eBook: Storage Networking 2, Configuration and Planning Sponsored by HP
Learn best practices and cover the general concepts you must know before configuring SAN-attached storage. The most critical part of setting up a SAN is configuring each individual disk array. This guide examines configurations for SAN-attached servers and disk arrays, and also includes a look at the future of IP storage. Learn more.
:UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Apple's non-free source license
UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Apple's non-free source license Mar 22, 1999, 16 :17 UTC (77 Talkback[s]) (18277 reads) (Other stories by Richard Stallman)
by Richard Stallman
March 22, 1999 -- Richard Stallman has issued an update
to one of his paragraphs and we have appended it below the article. -- lt
eds.
After studying Apple's new source code license, the APSL, I have
concluded that it falls short of being a free software license. It
has three fatal flaws, any of which would be sufficient to make the
software less than free.
* Disrespect for privacy.
The APSL does not allow you to make a modified version and use it for
your own private purposes, without publishing your changes.
* Central control.
Anyone who releases (or even uses, other than for R&D) a modified
version is required to notify one specific organization, which happens
to be Apple.
* Possibility of revocation at any time.
The termination clause says that Apple can revoke this license, and
forbid you to keep using all or some part of the software, any time
someone makes an accusation of patent or copyright infringement.
In this way, if Apple declines to fight a questionable patent (or
one whose applicability to the code at hand is questionable), you
will not be able to have your own day in court to fight it, because
you would have to fight Apple's copyright as well.
Such a termination clause is especially bad for users outside the
US, since it makes them indirectly vulnerable to the insane US
patent system and the incompetent US patent office, which ordinarily
could not touch them in their own countries.
Any one of these flaws makes a license unacceptable.
If these three flaws were solved, the APSL would be a free software
license with three major practical problems, reminiscent of the NPL:
* It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with other
files which may be entirely proprietary.
* It is unfair, since it requires you to give Apple rights
to your changes which Apple will not give you for its code.
* It is incompatible with the GNU GPL.
Of course, the major difference between the NPL and the APSL is that
the NPL *is* a free software license. These practical problems are
significant in the case of the NPL because the NPL has no fatal flaws.
Would that the same were true of the APSL.
At a fundamental level, the APSL makes a claim that, if it became
accepted, would stretch copyright powers in a dangerous way: it claims
to be able to set conditions for simply *running* the software. As I
understand it, copyright law in the US does not permit this, except
when encryption or a license manager is used to enforce the
conditions. It would be terribly ironic if a failed attempt at making
a free software license resulted in an extension of the effective
range of copyright power.
Aside from this, we must remember that only part of MacOS is being
released under the APSL--and it is the lowest level part. The only
practical use for this code is to run the non-free part of MacOS. It
will not help free operating systems, because they already have the
low-level drivers for the PowerPC Mac.
Overall, I think that Apple's action is an example of the effects of
the year-old "open source" movement: of its plan to appeal to business
with the purely materialistic goal of faster development, while
putting aside the deeper issues of freedom, community, cooperation,
and what kind of society we want to live in.
Apple has grasped perfectly the concept with which "open source" is
promoted, which is "show users the source and they will help you fix
bugs". What Apple has not grasped--or has dismissed--is the spirit of
free software, which is that we form a community to cooperate on the
commons of software.
Aside from this, we must remember that only part of MacOS is being
released under the APSL--and it is the lowest level part. The only
practical use for this code is to run the non-free part of MacOS. It
will not help free operating systems, because they already have the
low-level drivers for the PowerPC Mac.
Apparently this was not entirely true. People tell me that some of
the information in the released sources has resolved some remaining
uncertainty about the hardware, which has helped the writing of
PowerPC Mac drivers for Linux. It is good of Apple to make this
information available, but this does not affect the main conclusions
of my analysis.
Also, some say that the code released is actually a system which is
sufficient for certain uses (though not including the graphical
convenience that is the Macintosh's main technical feature). If so, I
stand corrected; perhaps the code Apple has released would make some
nontrivial contribution to the free software community, if the current
APSL were replaced with a free software license.
