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

[akierig]

On 2023-04-28 at 16:12 (-0500) Chris Allegretta wrote:

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.

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)

And there is now the Darling Project (https://darlinghq.org/) using Apple open-source components to build a Wine-like compatibility layer. It's been a while since I've checked in on it, but they made some promising progress last time I did.

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.

It is sometimes a complicated task to be both a Mac OS and Linux user. But there are simple ways to get nano (and innumerable other open source programs) running on Mac OS without problem, I keep mentioning MacPorts for a reason.

cheers,

ander

(and now I realize the message Chris was replying to was sent from the wrong email address so it was bounced, oops.)