Re: Clearing SWAP
On 09/05/2008, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <jordigh@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do you *know* whether Apple doesn't pass anything back to Darwin?
>
> Well, they made a GPL exception *just for themselves only* with CUPS.
Allow me to qualify that a bit more.
Yes Apple does apparently give back some code... It looks khtml or
Webkit or whatever the marketable term nowadays is does indeed have
free Apple code in it, even if they gave it back in ways that were
difficult for free developers to adopt and took a long time to
actually find their way back to KDE. I've never quite understood what
is the difference between Mach, XNU, and Darwin, where the kernel ends
and where the operating system begins, and just exactly what is it
that Apple took and gave back when it comes down to that. What irks me
is that I get the impression that Apple takes a lot more code than it
gives back and it uses unfair practices like the GPL exception in CUPS
that's just for them only.
For me, that GPL exception and all the non-free software they release
point to even murkier practices under the surface. If that's what they
let us see, what are they hiding from us? I don't hate Apple (nor
Microsoft for that matter), but I do think it's likely that they'll be
the next monopolists. First IBM, then Microsoft, now Apple. I guess
it's time to change masters again. This does not make me happy.
- Jordi G. H.
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