On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 10:54 PM, Alexander Hansen
<address@hidden> wrote:
On 11/9/12 12:38 PM, edmund ronald wrote:
> This discussion started with Gnu Octave. Octave is an interpreter, so
> there are no downstream products.
Not quite true. Octave also has headers and libraries, and people can
write utilities that build against those, and any distribution would
necessarily involve Octave's license.
In what way can Apple's shenanigans on
> OS X create issues for users here? They are executing their code on the
> same non-free machine it was compiled on, and they have already agreed
> to said non-free environment.
>
I agree there is an issue, but OS X seems to be a poisoned well anyway from the point of view of free software; I don't think any reasonable amount of precautions could work against the world's most litigious company. So maybe a warning is what is really required - I would suggest "by abiding by the terms of the Xcode license you are violating the GPL ***if you redistribute any results of the compilation***, and your license to Octave would be cancelled. And maybe this is exactly what the bright legal minds at Apple want.
Edmund