Is Apple Now Blocking Contributions To GCC?

[reavertm]

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Try to be more creative bro...

[srg_13]

From what I can tell, Apple does not disallow anything actually. They just won't assign the copyright. Otherwise, everyone is perfectly free to use the GPLv2 "or any later version" licensed code. It looks more like the FSF doesn't want to take the code rather than Apple not wanting to give it (Apple already gave it, since they've put it under the GPL.)

Bingo.

Anyway, even if the FSF won't take the code without copyright assignment, people can use the Clang compiler, which is 100% free and open source under the BSD licence.

[XorEaxEax]

From what I can tell, Apple does not disallow anything actually. They just won't assign the copyright. Otherwise, everyone is perfectly free to use the GPLv2 "or any later version" licensed code. It looks more like the FSF doesn't want to take the code rather than Apple not wanting to give it (Apple already gave it, since they've put it under the GPL.)

So unless I got the above wrong, could someone provide some enlightenment about how Apple is disallowing use of their Objective-C code?

Well, since Apple are still compiling and shipping OSX with a modified gcc 4.2 they have to release the source code to those modifications, it's not an altruistic choice.

GCC prefers copyright assignment for larger chunks of code and therefore will likely not accept this code without aforementioned copyright assignment. From what I know, Apple has done this in the past and from skimming through the gcc-devel thread I'm not sure I figured out if they still do or don't.

Still, I think it's a lost cause. ObjC will be more or less internally 'standarized' by Apple since theirs is the only platform really using it. And since they are moving over to clang/llvm they will sooner or later stop developing on the gcc 4.2 release (they are stuck here since they won't accept gplv3). So if you want to do ObjC developing that is compatible with darwin (which is the most likely case) you will need clang/llvm in the future. Here's hoping Apple won't show it's usual colors and instead makes sure all their development on ObjC for clang/llvm will be contributed back to the public llvm project and not end up as just a part of their proprietary 'shipped' version now that they are using a compiler that allows this.

The reason FSF wants copyright assignment is so that in case of someone breaching the terms of distribution (GPL) of gcc it will be easier to go to court when FSF can then speak in the name of all authors, also the peculiarities of the usa intellectual property system makes this a wise choice.

[energyman]

hm, reminds me of Harald Welte who was just fine forcing companies to release source code without assigning any rights away (or having them assigned to him).
FSF just wants power. That is all about them.

[XorEaxEax]

hm, reminds me of Harald Welte who was just fine forcing companies to release source code without assigning any rights away (or having them assigned to him).
FSF just wants power. That is all about them.

Oh please, what are they doing with this 'power' you speak of? Releasing gcc (the compiler that basically fuels the whole open source ecosystem aswell as tons of proprietary products) ??

GCC is an FSF project, which is why FSF can ask the contributors sign over copyright. They can't force anyone to do so, they can only choose to accept the code or not. What does Harald Welte has to do with this? He is dealing directly with gpl violations, other than that he has nothing to do with the actual projects so how would any copyrights be transferred to him? Also, why would violators have to sign over their copyrights? They only need to abide by the licence by releasing the source code. You seem very confused.

[energyman]

one thing they can do: change the licence on a whim.

and why should anybody assign copyrights to FSF? What are they doing, besides propaganda and stupid-talk?

[XorEaxEax]

one thing they can do: change the licence on a whim.

and why should anybody assign copyrights to FSF? What are they doing, besides propaganda and stupid-talk?

They could create a new licence but the distributed code would still be available under gplvX. But they won't, since they have stuck with their four freedoms principles ever since they where created. And they created and are maintaining GCC, you know that huge compiler we discussed here. Also they crafted the most popular open source licence, GPL. And companies such as IBM, Intel, Redhat, Novell etc all contribute code to gcc and assign copyright to FSF. But hey, you've got an axe to grind with FSF for some reason, so what do you care?

[hal2k1]

In part, this is happening because of the FSF's insistence on copyright assignment; everybody else in the world needs to use and contribute to GPL code simply by relying on the GPL license, but for the FSF, that's not good enough. To me, this has always indicated a lack of confidence in the GPL on the part of the FSF itself.

Say what?

GCC is FSF's code, not Apple's code. Apple may use GCC however they pleas as one of the permissions granted to them by the FSF's license for GCC, which is GPL v3.

Apple may "use" the FSF's GCC code in the sense of reading it, studying it, running it, and modifying it for Apple's own internal use, without restriction.

Only if Apple wish to-redistribute any version of GCC code, whether modified by Apple or not, has the license given to Apple by the FSF for FSF's GCC is there any condition at all.

If Apple wish to re-distribute any version of FSF's GCC code, then Apple must make available to anyone who asks for it all of the source code for the version distributed by Apple. If this includes any parts of the code written by Apple, then that source code too must be made available.

Thos are the conditions under which Apple were given permission for using the FSF's GCC code. If Apple cannot abide by these conditions, then they have NO permission to re-distribute any version of the FSF's GCC code.

[hal2k1]

Why should anybody assign copyrights to FSF? What are they doing, besides propaganda and stupid-talk?

GCC is the FSF's code. The FSF have written GCC in the first place, for one thing.

http://directory.fsf.org/project/gcc/

You have the following freedoms, according to the FSF's license for their product, GCC:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

"All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work. This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or other equivalent, as provided by copyright law.

You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force. You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.

Conveying under any other circumstances is permitted solely under the conditions stated below. Sublicensing is not allowed

...

You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date.
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to ?keep intact all notices?.
c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so."

In addition, for the particular case of GCC, copyrights to your modifications of GCC must be passed back to the FSF.

[KAMiKAZOW]

That is because the only *current* Objective-C compilers worth anything are on the Mac side of things.

That's wrong. Just because Apple does not assign copyrights anymore, it doesn't mean that Apple's GCC release can't be used on other platforms.

to put it bluntly, the only current reason to write in Objective-C at all is for Mac/IOS development. If you want to write truly cross-platform/multiplatform, you won't write in Objective-C (which also means that you won't write on a Mac, for the most part).

The GNUstep and ?toil? projects will disagree.
It's perfectly possible to write ObjC applications that run on Windows, Linux, etc.

the end result is that Objective-C has become a closed-source fork.

Apple's GCC is GPLv2+.

What you're all forgetting is that Apple simply does not care about GCC anymore. All internal compiler development resources have been shifted to LLVM and Clang which, btw, also work on non-Apple operating systems!
FreeBSD 9 for example will likely be built with Clang.