I dont understand this, they already share some of the source to several OS components. Do you care to elaborate a bit on this? Is there some GPL clause or something that became too risky for Apple or something? How do BSD projects get by with the newer licenses aside from already being open source it doesnt seem to affect their underlying license...
Anyway, the message is pretty obvious: Apple won’t ship anything that’s licensed under GPL v3 on OS X. Now, why is that?
There are two big changes in GPL v3. The first is that it explicitly prohibits patent lawsuits against people for actually using the GPL-licensed software you ship. The second is that it carefully prevents TiVoization, locking down hardware so that people can’t actually run the software they want.
So, which of those things are they planning for OS X, eh?
I’m also intrigued to see how far they are prepared to go with this. They already annoyed and inconvenienced a lot of people with the Samba and GCC removal. Having wooed so many developers to the Mac in the last decade, are they really prepared to throw away all that goodwill by shipping obsolete tools and making it a pain in the ass to upgrade them?
Linus Torvalds has in multiple talks said that he does not hate gplv3. He thinks limiting DRM (tivo case) in the license is something he do not want for the kernel, and he strongly disliked the method where GPLv2 automatically upgrades to GPLv3 with the "or any newer version", since his view is that GPLv3 and GPLv2 is two very different licenses because of the DRM clause. During the debconf talk, he said that describing gplv3 as being similar to gplv2 was immoral.
Here is a direct quote "I actually think version 3 is a fine license" - Linus Torvalds
FSF view DRM as just being a physical version of a legal restriction, and they often quote laws that makes it illegal to bypass DRM as proof that DRM is also a legal restriction. Thus in GPLv3 they treat them as identical and they don't see it as a change in how the GPL license work. Linus strongly disagree on this.
This is very different from the Apple case and I doubt anyone can find similar quotes from them.
Their lawyers likely strongly advised against bundling GPLv3 software with their OS because there is a non-zero risk that some judge, somewhere, some day, will claim that requires them to release the source of all their software under GPLv3.
I think that, if GPLv3 ever gets sufficiently tested in courts all around the world (which is highly unlikely) that stance could change.
