Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms?

Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by matthewmacleod on Thursday June 18, 2015 @07:14AM (#9737841)

I understand what you're saying, but there's some confusion there – of the projects you've listed, none of Mach, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, and Apache are copylefted – they all use permissive licensed. And regarding CUPS and Webkit/kHTML, I think it's difficult to argue that Apple 'only released patches because of their legal obligation' – they were the primary developers of those projects.

But more importantly, I don't think it is a disingenuous complaint, and it's the basis of most commercial software. I build software – we release some component parts as open-source, which the proprietary bits on top are how we can make value. And it seems like that benefits everybody!

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by Daishiman on Thursday June 18, 2015 @08:10AM (#9738044)

They openly took the KHTML code and just dumped code with no source control every few months to satisfy their legal requirements with very, very little in the way of collaboration until it was politically convenient for them.

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by loup-vaillant on Thursday June 18, 2015 @06:10PM (#9741928)

> the proprietary bits on top are how we can make value.

Important nitpick: this is not how you make value. Being proprietary reduces the value you make.

No, this is how you extract value from your users. Maybe you have to (one's gotta eat). But I'm sick of the English language speaking of wealth appropriation as if it generated actual value.

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by pyre on Thursday June 18, 2015 @07:50AM (#9737972)

> CUPS ... they were the primary developers of those projects

They own CUPS, but it existed prior to their ownership of it.

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by Intermernet on Thursday June 18, 2015 @08:28AM (#9738106)

CUPS is... weird:

"CUPS is provided under the GNU General Public License ("GPL") and GNU Library General Public License ("LGPL"), Version 2, with an exception for Apple operating systems. A copy of the exception and licenses follow this introduction."

https://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-2.0/license.html

EDIT: Just to provide the full exception clause text.

"Apple Operating System Development License Exception;

Software that is developed by any person or entity for an Apple Operating System ("Apple OS-Developed Software"), including but not limited to Apple and third party printer drivers, filters, and backends for an Apple Operating System, that is linked to the CUPS imaging library or based on any sample filters or backends provided with CUPS shall not be considered to be a derivative work or collective work based on the CUPS program and is exempt from the mandatory source code release clauses of the GNU GPL. You may therefore distribute linked combinations of the CUPS imaging library with Apple OS-Developed Software without releasing the source code of the Apple OS-Developed Software. You may also use sample filters and backends provided with CUPS to develop Apple OS-Developed Software without releasing the source code of the Apple OS-Developed Software.

An Apple Operating System means any operating system software developed and/or marketed by Apple Inc., including but not limited to all existing releases and versions of Apple's Darwin, OS X, and OS X Server products and all follow-on releases and future versions thereof.

This exception is only available for Apple OS-Developed Software and does not apply to software that is distributed for use on other operating systems. All CUPS software that falls under this license exception have the following text at the top of each source file: This file is subject to the Apple OS-Developed Software exception."

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by carussell on Thursday June 18, 2015 @09:37AM (#9738401)

pyre already acknowledged that Apple now owns the code. The reason why CUPS is GPL+/LGPL+the Apple OS exception? Because Apple bought the rights to it and made it that way. Before that, it was GPL/LGPL.

So I'm not sure what you're getting at.

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by Intermernet on Thursday June 18, 2015 @09:49AM (#9738456)

I'm not getting at anything, I've always found that open-source "license exceptions" are the IP equivalent of a code-smell.

Nothing in particular, they just seem a bit strange.

You are of course, welcome to your own opinion.

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by carussell on Thursday June 18, 2015 @09:53AM (#9738480)

I read your comment as an attempted retort to pyre's.

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by carussell on Thursday June 18, 2015 @09:31AM (#9738374)

The same is true of KHTML.

In contrast to matthewmacleod, what I find tenuous is the argument that these things would have been open source if it weren't already so and these had been initiated from within Apple instead. Case in point: Swift!

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Re:Why Greet Apple's Swift 2.0 With Open Arms? by pyre on Thursday June 18, 2015 @02:31PM (#9740657)

To be fair, if Apple had developed their own printing system instead of using CUPS, it probably would have been highly integrated with/specific to OSX and never would have been open sourced.

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