CUPS Purchased By Apple Inc.

Rick Richardson writes to note a posting on cups.org that reveals that Apple, which in 2002 first licensed CUPS for printing in OS X, purchased the source code last February and hired its main developer, Michael R. Sweet. Sweet writes: "CUPS will still be released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms, and I will continue to develop and support CUPS at Apple." There are no comments on the post. What exactly did Apple purchase? It was and is an open source project. Trademarks aren't mentioned.

Comments

Re:GPL License Exceptions

[morgan_greywolf]

but if not not he needs to get the approval of all that contributed code to change the license like this

Easy Software Products required that the copyright to contributed code be assigned to ESP before it would be accepted in the main distribution. So, yes, they can do this.

Pay attention, Apple fanbois -- Apple doesn't give one rat's ass about software freedom -- either the ideas of 'open source' or the ideas of 'free software'. Free/Open Source Software is just used by Apple as a way to outsource development -- for free (as in beer). This proves it. They bought CUPS and hired Michael Sweet just to ensure that they don't have to open-source any portion of Mac OS X that's not already open source.

Re:Maybe their server will work now.

[MBCook]

I haven't had those kind of problems, but I am still amazed that my LaserJet 2100 isn't supported in PostScript mode. I can use it in non-post script mode (PCL 6). I can use it as "generic postscript printer". But I have never been able to find how to make it work as it should. It prints fine, it's just slower this way when printing graphics heavy stuff.

But then again setting up a network printer in OS X is trivial compared to the lunacy you have to go through on XP.

Re:RMS Proffing

[aristotle-dude]

it seems that apple bought CUPS and changed the licence so that people could create proprietary derivatives on MacOS legally. You don't seem to understand how copyright works. The GPLv2 does not remove rights from the copyright holder which meant Michael R Sweet could have licensed CUPS under another license in addition to GPL.

Apple bought it to ensure that it remained GPL2 as GPL3 is considered dangerous.

Legally, I suppose it would be within your right to create a fork under GPL2 but ethically and morally it would be stealing since the original copyright holder (Michael R Sweet) was the main contributor and any other patch contributors assigned rights to him before they were included in the repository. You would basically be carrying out a coupe and violating the spirit of the license if not the letter of it by taking something none of you owned and creating a fork of it. I don't think you would be allowed to license it under the GPL3 without the copyright holders permission since only the copyright holder can change license terms.

This COULD be a good thing

[WindBourne]

First, I assume that Apple is doing this to be able to add their own closed code. I do not think that they are worried about GPLv3.

Second, Apple will almost certainly throw a small staff at this. That means greatly speeded up development. Third, we will almost certainly see true EASY set-up.

What is the bad part? Apple has shown in the past that when they have to share directly with OSS, they do not do a good job. In particular, I am thinking of how the khtml has gone. It has actually reflected poorly on Apple. So, hopefully, apple is looking to take FULL control of this project AND keep it working everywhere. If so, this could be a feather in their cap. If not, it will make a NUMBER of OSS groups re-consider working with apple. Ever.

Re:RMS Proffing

[aristotle-dude]

Legally, I suppose it would be within your right to create a fork under GPL2 but ethically and morally it would be stealing since the original copyright holder (Michael R Sweet) was the main contributor and any other patch contributors assigned rights to him before they were included in the repository. You would basically be carrying out a coupe and violating the spirit of the license if not the letter of it by taking something none of you owned and creating a fork of it.

Bullshit. Taking the GPL2 codebase and forking it (still under the GPL2 since only the copyright owner can change the licensing) wouldn't be stealing at all. When CUPS was licensed under the GPL, the owner was declaring to the world that anyone is allowed to take the code and, within the rights granted by the GPL, do whatever they want with it. This includes forking.

Seriously, if the project hadn't been GPL'd in the first place, do you think it would have received such broad support from the community and gotten where it is today functionality-wise?

Fine, it's not stealing. But it's considered leeching and impolite if the original author did the majority of the work and you did nothing but you wanted to be a glory seeker and start up your own project based on the work of someone else. Just because a license gives you the option it does not necessarily make it ethical.

The initial goal of such licenses was to encourage community involvement in improving a project but ultimately, most projects end up having improvements coming not from the community but from the original author. It would be unethical for the community to all of a sudden take that work and fork it without having contributed to the original project beforehand.