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I just hope they will not start to have an internal branch and slowly stop pushing improvements back into the mainline. This is the only point where the Apache

by Loic 9y ago

I just hope they will not start to have an internal branch and slowly stop pushing improvements back into the mainline. This is the only point where the Apache license change could negatively affect all the users.

vog 9y ago
I don't see any difference between GPL or Apache in this case. Since they apparently have the full copyright on the code (otherwise they wouldn't be able to make the license change in the first place), they can do whatever they want with the code, no matter which license they offer to others. Moreover, even if they don't have the full copyright, the GPL already allows for having an "internal" branch - as long as it is really internal. Also you, privately, can use and change the code as you want, without any obligation to publish anything. The GPL rules are designed to only apply once you give the modified code (source or binary) to others.
- klez 9y ago
  > Moreover, even if they don't have the full copyright, the GPL already allows for having an "internal" branch - as long as it is really internal. Also you, privately, can use and change the code as you want, without any obligation to publish anything. The GPL rules are designed to only apply once you give the modified code (source or binary) to others. Since Apple actually does redistribute the binaries this second point is moot. But the first part is spot on. It's their code, they can do whatever they want. I have to admit I'm not even sure why they did change licence.
  - gh02t 9y ago
    > I have to admit I'm not even sure why they did change licence. See previous discussion on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12894721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12894721 , Apple has a history of it. I think a lot of companies view it as a liability regardless of whether or not it actually is due to a lot of the legality of copy-left licenses being pretty untested in court, as well as just generally a liability with little advantage (Apple probably doesn't care about external contributions to CUPS). I don't feel like switching CUPS to Apache has any real advantage to Apple practically, apart from the GPL makes them nervous. I guess I could see why they wouldn't want it in other places, but surely CUPS doesn't have much in the way of secret sauce IP.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
      I thought Apple also dislikes the GPL because it forced them to open source the original implementation of Objective-C. (I don’t remember where I heard this... something about the origins of llvm probably.)
      - klez 9y ago
        Since the original NeXT Objective-C compiler was written as an extension to GCC, and GCC has always been (at least perceived) as some sort of legal minefield WRT licensing, this doesn't seem so far-fetched. What surprises me is that it took them so long to try to divorce from GCC. EDIT: specified I was talking about the compiler used on the NeXT.
      - epistasis 9y ago
        Here's Stallman's recollection of what happened: >The issue first arose when NeXT proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, following reasoning like what you are using; but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. >What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether it is "really" one program, rather than how it is labeled. >So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not allowed by the GPL. >The direct result of this is that we now have an Objective C front end. They had wanted to distribute the Objective C parser as a separate proprietary package to link with the GCC back end, but since I didn't agree this was allowed, they made it free. http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-... I think this highlights a few important things: 1) there's significant room for interpretation of what a license means 2) what lawyers and courts think words mean can be quite different from what technologists think Also, a lot of interactions are mediated by chances of a lawsuit. So if you're a party that is generally disliked by the Free Software folks, like Apple, there's significantly more risk, for identical uses, than a company like Google, which is more popular. There's room for interpretation of what actions mean, and if somebody is more likely to think that you're a nefarious actor, there's a high risk. I don't blame Apple for switching from GPL to licenses that I consider to be more "free" than the "Free" software licenses. When I read the philosophy pages of the FSF, I come away disagreeing vehemently with their arguments, and often simply unable to understand why people find those documents convincing for anything.
bluGill 9y ago
Does it really matter? CUPS is a pain to use because they have forked it within the code base. I spent years fighting CUPS because they switching from IPP to zeroconf at some point, and the transition plan didn't work for me. (debian was way behind, while freebsd was up to date: the two versions didn't talk to each other)

by Loic 9y ago

vog 9y ago

I don't see any difference between GPL or Apache in this case. Since they apparently have the full copyright on the code (otherwise they wouldn't be able to make the license change in the first place), they can do whatever they want with the code, no matter which license they offer to others. Moreover, even if they don't have the full copyright, the GPL already allows for having an "internal" branch - as long as it is really internal. Also you, privately, can use and change the code as you want, without any obligation to publish anything. The GPL rules are designed to only apply once you give the modified code (source or binary) to others.

klez 9y ago
> Moreover, even if they don't have the full copyright, the GPL already allows for having an "internal" branch - as long as it is really internal. Also you, privately, can use and change the code as you want, without any obligation to publish anything. The GPL rules are designed to only apply once you give the modified code (source or binary) to others. Since Apple actually does redistribute the binaries this second point is moot. But the first part is spot on. It's their code, they can do whatever they want. I have to admit I'm not even sure why they did change licence.
- gh02t 9y ago
  > I have to admit I'm not even sure why they did change licence. See previous discussion on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12894721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12894721 , Apple has a history of it. I think a lot of companies view it as a liability regardless of whether or not it actually is due to a lot of the legality of copy-left licenses being pretty untested in court, as well as just generally a liability with little advantage (Apple probably doesn't care about external contributions to CUPS). I don't feel like switching CUPS to Apache has any real advantage to Apple practically, apart from the GPL makes them nervous. I guess I could see why they wouldn't want it in other places, but surely CUPS doesn't have much in the way of secret sauce IP.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    I thought Apple also dislikes the GPL because it forced them to open source the original implementation of Objective-C. (I don’t remember where I heard this... something about the origins of llvm probably.)
    - klez 9y ago
      Since the original NeXT Objective-C compiler was written as an extension to GCC, and GCC has always been (at least perceived) as some sort of legal minefield WRT licensing, this doesn't seem so far-fetched. What surprises me is that it took them so long to try to divorce from GCC. EDIT: specified I was talking about the compiler used on the NeXT.
    - epistasis 9y ago
      Here's Stallman's recollection of what happened: >The issue first arose when NeXT proposed to distribute a modified GCC in two parts and let the user link them. Jobs asked me whether this was lawful. It seemed to me at the time that it was, following reasoning like what you are using; but since the result was very undesirable for free software, I said I would have to ask the lawyer. >What the lawyer said surprised me; he said that judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges" and would be very harsh toward them. He said a judge would ask whether it is "really" one program, rather than how it is labeled. >So I went back to Jobs and said we believed his plan was not allowed by the GPL. >The direct result of this is that we now have an Objective C front end. They had wanted to distribute the Objective C parser as a separate proprietary package to link with the GCC back end, but since I didn't agree this was allowed, they made it free. http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-... I think this highlights a few important things: 1) there's significant room for interpretation of what a license means 2) what lawyers and courts think words mean can be quite different from what technologists think Also, a lot of interactions are mediated by chances of a lawsuit. So if you're a party that is generally disliked by the Free Software folks, like Apple, there's significantly more risk, for identical uses, than a company like Google, which is more popular. There's room for interpretation of what actions mean, and if somebody is more likely to think that you're a nefarious actor, there's a high risk. I don't blame Apple for switching from GPL to licenses that I consider to be more "free" than the "Free" software licenses. When I read the philosophy pages of the FSF, I come away disagreeing vehemently with their arguments, and often simply unable to understand why people find those documents convincing for anything.

bluGill 9y ago

Does it really matter? CUPS is a pain to use because they have forked it within the code base. I spent years fighting CUPS because they switching from IPP to zeroconf at some point, and the transition plan didn't work for me. (debian was way behind, while freebsd was up to date: the two versions didn't talk to each other)