[copyleft-next] app-stores and copyleft-next

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Wed Nov 28 02:01:14 UTC 2012


On 11/26/2012 09:58 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
> That said, in most cases, I think no special exception for app stores
> is necessary. There are three big issues I've seen articulated with
> regards to app stores, and all are either addressed or would never be
> addressed by copyleft.next:
> 
> 1) Most app stores do not want to distribute source code themselves.
> This is arguably prohibited by GPL v2, but copyleft.next (following
> GPL 3 and MPL2) allow source to be distributed by a party other than
> the party that distributed the binary; i.e., in the app store case, by
> the party that uploaded the binary to the app store. 

I also think this is the FSF's official interpretation of GPLv2,
though a stricter interpretation is possible. Also, GPLv2 allows the
source code offer with network-distributed object code.

> So I don't think
> that copyleft.next has a problem with app stores along this axis.

Right.

> 2) Most app store vendors do not want to license their patents that
> might cover an app. copyleft.next (following GPL 3, MPL 1.1, and
> Apache 2) only requires parties to license patents when they modify an
> app. Since no app store that I'm aware of modifies apps (and if they
> did, they should obviously grant patents to those modifications), this
> particular problem is again not an issue for copyleft.next.

Right.

> 3) Many (most?) app stores distribute to locked-down platforms, where
> user rights are restricted by means both legal and technical. This is
> an important issue, and at the current time an issue that often
> appears in the same places as app stores, but it is a different issue,
> and should be resolved independently. Or to put it another way:
> locked-down platforms can be locked down without an app store, and app
> stores can deliver to non-locked-down platforms. Given this, the
> license should take care, while solving the lockdown problem, not to
> accidentally draft restrictions that would prohibit someone from using
> an app-store-like approach to deliver code to a rights-respecting
> platform. Again, I think copyleft.next handles this the right way,
> divorcing the anti-lockdown text (Corresponding Source, part (ii))
> from discussion of the delivery mechanism (elsewhere in Sec. 9).

I don't think there is any anti-lockdown text as such. Maybe this
needs to be clarified. Did I mistakenly merge a bkuhn patch? :-)

- RF







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