Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 00:46:44 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: reg@shale.csir.co.za (Jeremy Lea) Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Apple's open source... Message-ID: <199903180046.RAA22250@usr01.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19990316235359.F432@shale.csir.co.za> from "Jeremy Lea" at Mar 16, 99 11:54:00 pm
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> Well, what's the verdict... http://www.publicsource.apple.com/ > > I'm not one for Brett style advocacy, but this takes the cake. They > used BSD and CMU licensed software to develop most of the OS, and then > release it with a big announcement of 'open source' under a more > restrictive license... Seems to be basically the Netscape Public > Licence with a s/Netscape/Apple Public/g. And they invite ESR to the > launch. > > Not one mention of NetBSD, or FreeBSD. And yes we remember that they > used a NetBSD userland, with lots of FreeBSD thrown in... > > http://www.geocrawler.com/mail_msg.php3?msg_id=928440&c=3 > http://www.geocrawler.com/mail_msg.php3?msg_id=772422&c=3 > > At the very least they're in violation of the BSD advertising clause... No, they aren't, uless they cit specific features or use of the code. They probably specifically didn't mention FreeBSD and NetBSD because of the caluse, in fact. 8-). The license qualifies as Open Source under the ESR/board definition of Open Source (I think a more correct term would be "Source Available", but that would lead to ESR's bandwagon being smaller, and as far as I can tell, the whole Open Source thing is about number of people in the wagon, not any philosophical or philanthropic leanings ESR has. Basically, they are making sure you give away source code so that they can snag it, and that you assign any patent rights via a non-revocable license in combination with an assignment of the code or derivative works thereof. You are still free to build an Apple hardware based Cobalt box (for example) and have proprietary code on the thing, in addition to the OS. The main dodge seems to be the patent rights and making the source to modifications available to Apple, if they should ask for it while, or within 12 months after you stop, shipping a product on the code. It might be highly amusing to port the thing to Intel. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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