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APSL Violating the OSD (Round 9)
nickm writes "Seth David Schoen of CalLUG fame has written an essay entitled The APSL and Export Controls. This goes beyond patent craziness and nit-picking about legal details but rather shows a direct violation of the OSD in that the APSL adds a bit of US law to the license (adding additional burdens for those outside the US).
"
They stopped you, right? That is control.
That is exactly what they wanted. They win.
You people should pull that rake out of your ass. Apple is just trying to protect whats theirs and still letting developers get into the macos in a way they never could before. Quit dumping on them, who cares if its not totaly free, at least you dont have to pay apple anything to download it.
Re-read the article. The author went to great pains to explain this point.
Read the essays at the FSF on the subject. "Free software" doesn't mean that you don't pay for it.
"Apple has always had offensive business practices, and this little PR move to stem the flood of development rushing away from their platform doesn't change that."
This is pure FUD. Development was, but has not been, moving away from the platform since Apple's economic turnaround.
Not to mention, the code is for the server OS, not MacOS. Kinda hard for a migration from a newly released OS.
"If they were interested in the values or real benefits of any "openness" they wouldn't have killed Rhapsody on x86."
Whoes have to do with anything? Linux didn't support 68k Macs for a long time. Linux is not open? The whole point of openness is the liscence, not the platform supported. That's a resource decision, regardless whether you are a business or part of a community.
[re next NeXT system]
Huh? If you mean MacOS X, it's coming. If you mean something else, I and probably any others never heard that announcement.
[re rant on Jobs]
Oh. So if you don't like someone, you don't use their OS? Now *that's*a smart criteria.
Time to repeal the laws of the US! Call your US representative.
Agreed. There a lot of anger in these posts that go well beyond the liscensing issue. A significant portion (not all) of the people upset at Apple's liscence are using the liscence as evidence to hate the company (more).
They forget that this is a major step for Apple. Not only that, but from every news report, Apple went into this believing that their liscence met the Open Source liscensing criteria. In my book, good intentions count for something. But there's always someone willing to point out some unevidenced conspiracy theory. "Exploitation!" they yell. Forgive, but if you don't like it, don't use it. You can do that with the APSL, GPL, or no liscence at all.
Meanwhile, SlashDot keeps putting up articles lambasting Apple. The evolving argument since actually points to more of a weakness of members in the community: immaturity, hate, and hostility. There is no even-handedness in the coverage.
If I were any commercial company watching how the community is treating Apple, I'd like more than twice about even considering trying to make any "Open Source" like document. It's not woth the trouble. And no, that's not the same as not releasing source. I just wouldn't try to get it officially labeled as OSD.
The APSL is a big step for the Mac community. Screw the Open Source Community. The APSL is more than we had before, and Apple survived all the negative publicity, naysayers, and buyout rumors well before it. Now, it can leverage it's user community. Any Mac dev will love this sort of liscence, AS IS.
If it's take it or leave it, I'll take it. Let others leave it. Their loss. Our advantage. They can't incorporate code I submit, since they won't accpt the liscence.
So? It may be redundant but it definitely doesn't put any additional restrictions in place. That's the law, dammit!
What's next? Another whiny article claiming the license isn't open source because of a spelling error or a misplaced comma?
i find it kind of odd that all these people are getting so very very worked up over the liscense, and are paying _no attention whatsoever_ to the software that's actually been released under the liscense.
Has anyone actually tried to get Darwin to run? Or even tried to download it? as far as i can gather apple seems less interested in making a usable product here than in looking good. Of course i may just be whining needlessly here, but would it really be _too_ much trouble for apple to give us some FTP access to the files (a list of http links on a web page isn't the most efficient way to download 30+ files), some directions, and maybe some binaries? (and what code there is seems more destined for *nix users than mac users-- and if you've already got a *nix why do you need darwin?)
I don't think you could really call it "open source", because it isn't very open. "public source" describes it a lot better. But despite this, we should pay a _little_ bit of attention to the software itself, even if the software is just BSD with support for appletalk and HFS+.
Note: apple's expertise is in writing software, not software liscenses. Give them a break if the liscense is fairly buggy.
I don't really see how this helps anyone, since the only thing apple is releasing is the source to the mach kernal, some BSD stuff and the apache webserver. that, i think, is almost insulting, to "give" something away that's not even yours to begin with, and act like you've done something really grand...
How ? "Simple" : Edict (local) laws, claim they apply in the whole world (Helms-Burton, d'Amato). Then, to (attempt to) enforce them, use plain blackmail against independent, sovereign countries.
(For instance, at least one middle-sized Canadian company was given choice between being taxed for 100% of the money it was doing in the US (bankrupt) or stop doing business in Cuba (1% of its annual turnover). Besides, the upper management of this firm was denied entry on the US territory. Similar attempts were made against various EU firms (including major petroleums like BP and Total), but were never pushed into application (Basically, the Commission passed or threatened to pass a Directive saying that 1) European firms doing business in a foreign country should ignore third-party laws and 2) if those firms were to be taxed by the third party in relation to the business done in the second, then those taxes would be covered by a levy against the business done in the EU by random firms of the third party. Net result : the combined US+EU texts would have meant that in regions of the world chosen by the USA, only EU firms could make business.... Now fortunately(?) this nonsense is buried under rotten banana.) Most (outside : non-US, non-EU) firms are simply scared away from the market of the US FTO blacklist.
-- Cyrille.
[note that the EU and most member states, and in fact most outside, free-market countries have a similar export restriction blacklist too. You can't for instance drill for oil in Iraq, even if you really want to and have been "the pen in the hand" for five years, ready to sign the contracts. What is vehemently opposed by the EU (and others, I guess) is the attempts the USA make from time to time to apply their laws elsewhere]
So true.
If any other company (with the possible exception of Micrsoft) used the same license, none of this bickering would exist.
If people had balls, they would just say that they don't like Apple and leave it at that.
If you (being in the US) agree to the license and then pass it along to me (in France let's say), I may not be bound by US law but the restriction IS in the license so I WOULD be bound by it. What happens by adding that phrase into the license to to make all subsequent owners/users/copiers subject to a US law no matter where they are in the world. In a comment in this tree someone mentioned that the US can not COMPELL speech so there is no requirement for Apple to include the offending phrase.
In conclusion, there is no good reason for Apple to include the phrase but the question is, will they do the right thing and remove it?
Please get it through your thick skull that it was ESR who approved of Apple calling it Open Source! Apple had no reason whatsoever to second guess his judgement. Maybe they wouldn't have called it Open Source if ESR had not accepted the license in its current form? THINK BEFORE YOU POST
> what code there is seems more destined for *nix users than mac users-- and if you've already got a *nix why do you need darwin?
that didn't come out quite the way i meant it to-- i was referring to the tar.gz and that you'd probably want to compile it from a *nix, not a compiler in macos.
sorry.
-- same AC
If you (being in the US) agree to the license and then pass it along to me (in France let's say), I may not be bound by US law but the restriction IS in the license so I WOULD be bound by it.
You miss something. You argue that it would be okay for you to export wherever if you were in France (had the clause not been included), but you miss the fact that the person in the US (the original exporter of the code) can still be held responsible if that code makes it's way to Iraq (or wherever).
Apple's clause is probably in the best interest of any US citizen.
But from a realistic point of view - does this effect any of us? No. So quit the bickering.
>Screw RMS, ESR, BP, and any other free-software
>swami I left off the list.
ESR is the guy you agree with! You probably want
to be more careful about who you screw in future.
Steve Jobs won't go to prison due to Apple
not duplicating bits of US law in their license.
You haven't understood. Read again.
All slashdot loves you.
there there.
I don't really see how this helps anyone, since the only thing apple is releasing is the source to the mach kernal, some BSD stuff and the apache webserver.
Well, for one, they've made many changes to BSD, Mach, etcetera, that some OTHER license didn't require them to publish. I don't hear people griping about how open THAT license is!
i think, is almost insulting, to "give" something away that's not even yours to begin with
Again, some other OPEN SOURCE license let them do this! But you blame Apple?
Also, some of the stuff released was stuff that wasn't open before (apple file types, etc).
FINALLY, about 6 months ago a bunch of NextStep users requested that Apple open some code so they could make their own drivers, fixes, etc! Guess what - Apple did this (and more) and now people complain!?
Open Sourcers are demonstrating that they are some of the most closed minded people... The irony.
I have no idea what the ramifications are legally, but i REALLY wish Apple could clean up their APSL.
If you aren't sure of the legal ramifications you shouldn't be asking Apple to clean up the license. In other words, you admit to naivete about a license, and then suggest they fix the same license. Totally silly.
Moreover, this is just silly bickering. Anybody who was interested in the code in the first place doesn't give a rats ass about your bickering. They just want to have fun, and maybe make their favorite OS a little bit better.
1. developer MUST report their change to the source to APPLE.
2. APPLE is located in the US.
3. I am not writing/developing the additional improvement in the US.
4. There are some type of programs that are controlled by US export law. (for eg. encryption, I can write and contribute the code to somebody in US (APPLE), but afterwared the code CANNOT be released outside US boundry)
not sure if this is good for the community. specially on the account APPLE is a commercial company who could be under stringent scrutiny of law. Hence they will be very conservative about being "free" of the improved update of the released source code.
Let's let's nitpick until Apple withdraws it's offer, boy that will make us all so happy. maybe if some other software company offers to open it's source to us we can complain and tear them apart too. What fun.
on the contrary, if one is truely concern about writing code and long term contribution, understanding the remification of license is very important.
would you rather stop and think right now or, get into big mess agaisnt the autorithy 5 months down the road, after all your hard work?
you are confusing intense scrutiny and serious consideration with anger. It is in my opinion very important to analyze license before actually start doing work with the alledgedly "open source" material.
.. but I don't think that a modified license would change anything. You still wouldn't be allowed to export the code from the US.
That is exactly correct since the law of the land applies automatically by you being subject to it, and there is not need, or legal requirement to put this into the license itself. Freedom is about making choices, and if someone down the line decides to break the law it is his choice, and responsibility to do so, and not yours, and any license that rpohibits thise choice cannot be about freedom, and cannot therefore be open source in the terms most people understand it, and in which OSD defines it. :>>--
A resounding NO. They would not be held responsible if they omitted the requirement, and simply reuired people certified they are legal to download the stuff when they actually do, like most servesr in the US do anyway. But the people downloading the stuff would be free license wise to break the law if they consider that a good thing to do, and are willing to take such a risk to defeat the law. This action would not put any liability on apple under the current law, because apple did what it was required by the law to do. So in light of this it is unreasonable, inresponsible, and simply stupid of them to include the clause, when it already applies to anyone in US juristiction by default already. :>>--
Well it is not in best interest of anybody, because the exporter would now be breaking a law, and a license, and thus other laws. So it just makes for more crime, then less, and apple is no more or less covered. Only now people willing to challenge the law by breaking are also breaking a license, which is not their intent, and which they might not consider morally right. (Besides apple could possible be held in violation of laws of an other country for attempting to circumvent its laws by imposing US law on them , which might be illegal, so it would be in apples best interest to remove the clause, because it does not remove liability as they probably (wrongly) assumed, but actually adds more of it.) :>>--
If apple were to "jump off" the open-source bandwagon, what would the open-source community say then?
If more large companies "jump on" would you guys still be bickering, or would you give them constructive critisism.
Apple made a good move, give them some praise, or add some constructive critisism.
Instead of trying to cause a flame war think a bit. The apple export rule thing is a termination clause. Imagine if due a trade falling out an ..
openbsd using apple code suddenly found itself
unexportable to your country
High Five! You hit the bullseye.
...trying to start a flamewar...
>
He's not. He's saying exactly what most professional software engineers feel about this bullshit. Most of us want Open Source as documentation to make our job easier and our code better, not for some great social movement.
PARC didn't resemble a GUI as we understand them today. Repeat after me: "No overlapping windows".
It already got knocked down from the default score of 1 for a registered poster. Isn't that censorship enough for you?
No, that law would not "hold" anyway. If I download that software and distribute it to someone in a prescribed country, I doubt that the American statute purports to prevent me and if it does I think any attempt to extradite me or otherwise enforce it on me would be.. er... amusing.
I might be subject to local laws covering exports but that's a separate issue.
The licence would much more likely be recognised as valid locally and be enforceable where i live(Isle of Man for what it's worth).
The licence does at least try to impose restrictions on me that would not otherwise exist.
No! GPL, as an example, does not prohibit me from distributing to any country I choose. The APSL does.
What American laws say about distributing code have no relevance to this issue, as they do not form a part of these licences (and no relevance to me since i am not in America).
It's extremely unlikely. There are clearly any number of large (presumably law-abiding-when-they-might-get-caught) companies that do not put such provisions in their licenses.
(Okay, there's any number of people who park illegally too, still until someone can cite the law that actually says you must include this in your license, I don't believe it)
The licence restricts your exporting from countries outside of the US too.
Their laws don't stop you from distributing the code as you please after it's been sent to someone in America, they just prevent people in America from sending that same software (that everyone else already has) outside of America
It's a bizarre joke by people in the American legislature, not everyone has the right sense of humour to fulkly appreciate it, that's all.
OK, fine. A new clause: You many not use open source software if your a piss ant who sues when something goes wrong.
OK, fine. A new clause: You may not use open
source software if your a piss ant who sues when something goes wrong.
Get a clue, Perens. Schoen does have a legitimate point, whereas your ramblings about the license are mostly political babble.
I am located outside the US. What if I want to implement an encrypting filesystem that uses strong (>=128bit) encryption? If this feature makes it back into the Original Code (like if Apple includes it in a new release) I suddenly find myself subject to US export laws. I won't even be able to export my own code to a friendly neighboring country without breaking the license.
I really couldn't care less about the OSI or the OpenSource trademark. But once you cut through all the crap in Schoen's article (APSL not complying to the OSD - who cares?) the fact remains that Paragraph 13.1 is a real threat to the international developer community. Apple should fix this ASAP.
"What is Apple to do? Say US Laws do not apply?"
Nope, I already know that US laws don't apply to me, I don't need Apple or anyone else to tell me that.
All they need to do is either not call the licence "Open Source" or else amend the licence. For what it's worth, I'd rather they amend the licence.
I don't have my notes on this handy, but there is a clause in the APSL which states that you loose all rights to the source if you file a patent claim against Apple.
The problem is, that there is no restriction on the extent of this. So if you could prove you invented firewire before Apple, and attempted to claim it, then you would suddeny loose all rights to Darwin.
Yet there is no correlation between Darwin and the Firewire patent.
So Apple is restricting your rights to the software, based upon an (effectively) external legal dealing.
This would appear to break points 1 and 5 of the OSD.
Since CmdrTaco deleted my last post, I'll repeat it again. Let's move along, ok?
It's pretty obvious now that Taco has something against Apple, or else he wouldn't keep posting only negative things about them.
This is such a non-issue and the only reason people are upset about it is because Taco keeps bringing it up.
Let's just move along ok people? Nothing to see here.
The problem here is "open source" is a popularly recognized buzz word (although the word has official owners). Technically, they are opening the source of some of the code to Mac OS X Server. How would they want this to be referred to as? By the popular buzz word of course, other wise it'll cause a mess of confusion for the public. "Wait.. it's code is open to the public viewing but it isn't Open Source?!?! Huh?!?!"
Because of the strict definition for the actual word, it makes it hard for anyone to deviate from a special set of rules. In my opinion, I think the term should just be used to say the source code of piece of software, or OS is open to the public for viewing. It fits the word much better. If you want to make a bunch of rules for something, why use a word (two words) that is so vague. I think it's a cheap way for them to get everyone to conform to their exact standards and beliefs (even if it means violating laws), otherwise they can't use the term which happens to be simple to memorize, notice, and has already been used a lot in the media.
I agree with your assessment of the OSD. Sadly many people in here worship it like the ten commandments of the Cult Of The Open Source.
No no no..Then opensource will become as bastardized as the word "free" here in the US. "Free" means nothing today. Opensource was created by people who have specific intentions for that software. There is nothing blurry about it. Open source is a concept not a marketing gimmick.
Yes, but given the current state of the law in the US, it's probably better to be safe then sorry. Tell you what, are you willing to pay Apple's legal fees, if they remove the clause and then come under action because it's not present?
Remember we're talking about possibly millions of dollars in legal costs vs a few lines of type. I wish I could buy insurance so cheaply.
Fine, things just move at internet speed here.
The congratulation phase just didn't last long.
"Open source" specifically leads me to expect the right to create and distribute open source derived works. IMHO the word for all source that isn't a trade secret should be "published."
From the data sheet, it doesn't look like iMacs support Mac OS X Server:
The FAQ didn't really say, but also seemed to carefully distinguish between "iMac" and "Power MacintoshG3". It looks like all you can do with an iMac is NetBoot (load Mac OS 8.5.1 via bootp). I imagine this is the first thing Darwin hackers will fix.
This is why the rules imposed by US export law shouldn't be written into license agreements, so only us US citizens have to live with this stupidity.
What isn't clear to me is whether Apple was required to write the embargo into the license. If so, there's a lot of free software that needs to be written in free countries, because US citizens would be barred from offering an Open Source license.
If I can't trust them, I certainly won't do business with them. OPENSTEP developers were migrated to x86 (because that's where WebObjects was). Apple bought NeXT and they were all totally fscked for about two years- Apple simply didn't feel like selling the product they were dependent on.
Some of us feel responsibility for making everyone's code better, rather than just "I got mine," which is what makes getting the Open Source Definition right so important. Why are you even reading about it if you don't give a damn?
What exactly should I be taking up with my legislature? That they should pass a law freeing me from having to comply with licence provisions arising from misguided attempts to include American laws in licences?
:)
Maybe the legislative process is drastically easier in your country, but over here I think it's easier to ask Apple to change the licence than to try to get a special statute on the books just to fix this.
Thanks for the suggestion all the same
and hfs plus
and netinfo
and driverkit
You'd be crazy to read the source without being very confident about what the license allows. Reading source that isn't Free is an excellent way of legally tainting yourself so that you can't work on related Free Software (lawyers can argue you're creating a derived work and have to live with their bogus license).
It works, but it is not "officially" supported by apple.
No, the gpl requires you to gpl code based on gpled works.
Apple did not use *any* gpled works to make darwin.
Also, in Xerox's os icons where actions not objects.
Parc's os would not be called gui if it was released today.
Apple invented icons as objects (files, drives, ect.)
it is supported on *all* desktop & tower g3's.
it runs unsupported on all non 603 pci ppc's and all g3 notebooks.
The disadvantage of this sort of "honesty" is that it imposes the same (stupid) rules upon non-US citizens. Absolutely indefensible unless BXA requires this, and other big lawyer-intensive companies here in the Land of the Freeh don't seem to think so.
There are people who went out of their way to buy those machines, who paid extra for boxen officially announced as supporting Rhapsody. IMHO what Apple did to those customers was nothing short of fraud.
I don't really see how this helps anyone, since the only thing apple is releasing is the source to the mach kernal, some BSD stuff and the apache webserver. that, i think, is almost insulting, to "give" something away that's not even yours to begin with, and act like you've done something really grand...
They're releasing the source code for everything but the GUI, Netbooting and the Blue Box.
If you (being in the US) agree to the license and then pass it along to me (in France let's say), I may not be bound by US law but the restriction IS in the license so I WOULD be bound by it. What happens by adding that phrase into the license to to make all subsequent owners/users/copiers subject to a US law no matter where they are in the world. In a comment in this tree someone mentioned that the US can not COMPELL speech so there is no requirement for Apple to include the offending phrase.
Its no different than copyright law; just because it gets moved out of the country doesn't mean it doesn't apply anymore.
I hope Apple sees that this is bad news, and does something about it. If they don't, they're going to kill over 50% of the market of people who /like/ Apple, let alone the rest of the world who doesn't like them to begin with.
Apple isn't saying it can't be exported to foriegn countreis at all, just ones that are under economic embargo. So you can export to Switzerland and Brazil just fine, just not to places like North Korea and Iraq. I'm sure there are some talented programmers in those nations, but they hardly make up %50 of potential developers.
There are people who went out of their way to buy those machines, who paid extra for boxen officially announced as supporting Rhapsody. IMHO what Apple did to those customers was nothing short of fraud.
How the hell does it do that, when it installs and runs just fine on those machines (and those made a year and a half earlier)? OSXS should run on any PCI Mac (and the iMac). Promising support to older machines is what sunk Copland (and is sinking Windows 2000).
His accusation that the APSL is "incompatible with the GNU GPL" is pretty damning
Its irrelevant because Apple never made any pretenses about it Darwin being GPL. That would mean that other people could sell copies of it.
Apple is clearly abusing the Open Source name by calling the APSL Open Source when it clearly violates the spirit of Open Source.
I'd say its quite the opposite; it may not have 100% compliance with every little nitty gritty irrelavant detail of the OSD, but it certainly does it in spirit.
Did anyone notice that the vmware EULA which you accept when you download it also has the same clause?
It might be rediculous, but the possibility of some sort of software catagory being included in a trade war list could not be ruled out.
after all who would have tought that US VS EU will do banana war?
so this export restriction is not a light matter.
the point is politician is fickle,
what happen if one day they decide some part of the software is considered national property (maybe persuaded by big business interest)
for eg, e-comerce hook, or some exotic configuration (remember beawolf?)
business is very fickle. there is Banana War going on between US & EU. what happen if it spread to software ???
do you think rouge country won't steal software anyway if APSL put unnecessary export law?
it will only restrict the legal developer. But the spook will do whatever they do....
How could I be bound by the licence otherwise than through contract?
If it is contract then what is the consideration given by Apple if it isn't the right to copy the software?
Or do you mean that the licence has no relevance to me provided I obtained it from someone who didn't impose that licence upon me (where they got it is irrelevant - Apple could sue them but not me, even assuming they could identify them)?
"Its no different than copyright law; just because it gets moved out of the country doesn't mean it doesn't apply anymore."
Your copyright laws do not apply in other people's countries, but many countries have equivalent laws of their own, as copyright laws have been harmonised through international treaty.
If you meant to say that the licence will continue to apply in other people's countries then yes, as with copyright that will often be the case. If the licence is valid under local laws then it will apply. This is exactly what the previous poster was saying, that he is bound by this licence.
If you were suggesting, as it seems to me you were, that American laws apply to a Frenchman in France then no, obviously they don't. American export laws are not enforceable in France, though of course the French have their own laws in this area they are not the same.
Think about it this way : if you are an American living in America then do you think that French, Swiss, Cuban, Iraqi etc laws all apply to you? If not then why would you suppose that American laws apply to anyone else?
First you state that this clause doesn't violate the OSD, then you say that the OSD should be amdended so that the clause won't violate it anymore.
Which is it, as the clause and the OSD stand at present do you think the licence is OSD compliant or not?
No, it limits the users freedom over the software. Hence it is not in the spirit of the OSD.
For what it's worth, I do think that Apple were acting in the right spirit, ie genuinely intended it to be Open Source. They just made a few mistakes. Hopefully they can fix them, if not then it's no big problem - it just won't be Open Source and they shouldn't call it that, that's all.
Again you have an excellent point. Basically what you are saying is that by including the US export law in the license Apple has unwittingly made it vulnerable to any future changes in the US political agenda. What if the US government one day decides to amend their definition of munition to include operating systems?
Thanks for your insightful comments.
I don't have any wish to "blast" Apple.
However, it seems to be implicit in what you write that the APSL is not in fact an Open Source licence.
If they want to keep it that way then that's okay, just don't call it Open Source and there's no problem.
Congratulations Apple on introducing a much freer licence for this software, shame it isn't Open Source, but it's a big step in the right direction.
Incompatibility with GPL is a practical problem for some purposes, but certainly doesn't prevent the APSL from being Open Source / Free Software.
If there is a provision in there preventing other people from selling Darwin (as you seem to be implying) then that certainly WOULD be incompatible with Open Source / Free Software. Which part of the license does this?
Not all of them (603? NuBus?). There's some date back in January 1997 when they told customers who'd been holding off on buying (for just this reason!) that they'd be able to run Rhapsody on any new Mac they buy. It was a pretty clear warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. They didn't say "most," and certainly didn't say "with none of Apple's normal support."
Certainly the license must stand or fall on its own merits, but I for one would like public disclosure of the actual relationships so that I could factor that knowledge into how much weight I give various statements and opinions.
This anonymous coward is Tom Morrisette
Taking that effectively public-domain code and slapping on a new license that favors themselves is obscene, but legal. Many see this as a problem with such loose licenses, and this is the sort of abuse GPL and similar viral licenses are designed to prevent. Why would there be new griping? That debate goes back many years.
Did the NeXT developers ask for Open Source, or just a look at code they can't necessarily do anything with?
AND the ObjC runtime
... could be true.If you people
AND the SoundKit
AND ObjC++ compiler
AND many stuff that those OS integrist&ignorant
don't know about because they didn't even go and
see by themselves (on the apple site) what was
**REALLY** in the Darwin project.
Makes me laugh a lot, all those people talking
about NeXTSTEP without having used it, without
knowing its history or anything.
I read they could be jealous because they wanted
MacGUI on Linux
want Mac GUI, take yours fingers out of your ass,
and help GNUSTEP (instead of criticizing, be
constructive).
What is sure is ASPL is flamed because this is
Apple. HEY !!! Apple and NeXT have merged,
things are slightly different now.
For the history, NeXT allready gave stuff (3DKit,
IndexingKit) to the public domain (MiscKit).
ASPL goes in the continuity of NeXT's spirit.
The real big f**k from Apple is MacOS X for i386
not beeing released. But nobody cares as it
concerns only NeXT users who are mostly on i386
(others on NeXT/HPPA/SPARC).
IMH-NS-O, people are really missing the debate
about MacOSX.
> Of course i may just be whining needlessly here,
e s/
> but would it really be _too_ much trouble for
> apple to give us some FTP access to the files
> (a list of http links on a web page isn't the
> most efficient way to download 30+ files)
ftp://ftp.apple.com/devworld/macosxserver/Sourc
As an EU citizen I am entitled to export software to the Cubans. In fact the EU has repeatedly stated that US action against non US companies exporting to Cuba will be regarded as an act of
trade warfare (read 100% surcharge on all US
products about a day later).
Apple are obliged to follow US law. They are not obliged to lumber me with the stupidity of US law.
Given the choice of using software that is free or crawling up the US govts cavernous backside I'll
choose using free software
The usage restrictions in the APSL go beyond the powers in US law, the export restriction is unneccesary and the termination clause should have everyone running to avoid Apple code.
Sure most of this isnt Apple's fault. But quite a
bit of it is.
Apple are also being completely two faced about it. They provide Linux which has no "go away cubans" clause yet claim they cannot take that clause out of the APSL.
Alan
You're literally correct, but your point is moot. True, a software license is not literally a copyright law. However, the only legal mechanism that forces people to respect software licensing terms is, you guessed it, copyright law.
In most cases, copyright law is the only thing stopping me from copying, say, MS Windows or Lotus Notes. Only in rare cases (e.g. patent restrictions, export restrictions) is there some other thing that stops me from copying software.
You want this stuff, you want an "open" project to result, get the BSD and mach sources. You can argue about the spirit and letter of various licences 'till you are blue in the face. Nonetheless, it is patently obvious to anyone that Apple is about as interested in producing free software as Microsoft. "Darwin" is not AbiWord, Mozilla, or even MySQL. Apple has always had offensive business practices, and this little PR move to stem the flood of development rushing away from their platform doesn't change that. If they were interested in the values or real benefits of any "openness" they wouldn't have killed Rhapsody on x86. (Which rocked as beta 1) Jobs is a rip-off artist, who trades on illusory benefits like "charisma" and "vision", while performing bait & switch on customers and developers alike. He's had 11 years now. Where is the system that improves on NeXT, as NeXT did on MacOS? It will NEVER appear. That's because with NeXT, all he did was implement those things from PARC that he missed seeing the first time around, and he was motivated by the desire to show Apple they made a mistake in treating him as dispensable. He'll raid open source for the kernel, etc. He's done it before. He'll sue you blind if you venture into userland code.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Of course not, but the law exists and as a US corporation Apple is required to ensure that its products obey it, and it will probably be held responsible if someone breaks that law with their products. Yes, they're just covering their own ass, but that particular clause is just a repeat of a US law that would hold even if it wasn't written into the license.
So why quote Shakespeare? He wouldn't know the GPL if it bit him in the ass. Gibson may not be addicted to the net or even base his technology on reality, but that doesn't make his writing bad or any less relevant. The particular quote was very applicable here.
Posted by dirkx:
While the OSD is a nice position paper, it is not something you can use as a legal paper. Depending
on your country and which jurisdiction applies you
are usually bound by laws and constitutions. Anything in these 'override' whatever you state in
for example your licence.
For US companies, US export laws applies. Now one could hide that fact, and rely on the implictness that they apply anyway. But what apple has done is
more 'honest' so to say.
So if you have issue; you will have to take up the
issue not with apple, but with your legislation.
Dw
altho it IS a clause that violates the OSD, the limitation is not on ALL foreign countries, but only those that the USA has embargos on etc. I have no idea what the ramifications are legally, but i REALLY wish Apple could clean up their APSL.
nitpicker :P
In my book, good intentions count for something.
Sorry to be so cold... but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Also, good intentions (IMHO) don't count for shit if you're working to misuse something like the term 'Open Source' strictly for weaseling your way into a new market.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
As the linked article takes pains to point out, Apple's obligation to discriminate is not an obligation to force all licensees to perpetuate that discrimination. US law does not require you to copy then-current US law into your licenses.
Well, here we have it. Another definitive reason why almost unlimited access to proprietary software source code is not "open source."
Apple now has two options to comply 100% with open source purists: they can 1) send Steve Jobs to prison for breaking export law and allow Apple to be fined out of existance by the Govt. or 2) Not release any source code so you can go back to griping about how nobody in the corporate community really takes Open Source seriously.
The third option is to tell the lot of you to take your OSD and do something pysiologically impossible with it.
It is very interesting to note that the Gnu/Lickers are almost entirely responsibe for the "backlash". Most of us *BSD types are ecstatic that we get a chance to see what Apple has done with Mach and BSD.
I expect there will be a lot of cross-polination of ideas and fixes to nagging problems on both sides, and that both Apple and *BSD will prosper from the arrangement.
I expect long-harried Mac/NeXT MIS staff and developers will be thrilled at a chance to hack away at their favorite system's foundations.
I expect the Gnu/Lickers to continue sniveling about evil corporations, and spending countless hours trying to reverse engineer the Win/98 "look and feel" in another desktop enviroment and/or window manager.
If the ASPL isn't open source, then Open Source is dead, strangled by those who loved it best. What is left isn't totally free software, but it -is- software that allows for more freedom than anyone had ever expected from a major corporation.
So screw OSD. Screw Open Source (TM). Screw SIP. Screw FSF. Screw RMS, ESR, BP, and any other free-software swami I left off the list.
WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYMORE.
William Gibson wrote that "The street finds its own uses for things". We found our own use for open source, and if it is at odds with your narrow political agenda, then too fucking bad.
I hereby invoke Godwin's Law. This conversation is now over. One point goes to your opponent.
--
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
Uninformed speculation is not helpful.
-russ
If the US export laws are not written into the license, software that finds its way out of the US (for example, by being printed in a book and mailed -- very legal) can be used and distributed outside the US without being restricted by those laws. This is how PGP was legally exported from the United States without perpetuating the export restrictions present under US law.
The same situation could apply to Free Software. Software is not free if discriminatory laws are written into the license. Furthermore, writing _any_ law into the license of a software packages risks prepetuating that law for the purposes of of the software in question even if the law is found invalid or gets repealed.
But from a realistic point of view - does this effect any of us? No.
You wrongly assume all users of Free Software are in the US. The person you're replying to may very well be outside the US and thus affected unneccessarily by US laws written into the license. Writing laws into license agreements is unneccessary, often discriminatory, and can make otherwise Free Software non-free.
Are you a lawyer? Somehow I doubt a retailer could be held responsible for anything that was bought from them and then subsequently exported to an embargo'd nation. Ditto for Free Software developers. Any real lawyers or law students out there care to comment?
Your point is moor anyway: Apple is not a retailer. Apple is making the software available for export via its FTP servers. By the laws of the United States (laws to which Apple is subject, even if the user is not), Apple cannot allow the software to be exported into certain nations and must take every step that it can to ensure this.
MIT handles this situation for PGP and other cryptographic software by requiring users to complete and online affidavit before they can dowload the software. It is not neccessary to write the export restrictions into the software license, since they do not neccessarily apply to everyone. In particular, restrictions resulting from US export laws do not affect people outside the US who have rekeyed Apple's source code from printed books.
I seriously doubt MIT would be responsible if someone subsequently exported PGP in electronic form -- a highly prestigious school like MIT would not open itself to such liability if they knew it existed. Since a school with as much money as MIT has access to some of the finest lawyers, I doubt there is any liability that they are not aware of.
It probably didn't need to reiterate the law in its license, no. But the fact remains: it holds true. It also holds true for every software license for software written by someone subject to US law, even the GPL.
These restrictions are not part of the software license unless they are explicitly written there. MIT writes export restrictions into the license in a way that prevents it from applying outside of the US. While MIT's method is not optimal, it's better than Apple's method of requiring assurances to enfoce US law even outside of the US.
If I print out my cryptographic source code and snail-mail it to Germany, US crypto laws no longer apply to that copy unless it's imported back into the US.
CodeWarrior includes a MacOS-hosted OSX compiler, if I'm not mistaken. It is possible to compile it that way. Since OSX uses HFS+ it can even be transferred to an OSX drive via that same Mac.
You still have to tinker with Open Firmware to get it to boot, of course, but that's another story.
Are you a lawyer? Somehow I doubt a retailer could be held responsible for anything that was bought from them and then subsequently exported to an embargo'd nation. Ditto for Free Software developers. Any real lawyers or law students out there care to comment?
Your point is moor anyway: Apple is not a retailer. Apple is making the software available for export via its FTP servers. By the laws of the United States (laws to which Apple is subject, even if the user is not), Apple cannot allow the software to be exported into certain nations and must take every step that it can to ensure this. It probably didn't need to reiterate the law in its license, no. But the fact remains: it holds true. It also holds true for every software license for software written by someone subject to US law, even the GPL.
Three, because those of you who claim to be running fully-Open-Source systems actually aren't.
Because I'm willing to bet that every single person who reads this message uses at least one piece of software which was written/is maintained by someone subject to United States laws. They are forced by the law to discriminate and therefore violate the OSD, Debian Free Software guidelines, or whatever definition you may use.
At least, this is the case if Apple's license does in fact violate the OSD. If it doesn't, and no other license is said to violate it because the original author has no choice but to respect the law, then it doesn't violate the OSD at all.
By the way, I am no fan of US export laws. They are for the most part idiotic, paranoid, and harmful to both US and foreign businesses. But the law is the law, and even if you figt to change it, you've got to follow it to the letter until it's changed.
This cannot be considered a violation of the OSD. Let me explain why:
You see, Apple is a US-based company, and therefore is subject to the laws of the United States. Because of this, it cannot export software into those countries, nor can it allow the software to be exported there. This goes for every entity subject to US law, I might add. Therefore, Apple is doing nothing more than reiterating the laws to which it is subject (which is in fact necessary or it would be allowing the software to be exported into those countries and therefore breaking the law).
Now, let me state something here: this law does in fact affect all licenses for software written by US suthors. Therefore, if Apple is violating the OSD, so is every single piece of Open-Source software written by US authors, including the Linux kernel (or at least all versions written since Linus moved to the US), at least two of the *BSD's, and every single thing RMS, ESR, and Bruce Perens have ever written.
For that matter, KDE and Gnome both violate the OSD. In an ironic twist, GTK does but Qt does not (it's not done by US authors, though some add-on widgets might be). Netscape and Mozilla do too.
This is rather unfortunate for two three reasons. One, because the OSD does not take into account the laws of the land in which the software is written. Two, because US export law sucks. Three, because those of you who claim to be running fully-Open-Source systems actually aren't.
My proposal: either amend the OSD so that the law can be taken into account, or renew the fight to change US export law. Both should be done, actually (the first as a temporary measure until the second can be done). The only other option is to move all Open-Source projects overseas.
By the way, when I mean "written by a US author" I mean "maintained by a US author"; the maintainer would be considered to be the primary author and therefore (probably) the one responsible under US law.
- People who are not US citizens are subject to the software license (through international copyright laws), but they are not subject to US law. By adding provisions of US law into the software license, international developers are subject to US laws that do not otherwise apply to them.
- Contrary to what you might expect, US export restrictions do NOT automatically mean there is no legal way to transmit the software to international developers. For instance, PGP is subject to cryptography export laws, yet it was legally transmitted to the outside world through export in book form. If the PGP license had restated US export restrictions, then PGP International would not be able to distribute PGP today! The reason is simple: PGP International is not subject to US export law, but they are subject to international copyright law.
Your post blindly asserts that all software written in the US is subject to US export law, which is wrong. Only US residents are subject to US export law. International developers have absolutely no exposure to US export law.You apparently think that writing US export law into a license doesn't add any more restrictions to the software than US export law already imposes. This thinking is simple-minded and wrong. It assumes that US export law applies universally, when in fact it doesn't, and it assumes that US export law is logically written, when in fact it isn't.
- People who are not US citizens are subject to the software license (through international copyright laws), but they are not subject to US law. By adding provisions of US law into the software license, international developers are subject to US laws that do not otherwise apply to them.
- Contrary to what you might expect, US export restrictions do NOT automatically mean there is no legal way to transmit the software to international developers. For instance, PGP is subject to cryptography export laws, yet it was legally transmitted to the outside world through export in book form. If the PGP license had restated US export restrictions, then PGP International would not be able to distribute PGP today! The reason is simple: PGP International is not subject to US export law, but they are subject to international copyright law.
Your post blindly supposes that software written in the US is subject to US export law, which is wrong. Only US residents are exposed to US export law. International developers have absolutely no exposure to US export law, no matter where they obtained the software or how they got it.When I buy MS Windows, copyright law by default prohibits me from copying the software. If I want to copy the software (for example, by installing Windows) I need to obtain permission from Microsoft. The only way I can obtain permission to copy from Microsoft is to accept their software license, along with whatever it says (for instance, the license might require that I not decompile the software).
So you see that copyright law has everything to do with software licensing. The only reason most people agree to licenses to begin with is that if they do not agree to the license, they may not copy the software (because of copyright law). Nobody would agree to a Microsoft license just for the hell of it. They agree to the license because otherwise they cannot copy the software at all.
That, in a nutshell, is the reason why respecting copyright law requires that you respect software licenses as well.
This one is difficult to understand, though, because there doesn't seem to be encryption involved, and it would be silly to consider the operating system a "munition" of itself.
Probably just an excess of CYA.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Eric Raymond is at the moment still SPI's designated manager of the Open Source trademark. I am not party to SPI's future plans regarding that, but I'd bet on some sort of change eventually. Note that the OSI board made the right decision to not designate the Bitmover license as "Open Source", which was good to see. I wish they'd handled the APSL as carefully.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
No, they don't have control. He can export his crypto wares very easily. He just can't do it legally, and will therefore have trouble making money off the transaction. A software company in, say, Iceland, is therefore in a better position to compete than he is. The point he's making is that the export controls do not make it significantly harder for an embargoed country to get the software. Contrast that with export restrictions on, say, mortar rounds or land mines, and the distinction should be quite clear.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
If someone says a licence is an Open Source license and it isn't, then that is inappropriate, don't you agree?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
It would affect any developer outside the US who wanted to give the software to someone else, who happenned to be on the US "bad" list at the time.
The reason the GPL is successfull is that somebody has managed to convince people that it serves some purpose beyond killing commercial software. There are very, very few circumstances where it can do this. A useful excercise is to try to work out the exact conditions that will result in more free software due to the GPLedness of software. The clue here is to remember that people do not do development of source bases irrespective of the licenses the source bases are under, and that a company will only do something if it is good for the bottom line (or it has charitable employees).
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Personally, I'm not much of a fan of either our bizarre software export restrictions or of the rather strange series of countries we seem to hate. Cuba???
But Schoen is probably wrong to say that by incorporating US law (however stupid that law may be)into its license, Apple is violating open source rules.
US companies have to abide by US law. And like it or not, that's what Apple is doing here. If abiding by US law precludes companies from participating, Schoen and the rest of the Open Source Stalinists should probably move to Russia. Or wherever.
More importantly, Schoen et. al. ought to realize that the neat thing about open source is that it CAN withstand a bunch of big, evil corportations wading in. That's fundamental to the whole thing.
And who knows, mac-heads might even end up with a better operating system to boot. Protected memory on that new iMac anyone?
\
So what if for example Microsoft gave you for free all development tools, you made some new ICQ and at the end of the day it will appear that you got no rights whatsoever to distribute your work???
The whole point of licenses in my view is to clarify what will happen when, to secure developer in this case, to ensure that hard work will be rewarded (in either money, fame or even both).
Just think, you can download anything pirated, but without rights, clearly written down you got nothing but to be doomed to stuck with all that software on your computer, trying not to show anyone that you've got it, fearing legal action.
Most importantly, since APSL is not just license for one or two products, but instead it's intended to become a COMMON BASE for many programs, it's important as hell to make it legally bug-free.
Errors in it will doom whole bunch of develpers, few of whom can protect themselves with highly paid lawyers in case if APSL didn't clarify something right.
AtW,
http://www.investigatio.com
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
No, what the author is trying to say is that the software is *already* coverend under US export law, due to it's being written in the US. However, that doesn't mean that complience with those laws needs to be a term of the license agreement.
It's as unnecessary as putting a clause in the GPL restricting users from beating someone to death with the manual!
0 1 - just my two bits
I think a big thing that everyone has been missing throught all of this is that Apple is already an established corperation. Think about it. They have to make money. They have to sell something make money. They have to keep their shareholders happy. They have to abide by the law and sell stuff to keep them happy. They have to comply with the goverment. Its much easier to start off as a entity that does Open Source. The ideology of open source sees to not want a goverment or goverment intervention. Going backwards has so many hurdles, that Apple even attempted it is truly amazing. Think of the logistics, look at Apples attitude to change, then if you still feel you can blast Apple for their attempt, more power to you.
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
Does anyone know what's going on "behind the scenes" in regard to this whole controversy? Is Eric Raymond still working with Apple to modify the controversial aspects of the license? Is Apple even considering modifying the controversial aspects of the license? Has anyone been listening to Richard Stallman in regards to this? His accusation that the APSL is "incompatible with the GNU GPL" is pretty damning. What's the OSI doing in regards to this? The SPI?
Doesn't the whole "Open Source" trademark dispute throw rather a pall on this whole thing? According to what I've read (if I understand it correctly) no one at the OSI has the right to officially declare anything Open Source because the SPI continues to be in control of the trademark in spite of the fact that the OSI claims, on the front page of their web site, that they control it.
I'm new to the whole open source/free software movement, what having set up my linux box only 5 or 6 weeks ago. I have, however, been doing my best to try to understand the philosophies, ideologies, politics, and history of the movement. I really do want to understand, but this APSL fiasco ("fiasco" might be too strong a word) has really got me confused.
If anyone cares to explain (Bruce? Eric?), I'm more than happy to listen, and it would be very much appreciated.
- deb (off to buy Open Sources now)
Thanks for the response Bruce. It's reassuring to know that Apple is still working on this whole thing...it would have been easy enough for them to grab the "open source" label, slap it on their license, then just ignore the ensuing chaos (well...at least until someone legally contested their use of the trademark, if that ever happened).
:) is a success. No, this doesn't mean just kowtowing to the wishes and commands of a host of corporate drones (ew...that's quite a visual). It would be irresposible of us to do so, even if we were able.
I think that Apple is sincere about all of this. I don't think that it's just a matter of them trying to take advantage of the growing Open Source hype to further their own ends. Sure, that's part of it, but it can't be the whole story.
It's exciting to see the community rise up and do such a rigorous 'peer review' of the APSL...it is, after all, what has made the Open Source thing so great. It's also exciting to see such a major player as Apple revise their thinking like this and actually have the guts to actually give this a try. Sure, they have some corporate interests that must be served...they are accountable to their shareholders after all...and it shouldn't surprise us if they try to leave themselves a backdoor escape route in case this experiment comes crashing down around their ears. It would be massively irresponisble of them to do otherwise, really.
It's up to us ("us" being a pretty loose and all encompassing term referring to the OSS movement as a whole) to help make sure that the Apple Open Source Experiment (AOSE
What we can do to ensure that the AOSE is successful is to voice our concerns in a calm and rational and yet persistent manner. No one wants to come play in the sandbox if they end up getting kicked and bloodied every time they show up. But if we calmly and rationally work with them until they understand the rules we play by, and if they're willing to change how they work so their goals are not incompatible with our own, then we could very well end up with a major ally in this ongoing drive towards a world of free and open software.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: in a just society, people are innocent until proven guilty. Apple, however, is in many ways being treated like a criminal in spite of the fact that their "guilt" has yet to be determined. That's not doing anyone any good.
Oh, and thanks for clearing up the SPI/Raymond trademark control thing. That really had my brain in a knot for a while.
- deb
Please forgive me if this is a wrong or stupid observation.
It is not illegal to import certain software into the US, but it is illegal to then export that same software back out of the US, right?
To access a European site from my location in Australia, the packets pass through networks located in the US. So, to download software from a European site, I must first "import" it into the US and then "export" it to Australia.
Do you think the US government could or would ever do something about this?
Hey...the thing to focus on here is that apple is TRYING to support open source. If there are issues we'd like resoved in their license, we should help them draft a new version, rather than just bitch about it. That's what we're about, isn't it...helping each other???
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Would anyone hazard a guess on how many developers this is likely to affect?
I agree with mr. fly's points, except
And who knows, mac-heads might even end up with a better operating system to boot. Protected memory on that new iMac anyone?
...Darwin, aka the lowest-level parts of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, aka OpenStep for PowerPC, aka BSD 4.4 on a Mach kernel, already has protected memory. It's pretty thoroughly buzzword-compliant.
Not to say Apple and Mac users don't stand to benefit from availability of Darwin's source, but improvements will be incremental -- it's already modern by any definition.
bumppo
Two points:
Apple has always had offensive business practices, and this little PR move to stem the flood of development rushing away from their platform doesn't change that.
It's not as simple as a PR move. OS X Server depends on code protected by the GPL, among other licenses. The company is legally bound to release its changes. They could have done so all but silently; instead they chose to make it a public commitment, and to open-source far more than they had to (e.g, the decade of changes made to Mach since NeXT got off the ground).
If they were interested in the values or real benefits of any "openness" they wouldn't have killed Rhapsody on x86. (Which rocked as beta 1)
It rocks as a final product, too. It just happens to rock on the cool blue and white '99 G3.
Take a look at Apple's published statements to the SEC, and examine how much of Apple's revenue comes from software, vs how much comes from hardware. Jobs' decision to eliminate clone licenses was a hard call, but it was a business decision based on Apple's inability to continue to pay its engineers if it became a software company.
If its flagship products ran on commodity Intel hardware, Apple would become a software company, as most of its revenues would go away. Then it would either become a bankrupt company, or a division of AOL.
I don't think the doctrine of "openness" serves anyone if causes its proponents to go bankrupt.
bumppo
This is yet another example of the US export restrictions causing problems with software. The whole idea of software as some kind of material object which can be restricted by laws is entirely out of date.
I have to deal with this problem daily in my work with encryption, since the export restrictions are even tighter for software of that type. And it is wholly absurd to me that the only thing keeping me from releasing my software is a bunch of short-sighted legislators who are too afraid to acknowledge that they have lost control.
I find it equally hard to believe that companies are still, after all this hubbub about open source licensing, relying on the license to protect their collective butts. The only reason that the GPL is so successful is that it ensures freedoms, and the one restriction is enforceable (if someone decides to add new restrictions, then someone can always hunt down the original author, theoretically). Companies persist in thinking that they can get away with mixing old licensing restrictions with new open source licenses.
It doesn't work.
Taral
WARN_(accel)("msg null; should hang here to be win compatible\n");
-- WINE source code
It is moderately amusing to see Gibson cited as relevant to anything technical. He is a technophobe opportunist whose writings have nothing to do with reality, past, present, or future, and even less relevance to the issues surrounding Open Source.
--- Bill
Shakespeare didn't make an opportunistic living writing of things about which he was ignorant.
--- Bill
Not being an attorney, I cannot claim competence to comment on the technicalities of law, but the case as presented is as valid and as real as any other discrimination case I have ever heard. As ignorance of the law is not an excuse for violation of that law, it would not seem necessary for a licensor to restate existing law in a license agreement.
Neither, as has been stated, is it the responsibility or right of a licensor to self-deputize for the enforcement of local law. And, folks, U.S. law is local law, in the context of the planet.
U.S. policy on encryption has already damaged U.S. business, and it cannot be demonstrated to have increased U.S. security. It's past time for the U.S. to develop an intelligent foreign policy (of which export laws are a component). Meantime, licenses should reflect the valid concerns of the licensor, and not of the home country of that licensor.
As to the ultimate bottom line: If Apple chooses to word an agreement in any particular way, that is a business decision appropriate for them to make. But if it leaves them non-compliant with the terms of the OSD, then they need to stop co-opting that jargon. And after all, it is difficult to make the case that they have written the APSL for any reason but to jump on the Open Source bandwagon.
Just as cheap a tactic as their claim to have invented the personal computer.... I'm old enough to know better.
--- Bill
My guess is that apple is covering their butts on this one. The US government is a bit nuts about software exports, as we all know. Cryptography in particular, but exporting anything to, say, Cuba, would bring them down on apple like a ton of bricks. Apple can't control where all their downloads go so the have to transfer responsibility to the user. The government would kick their ass whether the section was there or not. This just means a mild tap, rather than a severe boot.
AFAIK, US export law does not require embedding itself in your license.
The license is fine, it just doesn't meet OS criteria. Since it does not, Apple claiming it does weakens the OSD trademark, making things more confusing than they need to be.
If you think this is boring, filter it away in your preferences. I don't think it is.
Cheers,
Rob
Hamal is an yellow star in the constallation Aries.
It is 66ly away, so it doesn't alter your personality.
Despite the inflammatory nature (screw *.OS) , I found that this actually made me think about some things I hadn't before. Isn't that the idea? Got a point off for indelicately missing the party line?
Can't wait to try *.BSD, and BE, etc.
move to new place, get more boxen.
John
> Can we just say the APSL is crap and Not Good Enough(tm) for the Open Source community?
No. The APSL allows for access to some Apple Source code, and permission to modify it. I like that; it means a chance to fix bugs (something I probably won't do, but other people will) which means a more stable, better OS. Period.
If you want to debate the merits of the APSL as it relates to Open Source, feel free to do so, but please keep the distinction clear.
Most of the posts I've read about the APSL are bitching about all sorts of problems and coming up with the conclusion that the APSL sucks rocks. It might not meet various qualifications, etc, but it _still_ provides source, and will give _me_ a more stable (even just a little) OS as a result. (This is assuming that I ever get a chance to use MacOS X Server)
> Apple are also being completely two faced about it. They provide Linux which has no "go away cubans" clause yet claim they cannot take that clause out of the APSL.
Could you point me to where that information resides? All I've heard so far is that the APSL has this clause; where did you hear that they "claim they cannot take that clause out"?
I talked with Seth (name-dropping etc etc)about it, because I was annoyed that he had not presented it to Apple before making this document, and he told me that he had in fact mailed Apple about it a week ago, and received no response. That doesn't, however, mean that they say they can't remove that clause.
Again, don't post a comment unless it adds new information, and please be sure of your facts (presenting links to evidence when necessary/if available.
Some expert in both U.S. export law and knowable about licensing should explain whether it might be necessary for Apple to have export restrictions in the license, or whether it might be sufficient to restrict distribution via some Web form (or some other mechanism).
There is one additional point: anyone exporting anything from the U.S. must comply with U.S. law, including the restriction to re-export the product to any country on the list of banned countries. From a practical standpoint, Apple only formalizes the recipients obligiation to U.S. law in the license (as opposed to having the recipient to "sign" a seperate contract). So your rights under this license are not any worse as they would be anyway. Nonetheless, Apple would be doing many people a favour if they only included restrictions in the license which are neccessary by law.
Freedom is about making choices, and if someone down the line decides to break the law it is his choice, and responsibility to do so, and not yours, and any license that prohibits thise choice cannot be about freedom, and cannot therefore be open source in the terms most people understand it, and in which OSD defines it.
If someone is "free" to break export laws, they are certainly "free" to break a licensing agreement. Your argument is about as logical as thinking someone who is about to murder someone is going to worry that his firearm isn't registered.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
People who are not US citizens are subject to the software license (through international copyright laws), but they are not subject to US law.
Software licenses and copright laws are two separate things.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I don't really see how this helps anyone, since the only thing apple is releasing is the source to the mach kernal, some BSD stuff and the apache webserver.
It's enough to build a fully operational web/file/email/ftp/dns server.
As soon as someone modifies the kernal to support nubus I'll be able to install it on my 8100 (which I hope to have upgraded with a G3 by then).
What it doesn't do is help Linux hackers clone the MacOS--which is what is prompting most of the Apple bashing this time around, IMNSHO.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
MD: Software licenses and copright laws are two separate things.
---
AC: You're literally correct, but your point is moot. True, a software license is not literally a copyright law. However, the only legal mechanism that forces people to respect software licensing terms is, you guessed it, copyright law.
Coyright law has nothing to do with software licencing. True, copyright law comes into effect if you pirate some software--but that has nothing to do with the licence.
For example, MS's licence includes a prohibition on decompiling the software, copyright law has nothing to do with this, if MS wanted to "nail" you for decompiling their code they would have to proceed through civil court on a licensing violation. The Burne Convention would have no impact.
The only thing about a license that applies under copyright is if the license grants you rights you otherwise wouldn't have.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
However, if I get GPL'd software from you (a rather simple USA->France, or actually, USA->EU/Schengen export. There aren't any bananas in your software, are they ?), I break no law (you have the right to export any software to me, barring your stupid encryption ban [*]). Then, if without your knoweldge, I re-export this stuff straight to Cuba, this is none of your business, and none of your government's. And AFAIK, I won't have violated a fed.. oops, Brussels law (I might be in serious trouble if for instance you s/Cuba/Iraq/g, because of the UN resolutions, of course).
Naturally, your law specifically forbides you to use me as a middleman to sell your stuff in Cuba, but Seth points out that as long as you don't control me, and I don't tell you in advance I'll make you breach your law, you aren't going to breach it.
IMHO, you should read the GPL (or any other OSD license) as a source code. You have to compile it with your local compiler (the body of laws governing the place where you are) in order to execute it locally (know what set of rules you must abide to). Now, the GPL asks you to pass on the source code[**] along with the binary (if I request so). If your runtime execution environment allows you to pass software to me, I now have a copy of my own of the binaries, the source, and of course, the license. Now the stuff is outside your runtime environment (the USA), I might not trust your compiler (governement) and recompile the GPL with the compiler I have access to locally (EU+French laws). (actually, I have to. I can't suddenly decide to apply here the US or Kenyan or Vaticanese law just because I decide they better suit my needs). Now, if my runtime environment doesn't segfault if I re-export the software to somewhere yours does, this is not your problem.[***]
Could you please elaborate on this ? Why would the copy of GPL RedHat I run currently not be fully-Libre ? What would I have to think about Mandrake/Bero (GPL, RedHat derived, but maintained on both sides of the Rhine), Debian ? *BSD ?-- Cyrille
[*] French cryptography laws, although in the process of being de-moronised, are still more stupid than the US ones. At least rumour is that the decree lifting the maximum key size to 128-bit passed this week. And anyway, we're all subject to the United States-imposed Wassenaar "Iron Curtail" Agreement :-(
[**] The analogy between the GPL itself and source code unfortunately ends here : I can obviously not modify it and still apply it to code you (or others) wrote before. Unless of course I'm the FSF, which I'm not :-)
[***] In fact, I've gone probably a bit too far. Okay, let's say the GPL is p-code and we have two runtime environments claiming to be more or less compatible, and which actually aren't better than more-or-less compatible. Oh, well, it's way too late this evening [evil grin]
I hadn't noticed this section before... For once, I think I'll most likely agree with all of you. This is not good news at all. If Apple wants to get the full support of their community, a large part of which is international, they /need/ to get rid of that paragraph.
/like/ Apple, let alone the rest of the world who doesn't like them to begin with.
I hope Apple sees that this is bad news, and does something about it. If they don't, they're going to kill over 50% of the market of people who
Maybe we should get some kind of a petition together here, folks. What do the rest of you think? Start mailing Apple about this?
--
Matthew Walker
My DNA is Y2K compliant
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
I should have read Millennium's comments first. Can anyone else confirm what he said, that they are required by law to put that paragraph in?
If someone could please confirm that...
--
Matthew Walker
My DNA is Y2K compliant
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
Okay, let me see if i understand this right. The whole point of Open Source is to expose ideas to the greatest possible knowledge base, right? I mean, who cares if I'm going to use an Apple based system or not. What if Apple had a Good Idea(tm) somewhere in their software? What if someone else running on another platform has a Good Idea(tm) for Apple? Both scenarios benfit everyone, right?
So yes, I agree with the article. Yes, the US government has some weird ideas about restricting knowledge, we know that. But doesn't the US government also have some notion of what freedom of expression is? Maybe somewhere along the line I misunderstood it, but I thought that US law garrantees freedom of expression and freedom of choice.
Silly me for thinking that that would include the freedom to share ones ideas.
APSL is close, but still not even in the same time zone...
--Quiet rantings from the Great White North
Yes, one day I may actually learn to spell...
If the Open Source people are Stalanists, what does that make the Free Software people? Nazis?
:) And if there were such a thing, how the hell do those buearocrats think they can enforce it?
There's a fundamental point you seem to be missing here. US companies must abide by US law, but those in other countries don't. "Open Source" is a philosophical movement as much as it is a trade name, and is hardly confined to US borders. It is possible for US law to conflict with the Open Source definition, and that does not automatically invalidate the definition.
What I want to know is whether or not that provision in the license is dictated by our laws, or if it is just Apple going to extreme lengths to cover it's butt. It seems absurd that we require all importers of US goods to abide by our trade restrictions. I mean, how do you stop someone from selling bread made from American wheat to redidents in Cuba or Libya? Are there shrink wrap licenses on every bag of Colonial we ship to other countries?
If someone is willing to break the law, then they probably wouldn't have a problem breaching the license, either.
Please delete/moderate this inflammatory and offensive post into the oblivion it deserves.
Changes aren't permanent, but change is.
This appears to be nothing but extreme nit-picking by open source zealots. What is Apple to do? Say US Laws do not apply? Should the open-source 'certification' be denied to them for this reason?
This is all very interesting... to those who are completely ungulfed in the OSS lifestyle (tell Eric Raymond I said 'hi')... but for the rest of us... this is B-O-R-I-N-G.
Apple isn't doing anything that is inappropriate.
> No no no..Then opensource will become
> as bastardized as the word "free" here
> in the US. "Free" means nothing today.
Then TRADEMARK "open source" or come up with a new moniker and license it out to people who can run the treadmill. I would think that the Open Source
movement is in trouble if anyone could claim they've got something that is "open source", and dilute the meaning of the term.
I'm not sure if someone in Pakistan giving the software to Bin Laden would be "good", but the license prohibits this, and the OSD requires the license to allow this. Even if it said "if you are a Resident of the United States" that would still be discriminatory even though it would have no effect!
So much for my claims that it is Open Source. Using U.S. FTP sites I see this so much I take it for granted.
Can we just say the APSL is crap and Not Good Enough(tm) for the Open Source community?
This is a temporary name until Mr. Piccolo works again.
Apple is clearly abusing the Open Source name by calling the APSL Open Source when it clearly violates the spirit of Open Source. Before this you could make a case that the APSL followed the letter of the Open Source Definition. Now, however, the author points out that Cubans are discriminated against by the license itself, making the APSL fail even the letter of the current form of the license!
I'm not sure that it is legal to export the software to Germany (assuming they don't have an embargo), modify it, then export that software to Cuba, but the license would prohibit this regardless.
It would be interesting to see Eric Raymond's response to this, as he is the one who claims that the APSL is Open Source. But why dump on Apple? Simple, if they make a mockery of Open Source (and they are, as their license contains so many conditions, you might as well be another employee of Apple), then other companies will surely try the same shennanigans, or worse!
If they didn't call it Open Source, then I would have absolutely no problem with it. But it's the abuse of the name that gets me fired up.
This is a temporary name until Mr. Piccolo works again.
Allowing licences that exclude distribution to specific countries as Open Source is a bad precedent to set.
Potentially this could mean accepting licences that exclude significant nations (and any country is significant to the people that live there).
If a Ruritanian student writes a program today, with a clause restricting distribution to countries that Ruritania has on its embargo list, then 10 years down the road that program may have been built on by thousands of people, possibly relied upon by millions. If at that point Ruritania fell out with (Finland / United Kingdom / USA / France / or whatever country you feel matters) and added them to their embargo list then this could mean that the licences for all derivatives of that original program were prohibited from being distributed to a significant part of the community.
I don't think that making an exception because it's a big company or because it's America's embargo list is a good idea. Licences with these types of restrictions should not be considered Open Source.
According to Rupert Battcock of Nabarro Nathanson lawyers, who specialises in intellectual property rights, the GPL and other open source licences would not protect someone from being sued in the UK if the software they have "provided" causes problems. IE - the fact that software is "provided without warranty" simply wouldn't wash with the UK judiciary. This means that organisations who want to use or recommend open source software for their clients would have to tread very carefully indeed. Rupert Battcock gave this talk at the "The Alternative Highway" a seminar delivered by the UKUUG in London last Tuesday, at which RMS also did his thing.