----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com To: pd-list@iem.at Cc: Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 8:51 PM Subject: Re: [PD] expr alternative
On 26/10/11 01:29, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
The Apple App Store is incompatible with the GPL and LGPL, from what I understand. Getting Apple to make their App Store compatible with the GPL
and
LGPL is another much better solution since it will work for all GPL and
LGPL
software.
this is of course the best solution ... but it seems that Apple is deeply opposed to GPL and all it represents, they have always been happy to use Open Source code, and contributed some too, but have stuck to BSD licensed code where-ever they can, and only used GPL stuff when they had no other choice.
They seem to object to the idea that using open source code should require a reciprocal release of their own improvements and would rather use the work of others, but keep their own contributions secret and for their profit only.
It's worse than that-- they want to lock their customers into using their hardware only in the ways they intend. Ever tried syncing an Ipad with a free software operating system?
Free software devs spend an inordinate amount of time getting free software operating systems to work with hardware for which the manufacture gives very little documentation or support whatsoever-- not to mention hardware like Apple's which gets periodic firmware updates specifically to break compatibility with anything other than Itunes. So it's not even really about refusing to give back to the community-- it's about making the device less useful by arbitrarily limiting what the user can do with it. I can't think of a better polar opposite for pure data.
-Jonathan
This is quite a common attitude, and I assume the reason a lot of companies prefer BSD code. But I believe that the reason Linux is as strong as it is is exactly because of its license ... any corporation (or any individual) that wishes to use Linux legally and distribute their version must do their part and publish their improvements.
Simon
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