Re: NS libraries on Mac OS X

[Adam Fedor]

julius guzy wrote:
> Hi,
> i've been struggling to determine which bits of objective c code on mac 
> OS X are free for me to use under gnu without having to obtain a licence 
> from apple. I have been directed by numerous people to the darwin 
> developer pages, foundation pages etc but none of these makes the issue 
> clear.
>
> Initial investigations at apple developer site appear to indicate that 
> all of the routines prefixed by NS belong to apple..... but...
> I see in your site documentation plentiful references to objects 
> frefixed NS e.g.
> http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/gnustep-base_2.html#SEC2 and
> http://www.gnustep.it/nicola/Tutorials/BasicClasses/
> to name but two.
>
> Are you able to shed any light in the situation, i.e. is it the case 
> that all of the objects prefixed by NS (e.g NSObject) mentioned on this 
> site are in fact available under gnu licence even when sited on apple OS 
> X machines?

Anything you get from a MacOSX machine is copyrighted by Apple. Some 
code is part of the darwin project and under Apple's public license.

GNUstep uses the same interface as Apple and in many cases, the same 
names. However, our code was written from scratch. It is copyrighted by 
the FSF and under a GNU license.


--
Adam Fedor, Digital Optics Corp.      | I'm glad I hate spinach, because
http://www.doc.com                    | if I didn't, I'd eat it, and you
                                      | know how I hate the stuff.