campaign,' so long as Apple avoids DMCA-based legal action."
Yay! now we have another license to rant about and compare with GPL/BSD!! But seriously, why does apple need a new free software license? Aren't the ones being used now sufficient?
Licensees will now have the choice of providing source code to either just the users of the code or (as before) to the general public (Section 2.2(c)).
What does this mean? Could one restrict who is allowed to use the code and thereby restrict who may view the source? In a commercial application this means that one could produce a program and then sell it and only allow purchasers to view the source, correct?
Visualize the world of wine
This is one more feather in our collective cap. This means that in very recent history (less than a year) open source was significantly impacted every major player. Microsoft is keeping a close eye on us and implementing an open source lab. Big business companies like IBM and Oracle have jumped onboard. And now Apple is realizing that its better to go with it than fight it. This is great news. I could have dreamed of this five years ago, but I never would have bet on it.
We are making history and leaving a big footprint. Little people influencing very large companies.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Does this mean that it's possible(legal) to transplant Darwin's SMP capabilities into OpenBSD's PowerPC port? Firewire support? Cheapass-iBook-winmodem support?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Well, I actually I wonder like a previous poster WHY every company needs to have their own license when GPL and BSD (or Apache perhaps) seem to cover the bases and you can always say "modified GPL", i.e. GPL + trademark restriction.
But on the whole this is great to hear, because I consider the FSF stamp of approval to mean "this license has no hidden traps". I.e., no weird venue change clauses, or ejection seats (if you get sued, your license terminates, if you have patents your license terminates, if you "use" the software the wrong way your license terminates) or other stupidity.
Sometimes free software folks think that these little details don't matter, but of course if you ever have to go to court, EVERY detail matters, and you agree to them!
I really don't have time to read all these stupid licenses, but when I see FSF-approved I feel a little more at ease.
check out the ibooks, they are much less expensive than you think. start at $1000 with dvd rom drive, cost around $1400 with dvd rom & cdrw. I agree the powerbooks are expensive, but I think that feature-for-feature, the ibooks can price compete with any x86 laptop, and will generally have longer battery life.
Licensees will only be required to release source code of Modifications they "Externally Deploy" (new Section 1.4, and Sections 2.1, 2.2). "External Deployment" is defined to cover the external distribution of APSL'ed code or use of APSL'ed code to provide a service (including content delivery) to a third party through electronic communication with that party.
Don't know how I feel about this one...
You can't run an application service provider program without releasing changes to all your clients, and possibly the public if your clients deal with the public?
You can't run a b2b service without releasing all your changes to your distributors that use it and your clients that use it?
This is very different from the "no black box public distribution" that I previously considered the GPL to represent.
If I had a client who sold widgets, and he had to release all his source to clients who connected to his b2b setup, allowing them to leave him and then give all his internal systems to his competitor, even though he never distributed his software, I don't think he'd be wanting to buy anything I built.
Could you insulate against this by putting a "dumb layer" between your apps? You could argue that ANY system that was interacted with by the public, however indirectly, required publication... in most businesses, this would eliminate the "internal deployment" angle almost totally, unless you had a typist carrying out your data-syncronisation work
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Ask this question to all people who has their Macs running Linux/PPC (Gentoo, YDL, Debian, etc - there thousands and thousands of Linux/PPC users), Mac OS 9 (or even 8 - "classic" application still run better in the original OS *AND* there are still tons of such application not ported yet to OSX *AND* there are still millions of users of Mac OS 8/9 around the world who has own reasons of not migrating to OSX), and even BSD (not OSX - original *BSD, although, there are not many Mac/BSD users).
I think that overall there are millions of Mac users who are running something different than OSX. How do you think they have got their Macs? I understand that some of them have bought their old Macs before OSX was stable/available. But I am sure that there are many of them who bough Macs *AFTER* OSX was around. I personally know many such individuals and some companies. And that makes you quoted sentence WRONG. Think about it.
Less is more !
Now, I might actually buy a Mac laptop if they didn't cost so damn much!
Actually, try pricing them out. Often they are cheaper than other Wintel products and when they are slightly more expensive, the price of admission is well worth it. For example, I'm getting emails here while folks on Slashdot are hitting my workstation server pretty frequently. At the same time, The Clash is cranking on iTunes while I am working on a manuscript in Word and creating figures for that manuscript in Photoshop and doing data analysis in IDL using *nix code originally created on an SGI. All of this at the same time with zero down time and a nice consistent GUI.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
That is indeed true, and John Carmack ported X11 to Darwin a while back.
This goes to show that the efforts of RMS have in fact been fruitful. He's constructive criticism has helped Apple to make a better license.
It's called progress. It's still not compatable with the GPL, but it is now Free Software according to the FSD.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Amen to that. I think it's very short-sighted for the free software community to constantly knock the Establishment Corporations when they try to incorporate free software ideas. I mean think about it - you won! They're adopting your methods and models! Complaining that they're not doing it completely because they haven't entirely abandoned other methods of software developmennt/distribution is ridiculous.
If you think about it, a free software company which becomes a huge success might likely do so by also selling proprietary add-ons. I'm thinking of the linux distro which finally becomes user-friendly enough to get desktop marketshare worth a damn. Or, it could go from the other end...a traditional software company might incorporate free software but also continue to make and sell proprietary add-ons (Apple).
Both cases are likely to draw the ire of these free software fundamentalists.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Apple is no monopoly and never will be. It is simply one of many alternatives, and, in my opinion, the strongest contender for the best overall computing experience.
Many open-source zealots (Gnu, FSF) seem to have issues with an operating system that possesses any proprietary code. That is just silly because they are alienating themselves from the one corporation that is increasing open-source-related and UNIX mindshare. Apple proudly advertises that the core underpinnings of their operating system is powered by open-source software. Apple wants people to realize that open-source software is by definition sturdier and more mature, especially when it comes to security, than closed-source alternatives such as windows.
To make things even better, Apple has released Darwin's source code to the world, so just about ANYONE can build their own alternative to Apple's operating system. And people have. You can run Darwin on just about any hardware, you'll just have to use it with X11/Gnome/KDE/whatnot versus Apple's user interface.
Gnu and FSF need to adopt a less snooty stance and understand that what is good for Apple is good for the open-source community at large and vice-versa.
There are good reasons for buying a PC laptop and there are good reasons for buying a mac laptop.
The PC will give you a better price/performance ratio, if you define performance as a faster CPU. Having dealt with my share of headaches related to windows' inherently flawed network and system-level security, getting various exotic USB devices to work in linux, dual-booting between windoz and linux to switch between application development and "office-like" tasks, random windoz system freezes, i can tell you that my definition of performance has finally evolved to be "shit just works".
As far as price goes, all i gotta say is my powerbook is already 2 years old, i've been using it EXTENSIVELY for both work (j2ee application development, office tasks, Gimp/X11, accessing shares on windoz networks) and personal stuff (iPhoto, iTunes, watching DVDs, .MAC). It never ever crashes, i recently installed a Gig of RAM (two 512MB chips) for $160 including shipping from a vendor i found on pricewatch.com. I also upgraded its internal hard drive with IBM's latest 40Gig "travelstar" HD, for $90 from a vendor i found on pricewatch.com. Basically, it has proved itself to be worth every penny and has rendered me incredibly more productive at work. Compare that to that win2k DELL laptop i used to have at work. fucking piece of shit. the mouse would move on its own. the system would freeze for no reasons. Caused me to force reboots many many times due to crashes. All those reboots eventually caused bad sectors on my hard drive which corrupted key files in my windoz profile folder, and somehow some shit had gotten corrupted on my linux partition, i couldn't even log-in half the time. The whole system became fucked after a little over a year of intense usage. Sure the DELL laptop prolly was cheap. but the resulting loss of productivity cost my company a lot of money and cost ME a lot of sleep.
but that's just my experience. most people just don't use their computers and laptops for anything serious or that mission-critical. many of those people do not mind tinkering with their systems, reformatting hard drives, recompiling linux kernels to support exotic devices. And I think this is a very valuable part of one's computing experience background. Tinkering with a system trains your brain to solve problems.
I've already been there. I no-longer wish to tinker. I want a superior computing experience, and i'll happily pay a premium for it.
I'd recommend you go to an apple store and play with the macs they have there. open terminal.app. play around in the tcsh. or switch to bash. found all the linux commands you cherish all right there. Then open some other apps.
it is not just a "pretty computer". MacOS X is a f
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Uh, I don't see what's the point in complaining about that.
Deal with it, RMS is an idealist. A quite awesome one in fact. Seriously, how many people have whatever got him to practically replace Unix with something better (excluding the kernel) because of a printer driver?
You may complain all you want, but FSF matches RMS' ideals. If you don't agree with such extreme idealism you can always start your own movement, although I doubt you're one of the very few capable of that.
Yes, RMS sometimes looks too fanatical. But it's quite possible that all this wouldn't have started if he wasn't.