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The GPL gives Apple permission to distribute this software through the App Store. All they would have to do is follow the license's conditions to help keep the

by jsz0 16y ago

The GPL gives Apple permission to distribute this software through the App Store. All they would have to do is follow the license's conditions to help keep the software free. vs. "Apple gives developers the ability to distribute this software through the AppStore. All they would have to do is follow the EULA's conditions to help keep the software free" Reminds me of the US political system. Opposing philosophical views but the they're both using the same tactics. Follow our rules because we know what's best for you.

jonhendry 16y ago
Because Apple has nothing better to do than to deal with developers submitting apps with all kinds of idiosyncratic hoops for Apple to jump through. "Oh, you can distribute this, as long as you do x, y, and z to be in compliance with the GPL license." "Oh, you can distribute this, as long as you put the app icon on theh apple.com front page." "Oh, you can distribute this, as long as you send Richard Stallman a signed glossy photo of Steve Jobs." "Oh, you can distribute my app, Apple just has to distribute my source code on the Lion install disk."
- jjs 16y ago
  > Because Apple has nothing better to do than to deal with developers submitting apps with all kinds of idiosyncratic hoops for Apple to jump through. And how would those nasty developers like it if Apple suddenly introduced all kinds of idiosyncratic hoops to the app submission process for the developers to jump through? Why, they'd have no grounds to complain, that's for sure!
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    It's Apple's store, they get to set the rules for their store. I have no problem with that. I may grumble at the rules they choose, but I'm not going to cry about it. Little developers don't have much leverage. That's life. BFD. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. If the worst thing that happens in your life this year is that your app falls afoul of some persnickety little Apple rule, you're still living better than the vast majority of the humans on the planet who would LOVE to be so afflicted.
    - jjs 16y ago
      > It's Apple's store, they get to set the rules for their store. I have no problem with that. I may grumble at the rules they choose, but I'm not going to cry about it. Conversely, a GPL'd program is the author's work, and if some other developer submits it to the app store, the author is perfectly within his rights to waste Apple's time and demand either GPL compliance or removal. > Little developers don't have much leverage. Except when they do; such as when Alice submits Bob's GPL'd program to the App Store. If Bob cares more about enforcing his rights than having his program in Apple's virtual toy store, he's got plenty of leverage. And if Apple has to spend time and money taking down apps as a cost of maintaining its own bizarre and finicky rules (which cost 3rd-party developers plenty of time and money), then it's exactly what Apple deserves. Poetic justice, even. > That's life. BFD. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. In the grand scheme of things, humans are a tiny dot in an infinite cosmos. In the human scheme of things, it may matter a great deal whether we end up with neutered app dongles instead of real computers in our pockets. > If the worst thing that happens in your life this year is that your app falls afoul of some persnickety little Apple rule, you're still living better than the vast majority of the humans on the planet who would LOVE to be so afflicted. There are (at least!) two fallacies in your argument: Apple's bad behavior is justified (1) because there are worse things; (2) because the harm it does to anyone is not sufficient to reduce them to desperate, third-world, dollar-a-day, tapeworms,-warlords,-and-cholera-level poverty. I maintain that Apple's behavior is not justified, and I choose to forgo their iOS platform and its attendant riches. So far, I've been able to subsist on more than a dollar a day, cholera-free!
- JohnTHaller 16y ago
  The GPL is the most widely used software license in the world, so you know Apple is familiar with it. If they chose to create rules in their app store that are incompatible with it, it would be hard to argue that they did so without being familiar with the GPL and how the rules are incompatible.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    Apple is very familiar with the GPL. Their NeXT veterans tried to withhold the ObjC frontend they added to GCC, and only met their obligations under legal threat.
OpieCunningham 16y ago
There appears to be a consensus forming within the VLC dev community that Apple does, in fact, enable 3rd party licensing such as GPLv2 to supersede the AppStore EULA. http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2010-October/077377.html http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2010-October... Ultimately, this appears to be an unfortunate situation at Videolan as the method this all came out was probably not ideal (minimal or zero internal discussion prior to an individual contributor sending a copyright violation notice to Apple, posting to a videolan.org server announcing the notice with little or no indication of the notice not being directed by videolan.org, etc.). The concerns I've seen re: PR on this mess shouldn't be taken lightly. One of my first reactions before digging in further was: so Videolan submitted their app, got it approved and now they're yelling at Apple about copyrights because it was approved? Clearly, that is not even close to the situation, but try and tell that to the thousands of headline skimmers.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  That mailing list issue only covers the user terms, ie the terms applying to the person who downloads an app via the App Store. The more relevant terms are those applying to the submission of applications to the App Store. Like, the part where you agree not to submit an app that can't be distributed under the terms of the App Store.
  - OpieCunningham 16y ago
    I highly doubt the submission terms contradict the App Store terms. Or do you have a source which shows that the submission terms state that 3rd party licenses are not accepted (and therefore apps based on GPLv2 source cannot be distributed)? It's a pass through clause. GPLv2 would only be prohibited from distribution via the App Store if the App Store terms did not include the ability for a submitter's GPLv2 to supersede the App Store license.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      3rd party licenses are acceptable if they're compatible with Apple's terms. Does the GPL attempt to force Apple to do anything, like distribute app source code, or distribute an app without DRM? If so it isn't compatible. It's very simple. You're not supposed to submit an app that makes Apple legally liable to fulfill the requirements of a license. You, the submitter, have to fulfill all the license's requirements yourself, without Apple being involved. If your app uses something with a license fee, you have to pay it, you can't have the licensor bill Apple for it. If there's a contract with a rights holder, you have to sign it, Apple doesn't sign the contract. The app has to be unencumbered and safe for Apple to distribute via the App Store, with the App Store's policies and methods. If the license requires action on Apple's part to be in compliance, You Shouldn't Submit The App because it's not compatible with the App Store. (Examples of "license requires action on Apple's part": 1. If Apple would be required by your app's licensing to distribute the app without DRM, it's not compatible with the App Store. DRM was part of the deal. App submitters know that going in. 2. If Apple would be required by your app's licensing to distribute the app's source code, it's not compatible with the App Store. Apple-distributed source is not part of the deal. App submitters know that going in.) I assume the 3rd party licenses the end-user agreement is mostly talking about are things like content licenses, like art and other media in movie tie-in games. Or books downloaded into the kindle app. A kindle book is probably licensed from the author to the publisher, and the publisher to Amazon for distribution rights, and from Amazon to the end user who buys it. That's a lot of 3rd party licenses, that are compatible with the App Store.

by jsz0 16y ago

jonhendry 16y ago

Because Apple has nothing better to do than to deal with developers submitting apps with all kinds of idiosyncratic hoops for Apple to jump through. "Oh, you can distribute this, as long as you do x, y, and z to be in compliance with the GPL license." "Oh, you can distribute this, as long as you put the app icon on theh apple.com front page." "Oh, you can distribute this, as long as you send Richard Stallman a signed glossy photo of Steve Jobs." "Oh, you can distribute my app, Apple just has to distribute my source code on the Lion install disk."

jjs 16y ago
> Because Apple has nothing better to do than to deal with developers submitting apps with all kinds of idiosyncratic hoops for Apple to jump through. And how would those nasty developers like it if Apple suddenly introduced all kinds of idiosyncratic hoops to the app submission process for the developers to jump through? Why, they'd have no grounds to complain, that's for sure!
- jonhendry 16y ago
  It's Apple's store, they get to set the rules for their store. I have no problem with that. I may grumble at the rules they choose, but I'm not going to cry about it. Little developers don't have much leverage. That's life. BFD. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. If the worst thing that happens in your life this year is that your app falls afoul of some persnickety little Apple rule, you're still living better than the vast majority of the humans on the planet who would LOVE to be so afflicted.
  - jjs 16y ago
    > It's Apple's store, they get to set the rules for their store. I have no problem with that. I may grumble at the rules they choose, but I'm not going to cry about it. Conversely, a GPL'd program is the author's work, and if some other developer submits it to the app store, the author is perfectly within his rights to waste Apple's time and demand either GPL compliance or removal. > Little developers don't have much leverage. Except when they do; such as when Alice submits Bob's GPL'd program to the App Store. If Bob cares more about enforcing his rights than having his program in Apple's virtual toy store, he's got plenty of leverage. And if Apple has to spend time and money taking down apps as a cost of maintaining its own bizarre and finicky rules (which cost 3rd-party developers plenty of time and money), then it's exactly what Apple deserves. Poetic justice, even. > That's life. BFD. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. In the grand scheme of things, humans are a tiny dot in an infinite cosmos. In the human scheme of things, it may matter a great deal whether we end up with neutered app dongles instead of real computers in our pockets. > If the worst thing that happens in your life this year is that your app falls afoul of some persnickety little Apple rule, you're still living better than the vast majority of the humans on the planet who would LOVE to be so afflicted. There are (at least!) two fallacies in your argument: Apple's bad behavior is justified (1) because there are worse things; (2) because the harm it does to anyone is not sufficient to reduce them to desperate, third-world, dollar-a-day, tapeworms,-warlords,-and-cholera-level poverty. I maintain that Apple's behavior is not justified, and I choose to forgo their iOS platform and its attendant riches. So far, I've been able to subsist on more than a dollar a day, cholera-free!
JohnTHaller 16y ago
The GPL is the most widely used software license in the world, so you know Apple is familiar with it. If they chose to create rules in their app store that are incompatible with it, it would be hard to argue that they did so without being familiar with the GPL and how the rules are incompatible.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  Apple is very familiar with the GPL. Their NeXT veterans tried to withhold the ObjC frontend they added to GCC, and only met their obligations under legal threat.

OpieCunningham 16y ago

There appears to be a consensus forming within the VLC dev community that Apple does, in fact, enable 3rd party licensing such as GPLv2 to supersede the AppStore EULA. http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2010-October/077377.html http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2010-October... Ultimately, this appears to be an unfortunate situation at Videolan as the method this all came out was probably not ideal (minimal or zero internal discussion prior to an individual contributor sending a copyright violation notice to Apple, posting to a videolan.org server announcing the notice with little or no indication of the notice not being directed by videolan.org, etc.). The concerns I've seen re: PR on this mess shouldn't be taken lightly. One of my first reactions before digging in further was: so Videolan submitted their app, got it approved and now they're yelling at Apple about copyrights because it was approved? Clearly, that is not even close to the situation, but try and tell that to the thousands of headline skimmers.

jonhendry 16y ago
That mailing list issue only covers the user terms, ie the terms applying to the person who downloads an app via the App Store. The more relevant terms are those applying to the submission of applications to the App Store. Like, the part where you agree not to submit an app that can't be distributed under the terms of the App Store.
- OpieCunningham 16y ago
  I highly doubt the submission terms contradict the App Store terms. Or do you have a source which shows that the submission terms state that 3rd party licenses are not accepted (and therefore apps based on GPLv2 source cannot be distributed)? It's a pass through clause. GPLv2 would only be prohibited from distribution via the App Store if the App Store terms did not include the ability for a submitter's GPLv2 to supersede the App Store license.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    3rd party licenses are acceptable if they're compatible with Apple's terms. Does the GPL attempt to force Apple to do anything, like distribute app source code, or distribute an app without DRM? If so it isn't compatible. It's very simple. You're not supposed to submit an app that makes Apple legally liable to fulfill the requirements of a license. You, the submitter, have to fulfill all the license's requirements yourself, without Apple being involved. If your app uses something with a license fee, you have to pay it, you can't have the licensor bill Apple for it. If there's a contract with a rights holder, you have to sign it, Apple doesn't sign the contract. The app has to be unencumbered and safe for Apple to distribute via the App Store, with the App Store's policies and methods. If the license requires action on Apple's part to be in compliance, You Shouldn't Submit The App because it's not compatible with the App Store. (Examples of "license requires action on Apple's part": 1. If Apple would be required by your app's licensing to distribute the app without DRM, it's not compatible with the App Store. DRM was part of the deal. App submitters know that going in. 2. If Apple would be required by your app's licensing to distribute the app's source code, it's not compatible with the App Store. Apple-distributed source is not part of the deal. App submitters know that going in.) I assume the 3rd party licenses the end-user agreement is mostly talking about are things like content licenses, like art and other media in movie tie-in games. Or books downloaded into the kindle app. A kindle book is probably licensed from the author to the publisher, and the publisher to Amazon for distribution rights, and from Amazon to the end user who buys it. That's a lot of 3rd party licenses, that are compatible with the App Store.