Hacker News Reader

Comment by huhtenberg | Hacker News Reader

So it was the FSF who pushed for the removal, and not Apple doing it on their own accord?

Also reading that older HN discussion from two months ago it appears that Apple had addressed the compatibility of the AppStore T&C with the GPL (by adding an "unless" clause covering any prior licensing between the user and the software vendor) - has this changed since then?

Can anyone care to comment without bashing either side? Thanks.

View on HN

Well, FSF and Remi notified Apple of the situation, and Apple removed them (GNU Go, Battle for Wesnoth, VLC).

As I understand, FSF and Remi did not request Apple for removal, they requested either Apple modify their terms of use to be compatible with GPL, or failing that, remove the app. It was Apple's choice.

EDIT: the parent added question about App Store terms change after I replied. I am working on that.

> It was Apple's choice.

Apple's only choice was to remove it, they were never going to create a special set of ToS just for these applications, and they were even less likely to alter their overall ToS to be compatible with the GPL.

Even if they were willing to change their ToS as soon as possible, that would probably take a good few weeks of back and forth with their legal department. But a notification of breach of licence probably comes with an "immediate action required" stick, so the only thing they could do immediately would be to remove the app from the store.

Apple's choice was to clarify the ToS, notably to explain if you are able or not to use iOS applications for professional use.

http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2010-Decembe...

They preferred to plainly remove it.

Or they could use their approval process to figure out that the licence was incompatible with their ToS.

Why should they pay to evaluate the license someone else chose?

Because they are using their software? And the the entity that built the app for the "App Store" was not the sole copyright holder of the software.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com