Despite the articles claim, Apple has not released the source in s timely manner for previous versions of iOS, instead waiting for it to be pointed out or for version N+1 or N+2 to be released first.
Nor, by the way, are they required to release it to any random user out there; they are only required to release it to people who receive the binaries (it's not clear if this must be honoured if the binaries aren't received legally, but I suspect it does).
They made it pretty obvious that they were speculating, and were not trained in law. What, is that illegal now? Is it bad form? Is it offensive? They make a fairly good point about allowing an infinite period of time, which adds to the discussion.
You, by insulting the poster needlessly and grossly missing the point of the post, have added nothing to the discussion.
I usually try to refrain from doing this, since I'm also adding nothing to the discussion, but this is becoming an alarming trend.
You and your sanctimonious defense of people's right to spout what you admit is nonsense are part of the problem. Part of a healthy culture, whether it's our culture at large or "hacker culture" is a respect for facts and thoughtful, informed opinions based on knowledge and experience. The "victim" of my comment is pissing all over a set of ideals that we should all hold sacred.
Aside from that, there are two other reasons to be more civil. One is that it's just a nice thing to do to treat people respectfully even (or especially) when you're telling them they're wrong. But if that doesn't persuade you, it's worth remembering that civility is explicitly required in the HN Guidelines.
A culture that prefers polite nonsense to harsh truth-telling is a weak culture. At the very least, both should be punished, but I don't see that here.
If it's so essential to hold our tongues unless we're formally qualified experts on a topic, there wouldn't be much discussion on HN. That would kind of suck.
"You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source"
Unless you provide the source, you cannot provide binaries. That means that, unless the source is conveyed (or conveyable) Apple cannot offer binaries based on it.
All we need it a copyright holder to oblige Apple to obey the conditions under which the software is generously provided by the community for Apple to build their very successful products. Apple is free to use the free and open source software other people and companies offer provided they respect the licenses.
The GPLv2 reads: You may copy and distribute the Program ... provided that you ... Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange.
Apple does provide access to the code upon request, though it's often not very timely ...
I wonder how untimely would it be to extend their delay forever.
Sad to say, but this is what I would expect from Microsoft, not Apple.
Thus, they're on clear only if they give the source code to anyone who asks. Apparently they don't: giving it "soon" is not giving the source code but merely stating a promise to do so which is not allowed by the license. Ditto for not responding.
See this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2521911
"You may obtain a complete machine-readable copy of the source code for the LGPL-licensed portions under the terms of LGPL, without charge except for the cost of media, shipping, and handling, upon written request to Apple."
My point is that if it takes a year to "process" such requests, it renders their promise to share the source kind of useless. Now we can argue about how many months would be acceptable, but I'm not sure there's much of a point in that. So a license that has some more specific rules regarding how such requests should be handled, would be an improvement.