Apple Will No Longer Be Developing CUPS Under The GPL

[linuxgeex]

I am BSD user - From this piece of information you can make educated guess if I like more GPL or permissive licenses like Apache is.
It's not even week since my last PR in github. So, you can shove it..

LOL aht0. What I said was in SUPPORT of what you were saying. That's why it starts with AND. You were mentioning the hypocrisy of "enforcing freedom" and I was continuing with pointing out how stupid and self-destructive people who want to use the GPL to "enforce freedom" are.

You're sort-of welcome. :-P

[aht0]

You're sort-of welcome. :-P

Yeah, got pwned. I apologize!

[linuxgeex]

Yeah, got pwned. I apologize!

No sweat we all have those days. I have chronic pancreatitis, I'm in pain a lot, so I'm pretty snappy sometimes and I'm the first one to forgive it lol.

[nslay]

Your attitude is exactly why Linux will never be a competition to Windows and MacOS on the desktop, willingness to tolerate bugs and continuously persuading yourself that it keeps getting better while in reality basic functionality often doesnt work, missing functionality, bugs etc. Geeks might tolerate that, but others dont have time and energy for that. I used to tolerate all that, but not any more, I am opening my own business and I am not risking things breaking in the middle of a business trip, subpar quality of some applications and crappy battery life. Any software setback would cost me time, energy and money, that is unacceptable and therefore I am buying a Macbook Pro, it has great battery life and everything just works without jumping through hoops to make some peripherals or software work as intended. Its proprietary? Yes and I dont give a fuck as long as it serves my purposes as intended and makes me money. In a better world Linux might do that job for me reliably, but it cant and I am not pretending it can because I know from experience it cant.

I'm actually have the opposite experience. My organization locks down Windows with two forms of malware scanners, lots of obscure group policies, randomly (and forcibly) runs updates on our Windows workstations that disrupt and/or destroy our running experiments that our entire lab is actually running Linux now. We don't have time for lost results or OS glitches/hiccups caused by the OS, malware scanners and group policies that disrupt productivity.

Yeah, Linux is definitely rough! But if Linux is a foolish guy riding a motorcycle without a helmet, my organization's Windows workstation is like a guy wearing knight's armor walking along the freeway on a hot sunny day. And, you know, a combination of stupid group policies and two forms of malware scanners... you damn well better believe everything is 10x slower than Linux. I mean, there are no words to describe how annoying (maybe even hazardous to mental health!) when every 3rd save of a small word document or powerpoint presentation takes 5 minutes (no, seriously)! And I've been putting up with this sort of non-sense for two years. BUT HEY! Microsoft provides around-the-clock support and Windows is professionally developed... useful that!

Is it Windows fault? Only partly. The organization does go overboard on crippling Windows. But I follow the organization's security configuration management guidelines for Linux and that doesn't cripple Linux! Why do similar settings for Windows cripple it beyond practical usability (that doesn't cause its user mental illnesses!)? But what is this partly to blame aspect? Let's face it, Microsoft's quality has recently gone down the toilet. I was very tempted to enumerate unbelievably stupid problems and/or inconsistencies I've experienced with Windows 10, Office365, Visual Studio and Windows Phone. The problems I have experienced, and I don't say this lightly, justifies names for Microsoft like stupid or moron. These are problems that should never have existed or should have been fixed immediately (some of these problems have been known for years!). Maybe Microsoft is now taking advantaging of Linux users that tolerate subpar quality and bugs?

But yeah... We're all using Linux to do a lot of our work now. Opposite experience here!

[SystemCrasher]

Who would be surprised by such move? Its Apple, its enough to read their terms of use and development for App Store to get the idea of what they're up to. That's how BSD "freedom" really works. But of course you could scavenge some open part of iOS and try to make iphone yourself. Though apple is having fun with opening and closing back their macos parts, subject to their sales department mood. Needless to say it makes Linux far more viable and safer choice for one's own project * .

* Unless you're Apple of course.

[aht0]

Who would be surprised by such move? Its Apple, its enough to read their terms of use and development for App Store to get the idea of what they're up to. That's how BSD "freedom" really works. But of course you could scavenge some open part of iOS and try to make iphone yourself. Though apple is having fun with opening and closing back their macos parts, subject to their sales department mood. Needless to say it makes Linux far more viable and safer choice for one's own project * .

* Unless you're Apple of course.

Apple!=BSD.
BSD=freedom
GPL!=freedom

Linux is really safer only until you are using something that's specifically fool-proofed, like RHEL and thus you can rely on it as a tool. Or you'd spend noticeable amount of time fixin' and fighting your tool, instead of doing your work.

You won't build a house especially fast if your tools keep breaking down..

[zigfreed]

The GNU GPL has patent clauses. I'd presume those parts, plus the desire to use a license that keeps up with new licensing language was the motivation. Unlike WebKit, Apple purchased CUPS from Easy Software Products so they certainly can control it better. From my experience, Google Cloud Print (GCP) is, like bonjour/airprint, not a reliable solution. GCP features vary by provider; not all printer settings are available and is sometimes disabled when the printer goes to standby. Regardless, GCP would not function as a print spooler, rather more of a print server - you can not troubleshoot printer problems with GCP.

LPRng isn't dead, just like 4Font's OSS. You can still print and jam like it's 1999.

[jelabarre59]

Your attitude is exactly why Linux will never be a competition to Windows and MacOS on the desktop, willingness to tolerate bugs and continuously persuading yourself that it keeps getting better while in reality basic functionality often doesnt work, missing functionality, bugs etc.

Seriously? And that is ANY different from what we have to deal with in MSWindows and MacOS how exactly??? For that matter, these problems are MORE likely to get addressed under Linux, while Microsoft and Apple are willing to sit on bugs indefinitely, and users are perfectly willing to let them do it.

In Apple's defence RE Cups, though; an Apache license might just get it *better* support across more platforms though. In theory it could even get picked up by Microsoft now (not very likely, but the option is there, even though MS has a NIH attitude). I'm presuming the "Apple CUPS" won't diverge greatly from "Apache CUPS", since it wouldn't hold much benefit to Apple to break compatibility.

[peppercats]

Apple!=BSD.
BSD=freedom
GPL!=freedom

Linux is really safer only until you are using something that's specifically fool-proofed, like RHEL and thus you can rely on it as a tool. Or you'd spend noticeable amount of time fixin' and fighting your tool, instead of doing your work.

You won't build a house especially fast if your tools keep breaking down..

MPL is freedom, BSD is anarchy.

[aht0]

MPL is freedom, BSD is anarchy.

If you looked at respectively licensed code itself and compared, situation is rather reverse.