Re: Blocking Gmail ads
"Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <jordigh@gmail.com> writes:
> Are they really giving us access? I've seen screenshots of the printer
> setup utility in Mac OS X, and although it looks vaguely like
> Foomatic, I'm quite sure there's stuff in there that's not being
> shared back thanks to the GPL exception.
They aren't giving us all of their changes, I'm certain. but they are
giving us some, which is more than we would get if the lead developer
decided to abandon CUPS for a regular job.
I would argue that it's still a win even if they gave us no changes,
and left us with the existing GPL cups codbase, simply
by giving a higher expected return to the normally low-paying job of
writing open-source software.
> There's also the danger of Apple forking off CUPs into a proprietary
> program, along with its lead developer. Experience with seemingly
> benevolent companies ...
I don't think any company is benevolent - Companies act in their own
best interest, even more often than people do. Sometimes that interest
coincides with the interests of the open-source community.
But I believe this is one of those fortunate cases. The gpl being what it is,
Apple can't take what we already have
I believe that even from a purely selfish point of view, it makes sense for
apple to keep the guts (not the UI) of the GPL version as close
to to their internal version as possible- the open-source version has
millions of beta-testers who won't get mad at apple when something breaks,
who are trained to send useful bug reports (and sometimes patches) and who
are willing to work for free. All Apple needs to do is to keep it's
internal version (the internals, not the ui) in sync with the GPL version.
By keeping it's UI proprietary, Apple preserves differentiation- in the
markets that matter for apple, UI is very important, which is much
less true in the open-source arena.
But like I said, even if apple chooses to release no more changes to the
GPL CUPS, I think we came out ahead.
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