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Apple Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of GPLv3
recoiledsnake writes "The upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server will remove the formerly bundled open source Samba software and replace it with Apple's own tools for Windows file sharing and network directory services. In both Mac OS X Server and client editions, Samba enables Macs to share files with Windows clients on the network and access Windows file servers. It has also later allowed Mac OS X Server to work as an NT Domain Controller to manage network accounts and make roaming profiles and home directories available to Windows PC users. However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. Apple is now said to be recommending Active Directory to users who are still dependent upon the older NT Domain Controller network directory services. Apple has previously stopped contributing code to GCC and started looking at other options like LLVM because of GCC's switch to GPLv3."
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
No, it doesn't. That's a ridiculous assertion presented without any evidence or reason.
As wikipedia might demand: Citation needed.
Apple has been moving away from the GPL in all it's forms for a while now. They just got around to us (I'm guessing we were pretty high on the list once they got rid of gcc :-).
Jeremy.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Strong argument there.
And under the GPLv3, you can still do whatever YOU want. The exception comes when you redistribute, because at that point it's not YOU using it, it's SOMEONE ELSE.
This is a gross mis-representation of GPLv3, and obfuscates the real basis of argument that Apple may have in conforming to the licensing terms.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially
Uhhh...no it doesn't. Read the license. If you don't want to read the license, just read GNU's handy GPL FAQ, which includes a section on whether or not you can sell GPL software commercially.
I'll give you a hint: the answer is yes, you can.
That said, Apple may have perfectly legitimate reasons for not wanting to use the GPLv3, but an imaginary prohibition on commercial software isn't one of them!
Errr. what?
I don't completely understand the problem here.
The GPLv3 issues in this particular case shoot way over my head. But, the GPL isn't the problem.
WP7 isn't being supported by ZTE and other bulk low-to-mid-end OEMs because of it's licensing requirements(namely, money; and the fact that WP7 hasn't moved a lot of phones).
h.264 is being cross licensed mostly due to patent AND compatibility issues. GPL isn't the core of this issue. Getting sued by the MPEG LA is.
GPL is the solution. If you want your source to be available and don't care what happens to the binary, go GPLv2. If you care about the binary and have RMS like thoughts about "Freedom" and computing go for the GPLv3. The GPL is a legal boilerplate that allows developers the freedom-as-in-freedom to have a legal backing so they can have their wishes respected when it comes to what happens to their code.
What Apple's doing is simply respecting the spirit of the GPL v3. If you really want Samba in Lion server, you can build it yourself from source in Lion after installing Xcode. If you really want Samba, you'll probably know how to do this, and if you don't, you'll probably want to know how to do this anyway.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
woops, OK. It appears GPLv3 allows commercial use. The summary got it wrong? (surprise!)
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want.
No, sir, you are confusing liberty with "no charge" free.
The BSD license is free as in beer. A proprietary software developer may take BSD licensed software and use it as the basis for a project of their own without sharing code in return. The users of his software have less liberty to the software's use. That developer exchanges nothing of value for the code that he received.
The GPL license is free as in liberty. Developers who wish to base products on existing GPL software must agree to maintain the liberty of the derived software's users to use the software with the same liberties that the developer did. This is an exchange of something of value: the developer contributes their own code in exchange for receiving the GPL code.
GPL software is not intended to be free of charge to developers who wish to reuse it. Developers who choose the GPL software do not intend to provide their labor without charge to others who will not contribute in return. The GPL promotes liberty, not freeloading.
"However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. "
Nothing in the GPLv3 prohibits using the software commercially, unless that means taking software that others wrote and released and making it unfree.
As for all the posters who will say now that the GPL is too restrictive and actually has nothing to do with freedom - yes it restricts the freedom of the person distributing the software in either its original or a changed version but only exactly to the extent necessary to guarantee that the person who receives the software gets the same extent of freedom as the original software allowed. The freedom to take other people's freedom away is certainly some kind of freedom, but probably not the kind that the creators of Samba wanted to promote.
It is actually an intended consequence of the GPL to keep companies that want to distribute software in a restricted way (e.g. on "locked" phones where they control what you can install, and probably soon enough on "locked computers" under the pretense of security) from doing this with GPLed software. That Apple cannot use the software for such purposes puts free software and hardware at an advantage and increases the cost for Apple of taking away people's freedom.
Presumably, the developers that put their code under the GPL wanted exactly that.
Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The summary is flat out wrong the way it is worded, but there are legitimate licensing issues.
The problem is with the iPhone, not OS X (yet). If you distribute binaries covered by the GPLv3 on a device, the license requires you to provide any signing keys, or other information/tools required to run modified versions of the software on the device. The iPhone requires all applications to be signed, and does not provide signing keys to it's users, thus they can't use GPLv3 software (like samba) on iOS.
They probably figure it is easier to maintain a single SMB/CIFS implementation rather than two, so they are ditching it on OS X as well (or they have other plans for OS X that we are not aware of yet).
Personally, I think Apple is trying to totally close their software and hardware ecosystems so only they can provide software, or are the gatekeeper of all software, that will run on any Apple device. The only way to stop this is by voting with our pocketbooks! After this sort of behavior, I am boycotting Apple products like I am Sony's. If I purchase something, I own it and therefor have the right to use it as I see fit, not as someone else does. The way Apple wants it to work is that you are in effect leasing from them. You don't own it, and are constrained with what you can do with/to it.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Claiming someone is a paid shill because they disagree with you is the lamest way to lose an argument.
Gone!
The GPL promotes liberty for the end user. Whereas BSD promotes liberty for the developer. Neither is more correct than the other, its just based on your feelings at the time.
No, they have the liberty to disagree. They are then subject to copyright which by default disallows them to distribute copies of the software.
There is nothing "jacked up" about this.
A natural consequence of their freedom. A benevolent dictator's still a dictator, and in this case benevolence goes against true freedom.
How?
The BSD code is still out there. The proprietary commercial code that used the BSD code is not the BSD code.
I fully support your right to put restrictions on how I can modify or distribute something you created. Calling these restrictions "liberty," however, is just Orwellian doublespeak.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
This kind of "either you see it my way our you're wrong" statement is NOT a good argument.
There are real reasons why the GPL versions (and other licenses) are problematic for various folks, and this kind of assertion acknowledges none of them.
You can learn the factual basis for arguments against or in favor of various open source or free software licenses at the OSI site and at the FSF site.
What?
The GPLv3 prevents someone from redistributing GPL'd software and saying to the end user "you cannot replace this software, you cannot alter or modify it in place." The only people who have a problem with the GPLv3 are those who enjoyed making an end-run around the spirit of the GPLv2 by distributing source but crippling the hardware it was used on.
Having a single primary rule (with a small set of rules designed to support that rule) does not make you a dictator.
How does that support the view that the GPL is bad?
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The GLv3 doesn't say that you can't use the software commercially. This article looks like just another shot in the whole "Open Source = BAD" war, from yet another FUD-packer (in this case, the member of the AppleInsider staff who wrote the original article).
But last I checked, the grocery store called obtaining without purchasing shoplifting.
Shoplifting (stealing) isn't obtaining without purchase, it's removing something from the property owner's possession without the required compensation.
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
If I release some "free software", then someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free. The software itself is not free, in the same way that a slave is not free. The software has been enslaved. So allowing people to do whatever they want to my software is contrary to my software's freedom.
Apparently you don't.
So it's "orwellian" to insist that the people who receive my software, via you, have the same rights as you did, and can use altered versions of it freely in place of the versions you gave them?
Man, you have a fucked up definition of "orwellian." Or perhaps standing up for the freedoms of others is simply antiquated to you. But then, I get the impression that control freaks don't like end-users having freedom, and thus the GPLv3 is inherently reprehensible to them.
However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
That should be: However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially in the way they want to use it.
On the iPhone and iPad, Apple wants the device itself to be closed, which means the user is not allowed to install operating system components. Samba is an operating system component. If Apple allowed the end user to replace it, then jailbreaking would be as easy as replacing Samba with a hacked version, then using Samba from within any application. On MacOS X, no problem; you may replace Samba as much as you like; if it doesn't work, it's your problem obviously.
So on iDevices, Apple cannot use GPL v3 code commercially _the way they want to use it_. So they can't use it. At that point it's obviously better to have one code base and replace it on MacOS X as well.
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like. True freedom is letting people do what they want.
The GPL requires that whoever you give the code to - in source or binary form - is just as free to use the code as you were. The way you are "more free" with the BSD is to make others less free, obviously you are more free if your right to swing your fist doesn't end at my nose. Being able to own slaves is a freedom for the slave holder. Except we don't want those kinds of freedoms, because they make others less free. BSD makes Apple more free and OS X users less free than under the GPL. The GPL may not be the absolute and total freedom, but it is the equal and fair freedom.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That depends upon your version of 'free'.
GPL forces the freedom of derivatives, BSD retains the freedom to make non-free derivatives.
To some, without the enforced 'freedom' it's not truly free. To others, with the enforced freedom it's not really free.
This isn't an argument anybody is about to win.
Yeah, telling all those congressmen that they "must agree" to uphold the constitution, you'll never get liberty through coercion like that!
What I want is the ability to use it and not be told my customers can't.
So long as you pass on to your customers the benefits that you gained by adopting GPL'd software, no problem. They can use it. If you want to pass on a version with additional restrictions on what they can do with the software, then no, you can't do that. And that's the entire point of the GPL. Is it so hard to understand?
I think you have a good point there. In trying to place extra restrictions and obligations on free software GPL3 will actually reduce the usage of said software.
I don't think anybody disputes that. Simply, for some usage is not the most important goal.
With the due differences, it's like selling a car which verifies if you are drunk before it lets you drive it. Sure, it won't sell as much as other cars, but you know your cars are contributing much less than others to car accidents.
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Claiming someone is a paid shill because they disagree with you is the lamest way to lose an argument.
In this case, the original article, where it states:
However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
... was written by AppleInsider Staff. If you're not happy about the misrepresentation, tell them so.
AppleInsider takes commercial advertising, so yes, paid shill (or commercial FUD-packer) fills the bill nicely.
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want.
Exactly. GPLed software can be freely run, studied, modified, and redistributed with modifications. Apple refuses to provide its users with these freedoms, so they cannot use GPLed software.
If you try to define what's allowed and try to get people to do or not to do what YOU want them, you aren't promoting free code. Your code is just as "bad" as proprietary code.
GPL only restricts your ability to take freedom away from your end user. Yes, GPLes software is "bad" for you if you are intending to take the freedoms from your end user. GPL is not "bad" for the software's user in any way shape or form, only for those who would rather abuse copyright and derive monopoly profits from other people's charitable work (e.g. Apple from BSD). Do you seriously not get it?
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like.
And now even a semblance of a rational argument is gone and what you have left is hot air. GPL has nothing to do with freedom of expression (just like copyright, according to the US Supreme Court, has nothing to do with freedom of speech), and everything to do with building a hedge around the public domain. The robber barons stole our public domain by making the copyright terms practically infinite and applying obscene statutory damages to non-commercial violators. Licenses like GPL are legal hacks which help to restore the balance present in the original copyright legislation: creators get some VERY limited distribution monopoly, everyone else gets more and better software.
he only people who have a problem with the GPLv3 are those who enjoyed making an end-run around the spirit of the GPLv2 by distributing source but crippling the hardware it was used on.
Well, the union of that set and the set of people who had the same problem with GPLv2.
How did they take your "free software"? Isn't that still available? People here like to point out that you can't steal bits, so the bits of your "free software" must still be in your possession.
You are either for freedom, that stops at the next user, or you are for freedom, that continues after the next person.
"Feel free to beat up anyone you meet" is no freedom either.
I do. Create whatever restrictions you like. I don't have to use your code.
Not at all; that's not even what I said.
What I said is that it's "Orwellian doublespeak" to use the word "liberty" to describe a scheme where you've set restrictions on how I can use and distribute something.
GPL = code must be free
BSD= people must be free to do what they want with the code
The problem comes with the intention of allowing the user to modify and use the software. The GPLv2 allowed them to do an end run where you could modify and use the software, but never on the device that it was distributed on.
This was corrected in GPLv3, and control-freak assholes are having a problem with it.
You have framed your argument on the assumption that the "freedom" that the GPL was designed to protect is that of the derivative author. But everything Stallman has written indicates that the freedom he is purporting to protect with the GPL is not the derivative author's but the end-user's.
I don't know all the ins and outs of the GPLv3, but the goal of the GPL copyleft in general is to ensure not only that the user has access to the source and the rights to create derivative works from it royalty-free, but that so do all the users of any of the derivative works.
Using the code to support a larger proprietary system does not advance that goal, which is why the 'L' in LGPL was renamed to "Lesser": it goes less far in advancing the goals of the Free Software Foundation, and is mostly offered as a practicality. If Apple wants to add their own Objective-C patches but doesn't want to make them available to the whole community, then the GPL is not for them.
There is nothing in the GPLv3 that says you can't use GPL'd software commercially. Perhaps it doesn't gel with Apple's particular commercial plans for their software. That's fine... they are free to find other options that do so gel. And if those other options involve making their users use proprietary software, then how exactly is that more freedom for us than if they just continued to offer the free software (not to mention get a lot of their OS work done for them, so they can focus on their pretty UIs)?
Free for whom?
The GPL protects the *freedom of the code*, not the freedom of developers. Hence the term free software. The BSD allows you to lock the code down, and release binaries only and so is not as good at protecting the freedom of the code.
I really can not fathom that this logic still eludes people. So many assume that it is about their own freedom and so misses the point of the GPL entirely.
And besides, if you want to give freedom to developers, release as Public Domain for crying out loud.
I don't, actually, have the liberty to go on a killing spree, because it turns out that we have laws against that.
Where all of you GPL-haters keep failing in this argument is that you want to deny rights to software makers. You have to understand that whoever wrote a piece of software owns copyright on it, and can distribute it how they see fit.
If I write a piece of software, I'm free to take one of 3 basic distribution options relevant to the debate:
1) Keep it proprietary, give the code to nobody. Sell compiled versions for money, and/or license the source under NDA to others for money.
2) Give it away under a BSD license (or just make it Public Domain). Anyone can use my software for anything, commercial or not. It's a gift to the world.
3) Give it away under a GPL license. Anyone can use my software for anything, commercial or not. HOWEVER, I stipulate that if you make further enhancements to my code, if you then give the resulting binary to other parties, you are required to also give them a copy of your enhancements in source code form.
None of the options are more or less moral than the others. Licensing code under the GPL does not steal anyone's liberties. It fails to provide you with a liberty you would get if the code were licensed under BSD, but in either case these rights are GRANTED to you by the COPYRIGHT HOLDER. It's a gift either way, and you're saying by failing to give everyone a big enough gift, GPL authors are somehow stealing people's liberties. Bullshit.
You're either for software freedom or your not.
False dichotomy
freedom != anarchy
If I am free to live, that implies there is a restriction against murder.
Don't confuse freedom with anarchy. Anarchy sucks. Slavery was abolished, and as a result, you _cannot_ sell yourself into slavery. Yes, that is a restriction, to preserve your freedom.
That doesn't make GPL bad, what makes it bad in this situation is that it's pushed Apple to abandon Samba for use in OSX. Depending upon your point of view that may or many not be bad, but it means that the install base just shrunk up over the issue and that's not helpful in cases like this.
The project is free to choose whatever license it likes, but some licenses come with strings attached which impede the use of the software more than others.
That's because it's not liberty for YOU (that's already been granted) but for whomever gets it from you. Stop being so greedy and self-centered with your thought process.
Only if for some reason your "mix" includes a bunch of lock down designed to trap the user and control how they use whatever the software is installed on.
What if the lock down is designed to keep malware off of the user's device and maintain its stability, and the user is OK with that?
I bought the iPhone because it is a controlled ecosystem. I don't want my cell phone rooted. I also like the controlled updates. I have a friend with an Android phone who had an update that bricked the device, and his carrier and Google are arguing about who is responsible!
Freedom is great, but we all choose to give up some freedoms for security on occasions.
Copyleft works by restricting the ability to restrict others, ensuring that end users maintain certain liberties. It's no more doublespeak on liberty than the government protecting someone who says something unpopular from physical or other harm.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The problem with your argument is that the developers of Samba would like to be able to buy a NAS or other hardware device that incorporates Samba and then upgrade it to the latest testing version or change other things about it even if the hardware manufacturer doesn't support it. That's the end of the story in terms of licensing, because no one else owns the Samba code. The Samba developers wanted the ability to modify their own software when it's running on someone else's hardware that they paid money for, and I think that's a fairly reasonable request. Apple's response is basically "Hey, nice code, but we don't really care about your interests and so we won't be using the new version." Either way, Apple wasn't planning on letting people modify the version of CIFS they shipped, or contribute fixes back to the Samba tree, so no real loss there. Long story short, we learned something about Apple's ideology and nothing more.
A new set of SAMBA tools.
What's a "SAMBA tool"? Samba is the name of one particular implementation of the Server Message Block protocol; it's not the name of the protocol itself.
From Jaguar days, when a Mac that went to sleep had to be rebooted to ever reconnect to a Windows share it happily saw before, to (Snow) Leopard when they simply won't connect at all most of the time, at home or at work, even with an IP address
Those sound like client-side issues. The OS X SMB client isn't based on anything from Samba (given that it's a "kernel extension", i.e. a loadable kernel module, basing it on GPLed code would probably be a bit tricky), it's based on the FreeBSD in-kernel SMB client (but has had a lot of additional work done on it). Switching the SMB server from Samba to something else wouldn't affect that.
And banning slavery restricts what sorts of property you're allowed to own, therefore a state that doesn't allow slave ownership is not free.
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You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
This kind of "either you see it my way our you're wrong" statement is NOT a good argument.
GP didn't make a qualitative categorization of the rightness or wrongness of either position. You did that.
I fully support your right to put restrictions on how I can modify or distribute something you created. Calling these restrictions "liberty," however, is just Orwellian doublespeak.
You don't have the 'liberty' to enslave other people either. Restrictions sometimes limit the liberty someone might take away from other people.
-- Linux user #369862
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Bullshit. BSD license is much more free than GPL.
He didn't say it was "more free", he said it wasn't bad.
BSD is more free, but does little to promote freedom itself. GPL is less free, but it more strongly promotes freedom. Neither is better than the other except when considered in specific contexts. If you ignore context and make a blanket statement about which is freer, you are making a religious argument.
This is why I support true open source licenses that allow both free and proprietary use. They are the real free licenses, not GPL, and unless we deal with that hypocricy Microsoft will always win.
So which licenses are those? even the 3-clause BSD prevents me from claiming ownership of the code and suing other users for copyright infringement, so it's not really free either.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
Well, maybe. But it does seem reasonable that, if you're gonna take a "free" product and resell it, you should share some of your profits with the product's original producers.
The GPL has taken this attitude toward "free" from the start. You can have it for free if you promise to pass it on to others on the same terms. But if you want to grab someone else's work and make a profit from it, you have to buy it (and get a license to resell it).
See, it's sort of a "tit for tat" thing. If you want it to be free, you have to keep it free; if you want to be paid for it, you have to pay for it.
(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, note that most GPL'd software is available from the authors with other licenses. The GPL doesn't preclude providing the software with other licenses. It basically just exists to guarantee that if you don't pay for the software, you can't charge others for it. But most of the authors are quite willing to give you a license to sell their software for profit, if you are willing to share those profits with the authors.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Without that "social agenda", there would be not Free Software. There would be no contributors because no one would care enough about the "social agenda" to create a suitable framework where contributors feel free to add their contributions free from the fear that someone like Apple or Microsoft will come along and take unfair advantage of the work.
This "social agenda" stuff is just nonsense and FUD.
This is about CONTRIBUTORS. The GPL was created because corporations can't be trusted and CONTRIBUTORS became angry.
The GPL, like any "rule of law" exists because there are people out there that can't be trusted to work and play well with others. External forces need to be created to ensure that everyone acts in a civilized manner and everyone is treated equally.
I don't really see what reasons Apple has to fear "anti-Tivoization". It doesn't look like anyone really addressed that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Those who release code under a BSD license know that down-stream users can take the code wholesale, or make modifications, and do with it what they will. Those people aren't complaining about it. The only people who seem to make an issue out of it are people who haven't or wouldn't release code under a BSD license. Licenses are essentially a religious debate at this point, so please pardon my analogy when I say that pretending there is a debate on the BSD license is like pretending their is a debate on ID vs Evolution. Only one side is interested in having a debate, and that means there is no debate.
The difference is one of scope: The BSD license only looks at the individual (and mostly from a developer standpoint) whereas the GPL looks at the bigger picture. In the end, the bigger picture is more important.
(sorry, posting to undo a wrong moderation)
I think the point was to have quality crowd-sourced code that solves a problem elegantly available for free and nondiscriminatory use. Businesses saw the value in FOSS because in many cases they didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I think the problem now is, FOSS supporters, contributors and programmers see that the software has real market value that they may not be cashing in on. Or rather, they have a romantic idea in their head that they can dictate usage policy to large profitable companies. IMHO, contributing to FOSS is a donation on your part, but does not imply charity.
Here I am, here I remain.
Devil's advocate here:
The downside to the GPL3 is that companies notice one product or piece of code with the v3 license, then their legal team gets scared, throws the baby out with the bathwater and starts over with a closed source product.
I have known one business which produced embedded controllers move from Linux to Windows CE just because their legal eagles feared that the GPL v3.x would force them to give up their trade secrets of some manufacturing methods to any customers that asked.
All and all, I'd would say the GPL v2 is/was the best balance between being able to do what one wanted and redistributing, versus keeping code available for subsequent users. GPL v3 was made with good intentions, but instead of the intended outcome of killing DRM and dealing with patents, it has gotten some businesses to completely dump F/OSS completely and move to closed source systems.
It doesn't say you can't use it commercially, but it does say you have to give up rights to patents, derivative work, and derivative source code, copyrights, hardware control, etc.
And that is why companies who make money on software will stop using anything relying on GPLv3.
It prevents companies from using GPLv3 software commercially - from a business sense if not a pure licensing sense.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
This is a gross mis-representation of GPLv3, and obfuscates the real basis of argument that Apple may have in conforming to the licensing terms.
Why the innuendo? Why not state exactly the thing you are alluding to?
Because it's not some sort of horrible thing. Not nearly as bad as the imaginary unstated thing could be.
The problem isn't the copyright effects, it's the patent effects. Apple has no problem making source code available (in fact, they are highly active in the open source world), because there's no fear of having to give up the copyright to software they either can't or simply don't want to give up. But patents have no such easy way to partition and can have much more severe business consequences.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
Your claim is a false dichotomy.
Just because GPL imposes restrictions does not mean GPL software is not free. It turns out the restrictions it imposes are restrictions against restricting freedom.
What's not free is proprietary platforms... such as the iPhone. You cannot even run your own applications (they have to be approved by Apple). GPL is the carrot that will allow Apple to partake of it, when they stop blocking users' freedom.
Specifically, in this case, SAMBA is losing out because it no longer is getting help from Apple, because it wants to tell Apple how it may use the product, and Apple doesn't want to be told by SAMBA team what it can and can't do with code it contributed to, and shared with the SAMBA team.
The GPL(3) is AWFUL in terms of licensing. If I were building anything useful and wanting to sell it, I sure the hell wouldn't use any GPL(3) code.
The GPL(3) is functioning just as it was designed, to limit commercial use of code. You can't complain that it is doing what it was designed to do. Does this make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
But why do we have such laws? To protect others' liberty to live.
Absolute freedom is impossible to achieve. Claiming that the GPL is more free than BSD is absurd. Claiming that BSD is more free than GPL is shortsighted.
Personally, I think the GPL gives a more fair set of freedoms to each party.
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So is society's restrictions against murder then, according to your definition.
Thing is, we have deemed legalized murder to result in less actual freedoms for people than they'd have with it illegal, so we've declared that a society can promote freedom and liberty while keeping murder illegal without it being a contradiction.
Same goes for allowing redistributors to put their own restrictions in place.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
No state is free. It isn't really a problem, but thinking they are leads to things like where democracy is held up as an ideal, rather than being better than the alternatives (the ideal situation would be one where no government intervention was ever needed, which is obviously a pipe dream, but ideals don't have to be practical to offer guidance).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Indeed we agree; my mistake.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
No, it doesn't say that AT ALL.
What it DOES say is that if you put YOUR software patent into YOUR GPL3 code then YOU are agreeing that anyone else can use that software patent under terms compatible with the GPLv3 license.
What it DOES NOT say is that if you use GPL3 software you can't have patents or have to give them away. Just don't modify the GPL3 program or make a derived product (as defined by your government, so if you don't like the definition, take it up with them) and include patents you won't give anyone else.
Since Apple only want to USE Samba, not make their own version of it, they can't be putting THEIR patents in the Samba software, so the GPL3 license isn't a problem.
"either you see it my way our you're wrong"
Isn't that pretty much what RMS and FSF say?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
GPL seeks to maximise liberty for the end user.
BSD seeks to maximise liberty for the developer.
Both promote a kind of freedom, just for different parties. That's the way it is in the real world, liberties for different parties are balanced against each other.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
The BSD license is free as in beer.
I don't think you understand what "free in as beer" means. When something is free as in beer, you are welcome to drink as much of it as you want for no charge. You don't get the recipe to the beer, you aren't given the ingredients, you don't get a say in how the beer should taste or could be tweaked for the better.
Closed source software that doesn't doesn't have licensing costs is the analogy described by "free as in beer."
The GPL license is free as in liberty.
Both the GPL and the BSD are free as in liberty, because you are given the code and permission and customize it to do what you want.
In my opinion, the GPL is less free than the BSD license because my liberty becomes limited when I want to distribute my changes in the application to others. With BSD, I'm given the liberty to license the software how I want and I'm given the liberty of not having to provide my source code to others. For a lot of the work that I do, that becomes a big deal -- I can provide software or a service without having to worry about the extra effort required to release something as GPL.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Also false--Apple is switching away from GCC because it's clunky, slow, outdated, and the GCC team is hostile to Apple's extensions and does not want Apple's contributions--every developer I know has been very much looking forward to being able to drop GCC and use LLVM.
I think it is a bit of both. Apple has stopped with gcc 4.2 while adding massive amounts of work to LLVM; they could probably have upgraded to a much later version from a technical point of view, but didn't want to for licensing reasons. On the other hand, LLVM is now reaching the point where it is superior to gcc in every respect (massively better compile times, much better error messages, all the compile time information available to the editor and much more) and allows compilation at runtime (great for OpenCL). And it seems that it has a much saner code base that can be improved much easier.
Apple has neither attacked a hacker nor put rootkits on users' systems.
Apple and the FSF may not see eye to eye, but Apple is one of the better corporate citizens when it comes to open source and the end customer.
None of the above has any bearing on whether you want to boycott their closed-system approach. I applaud your boycott, though I won't be joining you.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
And that is exactly why Apple can't use this on the iPhone.
And OS X Lion doesn't run on the iPhone.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
then no, you can't do that
As soon as you utter that phrase, whatever it is you're talking about ceases to be free.
No, it's limiting the lock down of otherwise Free Software. That it exposes corporations for being control freaks unwilling to respect end-user freedom is simply a benefit.
It's not just control freaks that have a problem with it. It's also security-conscious engineering teams. Those bits of GPLv3 betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the need for proper code signing.
First of all, there is no good way to prevent unsigned virus code from running without preventing unsigned user code from running on a device. The last thing you want is a news story talking about how your phone has been compromised by a virus that spreads across the cell network by SMS and has turned your entire ecosystem into the cell phone equivalent of WinZombies. This goes triply for daemons like Samba, which represent prime attack vectors into home and corporate computers, and thus are in desperate need of signature checks.
Unfortunately, any OS vendor that wants to deploy Samba cannot require that it be signed by a proper, valid code signing cert because those cost money, and would represent an additional restriction on the end user's ability to recompile Samba and run the new version. This makes the GPLv3 fundamentally antithetical to proper security as written, at least by my reading. And I'm not the only one who interprets it this way.
More to the point, you cannot create an arbitrarily open ecosystem that allows for anyone to get a code signing cert from anywhere, as this gives you no additional protection over not requiring signing. If you can get a free cert that allows you to run code on arbitrary hardware, then a a virus writer can, too. Thus, the infrastructure must inherently be designed so that third-party code can be authorized on a per-device basis. This is nontrivial, and costs money to maintain. Yet the GPLv3 would require that such a service be free to use in order to comply with a strict reading of its terms. Clearly, this is an untenable position.
In short, this isn't a knee jerk reaction by a bunch of control freaks. Quite the opposite, really. The GPLv3 was a poorly thought out knee jerk reaction to a bunch of control freaks that had a negative impact on consumers. So although I understand why the GPL proponents want these clauses, in the end, they're doing a disservice to themselves and to the community by policies that effectively prevent the proper use of signed binaries.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
BSD isn't bad per se, but it allows a 'bad player' like Microsoft to modify standards in ways that break interoperability. If you are attempting to write standards-compliant code, and you don't want that code to be used to sabotage the very standards you're trying to support, then the BSD's not for you.
GPL cleverly prevents such a situation. It strikes a nice balance between commercial interests (ability to charge for products based on the code) and the ongoing freedom of the original writer to have the benefit of the code. Not necessarily financial benefit (though that's possible too), but the benefit of outside contributions and a developing ecosystem that makes the code ever more valuable. Up to GPL2 that worked great - witness the success of Linux vs BSD. Linux is much more flexible, because many more players saw the benefits of getting involved.
GPL3 has delved beyond freedom into politics. I believe it attempts to address 2 issues.
The first is Tivo'ization, which I think is a good thing, but some don't like. Yes, Tivo might not exist without Linux, but Linux has gotten a huge boost from being usable in appliances like this. Tivo (or Apple, in this case) still contributes any changes they make under GPL2, so that's not the problem. The problem is that you can't take their loss-leader hardware and use it any way you want. I have no problem with that, but others do (I think they're being unreasonable, and by the way, so does Linus Torvalds).
The second is patents. That's a serious problem, but the best solution is patent reform - not 'I'm taking my ball and going home'. I guess this could work, but depriving Mac users of Samba over unrelated patent issues (I assume Apple has no patents relevant to Samba) is getting beyond the goal of 'keeping the code free'. Software patents are mostly an abomination, but GPL3 is an awfully blunt instrument to attack them with.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
From TFA:
the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
I know nothing that GPLv3 does which prevents anyone from using it commercially, certainly nothing it does that GPLv2 doesn't. TFA doesn't say what Apple's actual problem is, but as evil as Apple has been, they aren't this stupid.
On the other hand, the version of Samba Apple had been using prevented Macs from seamlessly working with modern PCs running Windows 7, which include security changes in how encryptions protocols work. Apple's own software won't be constrained by the design limitation of Samba.
Wait, how is this lack of a feature a "design limitation" of Samba? They don't provide any source for this claim, and I very much doubt that it's a design limitation. I can believe it exists, but I find it hard to believe something in the design of Samba would prevent them from adding this feature.
There were a few things in TFA that seem plausible, but it really looks like they lose a lot in translation. I have to ask, what is the potential audience for such an article? I usually only see two types of Mac users, the Unix people who gave up on Linux, and the "It's easier, it Just Works" people who gave up on Windows. The "Just Works" people don't care about Samba, and if OS X won't play nice with Win7, they'll either blame Win7 or ask an Apple "Genius" to just fix it. The Unix people are going to be perfectly capable of using Samba if they want, and would probably like a lot more information about what's actually going on, including why GPLv3 is an issue.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Either way, Apple wasn't planning on letting people modify the version of CIFS they shipped, or contribute fixes back to the Samba tree, so no real loss there. Long story short, we learned something about Apple's ideology and nothing more.
Wrong : "Apple has been updating and hardening a branch of the Open Group's DCE/RPC library. We'd decided to share
these changes with the community at large and will continue to invest in modernizing and advancing this
code base. The goal is to establish a common, authoritative DCE/RPC codebase that everyone can leverage
or contribute to, under very liberal terms.
We have published Apple's contributions at http://www.dcerpc.org./ Please check out the web site for any
more details. We are looking for someone to port it to the various Linux SMB implementations.
Regards,
James Peach and George Colley
Apple"
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
At work here we are a mixed environment. We are Mainly Windows and Linux, with some Solaris servers, but adding Macs as well, and a NetApp as central storage. Gives us some rather interesting challenges. One of them is dealing with file sharing on the network. NFS only really works well for the UNIX clients and is a fucking disaster security wise. Apple doesn't license AFP to NetApp and Windows has stopped supporting it. So that leaves CIFS for a lot of stuff.
So, a couple interesting things related to CIFS came to light not long ago. The first was playing with Macs. They suck at it, horrible performance. In 10.4 they couldn't even talk to the NetApp with CIFS at all, they could talk to Windows servers but slowly. NFS worked but it was a disaster trying to get permissions to work right.
We figured this was in part because they use Samba which is not necessarily the fastest thing out there, and was originally designed for reverse engineering SMB, not a reference CIFS implementation like the NetApp.
So then we get a new central storage unit, basically a SuperMicro board and chassis with a big RAID card and a bunch of cheap SATA drives. Intended to be cheaper, less reliable, storage that can be used in addition to the NetApp when more space is needed but backups are not important. Good CIFS performance was a must so Windows Server was a consideration but we figured we'd give Samba under Linux a spin first, easier to make NFS work that way.
Well it works fantastic. Full wire speed (which is gig in this case) transfers, no problems at all. Just as fast and as easy as if it was a Windows system there, the clients never know the difference.
Well, maybe Apple isn't interested in this. Why not? Because they seem to like to make anything not Apple look bad. They are grudgingly compatible, because they have to be, but they seem to half-ass it to the maximum extent possible. Quicktime on Windows is a great example. Compare it to QT on the Mac and it is amazing how bad it is.
It isn't an OS-X limitation either, ADmitMac has a first rate CIFS implementation that we use and love. It just costs money.
So maybe that is part of it as well. You've gotten Samba to a point it is really fast, that Samba to a Windows system is as fast as Windows to Windows, and Apple doesn't like it. They want Macs to be faster to Mac servers via AFP, and slower to Windows systems via CIFS.
"You're either for software freedom or your not."
You either like imposing false dichotomies, or you don't.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Samba (by choosing GPLv3) wants to require Apple (in this case) to provide source code to Samba to anyone who uses OSX. The fundamental assumption in that paragraph is that a user can do something useful with the code.
My grandmother can't. Even if Apple shipped the full source on each CD it would make her no more free or less free, no more self sufficient or dependent. It would be about as useful as giving her a book written in Sanskrit.
But wait the GPL folks will argue, sure, most people won't be able to use it, but what about the programmers? Well, I'm a programmer. I want my Mac to read and write windows file shares. If it doesn't work, I'm going to open a ticket with Apple and make them fix it, even if the code is right there on my computer. The GPL folks fail to release that in many cases working and bug free trump the ability to modify; at least in the real world.
In a standard commercial world what the GPLv3 does is not create more freedom. It creates a burden on companies developing GPLv3 software to set up an entire distribution system for the benefit of a fraction of their user base. Like well under 1%. Probably under .1%. Maybe under .01% for a lot of products. When you have a million slaves it is hollow to tell them they are "more free" because you managed to free one of them.
But the real kicker here is that Samba is still free. Any OSX user can download the code, compile it on their OSX machine, and use it. If GPLv3 makes any sense it is on something like the kernel, or device drivers where various proprietary magic is required to make things go, and without the company distributing that information you really are screwed. To require a company to redistribute source to a user land program on a POSIX OS really is just lunacy. Anyone who wants more recent Samba than ships with OSX is already downloading it from Samba!
The BSD folks started to get it more right, and then backed off. The original 4 clause BSD license, with the so-called "advertising" clause was close to a good idea. The problem with it was that it really said advertising. Like if Apple made a TV commercial they would need to have some announcer read the names of every open source package included in OSX. The solution of simply removing it wasn't good either.
What was needed was a slightly different clause, requiring the user to be notified that they are using BSD licensed software, and where to find more information. One can imagine the MOTD on a brand new Unix system saying something like "This system contains BSD licensed software, for more information see /usr/share/bsd.txt. The file would contain not only the license, but the URL of each project involved, the name of the software, and version installed. The user is now aware of the open source project, and knows where to get the source code. That would have done more to promote open source software than either
removing the various clauses (the BSD "solution"), or adding onerous provisions (the GPL "solution").
At the end of the day though, it's technical folks trying to solve a business problem they don't understand and don't think should exist. They want to oversimplify others businesses, and want to believe that every business should be run the way they want. Every company should just release all source, instructions on how to compile it yourself, and so on. That's straight up idealism with a healthy dose of ignorance. In going for a 100% solution, the open source world keeps turning down a 95% solution, and ending up with a 5% solution. A pretty stupid trade off, if you ask me.
There is one up side. I've never found Samba particularly stable, and so if Apple has to re-write it I have every faith they will actually do a better job, and give me one less reason to use Samba.
I want to use BSD code without crediting its original authors.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Well yeah, the GPL doesn't assume everyone has good will. Rather it gives the downstream authors a choice:
a) Contribute to the open source world
b) Buy another license from the author on more favorable terms, and thus contribute financially to open source.
Calling GPL "free software" is probably the biggest lie the FSF ever told. It's restricted to hell and back.
The restriction are need to protect the freedom of the next person. It is like a bill of rights.
If you prefere hoarding all the freedom for you alone, then do not use GPL software. No one is forcing you to share and help your neighbours. Just dont expect any of them to help you.
No, GPL3 still doesn't make any requirements on other software than what the GPL2 does. GPL3 just adds extra protection from technical and legal loop-holes that enabled circumventing the GPL2.
But it all is VERY simple: If you don't like the GPL3 then don't use it as a license for software YOU write..
"either you see it my way our you're wrong"
Isn't that pretty much what RMS and FSF say?
Unless you ARE Richard Stallman, whether or not Stallman has that attitude is irrelevant to whether the GPL or any other license is a good fit for your needs. Your choice of a license is based on the goals of your project, your business, and you, as they are served by the terms of the license.
Citation needed on the "need" for code signing. But in any case, allowing users to install their own certificates alongside the manufacturer's would allow signed binaries and also allow the user to run software compiled by themselves; that is, it would allow users to control their own hardware.
So is imprisoning kidnappers. What is your point?
Punishing those that take freedom away, but taking their freedom away. In one way ironic, in another, very appropriate.
Instead they'll fork or adopt a project with a more suitable licence.
You mean like the GPL v2 licensed SAMBA code in OS X 10.6? Nothing's stopping them from turning over and maintaining that fork that they've already licensed via GPL v2, right?
Liberty is the perfect way to describe the GPL. It was written with the express intention of preventing a situation where code in the public domain was being taken, improved or extended, and the improved version being made closed source. It's preserving end user's liberty to have access to the source code at the cost of developer's liberty to use the code as they wish.
Please, please reread the whole sentence:
If you want to pass on a version with additional restrictions on what they can do with the software, then no, you can't do that.
"Freedom" does not mean, and never has meant, that you can do whatever you want. The problem is that to allow that will inevitably force someone else to give up their own freedom to do whatever they want. You have to balance the freedoms.
And that's exactly what was said. The GPL prevents placing restrictions on other peoples freedom. A restriction to prevent further restrictions.
You may not like how the GPL decided to balance freedom, but its approach is completely valid.
Yup.
Debian-based distributions have used code signing since the dawn of time to combat malicious modifications. This is done primarily to allow for effortless mirroring: It doesn't matter who hosts a copy of the repository, as long as the packages are signed by Debian and apt can verify the signatures correctly. As long as the mirrors don't mess with the packages in any way, the software just works. But if you want to host a repository of your own for your own packages, you have to either a) have apt-get scream about missing keys, or b) sign your packages, then tell the users where they can find the repository signing keys and how to install them. (And it uses gpg, so in theory you could use some sort of a chain-of-trust model for the keys, though I have no idea if people actually look that far in the keys. Most 3rd-party repositories just say "here's a damn key, go add it".)
Notice that this only covers distribution of the software, as any sane model for trusted software distribution requires. The .deb packages are just dumb containers for files, metadata and installation scripts. If you want signed binaries, there's no reason why you couldn't use the exact same model for key distribution.
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
If I release some "free software", then someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free. The software itself is not free, in the same way that a slave is not free. The software has been enslaved. So allowing people to do whatever they want to my software is contrary to my software's freedom.
Then don't call it free, as in Freedom.
Who says your software didn't want to be incorporated with another project? For if you are anthropomorphizing software to the point that you say that it can be "enslaved", then you must also attribute to that software the free will to associate itself with other software, and the free will to "do things" of which you personally do not approve.
Either you put a big fat Copyright symbol on your software (which is exactly the same as branding cattle, or slaves) and call it YOUR slave, or you let it fly free into the world, to make its way on it own.
By your own analogy, there is no middle ground.
The GPL requires that whoever you give the code to - in source or binary form - is just as free to use the code as you were.
But the original code is going to remain open no matter what happens in terms of derivative works. This is as true with BSD as with the GPL. So the GPL is not about making sure other users are just as free to use the original code as someone who's created a derivative work. It's about making sure they're as free with the new code as they are with the original.
The distinction is important because it shows that the extra freedom in the BSD license does not make anyone less free. No derivative work of a BSD licensed work can take any freedoms away from anyone because the worst case still leaves the original code as open source, as available to anyone as it was to the author of the derivative work. The BSD license in no way allows for previously available freedoms to be eliminated. Anyone that could do anything with the original work before a derivative is produced is still able to do those same things with the original afterwards.
Further, you liken the creation of a proprietary derivate work to assaulting and enslaving people, which is ridiculous, to say the least. I've already explained that creating proprietary derivate works doesn't make anyone less free in any real sense, but are you suggesting here that the rightful remedy to proprietary software is the same, at least in kind if not degree, as for assault and enslavement?
Also, the GPL only requires derivative works to be licensed under the GPL if they're distributed. But doesn't code that's not distributed at all make people 'less free' in the sense you used, in precisely the same way as propriety derivative works make us 'less free'? That is, other users have more choices if a derivative work is distributed as compared to if it isn't, even though doing the opposite doesn't actually eliminate any previously available choices. So wouldn't it be good if the GPL not only required derivative works that are distributed be licensed under the GPL, but required any derivative works whatsoever be distributed, and to be so under the GPL? That increases freedom in the same way as requiring that derivative works be GPL licensed.
One of the practical downsides that clearly result from the GPL is that licensing a work under it will mean that when someone would like to create a derivative work but can't or won't comply with the GPL for whatever reason, they must find some alternative. They can create their work from scratch (or deriving from some non-GPL work) or they can choose not to produce anything at all. We are not better off if a derivative work is not produced from a GPL work when the derivative would have been produced had the original been BSD licensed (or public domain or whatever). In that case we are worse off, and 'less free' in the sense you used.
If you believe that proprietary software really is like assault or enslavement then we can address the lack of freedom caused by people choosing not to derive GPL works by using the same remedy as for assault and enslavement; laws, fines, regulations etc. We'll make it illegal for people to choose not to write open source software. Of course we can't just make it illegal to write proprietary software, because that would create a loop hole people could wriggle through by not writing software at all, making us 'less free'. No, we have to force people to write software, and make sure it's open source, so we're all more 'free' as a result.
Im a End user and I cant use open source software on my preferred device despite the fact the code is accessible and free for all to see. Is the point of the GPL to protect and share knowledge (code) or to force every one to operate under Richard Stallmans vision. GPL v3 is political. GPLv2 was about the code.
It's not just control freaks that have a problem with it. It's also security-conscious engineering teams. Those bits of GPLv3 betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the need for proper code signing.
This is a red herring; the GPLv3 does not prevent you from using code signing, it just requires you to allow those users who want to run their own code to do so. Imagine if your phone had an option that allowed you to import a different a signing certificate, or to disable signature checks, so that those users who wanted to run their own code were able to do so. You could warn people that it might be harmful to security, you could void their warranties, but why is it necessary to tell someone that they are not allowed to modify their own device?
It is not a question of security, it is a question of control.
Palm trees and 8
Let's remember that originally the point of the GPL was to allow people to share source freely, so that you could pass your work on and be assured that other users could pass it on too. It prevented restrictions on the sharing of something you created. It made your work open and free.
If I understand this right, and GPLv3 requires the allowance of "modifications in place", the GPLv3 is going far beyond that. It's no longer about keeping code open and free, it's forcing others to make their property open and free. It's no longer about sharing your work, it's about how your work is used.
Regardless of how you feel about "tivoization" -- personally I hate it -- this is telling someone else what to do with what they created. That's not making a statement about your own property, it's making a statement about somebody else's.
I'm a developer. Developers have the right and justification to release software under whatever license they choose! If a dev wants to restrict against "Tivoization", that's fine.
But let's not kid ourselves that "modifications in place" is about sharing software. This is going much further, and people with an interest in engineering things for the world to benefit from and making a living in the process have a very well qualified criticism.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
No, that actually doesn't solve the problem. Do you know how many security exploits there have been in which a user was tricked into installing something? So as I said before, allowing self-signed certs is not significantly better in practice than allowing unsigned binaries.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The problem comes with the intention of allowing the user to modify and use the software. The GPLv2 allowed them to do an end run where you could modify and use the software, but never on the device that it was distributed on.
Precisely, and this does actually matter for Samba. It's a very complicated server that every now and again has a serious security issue that needs to be patched... and it's also often embedded in all sorts of hardware whose manufacturers are too lazy to release timely updates. Without the GPLv3 protection, it's easy to end up with kit that has a trivially-exploitable and widely known security vulnerability that can't possibly be patched because the vendor has prevented you from modifying the GPLed code on it.
clarke-hanlon: any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. thinking that GPLv3 prohibits commercialization is such an egregious mistake as to make me ignore everything this person says about licensing in the future.
my guess would be that apple has "legitimate" (from their point of view) problems with the tivoization rules--they probably want to put windows networking on AppleTVs or something, and GPLv3 definitely isn't compatible with iOS-style lockdown.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
The GPL is all about freedom. However, it is concerned about the absolute freedom of the software, not the user or developer. It's aimed to ensure that all versions of the software remain completely free, regardless of what others might wish to do with it.
I agree on technical points. GCC is a mess of a code base to work with; good luck with anyone trying to port it. LLVM is not so bad in that respect. I could whip out a proof-of-concept port to a new architecture over a week of work, never having looked at LLVM before. I gave up the same task on gcc codebase after two weeks: it was an incomprehensible mess.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
On a good day, Microsoft is perhaps the most closed of them all. On a bad day, they are, IMHO
Microsoft has nothing, nothing on the closed nature of the iPads.
So many in the industry are trumpeting the iPad as being the future of computing -- I can't think of any Microsoft-involved scenario that would be worse than that, sad to say.
Because total freedom includes the freedom to deny freedom to others.
Total freedom is equivalent to some kind of combination of anarchy and libertarian anarcho-capitalism.
It ends up being pretty oppressive for the non-swift or non-bold or non-ruthless.
So some systems, like GPL, which are trying to promote the "most amount of freedom for the
most people" have to have some consitutional rules to guard that overall fair state.
In a way it's analogous to a market. Many are advocates of a "free market",
but of course a free market cannot function without rules (against insider trading, against hacking the trading system,
against fraudulent financial statements or prospectuses) and punishments for violating the rules,
so again, not totally free. But seems to work. That's the key. A level of freedom designed carefully to
conserve the most amount of freedom for the largest number of people and to have it continue to work
despite people trying to game and corrupt the system.
Clever if you ask me, and laudable.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Neither. The whole debate is pointless.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
How can you say it does not when it clearly does. Can I get GPL v3 Software for my iphone. NO I cant. Its not compatible with the distribution method. So yes that clause does affect me the end user. Good open source software is not on the App store or not for long because of this. Even though the code is free for all to use the distrbution method isn't compatable. Its political because the claws was put in to force a ideology upon every one about distribution methods, and so forth. So my right to enjoy the hard work and efforts of many is gone from that one clause