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Yes, you do (sometimes) have to take special action to support the GPL. For example, Ruby recently changed its license to allow the bundling of readline 6 with MRI. This was a distribution problem as well.

Show me the places where Apple EULA "explicitly" disallows the GPL (and not just includes things that are incompatible with the GPL). There certainly is GPLed Software in the app store, even with a notice included (see Battle of Wesnoth). If it was explicitly forbidden, that would not happen.

My interpretation is that Apple just doesn't care. The want Apple-signed code on their devices and if your license doesn't allow signed code, they won't help you. This by itself is sad and I would very much hope for that to be different, but not "explicitly disallowing".




I think MS were the ones that explicitly mentioned the GPL.

Apple do not explicitly mention it, however they have chosen to add extra restrictions to their licence, which goes above and beyond a normal "Download software from this web host". Explicit clauses that make the GPL incompatible are the same as "explicitly banning GPL apps".

The GPL is a massively popular licence, I believe Apple would have considered it. They appear to have rejected it.




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