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this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Apple: builds their entire software ecosystem on free, open-source foundations.
Also Apple: better have a million euros if you want to even start distributing software.
The best use case for an external app store is free open-source software, like we have on the Android side with F-Droid. Apple stopped that before it even started. Jeez.
This is why copyleft licenses like gpl, agpl, ~~mit~~, creative commons exist. If they use those projects then the derivatives would also need to be open source.
Edit: mit is not copyleft
MIT is free for commercial use and just requires attribution, you aren't required to open source software derived from MIT licensed code.
GPL is also free for commercial use... all open source licenses are. The rendering engines used by Safari (and Chrome/Edge) are GPL.
GPL can be used for commercial purposes, but it requires all software derived from it to also be open source and GPL compatible. So no one whose commercial business relies on selling software will use GPL because their customers can copy and distribute the code.
Neither Safari nor Chrome’s rendering engine is GPL. Safari’s engine is LGPL, which means the binary library can be linked into a closed source program, but modifications to the library’s code must remain open.
Chromium is BSD, which doesn’t even require modifications to remain open. So I can take chromium’s source, change it however I want for my own browser, and never distribute that code.
If Safari’s and Chrome’s engines were GPL, Safari and Chrome would be forced to be open source, and they very much are not.
The thing is that source code is just a small part of an application. For example, Quake games are open sourced, but their assets like textures, models and music are not. Thus you can't just compile the game and call it a day. Another example is all kinds of certificates, they are never part of the source. You can compile the app, but it won't work.
Source code, GPL or otherwise, doesn't matter.
Thanks for pointing it out. I was making a project that uses this license and derivatives had to use MIT license. I forgot that it's not copyleft and so it allows derivatives to be proprietary.
Correct. This is also why Apple switched to zsh as the default shell over bash. They still ship Bash 3.2 in macOS, because from 4.0 on, Bash started using GPLv3 instead of GPLv2.
I'm not against the idea of creating proprietary software out of open-source software, if the license allows that. However, I am always against this practice of "closing the door behind you".
I agree. If they use open source code. They should give back. It doesn't matter if it was copyleft or permissive.
Note that third party app stores like F-Droid still aren't first-class citizens like Google Play, since every installation still needs to be confirmed by an os popup, they can't automatically install updates on most phones.
TBF if it wasn't without a popup it would be insanely easy to install malware without the user knowing
You even get that popup on windows when installing something.
The only thing I see a problem with is that something like fdroid can't be installed from the play store
The thing is, Google Play doesn't have that for each app it updates. If I can choose to trust Google Play, I should be able to choose to trust F-Droid in that regard.
Google doesn't want you to have that app. Why'd they make it easier?
Regulations are the only way they'd notice.
they should at least give an option to be able to skip that. like the user manually enabling a special permission for a single app that before enabling it you see multiple scary warning screens, confirming that you know what you're doing.
it's my fucking phone, just let me update my software without having to go through manually clicking on update 30 times.
F-Droid can do unattended installs, you just need A13+ and the basic client.
Great news, thanks!