[guardian-dev] Apple App Store and GPL

[Lee Azzarello]

If any good citizen or fanboy grinds their axe, the same thing will
happen to Silent Circle and Belledonne (sponsor of Linphone). People
have published GPL software in the app store. Some of that software
even has source code available for the public to read. Millions of
people use GPL software distributed from the app store on their
idevices. Other than the VLC issue that got public attention, there
doesn't seem to be much enforcement coming from this big bad wolf
character at Apple software licensing. I haven't gone through the
submission process for anything so I don't know. Does Apple request
source code when you release an app? If not, they have very little
tools available to discover the license of the libraries. How much
work really goes into this approval process?

I think a honeypot app submission pipeline with published results
would be interesting but maybe a lot of work. I hear you have to think
of something novel to release.

-lee

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 5:39 PM, Natanael <natanael.l at gmail.com> wrote:
> And then *somebody else* tells Apple. Then what?
>
> 2013/8/28 Lee Azzarello <lee at guardianproject.info>:
>> I think this is doable. It's sort of an innocent until proven guilty
>> scheme. It seems reasonable to publish GPL software in the app store
>> and just not mention it to Apple's authorities. It might be
>> interesting to set up some honeypot apps to test how aggressive the
>> software library review process is.
>>
>> -lee
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Billy Gray <wgray at zetetic.net> wrote:
>>> thanks, that quite clearly spells it out.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:11 AM, The Doctor <drwho at virtadpt.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>>
>>>> On 08/28/2013 10:46 AM, Billy Gray wrote:
>>>> > Not to be a pain or anything, but when you say "they WILL pull it,"
>>>> > are you referencing any instances or reports that you read or heard
>>>> > about? This is a new one on me. I wouldn't be entirely surprised,
>>>> > but still I haven't heard of people getting the boot for GPL'd
>>>> > code.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/no-gpl-apps-for-apples-app-store/8046
>>>>
>>>> - --
>>>> The Doctor [412/724/301/703] [ZS]
>>>> Developer, Project Byzantium: http://project-byzantium.org/
>>>>
>>>> PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
>>>> WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/
>>>>
>>>> "Jack the sound barrier.  Bring the noise."
>>>>
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