Apple and Open Source

Steve Dunham dunham at cse.msu.edu
Wed Mar 17 21:47:48 UTC 1999


Ben Collins <bcollins at debian.org> writes:

> On Wed, Mar 17, 1999 at 09:09:51AM +0000, Jules Bean wrote:
> > For the record:  2.2 (c) of the APSL fails point (3) of the OSD, since it
> > restricts distribution of modified versions (you may not do so unless you
> > notify Apple).  9.1, and 12.1 (c) whilst not obviously failing any point
> > of the OSD, are undesirable.

> I got a few underlying things form the license. One is that if you
> distribute modified source, you grant Apple a non-retractable full
> license (equivilent to theirs) to your work, and anything under your
> control that you used to create the modified version (they specifically
> included things used to create it, like compiler, etc.) yet they
> specifically have places in their license where they can revoke it.

Section 3(a) says that you grant a license equivalent to the Apple
licence to third parties, section 3(b) says you grant Apple an
irrevocable licence to do whatever they want with your code.

I wouldn't call the 3(b) license "equivalent to theirs".


I see they quote Eric Raymond of "The Open Source Initiative" on their
web page - maybe SPI should retract his license to use the trademark
"Open Source" for that organization.


Steve
dunham at cse.msu.edu



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