Apple's Open Source Stew

Tor Slettnes sent us a link to a fairfax article that talks about the sticky situation Apple seems to have gotten itself into regarding Open Source. Touches on the Open Source Trademark issue, as well as the ever Popular Perens vs. ESR vs. RMS issues. It actually covers the bases pretty well. Worth a read.

Comments

Apple claiming 'Open Source' as a trademark

[Don Negro]

Presumably, (IANAL) Apple printed that in the same spirit that it prints 'Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, and 'Apple' is a registered trademark of Apple Computer.'

In truth, neither of them are. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Records, used under license, and Macintosh is a registered trademark of Macintosh Labratories, likewise used under license.

I'd imagine Apple licensed the trademark 'Open Source' from ESR, and said what they said accordingly.

Whether ESR had the right to license 'Open Source' in the first place, I have no clue.

Don Negro

Excellent Article, Sad Situtation

[Nameless]

That's a really good article, and a really sad situtation. The Open Source movement is really picking up steam (preaching to the choir ;) and it is encouraging to see companies putting their corporate weight behind it. Sadly, Apple jumped the gun. If they had done more research and gained some understanding of how the OS community works, they could have seen the arguments over the license they have constructed ahead of time. Had Apple done it's homework, they would have either 1) written a different license that appeased more of the OS community or 2) had a long list of arguments (and puns, especially "ring" ones ;) to use to support their lisence. All in all, I think Apple jumped the gun, but I'd rather have companies jumping behind OS with good intentions instead of companies who shoot people who even get *near* the source.

~Nameless, the fearless moderator! ;0

OSI and PSI arguing over "Open Source"

[kmj9907]

Does it seems humorous to anyone else that two of the largest "anti-intellectual property" groups are arguing over who owns the rights to a phrase? I know it's not exactly the same as releasing source code, but come on. "I thought up that word first, so you can't use it. Bye the way, let me see that code you wrote, I want to use it."

kmj

That wasn't Apple

[Gleef]

I sent an email to OSI, SPI and Bruce Perens (covering all bases :-) about that attribution. Someone at OSI checked, found that the original press release from Apple did not contain the attribution. It was the website's error in adding this statement, and they were sent an official nasty letter for doing so.

bitter political war

[pohl]

When Netscape announced their intent to release the mozilla source under an open-source license, there was extensive (and often hostile) debate in public fora. It eventually led to both clarification and modification of the first iteration of their license. Nobody in the press called it a "bitter political war." Maybe that's because back then the reporters didn't know where the discussion was taking place.

This kind of open debate, however bitter it may seem to outsiders, is how the collective operates. Somebody posts something to the net (be it draft code, or a draft license) and everybody who gives a shit starts to argue about the Right Way(tm) it should be done. Anything that a company offers to The Community is, implicitly, an RFC. If your request gets you no commentary, that's when there's a problem. Beware the day when any of the people involved want to stop the dialogue, not the day when the dialogue is passionate.

Thoughts...

[Aqualung]

Apple obviously wants to jump on the OpenSource bandwagon.. and for what it's worth I say more power to 'em. I've always like Apple GUI's, and OS X isn't an exception. However, for Apple's sake, I hope it listens to the criticisms of the Opensource community. Apple is perfectly within its rights to say "This is our license, like it or don't use it" just like everyone else, however, since Apple seems to be making an honest attempt at an OpenSource OS, let's hope they dont' get discouraged or even frightened off by some hard-line whiners. I guess it boils down to "Will they bend or shatter?"

This is disgusting...

[Millennium]

For once, I'm ashamed to be a Linux user.

The reason: this savagery. Apple is trying to get on its feet in the OSS community, and the OSS community, rather than trying to help it, is visciously attacking it because it is Apple.

Case in point: The original NPL was rather like the current APSL. There was a bit of griping from the zealots, but all in all the community worked to help Netscape.

Another case in point: the QPL. Now there's a can of worms, bit I'd like to point out that the original draft was even worse than the APSL, yet it was accepted by many of the same people whi now hypocritically attack Apple. Once again, there was some complaining from the zealots, but the community helped Troll work on its license until it got something which was tolerable.

But what do they do when Apple tries? They gang up on this poor company. They take a license which does not violate any of the principles of Open-Source (note that I do not say Free Software here; the two are not necessarily the same, and once again I will go into why they aren't violating anything later on here) and yet when they should have been greeted with open arms they were attacked.

Now, let me reiterate why this license does not violate the Open-Source philosophies:
1) People complain that if you make changes to the software you have to tell Apple about it and make the changes available. In other words, you have to make the changes Open-Source and tell Apple. Yeah, that's one more restriction than the GPL (telling Apple about it) but that's hardly a violation of anything. I might add that there are other licenses which even RMS accepted as Free Software which do require you to submit your changes back.
2) The infamous termination clause. For the last time, people, read the stupid document again: Apple cannot terminate this license. It can terminate the license on sections of the code which violate patents, yes. If Apple did not do this it would be committing a crime (contributory infringement of patents, if I am not mistaken). Note that Netscape did this with Mozilla too, and nobody has complained.

I could go into theories as to why the Open-Source community is so prejudiced against Apple (mainly because they don't want to see really open computing, that is computing which is easy enough to learn that no one has to be dependent on command-lines and so-called "experts," a category into which Linux and the BSD's do not fall)_but that would take far too much space and this comment is probably going to get moderated out of existence as it is. But the truth hurts, doesn't it? Think about it for a second before you respond with a flame: why is it that you're just flaming Apple instead of trying to offer help?