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FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License
Stian Engen writes "Bradley Kuhn of the FSF does not recommend the release of new software using the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0 despite its
newly accuired Free Software License."
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I don't think this truly matters very much. Three objections to a software licence has to be well below average. I don't see a problem with points one and three. Yes, it may link to proprietary code, and yes, it's not GPL compatible, but those seem to be minor points, if at all. Perhaps the second point, that Apple gives itself right to changes you make in the code, but not vice versa. However, it is Apple Corporation's code. Apple would have a very tough time surviving if it's code or an ISO image was free for download off of a server. Most of its value is in the OS, not the hardware. Although it is nice and shiny, just expensive.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
might as well piss off some more people.
:) b)sell to the open source crowd. Face it, how many /. geeks would have bought anything Apple before OS X and Darwin came out? It's cool now though. Admittedly, that's kind of what made me get my iBook...
Disclaimer:I own an iBook.
Yes, Apple's liscense isn't really the most free of them all. This is because Apple's primary motivations in using Open Source solutions are to: a)harness the man power and combined talent of the open source movement to aide their own software, thus making profit from software they would otherwise have to write themselves
So maybe we have a new category: free as in, you're free to help Apple.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Remind me, since when did companies have a legal or ethical obligation to release the source for any of their work? Apple is certainly a friend of the open source community, since they pay people to write OSS. This "all your code are belong to us" ideological BS isn't going to help anyone.
Note that "does not recommend APSL 2.0 for new software" != "APSL is bad". The FSF is against almost all licenses other than (L)GPL, including (especially?) BSD. What this means is that if you are writing OSS, then the GPL is your best chance to ensure that your work will always be Free. However, this does not mean that if someone distributes software under some other OSS license, then their intent is to screw you over.
Apple's model of mixing open source and proprietary software is an effective idea.
After all, no hacker wants to idle away his time polishing the mundane details of a user interface. I sure as hell don't want to, but I might if someone paid me. Why not let hackers build the fascinating technologies, open source them, and then let companies pay people (and make money) off of polished user interfaces? We hackers will always have our own (unpolished) interfaces, so we aren't tied down. Granted, the user interfaces are going to have all the problems of close source software - bugs that we can't fix, ect - but it seems like a very reasonable compromise.
Anyway think whatever you want, this model is the one that will carry the most real-world punch in the years to come. The 2.0 is just symbolic of Apple's intention to play the game.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
does anybody else notice that does not recommend APSL 2.0 for new software does not mean APSL is EVIL.
Exactly. Everyone is dumping on the Free Software Foundation for no reason again. The FSF says that the APSL is a free software license (a high form of praise indeed coming from the FSF), but that it is somewhat unfair to users, mainly because it gives Apple rights that other users don't. Thus it recommends that the licensed not be used for new products.
This seems entirely reasonable to me. FSF is telling people not to use the APSL because they will be giving some of their rights to Apple. Duh! No one would do this anyway.
Slashdot: say something obvious and get flamed for it.
Apple, IBM and a handful of other companies heavily invested in Open Source and gave a lot of their work back to public. Granted, they are out to make money, but they still took a big risk and huge number of users got free (both as in speech and as in beer) stuff without paying them a cent.
I wish FSF would spend more time to promote current leaders of open source and encourage others to follow in their footsteps. But all I see on their page is critisism:
Aside from this, we must remember that only part of Mac OS X is being released under the APSL. Even though the fatal flaws of the APSL were fixed, and even if the practical problems were addressed, that does no good for the other parts of Mac OS X whose source code is not being released at all. We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do.
So basically, they are more interested in "ideological purity" than promoting realistic progress towards their goal. This is fine as a PHD thesis of some MIT student. But it does show that RMS/FSF are worthless as a realistic leader of today's free software movement. The question is, who and which organizations are up to the task?
This is a double post story, but I saw one particularly insightful comment from the last one (that I did not make) which I would like to re-iterate over here.
Thanks to Llywelyn:
My experience from reading GNU's work is that they aren't terribly fond of anything that isn't GNU.
From that webpage:
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The FSF now considers the APSL to 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.
-------------
Let's go over these point by point.
>*It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with
>other files which may be entirely proprietary.
So does BSD. This does not, in my book, qualify as a "major practical problem."
>It is unfair, since it requires you to give Apple rights to
>your changes which Apple will not give you for its code.
Yes, it requires this. I'm not sure why this makes it "unfair" though: this seems like more of a "legal cover our asses" clause on Apple's part so that they can use the changes elsewhere.
>It is incompatible with the GPL.
Would someone look up the definition of "circular reasoning"?
It seems, from everything I've seen come out of GNU, that they fit every definition of "Zealots". They almost seem to be *reaching* for something bad to say about the license simply because a proprietary software company is behind it.
You have a funny idea of what constitutes the "vast majority" of an OS if you reckon that most of Apple's OS is closed.
/ fact_sheet.html). How long do you reckon that business model is going to support a company with ~12,000 employees? (http://news.com.com/2100-1040_3-978535.html, those are 2001 figures - I can't be bothered to look through Apple's SEC filings to find out exactly how many employees they currently have)
Most of it is in fact open source, Darwin is a complete OS in it's own right. What Apple have chosen not to release into open source is their window client/server Quartz which is understandable if you ask me and a whole load of Apps that ship with the commercial OS which aren't actually part of the OS iTunes, iMovie, etc. The other notable exception that springs to mind is QuickTime, but that would be pretty useless anyway unless the community licensed the Sorensen and MPEG4 codecs used to play and create it's content.
Now maybe you think that Apple can survive like Redhat, the whole PC market in this case only supports that company of ~600 employees (http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/presskit
Now maybe you're just a troll or maybe you're just an impulse poster. Sometimes I wish people would think a little before they post.
Don't blame me - this
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Sure, Apple are at heart more or less as greedy and controlling as the next company, but consider how much of MS-Windows, OS/400 or Solaris has been distributed on terms anything like as good as these. Then can you tell me that a step forward hasn't been made here?
I believe that FSF are right to point out the remaining deficiencies in the licence, but they really could have put more effort into thanking Apple for coming to the party as much as they have.
Here's a suggestion for the FSF: set up a Corporate Heroes page, and put stuff like OpenVMS, OpenOffice.org and so on which has been GPLed by a corporation up in there in big print with links and logos. Then add a link to an "honourable mentions" page which mentions (in fine print, no logos) efforts like Apple's which are incomplete or grudging, but yet are progress in the right direction. ANy who care will get the hint. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing