xmlvm-users

[xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[Steven G. <st...@ma...>]

Is anyone on this list able to clear up whether or not GPL'd apps are
legally valid on the App Store? We've done some searching and found a number
of blogs (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/03/07/iphone-gpl,
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/762498/iphone-and-gpl,
http://plasmasturm.org/log/512/, and
http://www.geoffeg.org/wordpress/2009/10/07/the-iphone-and-the-gpl-v2-are-not-incompatible/)
discussing it with varied conclusions, but nothing definitive or from a
lawyer.

This obviously has great implications on the suitability of xmlvm under its
current licence for porting code to Objective-C for iPhone.


Thanks

[xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[George S. <ge...@sn...>]

We (I and my two partners) are new to xmlvm and have not YET submitted any
patches, but intend to.

It is my understanding that the GPL is about the Personal freedom to see
what the developer is doing on YOUR machine and the ability to change that.

No place, to my knowledge, does the GPL say that the developer must help (or
even facilitate) others redistributing the application.

Currently, all the apps we plan on creating are going to be free, and
therefore we have no concern of an unscrupulous development org under
cutting us by simply taking the code we will publish and redistributing the
app at a lower price.

George

Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[Sascha H. <sa...@xm...>]

I didn't see a question in you e-mail, but I try to comment on what you say:

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 2:49 PM, George Smith <ge...@sn...> wrote:

>
> We (I and my two partners) are new to xmlvm and have not YET submitted any
> patches, but intend to.
>
> It is my understanding that the GPL is about the Personal freedom to see
> what the developer is doing on YOUR machine and the ability to change that.
>

The GPL is about contributing code back to the OpenSource, if you make use
of GPL code yourself. It's nothing about looking at other people's machines
:)


>
> No place, to my knowledge, does the GPL say that the developer must help
> (or
> even facilitate) others redistributing the application.
>

No, GPL doesn't say that.


>
> Currently, all the apps we plan on creating are going to be free, and
> therefore we have no concern of an unscrupulous development org under
> cutting us by simply taking the code we will publish and redistributing the
> app at a lower price.
>

If you plan to OpenSource the apps you are generating using XMLVM, that
don't worry about anything, you can just do so. :)

// Sascha


>
> George
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
> _______________________________________________
> xmlvm-users mailing list
> xml...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xmlvm-users
>

Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[George S. <ge...@sn...>]

Thanks for the comments.

 

Re:

 

It is my understanding that the GPL is about the Personal freedom to see
what the developer is doing on YOUR machine and the ability to change that.

 

The GPL is about contributing code back to the OpenSource, if you make use
of GPL code yourself. It's nothing about looking at other people's machines
:)

 

Having read a fair amount of the history re Richard Stallman, it is my
understanding that it all originated with a closed-source print driver that
he needed to tweak.  It was not about contributing back (though that is
simply the civilized thing to do), but being able to control you own
destiny.  Part of that control was to limit exploitation of developers and
the work they author without any contribution back to the community.  And
yes, simple use is not exploitation.

 

Anyways, my $0.02, George

 

  _____  

From: sa...@gm... [mailto:sa...@gm...] On Behalf Of Sascha
Haeberling
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 7:35 AM
To: ge...@sn...
Cc: xml...@li...
Subject: Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

 

I didn't see a question in you e-mail, but I try to comment on what you say:

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 2:49 PM, George Smith <ge...@sn...> wrote:


We (I and my two partners) are new to xmlvm and have not YET submitted any
patches, but intend to.

It is my understanding that the GPL is about the Personal freedom to see
what the developer is doing on YOUR machine and the ability to change that.

 

The GPL is about contributing code back to the OpenSource, if you make use
of GPL code yourself. It's nothing about looking at other people's machines
:)

 


No place, to my knowledge, does the GPL say that the developer must help (or
even facilitate) others redistributing the application.

 

No, GPL doesn't say that.

 


Currently, all the apps we plan on creating are going to be free, and
therefore we have no concern of an unscrupulous development org under
cutting us by simply taking the code we will publish and redistributing the
app at a lower price.

 

If you plan to OpenSource the apps you are generating using XMLVM, that
don't worry about anything, you can just do so. :)

 

// Sascha

 


George



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Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[Panayotis K. <pan...@pa...>]

On 17 Μαρ 2010, at 5:19 ΜΜ, Steven Gurr wrote:

> Is anyone on this list able to clear up whether or not GPL'd apps  
> are legally valid on the App Store? We've done some searching and  
> found a number of blogs (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/03/07/iphone-gpl 
> , http://stackoverflow.com/questions/762498/iphone-and-gpl, http://plasmasturm.org/log/512/ 
> , and http://www.geoffeg.org/wordpress/2009/10/07/the-iphone-and-the-gpl-v2-are-not-incompatible/) 
>  discussing it with varied conclusions, but nothing definitive or  
> from a lawyer.
>
> This obviously has great implications on the suitability of xmlvm  
> under its current licence for porting code to Objective-C for iPhone.
>

There are already a lot of GPL-ed applications in the App-Store,  
including Xokoban :)

Some of them, by the way, (like the C64 emulator) when requested to  
give back the source code, they don't do it.
Something which made me furious*



*except of course if they have a linking exception (which I believe  
they don't)

Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[Andrea P. <and...@gm...>]

Hi all,

I following this mailing list since september and I didn't submit any
contribution yet, but I always asked to myself: How this guys think to
detect if an app has been cross-compiled with xmlvm and published on
appstore without owning a proper linking exception license? I don't
know deeply xmlvm but I hope that there are methods of detecting xmlvm
cross-compiled apps or are you relying only on good faith of
developers? Objectively, I can cross-compile my android app with xmlvm
and then publish it saying that I wrote it directly in Objective C
without using xmlvm (like C64 case mentioned by Panayotis)

Regards

a.p.

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Panayotis Katsaloulis
<pan...@pa...> wrote:
>
> On 17 Μαρ 2010, at 5:19 ΜΜ, Steven Gurr wrote:
>
> Is anyone on this list able to clear up whether or not GPL'd apps are
> legally valid on the App Store? We've done some searching and found a number
> of blogs (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/03/07/iphone-gpl,
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/762498/iphone-and-gpl, http://plasmasturm.org/log/512/, and
> http://www.geoffeg.org/wordpress/2009/10/07/the-iphone-and-the-gpl-v2-are-not-incompatible/)
> discussing it with varied conclusions, but nothing definitive or from a
> lawyer.
> This obviously has great implications on the suitability of xmlvm under its
> current licence for porting code to Objective-C for iPhone.
>
> There are already a lot of GPL-ed applications in the App-Store, including
> Xokoban :)
> Some of them, by the way, (like the C64 emulator) when requested to give
> back the source code, they don't do it.
> Something which made me furious*
>
>
> *except of course if they have a linking exception (which I believe they
> don't)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
> _______________________________________________
> xmlvm-users mailing list
> xml...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xmlvm-users
>
>

Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[Arno P. <ar...@pu...>]

at this point it is easy to detect.   :-)   With enough effort we can 
probably detect even if someone tries to conceal the fact they are using 
XMLVM. But in principle we rely on the honesty of developers/companies. 
The whole discussion on this mailing list is an indication of this 
honesty. Of course there are cases where the GPL has been violated. 
There are actually some famous cases. There is a web site dedicated to 
this: http://gpl-violations.org/ As far as I know, those cases that have 
become known, the perpetrator was put under so much pressure (bad press) 
that they eventually complied to the GPL.

Arno


On 3/17/10 9:23 AM, Andrea Paiano wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I following this mailing list since september and I didn't submit any
> contribution yet, but I always asked to myself: How this guys think to
> detect if an app has been cross-compiled with xmlvm and published on
> appstore without owning a proper linking exception license? I don't
> know deeply xmlvm but I hope that there are methods of detecting xmlvm
> cross-compiled apps or are you relying only on good faith of
> developers? Objectively, I can cross-compile my android app with xmlvm
> and then publish it saying that I wrote it directly in Objective C
> without using xmlvm (like C64 case mentioned by Panayotis)
>
> Regards
>
> a.p.
>
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Panayotis Katsaloulis
> <pan...@pa...>  wrote:
>>
>> On 17 Μαρ 2010, at 5:19 ΜΜ, Steven Gurr wrote:
>>
>> Is anyone on this list able to clear up whether or not GPL'd apps are
>> legally valid on the App Store? We've done some searching and found a number
>> of blogs (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/03/07/iphone-gpl,
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/762498/iphone-and-gpl, http://plasmasturm.org/log/512/, and
>> http://www.geoffeg.org/wordpress/2009/10/07/the-iphone-and-the-gpl-v2-are-not-incompatible/)
>> discussing it with varied conclusions, but nothing definitive or from a
>> lawyer.
>> This obviously has great implications on the suitability of xmlvm under its
>> current licence for porting code to Objective-C for iPhone.
>>
>> There are already a lot of GPL-ed applications in the App-Store, including
>> Xokoban :)
>> Some of them, by the way, (like the C64 emulator) when requested to give
>> back the source code, they don't do it.
>> Something which made me furious*
>>
>>
>> *except of course if they have a linking exception (which I believe they
>> don't)
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
>> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
>> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
>> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
>> _______________________________________________
>> xmlvm-users mailing list
>> xml...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xmlvm-users
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
> _______________________________________________
> xmlvm-users mailing list
> xml...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xmlvm-users

Re: [xmlvm-users] GPL and iPhone AppStore

[Tor L. <tm...@ik...>]

> Is anyone on this list able to clear up whether or not GPL'd apps are
> legally valid on the App Store?

First you should make it clear whether you mean GPL version 2 or
version 3. I won't bother considering version 3 at all here as it is
much more restrictive, or enforces much more "freedom" if you see it
from that point of view.

GPLv2 apps are of course legally valid on the App Store.

The interesting question is whether you can take code somebody *else*
holds the copyright to, and without their consent (or perhaps even
against their expressed wish) redistribute it in binary form through
the App Store. (I think you could, but I am certainly not going to
try.)

Of course, you would have to provide all source code to those who
receive the App, either by bundling the sources inside the app (if
feasible) and providing a means to extract it, or by providing a
"written offer". That is not what is unclear.

The potential problem is that it will take quite some effort for the
those who get the app from the App Store to make use of their right to
modify and redistribute it (and if they modify it in some utterly
trivial way, but add something that Apple doesn't approve of, they
won't be able to, except using the "ad hoc" schemes to a limited
number of recipients).

For this reason I personally wouldn't dream of taking random GPL or
LGPL code, no matter how widespread, no matter how many individuals
hold the copyright to it, and use it in something distributed through
the App Store without asking for permission first.

(In fact, it is *more* "risky" to use code that has a lot of copyright
holders without asking, as it makes it more likely that at least one
of them is a jerk and starts raising hell.)

Finally, one thing to keep in mind when pondering these questions is
that the GPLv2 was written in 1991. Back then the normal OSes most
GPL software ended up being run on were quite proprietary ones. They
did not necessarily come with any compiler bundled at all. Compilers
were costly extras. The GPLv2 as such must thus a priori be totally
fine with that situation, as it was the situation when it was
carefully written.

But the situation with the App Store is still quite different, as it
is a distribution channel with mandatory arbitrary "censorship"
enforced.

> but nothing definitive or from a lawyer.

Oh, you have misunderstood. A lawyer (which I am not) is somebody who
can give real legal *advice*, but that is just that, advice. For
definiteness you need a court  ruling ;)

--tml