Briefly: Apple shareholder proposal, VLC app removed, Intel tablets - Page 3

It's a legal issue, as in, Apple isn't going to change its TOS for GPL software by removing the one clause that means nothing to the end user: The limit of 5 unique downloads for different computers.

Aside from that, the only issue Apple would have is that they could be sued, and since lawyers rule the earth, they rather not host the app. Simple as that.

You don't need to force people to contribute. Folks contribute back to BSD and Apache based projects all the time. It's also not freeloading if the intent is for the code to be freely reused.

And GPL hasn't kept Ubuntu from "freeloading" off the other distros. At least based on the grouching within some parts of the community.

The fact is that GPL is viral while LGPL is not (as much). That's the key difference between strong and weak copyleft.


Big difference. GPL prohibits the advert clause. 4-clause BSD (aka original BSD) is also not compatible with GPL for the same reasons. This is why GPL and BSD are incompatible and this is why combining OpenSSL with GPL code requires hoop jumping.

Evidently you didn't even read the FSF GPL compatibility list in it's entirety. They didn't write that as a joke you know. It's not all true but who wants to risk getting sued by SFLC to make a point. The odds are low it'll happen since they wont want sue because they have a serious risk losing but still.


Linus could simply have used the BSD userland had it not been under that USL vs BSDi cloud. Of course, without that cloud there might never been linux at all (Linus has said he likely would have just used 386bsd) and the FSF would have been stuck with HURD and no working system.

RMS needed Linus and Linux to further his cause a hell of a lot more than Linus needed gnu stuff with the exception of gcc.


Because code taken from a BSD project and enhanced ends up as GPL code assuming the change is significant enough to be its own work. You can't use GPL code in a BSD or Apache project without turning your project into a GPL project.

Hence GPL is viral. By convention many folks won't license derivative work as GPL but license their contributions as BSD or Apache and feed it upstream. Some zealots don't or some folks just forget and their code is by default GPL since the rest of the project is. When that happens, contributions are one way and the GPL license is designed that way. All copyleft licenses are designed that way.

FFMPEG is LGPL. Handbrake, x264 and VLC are GPL. Your example is worthless since all 4 projects are GPL or LGPL.


Given I've shown I actually understand FOSS licensing and you don't that's a very weak retort. You don't even know the difference between GPL and LGPL and that's a pretty dismal level of understanding even for a junior FSF zealot.

Seems like you only learned one word in the FSF newspeak dictionary (freeloading). Can you at least recite the FSF four freedoms? Care to quote Ghandi like Eben Morgan does? The funny thing is that RMS isn't like Ghandi as much as he's like L. Ron Hubbard...

So they do.

But imagine that Apple or anyone else took KHTML, made webkit, then no longer gave back their code since they had no legal obligation to do so since it was BSD? Why do you think Microsoft loves BSD's license and hates the GPL? While they no longer rely on it, they did use the network stack from BSD for awhile. What did they give back? The obligatory copyright hidden in the vast files of the OS.

Maybe, just maybe, there are cases that people want their software to be protected from that happening.


Some people complain about Ubuntu's lack of contributions to the software being distributed, as in they don't perhaps like Novell, make openoffice better, but that doesn't mean they take GPL software, improve on it and not disclose the source. That's leaving them open to a lawsuit.


Not that I didn't know that nor was arguing about that, so your point?


It's done as already pointed out to make it easy to comply with the license in most cases, but to make it easier the modified BSD license exists. I know it is a very small nit, but in the world of making sure you don't allow yourself to get sued based on some stupid technicality, it has to be done.

Same thing in my line of work; I have to warn people of the smallest of things. It sounds alarmist, and most cases it sounds like I'm just trying to get them to spend hundreds of dollars in repairs. But if later down the road it does happen, I'm legally responsible. For example, I didn't tell someone to use a special Carrier filter size for their unit. Three months later it caused their evaporator coil to clog 100%. Guess who didn't pay for the job of removing it to be cleaned?


I think I already addressed that on the next post about Apple and VLC. And the above.


If BSD was ready at the time Linus and his kernel would have been completely unnecessary. However, a kernel isn't much of anything without the rest of what comprises an OS, and GNU's goal was to do just that - a complete operating system.

Linus doesn't care about RMS's ethical reasons for why software should be free, and neither do most people. Hence the OSI and its model of making software. And apple users only care about whether the stuff works or not.


No you can't. But you make it sound like that's a big loss. The additional restriction you have is you or others can't take the resulting program and make it closed source.

If you want to give 100% and simple want a simple one line of recognition that you made something, sure, use BSD. Vorbis has nothing to gain with the GPL, and even RMS told them to make it BSD.


Right. You say "viral", I say it keeps people from freeloading and not contributing back. No one is forcing you to use it.


The point I made which you of course missed is that Handbrake didn't make their own h.264 library to encode video, but used x264 from the video lan project, thus contributing a piece of useful software using perhaps the best h.264 library out there. What would Handbrake be without x264, or FFMPEG or anything else they use? Likewise, who wants to use x264 without a GUI?


Actually I do. You just setup a strawman argument instead.


Ooooh, now it's ad hominem.

Perhaps you can ridicule those who raise the ethical reasons of why VLC chose to remove itself from the app store, but I admire those who rather stand up for what they believe in and not compromise their ideals just to be "popular."

It is not 5 download limit. You can download an app you purchased from the app store as many times as you want. Their objection, as I understand it, is the five computers limit. When you buy an app you can copy it to only five computers authorized to use the iTunes account used to purchase the app. You can install your iOS apps on as many iOS devices as you wish.

Apple can solve this problem by changing how this iTunes system work. Is it worth the hassle for just one app?! I don't think so. Apple did not go to the developer, the developer came to Apple. If they want their app on the App Store then they need to work something out with the copyright owner of the original work.

Sometimes.

While I don't use VLC for the iPhone (it's too slow to play HD content) it's really a shame that an idealist open source nazi like Remi had it removed. The guy is, to be frank, an idiot.

Personally I dont use GPL in projects. The idea that I use someones code and then have to not just make my software non-commercial , but open up my own source is about as free as Nazziism. I have both contributed and donated ( i.e money) to other Open Source projects.

The fetish for these kind of agreements is an example of how some geeks are a totally different species to the rest if the world. OS fanatics are the only "workers" who fetish giving their labour away for free: personally I would believe that code "wants to free" when dentistry, gas, electricity, medicine and housing wants to be free. Until then I want to be paid.

Given that Apple contributed back to FreeBSD they may have contributed back upstream anyway

MS licensed their TCP/IP stack from a company in Scotland that based their stack on BSD.

MS hates GPL because of IBM and Linux. They have their own copyleft license as well.


They whine about the fact they don't try to flow the changes they do make to the upstream like you complained how Apple didn't make it easy for webkit until later. That and they don't provide resources like the other major distros.


The point is you keep saying that GPL isn't viral (I.e. Weblog is GPL and yet safari isn't) and then use a LGPL project as an example of GPL not being a hindrance. It is.


It's not a technicality to meet your copyright obligations.


BSD was ready and a fully complete intel based unix. It was one of those legal technicalities you think is unimportant.


The licensing of software has nothing to do with ethics. This is why freetardism is a religion like Scientology.


The point is that kind of one way behavior is what you call "freeloading". Whether it's a loss depends on the code but it is occasionally irksome for some asshat to proclaim their ethical software is all about freedom while at the same time adding more restrictions.


BSD folks don't care about freeloading except that it is an incorrect concept to apply to stuff given freely away. However if you DO care about freeloading you shouldn't freeload yourself. As in stop using permissive licensed code in GPL projects.


The point is that had these project not been GPL based they couldn't share code. So the "big loss" you don't think is a big deal would have been if Handbrake was BSD then it wouldn't be able to use x264 project code.


No, what's going on is that you use LGPL projects as examples when we're discussing GPL limitations.


I don't ridicule Scientologists even if I think they are weird as long as they don't call me names or try to mess with me.

RMS' objective is to eliminate my profession as a viable wage earning profession. His whole gig is about some petty grievance and getting back at corporate coders and not about ethics. Read his writings and not just the whitewashed stuff on the FSF site. Even then some of that leaks through.

edit clarified post

Just because you have to make the source available doesn't mean you can't make money off of it. This too is a big misconception of gpl software.

Instead of getting paid $$$, you get paid with others helping to develop your software. The vast majority of kernel developers, Mozilla developers also get paid.

nht I think you have some valid points here.
As a user it does seem paradoxical that he advocates unrestricted dissemination of software yet expressed that he has no pity for iDevices over the removal of VLC from the app store. It's notable that particular comment has since been removed from his blog post.
He can't seem to control his anti-Apple bias as today's blog post makes reference to Apple fanboys:
http://planet.videolan.org/

That's an assumption on your part about apple. MS is on record as saying they hate the GPL because its "viral".


Well if that's the case then they should not be used. Personally I think Ubuntu and their shitty theme sucks, and is second rate to other distros, but they have at least made it more community driven as well.


Nobody is forcing apple to use any GPL code, and while it was true I did forget KHTML is LGPL, it still does its job of making sure apple's changes are not closed source and not contributed back. Happy?




And where did I say it wasn't? I said it was due to a technicality that makes it inconvenient to make sure you are 100% with the copyright license, not that it happens to be as you wish to paint it, "trivial".




Like the fact that they were being sued for trying to release the source? Please.


It's more like you wish to separate ethics from software because it is convenient for you, much like evolutionists (more accurately materialists) don't believe in a god because not only does it mixes religion with science and thus causes the whole crap of which god or religion, it frees them from being accountable to it.

Like already mentioned, most people don't care about that stuff since they just want software to work. Of course,as history already has shown, software with locks, uncecessary DRM, tie ins to proprietary formats and stuff like Microsoft hijacking the web with IE6 are reasons why the FSF has a point.

And apple isn't a saint either. Why don't you look up what happened when Adobe tried to release a 64 bit carbon version of their software suite for Mac? Or Apple's NDAs and other crap they put their developers through just to sell software on their app store?

http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/...-edition.ars/4


Restrictions are what guarantee the freedom to share the software. If you don't like it, don't use it, and don't take code from it. Nobody is forcing apple to use work previously done with KHTML.


You are making no sense; with the gpl code you take to free load in your project can also be free loaded, as in what I take and build on others can as well. No one person can make a great program all by themselves, especially with a project as big as a kernel.


And Handbrake would be losing what if it went GPL from BSD? If it were BSD they give it out for free to begin with. It prevents them from ever only giving out binaries only of the code, but that doesn't mean they can't use x264. Plenty of projects exist with multiple licenses.


And that stopped you from ridiculing someone on the internet?


Yeah, because free software is the only one out there, nobody needs internal development.

And just so you know, Microsoft is a monopoly, they and Apple screws users, politicians lie and all are motivated by greed for money. Welcome to the reality we call life.

I really see Mozilla as a professional project run by normal engineers with some very little outside input. That kind of Open Source works because professionals are doing it, and controlling the input of non-professionals.

I dont care about getting others to "help" develop my software if they insist on restricting my right to sell it. A piece of software ( open sourced or not) which I use is effectively an API to me: a binary which works - anathema to the OS "community" - or a webserivce which works is all I need; and I can pay, or contribute if necessary.

What a gpl licence does is : sitting on other people's work ( which we all do) they demand that their software, even if merely 1% of some project, change the licence of all subsequent software using it to not just be free at sale but to show all it's source code, thus removing any intellectual protection.

how much work in a GPL library is actually done by the GPL writers? None of the low level API they are using, they are not rewriting the Objective C api, or Posix api, or kernel, or compiler and for their little addition to the actual machine code generated by their library they demand the end of commercial software use from then on in. Get lost.

I have, as I said, contributed to MIT licences - which I see an engineers helping each other to write code - but restricted licences are a joke.

Apparantly the "reality we call life" doesnt apply to software developers who want to make money. Everybody else will need to get paid though.

It could be because he works for Nokia.

Apparently he enjoyed being paid by Google for the "Summer of Code".

Apple removed VLC because as a stakeholder in VLC's licensing agreements he asked them to, after they considered his request, what a dumbass.

And yet they have an equally viral license all their own...


I'm usually happy. You seem angry about freeloaders though.

Nope, no one if forcing folks to use GPL code. I typically don't and always gravitate to Apache or BSD code. But it is an annoyance that they lock their code away as much as any other proprietary company but claim the be "more free". Whatever.


It's more like I separate ethics from software because software is just software...proprietary software is no more or less evil than open source software. There is real evil in the world. Microsoft isn't it. Neither is any other kind of proprietary software.

That and because RMS and the FSF attempt to conflate their idiotic "freedoms" with genuine freedoms. Compare RMS' four freedoms with Roosevelt's four freedoms. One is inane. The other is important.


It can be reused ONLY by other GPL projects. Not by Apache, BSD, MPL or other open source projects. The "freeloading" is one way.

What is it with you and freeloading anyway? It's not like you're a developer.


The freedom for the original developer to choose the license for their work is lost in your scenario. The freedom of the developer is more important than the freedom of the user because the devs are doing all the work. When the users are paying for the work, then they get to choose.

Handbrake, already being GPL is a poor example but if you take Apache as the example then Apache loses a lot by going GPL. But actual freedom for developers is something you don't understand or care about. And its hard to discuss freedom with freetards because they've redefined the language.


And if the FSF had its way then the only software out there would be "free" software.


The reality is that RMS is a freeloading fruit loop.

Fortunately we have Linus who isn't a fruit loop or a free loader in charge of the Linux kernel.

Only the students get paid...the mentors don't. I was a GSOC mentor one year and it was a lot of fun.

I've been in the industry since Commodore 64 days and I can honestly say that I have *never* seen a really good piece of software that was open source. There's a lot of great code snippets out there, and quite a few projects that have become useful and even indispensable, but a shipping product? ... not so much.

Even the big "stars" of open source like Linux and OpenOffice are essentially bad, buggy copies of others original work. How incredibly ironic is it that the core "products" of the open source movement which is presumably all about freedom and creativity and originality are actually all derivative works? Copycat works that are closer to the originals than any of Microsoft's copies of Apple's work.

The GPL is (IMO of course), nothing more than the last gasp of a movement that simply didn't work. The idea was that if everything was open, then creativity would flourish, the worst instincts of capitalism would be kept at bay, and we'd all be free. We were eventually supposed to move towards the goal of everything being open and the world would be a better place. When this didn't actually happen, the last hope was the GPL license. The idea was that making the "freedom" *viral* would (essentially) force people to be free and open.

Guess what? It turns out that you can't "enforce freedom" and the majority of the people taking advantage of the "freedom" are not creatives, but copiers, cheaters, and those with less imagination and lesser skills than the rest of us.

There is a difference between FREE as in no charge and FREEDOM. This stupidity over the licensing semantics is a perfect example.

The opensource world is an application of socialism to software. Yes the code becomes free, but at a cost of freedom, efficiency, and quality. Coming from a UNIX background in the early 90's, I never had any love for Microsoft and I wanted to like LINUX and Open Office and other alternative projects, but they have never been quite good enough. Plus, the community has more than its share of egos despite the lack of Gates or Jobs like success.

Excuse me if I think it's quite likely that the developers of Pidgin know more about the licensing issues associated with their software than you do. Unless you think they are stupid, or something like that?

A lot of zealotry and religion in the FSF/GPL camp, and that's never a recipe for clear thinking.

Richard Stallman, for one. Stallman believed that access to software should not be restricted. If you write a piece of code, others should be able to take that and exploit it freely. He ignored economic disincentives and believed in some Gene Roddenberry-style utopian socio-economic system where programmers worked because they love coding and love mankind and want to give their code to mankind out of pure altruism. That's great in Star Trek where nobody uses money, but in the real world, rent, food, medicine, and electricity costs money.

Just because you don't care doesn't mean others don't. If you chose to sell your software, what of it? You act as if the FSF people are knocking down your door making you GPL your code.


I know this is just too hard for you to comprehend, but no one is forcing you to put GPL code in your project. You act as if it isn't fair for someone to give code in exchange for yours. If you rather pay someone money than make your code GPL because you used someone else's work, go ahead.


So either use a LGPL library which most are or make your own. I'm sure the video lan people spend hundreds of hours developing x264, and they are not going to let you just take that and make money off of it without a cut.


I still fail to see how you can be angry that the only additional stipulation to the GPL is that the code be made available plus any changes. You received free, you give free.

That point was made to nht who complains that RMS is a nut job. So he is.

In the grander picture of things, yes, there is evil in the world. But to say that proprietary software hasn't burned anyone in the past is ridiculous.



Perhaps it is the third parties that use such software that is BSD, would lose if it went GPL.


That's right. But it isn't as if they haven't already done the work to provide a lot of the work to do so, thus being hypocritical about it.


That's fine. But Linus also isn't opposed to DRM, or other pointless bull shit that restricts the freedoms of users. All he cares about is getting the job done.

I value both opinions, but let's face it; countless times we all bitch about Adobe flash not being viable on the desktop, and especially on smart phones, and then you rally behind apple and want HTML5, an open standard that all can implement to succeed.

If you don't care about freedom in software, why care about Flash hijacking the web?

Uh, you can also re read my post about that and find that I agreed with you???

Open source and open standards are two completely different things, and have nothing to do with each other. An open standard is about not allowing a single company to control something like the Web, like Adobe would like to do with Flash and Microsoft tried to do with IE. Open source software has nothing to do with that other than that open source developers are free to create their own implementations of open standards. Stop trying to confuse the issue to support your position.

Why wouldn't it? If IE was open source Microsoft couldn't keep a stranglehold on the web, and would be forced to give its improvements it made to everyone, not just itself.

Why? I just gave a friend of mine some code for his iOS app and he will sell it online. I dont want a cut. I have published some code online in blog format. Licence is MIT, or an unrestricted as possible. ( Frankly i haven't licensed it - whatever licence that is).

Now if some fretard were to come along, change a line of code, and make the thing GPL he could demand that all users of that code ( largely mine but built on the work of others, as always) not only cannot use that modified code commercially, but would have to open up their additional source code which they may not want to, and which may be 99% of their project.

I would like a licence which made that kind of restriction - which is what it is - illegal. Call it MIT+ - you can use this code without restrictions except this - you cant apply a more restrictive licence to it.

And yes, I can use LGPL. So what. I can use MIT, or Apple's free source code. This argument is against the GPL fretards who want their insane philosophy to be universal , and how one of their numbers has reduced choice on the App store by invoking his licence's restrictions, and blaming Apple for the restrictions imposed by his own philosophy.

VLC was developed and licensed under an open source license. If you don't like the license, don't use VLC. People use software licensed under much more restrictive terms every day (like every piece of commercial software), but there are complaints about the restrictions in GPLv3? Which is 100% intended to keep the software unencumbered?

His point is that the VLC developers who actually built the program released it under terms that were intended specifically to ensure that users retained the unencumbered nature of software. Then someone else came along, took the code, commercialized it (which is fine under the GPL), but released it under more restrictive conditions.

It's not a religion, it's a different license. The people who actually wrote the software got to choose, and they choose the one that protects the software from being closed off. Those who criticize GPL licensed software should get a reality check, because you use it every day.

You probably ought to get off the Internet then, because

1) Linux. You may not personally run it, but you undoubtedly connect to services that do.
2) Most TCP/IP stacks are from open source implementations.
3) Apache HTTP server is the most popular HTTP server, so you likely access one every day.
4) Many programs are compiled by gcc, an open source compiler. Better stop using those programs because very likely you're using one.
5) Firefox, Safari (the WebKit portion), and Chrome. Open source.

Your problem is you've just taken the results of open source for granted.

You can't change a line of someone else's code and stick the GPL on it and that be legaly binding on the original party, any more than someone can take the linux kernel and make it GPL v3. Even if the new work created was GPL, he/she would still have to follow the original license of the code that was taken.

Other than that, I agree on your other points.

Or get off this web site since it runs on Linux and Apache. Of all ironies...

Unfortunately it could take a legal team to demonstrate you, the original coder weren't freeloading off GPL code. Code lineage can be a real pissing contest unless the earlier versions are VERY obviously posted someplace and listed as copyright pre-GPL version entity. Big institutions that do academic or commercial OS code and post under a non-GPL are usually fine because they have the infrastructure and institutional server logs to stand on. Small companies can be vulnerable because trust of their record-keeping has to be established. I don't know if anyone has actually been screwed by this or not, but I do know lawyers involved in code are leery of this because it can be expensive even if the owning company is in the right.

And, if pigs had wings...

Now you are arguing that non-open source software ought not be allowed to exist? Sorry, but your argument has completely jumped the shark with your conflating of open source and open standards.

This is how you operate, isn't it? Putting words always in other people's mouths.

Proprietary software can exist. But don't whine about it and complain about the GPL and the FSF when proprietary software and companies that make them screw you over because they managed to kill every one off by embrace, extend and extinguish.

On Linux it is a great option, but on Mac most everything it does is better done via other apps. Video conversion is better handled by MPEG Streamclip, broadcasting video is better done with Apple's quicktime broadcast app or even over the web using a site like UStream. Mplayer is a nice lightweight video player that supports many formats. VLC does combine all those things but I'm not terribly impressed with the how it does it & the UI for setting it up, especially windows version, is terrible.

One thing I'll say for VLC though, I love the flexibility in playback, choosing monitor to play to, manually controlling aspect ratio, it has some very nice playback features. As fro the bugginess, it hasn't been buggy for me so I can't comment on that.

Even if Apple hadn't changed its TOS, it would have been able to continue distributing VLC, notwithstanding the fact that VLC was GPL licensed, if only all the developers in the VLC camp had been on the same page. The fact is, only the copyright holders have legal standing to bring up a GPL license violation suit.

Some of the VLC developers didn't care about the fact that the iOS App Store's distribution method technically violated the GPL. Some of them didn't even agree that it WAS a GPL violation. (Or perhaps most of them? Only one person from within the VLC project has actually spoken against this.) Remember, as well, that VLC is dual-licensed under both GPLv2 and GPLv3, specifically because they couldn't get unanimous agreement amongst all the code contributors that GPLv3 was actualy an improvement over GPLv2.

If they had been able to bring this one disagreeing developer on-side, then the distribution method could have continued indefinitely, despite technically being a violation, without anybody being sued -- as long as the copyright holders had continued to agree with it.

No, the FSF is who gets to decide who gets sued for GPL violations. The original copyright holder can only decide to sue for their copyright which is held for their code, not the rest of the GPL code.


Apparently the version put on the App store was using GPL3 contributed code. GPL2 does not have the DMCA poison pill. It is stupid viral licensing issues like this that make me not want to have anything to do with GPL code in general, but I won't touch GPL3 based projects with a 10 foot pole. I'm a bit softer on LGPL2, but I'm still leery of it.

You're jocking, isn't?

I'm afraid you're the one who's mistaken -- or perhaps we're just squabbling my choice of wording.

The FSF owns the copyright over the software that's part of the GNU project, and they possibly also own the copyright over certain other pieces of software. Those pieces of software are the only things over which the FSF has standing to sue over GPL violations. (This also, of course, applies to any projects that qualify as "derivative works", for copyright purposes, of any of the GNU project's software. That is, if another software project uses pieces of FSF-owned, GPL-licensed, code in their project, either by way of source copy-and-paste, static compile-time linking, or (but some would disagree with the enforcability of this) dynamic run-time linking.)

If any other project, unaffiliated with the FSF or GNU, also happens to choose to apply the GPL to their code, but otherwise their code is not derived from any GNU- or FSF-owned software, then the authors of those other projects are the ones who have standing to sue over GPL violations. Those other projects might enlist the FSF's help in refining their legal understanding of the license, but ultimately it's the copyright holder that must make the decision to pull the trigger.