Re: Please release nano under less restrictive license so we can use it

[Chris Allegretta]

On 2023-04-28 16:40, akierig wrote:
> Gur:
>
> I say this with greatest respect as a lifelong Apple user but this is
> a case where Apple Legal needs to get over its fear of the GPL3 and
> start letting y'all use it. There are plenty of successful commercial
> projects using GPL3 and as much as I'd like to see MacOS open sourced,
> I doubt that will ever happen. It is what it is.

Actually the base of OS X (err, sorry I guess its 'Mac OS' again now) is 
based on FreeBSD, which is Free Software. It's just that Apple has built 
more and more proprietary layers on top of it.

Those interested should read this page about what befell attempts to try 
and maintain an OS based on the Free core of Apple's OS 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

Apple has been moving away from the direction of openness and toward 
absolute software and hardware control for a long long time, presumably 
proportional to the amount of market share they maintained at the time - 
i.e. embracing open standards and software as the little guy in the late 
90s, stomping them out as much as possible now as a market leader. I 
sincerely hope this is not a surprise to anyone on this list.

> I don't think there is much Chris or Benno can do with regards to
> changing the license, as the FSF has copyright to most of the code.
> Given their disdain for Apple, I doubt they'd agree to change the
> license.

Why on earth anyone would want to re-license their software to someone 
with Apple's user-hostile track record on both binary signing and Right 
to Repair would indeed be a mystery.