[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Apple Public Source License APSL v1.2 2001-01-04 www.publicsource.apple.com/apsl/



Scripsit Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net>
> Previously Henning Makholm wrote:

> > I think this is non-free. It means that people without net access
> > cannot receive the software on disks from a friend and later give
> > the friend back a bugfixed version.

> Does it say `immediately' or `electronically' ?

It says:

|     (c) You must make Source Code of all Your Deployed Modifications
|     publicly available under the terms of this License, including the
|     license grants set forth in Section 3 below, for as long as you
|     Deploy the Covered Code or twelve (12) months from the date of
|     initial Deployment, whichever is longer. You should preferably
|     distribute the Source Code of Your Deployed Modifications
|     electronically (e.g. download from a web site); and

There may be a loophole in "preferably" (which I didn't notice
before). However, I'm inclined to think that even

?| You must agree to give your modifications to anyone who sends
?| you a floppy disk and a SASE within one year.

would be non-free, simply because it requires the user to keep his
modifications around at all. For example, it means that a fire or a
disk crash may place the user in legal jeopardy - it is certainly
unreasonable if the licence effectively requires that users invest
in back-up hardware and fireproof storage for his backup tapes.

-- 
Henning Makholm                           "... a specialist in the breakaway
                           oxidation phenomena of certain nuclear reactors."



Reply to: