3 ms·
If swift is GPL, Apple cannot keep secret changes it makes on top of third party contributions. AFAIK, even the FSF requires copyright assignment – Apple likel
by matthewmacleod 11y ago
If swift is GPL, Apple cannot keep secret changes it makes on top of third party contributions.
AFAIK, even the FSF requires copyright assignment – Apple likely would too, and this means any 'official' work on Swift will can be released by Apple under any license they wish.
Of course, if you don't agree with that, you are free to license your contributions as GPL and release them to the community without assigning copyright. They just won't be part of the official distribution, and Apple can't build on them. That's the best of both worlds, then.
- davexunit 11y ago>FAIK, even the FSF requires copyright assignment – Apple likely would too Assigning copyright to a 501c(3) non-profit is much different than assigning copyright to a for-profit multi-billion dollar corporation. I've completed the copyright assignment form for some of my contributions to GNU. The FSF's terms are reasonable and the legal text prevents the FSF from being able to make the software non-free in the future. I really dislike copyright assignment in general, but the FSF is in a unique position and I appreciate that they can defend the GPL on my behalf.