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CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc.
The Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) project has
announced
its purchase by Apple, Inc. last February.
"In February of 2007, Apple Inc. acquired ownership the CUPS source code and hired me (Michael R Sweet), the creator of CUPS.
CUPS will still be released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms, and I will continue to develop and support CUPS at Apple."
(Thanks to Zach Beane).
(Log in to post comments)
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 12, 2007 20:48 UTC (Thu) by dwalters (subscriber, #4207) [Link] From the FAQ: "Apple Inc. has trademarked the Common UNIX Printing System, CUPS, and CUPS logo. These names and logos may be used freely in any direct port or binary distribution of CUPS. To use them in derivative products, please contract Apple Inc. for written permission." I just hope this doesn't turn into another Firefox/Iceweasel debacle. Do releases of the software containing independent (i.e. non-Apple) security updates and bug-fixes constitute "derived products" that would require the permission of Apple to release under the name CUPS? I hope not, or we could well end up with CUPS being released under a different name in Debian Lenny.
A free software generic name Posted Jul 13, 2007 10:00 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Interesting idea. If this problem spreads, maybe the free software community to standardise on one generic name, like "cow" or whatever.
IceWeasel -> Cow Web Browser
etc., but with something better than "cow".
A free software generic name Posted Jul 13, 2007 10:02 UTC (Fri) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] What could be better than cow?
Exactly Posted Jul 13, 2007 10:35 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] I agree entirely, but I'm the wrong person to ask. In 1983, Stallman said to himself, What could be better than gnu? ...and 24 years later we're still having to tell people that both syllables are not silent :-)
A free software generic name Posted Jul 13, 2007 11:36 UTC (Fri) by jordi (subscriber, #14325) [Link] Why a cow, when we have "ice"?
A free software generic name Posted Jul 13, 2007 11:51 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] I was thinking that, but it might be too generic - might clash with existing products. Or maybe it would work fine.
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 12:18 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] Firefox is a unique (so far) case, because it's an end-user application. People don't care what their print subsystem is called as long as it works.
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 13:37 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] Ah, that's why Windows is known so much!
yes Posted Jul 13, 2007 13:40 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Yes, the end user applications of Windows are pervasive, that's why Netscape, RealNetworks, and Google have each had to take MS to court about the integration of too many end user applications.
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:08 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] Quick, what's the name of the Microsoft Windows printing subsystem?
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:20 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] GDI?
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:53 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] I think you get my point.
re:Microsoft Windows printing subsystem name?
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:50 UTC (Fri) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Must be SMB. Printing is done either via SMB, or via CUPS, but then not nearly as comfortable as on Linux or Mac OS X (Windows ignores CUPS broadcasts, insists on installing a driver instead of reading the ppd, and no discovery possible, you must enter the URL by hand).
Trademarks - Firefox/Iceweasel again? Posted Jul 13, 2007 15:02 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] Please differentiate between "printing" and "print setup". A normal user never sees the latter, and would say "it's the same" when using end-user programs on either system.
I agree that setting up an IPP printer can really be troublesome - it already starts with "wtf do I enter as URL", I tried ipp://addr:631 without luck, and it really took some time to figure out http://addr:631 was intended.
Why? Posted Jul 12, 2007 21:16 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Why in the world would Apple think they needed to buy it outright, as opposed to (e.g.) buying an exception from the GPL? If I understand right, the extra rights they get for ownership are (1) being able to change the license (e.g. switch to GPL3, or fork a proprietary development track, (2) extend license exceptions to third parties, and (3) sell it to somebody else.
I wonder, is there code in CUPS from others who aren't party to the deal, so Apple would need to either strip it out or make a separate deal if they wanted to fork a proprietary version?
Why? Posted Jul 12, 2007 21:56 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] I wonder, is there code in CUPS from others who aren't party to the deal, so Apple would need to either strip it out or make a separate deal if they wanted to fork a proprietary version? I don't think so, ESP required copyright transfer from contributors. Grepping through the cups-1.2 SVN source for copyright, I only see Apple and ESP in source code, except for a third party tool "pdftops", by Glyph & Cog. There's also other copyrights in standards (ISC), and some in a few README files, fonts and character set descriptions.
Why? Posted Jul 12, 2007 21:58 UTC (Thu) by vmole (subscriber, #111) [Link] Best guess (well, Slashdot guess, anyway) is that Apple is buying the ability to *prevent* conversion to GPL3. Alternative: CUPS is critical to their products, and they want control over development.
Why? Posted Jul 12, 2007 22:26 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] > Best guess (well, Slashdot guess, anyway) is that Apple is buying the> ability to *prevent* conversion to GPL3.
Hm. Will this also prevent the various desktop applications that use CUPS' client library from being relicensed under GPL3?
LGPL 2 and 2.1 allows use in GPL 2, 3 or later programs Posted Jul 12, 2007 23:06 UTC (Thu) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link] So the library code under LGPL 2 should be of no problem.
LGPL 2 and 2.1 allows use in GPL 2, 3 or later programs Posted Jul 13, 2007 13:21 UTC (Fri) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] But is that an optional provision that the licensor is free to delete? I had a look at CUPS' license and couldn't find anything... but it was late and I may have missed it.
Why? Posted Jul 13, 2007 12:18 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] I like CUPS, but, like anything else, it could be improved.Perhaps Apple sees printer support as a means of competing against Mr. Somebody. It would be swell if booklet printing were as simple under CUPS as 'Doze. Let's see where this goes in the next year.
Why? Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:16 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] >It would be swell if booklet printing were as simple under CUPS as 'Doze.
Imagine the popular setup where the CUPS printers are exported through smbd to Windows. Which one is easier in this setup, CUPS or Windows? You see, your comparison does not make sense.
If you meant s/CUPS/Linux/, then I have to disagree. Where is the difference between hitting the Print button in <Favorite Office> in Linux compared to doing so in MSO? If the results do not look the same, blame your <Favorite Office>, because my MSO printouts _do_ look the same as if the printer was directly connected to a Windows machine.
Then, booklet printing has *absolutely nothing* to do with the printing drivers. Both Adobe Pagemaker (or whatever is the right thing for booklet composition) and Ghostscript output (internally and ideally) PS or PDF, suitable for printing anywhere, including ye olde LPR systems.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 12, 2007 21:56 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Did all the people that contributed patches assign copyright ownership to whoever sold the lot to Apple? If not, were they contacted before their code was sold? This just doesn't seem right somehow...
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 12, 2007 21:58 UTC (Thu) by vmole (subscriber, #111) [Link] Yes, contributions required copyright assignment to ESP.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 12, 2007 22:14 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Ah, well, I guess that would be that then... but it seems like an stark object lesson for why one doesn't want to do something like that. (Yes, I know the FSF requires the same thing for code that's part of the official GNU Project collection--which is most definitely NOT the same as "the set of all sofware licensed under the GPL". There's a very deliberate purpose behind that requirement, and one that I agree with. It's very unfortunate that the myth is still spread around, through both ignorance and/or malice, that GNU === GPL.)
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 0:08 UTC (Fri) by jbailey (subscriber, #16890) [Link] The FSF copyright includes some sort of promise that the code will remain under a license of similar spirit, iirc. It's been a while since I signed my paperwork.
The reason I never contributed to Evolution or OpenOffice was because their assignments didn't have anything vaguely resembling that promise.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 12, 2007 23:05 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link] The lesson here is don't sign over copyright unless it comes with a formal decree that the code will remain free.
In the alternative, don't sign over to untrustworthy parties. I know the FSF will accept copyright assignments even for non-GNU programs. Perhaps the thing to do is have everyone sign the copyright over to them.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 0:07 UTC (Fri) by paravoid (subscriber, #32869) [Link] The code will remain free, it will always be under GPLv2.
The GPL is irrevocable: even if Apple decides to turn to project to closed-source/MacOS X-only anyone can fork the version(s) released so far.
No loss of freedom whatsoever.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 0:40 UTC (Fri) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] True. But the code can be taken proprietary also by Apple. I dont know the other contributors are OK with that.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 1:00 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Since they apparently signed over their ownership of the copyrights, it doesn't matter how they feel about it--Apple can do whatever they want with the code, including changing the license and then selling it on to whomever they want to. (Not that I think that's likely, but once you assign a copyright, you've permanently given away any control you had over the work in question, no matter how benevolent or malicious the future owners of the work might be.)
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 4:20 UTC (Fri) by aseigo (guest, #18394) [Link] you can, actually, assign copyright conditionally. we're working on an FLA(fiduciary license agreement) heavily inspired by the FSFE's FLA document for the KDE project that does just this, so people can grant what is essentially the equivalent of a copyright assignment (which actually isn't legal in some countries) under the condition that the code remains free software.
so the "assign and hope" mechanism is not the only possible path.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 10:24 UTC (Fri) by mbanck (subscriber, #9035) [Link] The point is that with FSF-style copyright assignments, you sort of have the guarantee that not only the current code, but also the future code will remain free.
Sure, you can fork off CUPS now and lose the expertise of its main author. It would be better if the main author just continued to develop it under a Free Software license (let's hope Apple is wise enough to make this happen, or at least mostly so).
Michael
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:51 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] The point is that with FSF-style copyright assignments, you sort of have the guarantee that not only the current code, but also the future code will remain free. One point in the whole GPL v2 vs v3 flamewar is precisely that "later versions" of the licenses will be different, and exactly what constitutes the "spirit" isn't clear.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 16:06 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] > ... exactly what constitutes the "spirit" isn't clear.
Here's a little hint:
"The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users."
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 21:06 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link] I tend to agree that the spirit is probably the same from the FSF's point of view, but may not be from the point of view of some authors who have chosen to use the GPL. However, leaving "the spirit" aside, it's clear that the terms have changed in significant ways that may affect whether particular projects or authors choose to use the new version. If they had signed their rights over to someone else, they might see their code relicensed in ways they don't find appropriate.
However, I do tend to believe that projects should have an existence apart from their members and that having "the project" own the code in common may be the right thing to do if the project really represents common work, despite the possibility for disputes.
Well, there is the most obvious reason... Posted Jul 13, 2007 0:59 UTC (Fri) by Erich_J_Ritzmann (guest, #39670) [Link] CUPS is crucial to Apple. I use CUPS on OS X as I do on Linux. CUPS needs more work. Apple isgoing to make sure that resources are devoted to their competitive advantage. Remember... their chief competitor is Redmond, not the FSF.
In my opinion, OSS products that have deep pocketed sponsors, Sun & OpenOffice.org come to
This feels icky Posted Jul 13, 2007 1:48 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] Icky. I feel the FLOSS community has been betrayed.
http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L179+I0+T+M10+P1+Q
I hope the free software community creates fork based on cups just before that licence exception was added.
I hope the CUPS author didn't sell it cheap.
This feels icky Posted Jul 13, 2007 1:59 UTC (Fri) by alogghe (guest, #6661) [Link] Not sure exactly how the extra clauses work but I think you can always fork back to GPL standard in the future(?) even with code that contained that clause.
This feels icky Posted Jul 13, 2007 2:40 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] Just saw that the exception has been there for years. Still feels icky.
This feels icky Posted Jul 13, 2007 15:15 UTC (Fri) by a.spengler (guest, #10027) [Link] To my understanding, this clause simply turns CUPS into "LGPL-licensed" as far as the mentioned exceptions are concerned, doesn't it? So Apple don't have to release the code of anything that merely touches (read "relies on") CUPS.
It does not mean, that derived works of CUPS itself are not governed by the GPL anymore.
This feels icky Posted Jul 13, 2007 17:02 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] It'll be interesting to see how much forking we see over the next year or two. Every time it happens we'll have a further dilution and segmentation. This is not a good thing as the BSD effort clearly shows.
I'd like to be wrong but I have a distinct feeling that the GPL3 is going to be seen as the beginning of the end for OSS software as a viable candidate to supplant Microsoft. Note, I'm not predicting an end to OSS, that would be absurd.
The creator of CUPS and Apple were well within their rights from what I can tell.
This feels icky Posted Jul 13, 2007 22:00 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] Well, if you look at XFree86 -> X.org, there sometimes is value in forking.
The future for X looks much brighter now than it ever did in the XFree86 days.
This feels icky Posted Jul 14, 2007 7:07 UTC (Sat) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] Yes, forking is useful in some cases. The X stuff is certainly a good example. I'd claim it is more the exception than the rule though. Some of the provisions of GPL3 provide strong incentives for individuals and companies to fork and remain GPL2. It's too early to be sure how prevalent this will be, but there is certainly the potential for substantial disruption and dilution of effort.
Just to clarify- Posted Jul 13, 2007 1:55 UTC (Fri) by alogghe (guest, #6661) [Link] This is the type of crap that violates the -intent- of I would suggest most of the contributors to CUPS (I haven't grepped for contributors).
This allows Apple to create a proprietary fork of CUPS that they can massively improve/rewrite and then they have zero obligation to release those changes back out to the GPL'ed codebase (and no need to be transparent about whether they have done that or not). I don't think CUPS contributors probably foresaw that...
The next version of CUPS that ships in OSX may be a proprietary fork of the codebase. Seeing the license that ships with the OS will be interesting. If the shipping code is no longer GPL then I would suggest interested parties should be forking and no longer assigning copyright to Apple.
With the preexisting exceptions they had in the license I'm not sure why they would buy the copyright for good faith reasons.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 2:53 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] I would suggest that Ubuntu, Suse or Debian arrange for a fork as soon aspossible.
Apple now owns a fundamental part of the free desktop, without which we
The fork could happen now or everyone could wait until the situation
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 4:49 UTC (Fri) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link] I don't know if it's 'fundemental' like xorg is fundemental.
I use lpr just fine, I've never had to deal with CUPS. Now I have a Real Printer (tm) so my printcap is very simple and I wrote it by hand after reading the man page: just upload the poscript file to the lpr port of the printer.
Back when I was in bubble jet ghetto I had to use a ghostscript filter but it was pretty painless to use the provided wizard. I recall trying to use CUPS and actually having an easier time getting ghostscript working with LPR.
All the programs I use work seamlessly with lpr too, except that in firefox I have to choose "postscript/default" as the printer manually *every* *time* I print something.
This might be a good time to give LPR for the linux "desktop" a good rethink.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 6:41 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link] Your anecdotal evidence is pretty much entirely useless.
So you have a printer that just works. Good for you. Many/most of us don't. Some of us make very heavy use of CUPS features that LPR lacks, like IPP. Some of us really enjoy our automatic printer detection. I could go on for a while.
You happen to have an environment that works with less featureful software. That's pretty irrelevant to anyone in the world other than you.
I'm not saying this to be a jerk, I'm just clarifying that Works For You != Works For Everyone.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 7:37 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link] And just to clarify, your anecdotal evidence is equally useless.Who is changing printers every week so that automatic printer detection would be useful, for example? I am using Slackware with lpr and lprng for ages... So I am biased, sure. But given all the complexity of a CUPS configuration, I am happy to be able to change things very easily in my printcap file, with just vim.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 8:33 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] That was rediculous.
Not a problem for YOUR profile is not the same as not a problem.
That is just a stupid as answering "It hurts when I do this" with "Don't do that".
People with a laptop will often use this, companies with a lot of networked printers will often use this.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 8:43 UTC (Fri) by jmtapio (subscriber, #23124) [Link] And just to clarify, your anecdotal evidence is equally useless. Who is changing printers every week so that automatic printer detection would be useful, for example? While we are at anecdotal evidence, I for one use automatic printer detection daily. I connect my laptop semi-regularly to at least four networks (some run by be, some not) where I have the permission and the need to print. Configuring all the printers that come and go would be a pain and I for one have been really happy about autoconfiguration. Even for my more static networks I like the idea that I do not have to configure printers to all the new machines that I end up bringing to the network. So yeah, there are a lot of people who really appreciate CUPS and would miss it if the free version were to become obsolete. (Though I would really like for them to finally support IPv6.)
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 15:33 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Your anecdotal evidence is pretty much entirely useless.I read it not as anecdotal evidence but as a counterexample. dkite said that CUPS was "a fundamental piece of the free desktop", and jordanb said something like "not necessarily". A completely valid argument IMHO, and a possible way out even if CUPS ceases to be an option. After all, I don't know many people who enjoy tinkering with CUPS very much.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 12:09 UTC (Fri) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] While Apple's behavior w.r.t. khtml at first was rather poor, you might take a look at their *current*behavior instead. See the webkit website: http://webkit.org/
This is, essentially, a fully fledged open source project, with SVN, bugtracker, nightly builds, email
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 12:47 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] You make my point exactly.
If we are willing to wait 3-4 years to see how things go, in the mean
Webkit is running in Safari, some Nokia phones, the iPhone, and on a
Apple takeover of khtml has hurt a project severely, the damage taking
As I said, the time to fork is now. I see no reason to believe that Apple
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 13:11 UTC (Fri) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] That makes little sense. Apple exercised a basic right of Open Source: their right to fork. Theydidn't take over khtml -- all the existing khtml developers could have continued to develop khtml just the way it was, if they liked. No, apple decided, for whatever reason (disagreement in development methods, disagreement over features, or something else, I don't know) to start their own fork.
And yes, successful forks are indeed highly disruptive, with work and energy being wasted on
However, this CUPS situation is a pretty much completely different; Apple is not forking CUPS (at
It seems to me that if they'd done that with khtml instead of forking, it could have been much
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 18:51 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] And I take it you are running Webkit?
I submit that no one except developers and hard-core testers will be
In the meantime, KDE users hope someone will build up the intestinal
If you are ok with waiting 3-4 years to see if this Cups deal works out
Webkit/khtml has not been good for anyone except Apple. I submit that
If you are ok with letting go of such a fundamental part of the desktop
Remember this basic fact. It is not in Apple's interest to have a
I can just see it. We will finally get good free graphics drivers, a
If you don't think that this scenario has crossed the minds of those in
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 3:38 UTC (Fri) by dr_lha (guest, #86) [Link] Wow, you can hear the knees jerking in this thread. Apple uses a lot of GPL and BSD licensed software in their OS, I don't see any reason why a fork would be necessary as this software is going to continue to be available under GPL2.
As others have speculated, Apple most likely bought this to avoid the spectre of GPL3, as CUPS is a vital part of their OS (and many others). Apart from that I can't see why anything other than good can come of this, if it means improvements to the cups system.
This isn't like khtml, as Apple uses a plain version of cups in their OS, so any improvements will be folded directly back into the regular version, whereas the nature of WebKit meant that it had to fork away from khtml to remove the Qt dependancy. Still khtml/WebKit turned out well in the end didn't it?
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 9:01 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] My thoughts exactly.
Why doesn't anybody wait to see how Apple actually acts before throwing the 'fork card' around?
It's completely baseless. If Apple starts doing something bad, then fork it. I don't see any purpose to worrying about it now.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 13:27 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] If you want to wait and see and lose 2-3 years while we all gnash ourteeth, great.
Let's look at the facts.
1. Apple has nothing in common with free software. They have a history,
2. The free desktop is a competitor to them. It may not be a large one
3. The free desktop is more than a product. It involves process, vision,
4. Printing is a fundamental part of a working desktop. If a person can't
Back to khtml/Webkit. This situation is a classic. Somewhere someone is
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 23:37 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] > If you want to wait and see and lose 2-3 years while we all gnash our> teeth, great.
> Let's look at the facts.
> 1. Apple has nothing in common with free software. They have a history,
What Free software projects have Apple purchased in the past for the aim of closing them?
Your telling me that Apple uses software and abides by it's license and thus we should be worried? That's insane.
Sure Apple sucks and I am not going to touch their software with a ten foot pole, but they have actually contributed to a lot of Free software projects they use. AND they have released software under Free software licenses that they didn't have to.Sure their positive impact is rather limited, but so is a lot of other contributer's.
> 2. The free desktop is a competitor to them. It may not be a large one
Ok...
So why not wait till Apple actually DOES ANYTHING WRONG? It's still GPL, your free to fork it at any time.
If they refuse to release new versions of CUPS or patches and improvements are not accepted and released, or people are given a hard time... THEN FORK.
It takes a whole 3 seconds to fork a project. Nothing Apple can do will limit this in any way. Right now most everybody here is acting very irrationally and are just being paranoid for no reason.
> 3. The free desktop is more than a product. It involves process, vision,
Your being paranoid. Stop it. Apple hasn't done anything wrong yet. To operate based on a fear is no way to run a free software project and you won't get anywere.
> 4. Printing is a fundamental part of a working desktop. If a person can't
HP contributes code and own copyrights to portions of the Linux kernel. They sell proprietary Unix systems. They compete against other Linux contributers.
The Linux kernel is important for Linux servers.
We need to fork the kernel in order to remove their stink. You can wait 2-3 years when the HP monster comes and completely screws you over, but I am not.
> Back to khtml/Webkit. This situation is a classic. Somewhere someone is
Soooo.... Your telling me that because Apple is releasing patches in a inconvient format this means they are out to kill KDE.
*sarcasm*
Look. If you people want to be constructive then improve CUPS tools for Linux so that they are on par with what you see in OS X. If you need to make modifications to CUPS to make it work better for you, then do it. If Apple won't take them or messes with you then you have justification for a fork.
ACTUALLY. I bet if you act nicely and talk to Apple about it they would be VERY happy to update the license of CUPS to GPLv3. It is not going to hurt them because they own the copyright, but it would prevent other non-Apple closed source software from using CUPS in the same way they do.
Think about this for a whole 10 seconds.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 15, 2007 14:34 UTC (Sun) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] If you think it takes 3 seconds to fork a project the size and complexityof CUPS ....
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 4:05 UTC (Fri) by russell (subscriber, #10458) [Link] Is the money from the sale going to be shared amongst the contributors?
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 8:34 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] Probably not, and why should it?
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 12:09 UTC (Fri) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link] Well, because the other CUPS contributors assigned their copyrights in the CUPS code to the primary author, and he just sold those copyrights to Apple for a profit? That's at least a little bit sleazy.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 15:30 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] Why?
They assigned it, he has absolute power over it, and every right (including moral) to do with it as he pleases.
If they didn't think this would be ok, then they shouldn't have assigned them rights in the first place.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 16:25 UTC (Fri) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link] Obviously, I can't speak about his specific relationship with his contributors. Perhaps he had discussions with them at the time of copyright assignment, and made his possible long-term intentions clear. The FSF is quite good about making their policies clear--they describe exactly how they will (and will not) relicense the assigned code, and have clauses which can be used to automatically license the code back to the original author with full rights.
But to first demand copyright assignments (without compensation), and then profit from the resale of those assignments, would be less than praiseworthy.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 19:18 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] What the hell?
If you assign the rights to the contributions to a company, you should expect them to use them.
Would you think the wanted them for fun? For singing "We have a million lines of code copyrighted to USSSSS"? For baking a copyright cake?
You should also remember to bitch about MySQL that sells, SELLS I TELL YOU licences. Oh and Sun, and Trolltech.
The FSF is different, they made a promise.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 14, 2007 2:31 UTC (Sat) by russell (subscriber, #10458) [Link] I would have expected that the assignment of copyright was to make license administration easier. Such as changing to another "equivalent" license, i.e. GPLv3. I would not define selling to apple as "equivalent". Contributors would have every right to feel ripped off. There code has been made proprietry against there intentions. They contributed to a GPL project just to have to it sold into a potentially proprietry fork.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 14, 2007 9:16 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] Then you are _very_ naive.
They wouldn't need to demand copyrights to go to GPLv3, just the "or later".
How in the world could people expect them NOT to use THEIR rights? And yes, since they were given the rights, it is THEIRS, to do as they want.
The contributor has essentially said "Do as you please", which they did. To whine about it when they do is just silly.
Please note that I'm not particularly fond of Apple's takeover, and I really hope they'll keep the contributions flowing, but I really can't blame ESP for taking a nice business opportunity.
Also note that ESP has always had a commercial product built on CUPS, the "I would have expected that the assignment of copyright was to make license administration easier." is even more naive in that context.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 12:59 UTC (Fri) by Viddy (subscriber, #33288) [Link] That (I assume, retorical) question actually made me laugh...
lpr is a outdated cludge, not disimilar to slackware (trust me, I know, I have to admin 50 odd slackware servers at work. It sucks.)
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 14:03 UTC (Fri) by mheily (subscriber, #27123) [Link] This discussion is retarded. Unless there is a change in the license, forks should be undertaken for technical reasons, e.g. the EGCS/GCC split. If the primary developers are dragging their feet and not accepting improvements, e.g. the Xfree86/Xorg situation, at some point the developers who want to implement the new features can fork. If some people disagree with the techinical direction of the project, they can fork; an example of this is Matt Dillon's fork of FreeBSD 4.11 to implement SMP using message-passing instead of fine-grained locking (see Dragonfly BSD).
Nothing about the license or the technical direction of the CUPS project has changed (yet). There is no reason at the present time to fork the CUPS project. If the nightmares of the paranoid posters become reality at some point in the future, we can talk about a fork at that time.
I would like to thank Apple for sponsoring the development of this important peice of open-source software. The UNIX desktop needs a quality printing system to remain viable. The company that developed CUPS needs money to remain viable. It's a win-win situation.
As they say, "money talks and bullsh*t walks". How many of the whiners and complainers here have donated money or time to the CUPS project?
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 16:04 UTC (Fri) by hawk (subscriber, #3195) [Link] While I generally agree with you, I would still wait with thanking Apple before we know they plan for the future of the free CUPS.
For one thing, do we know if they will really sponsor the free version in any way or if they they just wanted the head developer working on THEIR version (that may now be relicensed under any terms Apple wants), doing what THEY need most, instead of "that free stuff", not necessarily feeding any/all of those changes back into the GPL version?
I hope that you are right, but I somehow doubt that it's really that generous a move. For one thing, if they just wanted to help CUPS, they could easily have just sponsored the CUPS development without actually buying it.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 18:38 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] Recently we found out that we (at my workplace) were suddenly incompetition with one of our major suppliers. Up till recently, they sold the equipment and parts, we purchased, installed and serviced them. Now where we have their equipment, have maintained them, and invoiced the customer, all of a sudden the equipment manufacturer is sending people to do service and maintenance.
No problem, right? Any discussion within our offices could be described
Apple has learned about our community. We like free things. We are
I'm sticking my neck out here. Unless the community comes up with
The X hassle took years to become clear, and years to catch up. It still
Is that ok with everyone? Maybe if we all think nice thoughts it will all
Let me put this another way. What is the free desktop's leverage to make
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 19:03 UTC (Fri) by mheily (subscriber, #27123) [Link] What part of "CUPS will still be released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms, and [Michael R. Sweet] will continue to develop and support CUPS at Apple" do you not understand?If you think that Apple is such an evil freedom-hating company that the FOSS community cannot accept their ownership of the CUPS code, then go away and start your own fork of CUPS. You should also stop using GCC since Apple is a major contributor to GCC.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 13, 2007 20:11 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Did Apple just buy the rights to GCC? Or is this analogy *really* strained?
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 14, 2007 5:36 UTC (Sat) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link] Apple "contributed" to GCC because it would be fantastically more expensive to make their own compiler from scratch, and the GPL forced them to "contribute" the changes they made back. They contributed back the absolute minimum they felt was required under the GPL. The cocoa runtime and all that, for instance, is still all non-free.
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 14, 2007 11:38 UTC (Sat) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] That statement is nice and all, but is it legally binding?
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 16, 2007 4:39 UTC (Mon) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] I guess you don't understand the difference between contribution andcontrol.
Derek
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 17, 2007 11:36 UTC (Tue) by hawk (subscriber, #3195) [Link] I think you don't quite grasp the situation yourself.I want to think that this is not going to be bad, but what that statement that you quote means in reality is pretty much only a guarantee that the community can still fork the project if it wants to.
Apple holds the copyright for the current CUPS source code now, so they are no longer bound by the GPL (they can use CUPS under any terms they want to and feed only the changes they feel like back into the GPL version).
CUPS Purchased by Apple Inc. Posted Jul 17, 2007 14:24 UTC (Tue) by mheily (subscriber, #27123) [Link] This knee jerk anti-Apple crusade is a bunch of crap.When people say they are going to do something, I like to give them the benefit of the doubt. The lead CUPS developer has said that nothing will change due to Apple's ownership of the copyright, and I think we should assume that he is telling the truth. Apple used to be a completely proprietary company, and I think it's great that they have embraced open-source software and are working with the open-source community providing enhancements to FreeBSD, KHTML, GCC, CUPS, and other projects. Apple has *not* forked CUPS for their own internal use. There is only one CUPS source tree, and all of the changes Apple makes are being applied to the GPL version. There is no Apple-proprietary, non-GPL version. You can download the CUPS source code from Apple as part of the Darwin operating system (the open-source foundation that OS X is built upon). Also, Apple has not been bound by the GPL since May of 2002 when the CUPS author added an exception to the GPL specifically for Apple's benefit. Prior to Apple's purchase, ESP held the trademarks and rights to the logo. I don't remember anyone making a big deal about it in the past.
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