Editorials @ Applelust

APSL and the Open Source Community

Can a corporation as heavily branded as Apple truly follow an open-source software development paradigm? The engineers of the Safari project seem to think so, and so do quite a few members of the KDE community. In fact, they seem downright ecstatic.

But before we all join them in the champagne toasts, let's take a look at what Apple's doing, and what effect it could have on the open-source community.

Apple has release the following (and more) under the Apple Public Source License (APSL).

Safari: a new web-browser based on the Konqueror source code, was announced during Mac Expo this year, and made available for open-source development. Apple also provided a detailed change log for the KDE community.

Darwin: BSD-based, and the core of OS X, was the first corporate product made available on the open-source market in 1999. (boston.com article)

Rendezvous: Apple's proprietary combination of networking technologies has been released on the open source market, as well.

Now, the APSL isn't exactly the same as the GNU Public License (GPL), but it's darned close. So close, in fact, that a developer has a right to download Apple's code and distribute his/her changes to it, as long as the APSL is included in the release, and the source is made freely available. There are key differences that we'll touch upon in a bit.

At first glance, Apple seems to be fully-involved in the open-source movement. They are allowing a community of developers to openly work on products and contribute changes in a democratic fashion. Most importantly, they are showing their interest and devotion to the tech-geeks by taking part in the open-source movement.

Well, almost open source. If the key differences between the APSL and the GPL are played out in the wrong way, Apple could well be moving in the direction of a draconian Microsoft.

The GPL stated simply requires that all software released under the license is free to use and distribute, and ultimately belongs to the community at large. It asks only that the license be distributed along with the software and that the original creator of the work be references. The APSL says the same thing, except for changes made by or for Apple. In other words, if you write some innovative code, and were not contracted by Apple, it belongs to the community at large and remains free to use and distribute. In fact, the license requires it. If Apple does it, they are able to choose whether to release it or not.

So the APSL gives Apple the ability to profit from their work, and no one else to, while the GPL doesn't allow anyone to profit. In other words, Apple hasn't completely let go of their code.

What if Apple didn't write the code, but hires the innovative developer who did, as in the case of Safari? David Hyatt -- a key Safari developer -- is the originator of the Chimera project. Does that mean we're not going to see a version 1.0 of Chimera? It's possible. It depends on how Microsoftian Apple's going to be. Will Apple hire every innovator that could pose a risk to their product? By keeping the Chimera creator inside the company, they've certainly limited the development of the best competitor Safari has.

Another issue that comes up is with OS X itself. If you want to run it, you have to buy an Apple computer. That goes without saying and seems logical, but it doesn't sit pretty with some in the open-source community. While Darwin can run on any x86 architecture, Aqua will only run on Apple's proprietary -- and quite expensive -- hardware.

While OS X is by far the best product Apple has, if they didn't sell hardware, they wouldn't survive. If Apple allowed OS X to run on any x86 platform, they wouldn't sell hardware. An x86 computer that runs faster than a G4 can be built for about half as much, and there are tons of case-mods that make up for the crappy WinTel box designs. If the tech-geeks who build computers could put OS X on a home-grown, they would. But, there are bottom lines to meet, and Apple has to meet them.

So why release open-source software at all? To snipe at the competition and gain market-share, of course.

While easily winning the war against Microsoft in the creative and education fields, Apple needs to increase their market-share in other areas. Microsoft has made sure to lock down the business community. There is one audience that's always been anti Microsoft, though, that Apple hasn't been able to reach. Engineers, programmers, developers and hackers: the tech-geeks. They despise Microsoft. If Apple can show the tech-geeks that they understand them and also despise Microsoft, they just might bring them over.

First we saw the switch ads. Ads don't work on the techies, but the ads aren't directly targeted to them. Apple is just showing everyone that their direct competitor is Redmond. Then -- more recently -- Apple weighs heavy on the propaganda: Safari is compared against Internet Explorer in fairly insulting language; Keynote is a direct competitor with Powerpoint, but built on XML; OpenOffice -- a long-time open-source project -- is suddenly making above-the-fold status on Apple's open-source page. Apple is saying "See? We don't like Microsoft, in fact, we're moving away from them and burning the bridge."

And while their product line-up lays that propaganda down, the History of Darwin says this:

Darwin is like Linux with a day job: By day, it stays discreetly in the background, running Mac OS X. By night, Darwin shows its open source roots: hackable, extensible, and the product of the same community, culture, and traditions that created Apache, sendmail, GNU/Linux, Mozilla, and UNIX itself. Users are happy, but engineers also get to have their fun.

The paragraph woos engineers by comparing OS X to Linux, and also sets Apple up as an open source champion. It's pure marketing propaganda, and if you combine that with the messages being delivered by Safari, Keynote and OpenOffice, it's the sort of message the open-source community is willing to hear.

Apple has the chance here to be a pillar to the open-source community. They have the chance to spread the idea of free ideas, free sharing, and move us closer to a kind of anarchic software utopia. No other corporation has the history and mythology necessary to pull it off. They are the first major U.S. corporation to make a move towards open-source, and started the Personal Computer business. However, in order to be successful as a business, Apple has to sell products and gain market-share.

If they are using the open-source movement simply as a way to do that, we're in for trouble and no good can come of it. If, however, Apple truly supports the ideas set forth in the GPL, then perhaps we're looking at the beginning of a very cool and exciting future. As long as they release a two-button mouse. Developers like those, too.

- Sabin Densmore

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