Hacker News Reader

Read what he wrote in the asterisk; he is making a distinction about DRM and terms of use.

A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests.

http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab...

"Either way, the next question in the legal analysis is whether the app store qualifies as an online service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Actually, a court may answer this question first as a matter or practicality.[1] The DMCA limits liability of online service providers for infringing material provided to the service by its users (i.e. app developers here) so long as the provider meets certain conditions. Whether an app store can be considered under the DMCA definition of an online service provider has yet to be tested, but it seems likely given the trend of caselaw that has held such vendors as Amazon and YouTube to qualify."

> A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests.

Sourceforge can get away with that because Sourceforge has no editorial process.

Apple could not continue to operate their App Store in the manner they currently do and successfully pursue a section 230 defence under the DMCA.

Amazon got away with it and they have an editorial process for the Kindle store. Youtube takes down offensive videos and has a human appeals process.

The human appeals process wouldn't really factor into it. It's more about the distinction between "auto-posting anything submitted" and "high-touch pre-posting decision making process prior to posting" that distinguishes "safe harbours" from sites that bear responsibility for what they host.

I'd need to read the Amazon decision for more insight into how that played out. Seems like a somewhat unsettled area of DMCA caselaw.

That is an additional issue but only concerns GPLv3. GPLv2 is restricted for the reasons I mentioned above.

If you read his post, that isn't an additional issue, it's the issue he was talking about. If you read my post, you'll see GPLv2 isn't restricted for the reasons you mentioned because of existence and legal interpretation of the DMCA safe-harbor clause. Maybe you'd argue there would be a different legal interpretation for Apple. I doubt it.

If a company contracted out some code and the contractor stole it from some other copyrighted project, do you really think a court would hold Apple liable, unless there was some pattern of encouraging infringement in the App Store?

> A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests.

DMCA is afaik only valid in the US? So for Apple's stores in other jurisdictions it wouldn't matter?

As for the GPL being a problem for SF in the first place, that sounds odd to me -- isn't that like saying that the company I'm leasing a VPS from is a distributor of the software I make available from my site? Obviously there's a distinction, but it sounds odd that SF should be considered a distributor?

> This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom.

I think Apple views freedom as a threat to their business, so if companies are capable of "hate" then I think the statement is accurate.

Apple doesn't view 'freedom' as a threat. It views crappy user experience for regular people as a threat, and it fears that if it doesn't exert control over the ecosystem, that will be the result.

Stallman is infamous for this tactic to the point it's getting tiresome for me.

Take a look at the thread on openbsd-misc "real men don't attack straw men" (his title) which was used to attack the OpenBSD project. They didn't stand for the crap stirring then.

Whilst I think his basic principles are correct, how he conducts himself is purely extremism and compromises those ideals instantly.

Edit: fix a couple of typos. Damn phone!

Distributions include src packages separate from compiled code, so why couldn't the Apple Store (or any store) do that? This isn't a legal issue; Google allows GPL code on it's app store.

> I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code [...]

Apple allows GPL code in the App store. There are many GPL apps (both GPLv2 and GPLv3) in the store.

If you are using GPL code that you do not own in your app, you do need to get a non-GPL license from the owners to allow Apple to distribute it, and so the code ends up dual licenses--special license for Apple, GPL for everyone else.

Well yah, if you have ownership, you can license it under all the terms you want to different people. Kind of moot.

It's not moot at all. Your statement, "I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code", implied that all licenses on the code must be non-GPL.