Apple takes over CUPS, Unix printing software
Apple has acquired the source code for CUPS, an open-source project for managing printing on Unix and Linux systems.
Michael Sweet, CUPS author and an owner of the company Easy Software Products that owned the CUPS software copyright, said last week that Apple hired him and acquired the copyright in February.
CUPS, which stands for the Common Unix Printing System, will continue to be released under the General Public License (GPL) and Lesser GPL (LGPL) licensing terms. However, Apple has an exception from the terms of the license.
"Software that is developed by any person or entity for an Apple Operating System...that is linked to the CUPS imaging library or based on any sample filters or backends provided with CUPS shall not be considered to be a derivative work or collective work based on the CUPS program and is exempt from the mandatory source code release clauses of the GNU GPL," according to the CUPS list of frequently asked questions. "This exception is only available for Apple OS-Developed Software and does not apply to software that is distributed for use on other operating systems."
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
least freeware) but, anything that is developed from it is going to
considered the property of Apple Inc. Apple is probably planning a
new printing utility or something and wanted to buy out the
software.
crowd of people going "But it's GPL'd, you can't do that!". But the
copyright holder(s) *can* do as they see fit, including licensing
someone to use it under other terms.
In fact, it's not uncommon; it's exactly the same kind of thing as
having a separate non-commercial use license, or a less expensive
license for students, for instance.
Rule #1: Open Source does not equal Public Domain
The creators of the source code still retain licensing rights to their source code. There is nothing in the GPL that prevents them from changing or excepting the terms of the license as it applies to a new revision. They typically cannot retroactively apply restrictions to previous versions. All it takes is releasing a new version of the software, and they could theoretically require that you can only use CUPS to print documents containing the word "bubble".
Having read the complete license, and the revision history that I could find, there is no indication that they (the previous owners...) have ever released the code into the public domain, so the exception for Apple isn't really an issue up for debate, since Apple is apparently now the owner of the source code. It may not be a popular move. It is, however, their prerogative to do so. If the contributors to the project take issue with it, they can always choose to stop contributing, or to create their own alternative.
As a bit of an aside, consider the reason this was probably done. My suspicion is that Apple has either printer management capabilities or other intellectual property that it wants to make available in conjunction with CUPS. As the license stood, they potentially would have to open source code that is licensed fromn other parties or that they themselves have written. This probably allows them to have the happy compromise of contributing useful tools to the open-source-friendly communities without losing revenue streams from other areas that are unrelated.
- Amusing, really....
- by bjdooley July 17, 2007 1:04 PM PDT
- Since it was already released under GPL, they can't actually alter the conditions.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- yes they can
- by qwerty75 July 19, 2007 10:37 AM PDT
- If they now own the copyright, they can alter it a bit and release it under a proprietary license. Cross licensing is becoming more and more prevalent,mySQL, Java, QT,etc.
- Like this
-
(12 Comments)What they can't do is stop work on the ALREADY GPL'ed code.