互联网与文化meta.ath0.com
苹果的 GPL 大清洗
Apple’s great GPL purge
2012 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇文章统计了 OS X 10.5 到 10.7 中 GPL 许可软件包的数量变化：从 47 个降到 29 个，并据此认为 Apple 正在系统性地移除 GPL 软件，尤其是 GPLv3 许可的软件。文中以 bash 停留在 GPLv2 最后版本、Samba 和 GCC 被移除等例子佐证。评论则从安全更新、企业法律顾虑、BSD/LLVM 替代以及 GPL 的长期价值等角度展开讨论。
为什么经久不衰：它用具体数字记录了一个影响深远的平台策略：大公司如何因许可证条款重构基础软件栈，今天看开源治理和苹果生态仍有参考价值。
HN 评论精选
原文用包数量证明 Apple 在系统性清除 GPL，尤其避免 GPLv3。
有人因原链接打不开而重贴了原文。原文统计：10.5 有 47 个 GPL 包，10.6 有 44 个，10.7 只剩 29 个，这支持 Apple 正在积极移除 GPL 软件的看法。剩余包也不健康：Lion 自带的是 2006 年的 bash 3.2，因为那是 GPLv2 下的最后一个版本；信息很明确，Apple 不会在 OS X 上发布 GPLv3 软件。
i386查看英文原文
Reposted here since it seems the page linked is no longer visible (at least for me). ------------ Apple’s great GPL purge Posted on 5 February 2012 by meta Apple obligingly allows you to browse and download the open source software they use in OS X. Since they have listings for each version of OS X, I decided to take a look at how much software they were using that was only available under the GNU public license. The results are illuminating: 10.5: 47 GPL-licensed packages. 10.6: 44 GPL-licensed packages. 10.7: 29 GPL-licensed packages. This clearly supports the idea that Apple is aggressively trying to remove all GPL-licensed software from OS X. While the removal of Samba and GCC got some attention, the numbers show that there’s a more general purging going on. The 29 remaining GPL-licensed packages aren’t too healthy either. Lion apparently ships with bash 3.2. That’s from 2006. The current version is 4.2.10. Why no upgrade? Because Apple’s shipping the last version of bash that was under the GPL version 2. 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?
旧 GPL 组件带来安全风险，移除后可由包管理器更新，且与 BSD 去 GNU 趋势一致。
Apple 不更新 GNU 软件曾直接影响 OS X 的安全。Charlie Miller 就利用过时的第三方工具攻破 OS X；他在 2007 年 Black Hat 演讲中说，找 0day 的步骤是：找他们用的过时开源包、读变更日志、找好漏洞、获利。Mac OS X 上的 Samba 曾有一个可远程 root 的漏洞，而且自 2005 年 2 月就没更新过。移除 GPL 软件反而可能更好，因为 fink/macports/homebrew 能补上及时更新；FreeBSD 也在去 GNU 化，Apple 可能只是跟随。
sc68cal查看英文原文
Apple's failure to update GNU software was actively impacting the security of OS X. Charlie Miller made mincemeat of OS X because of the sorry state of security of 3rd party utilities (http://rixstep.com/1/20080422,00.shtml). As Charlie Miller noted in his '07 BH presentation: (https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-07/Miller/Presentation/bh-usa-07-miller.pdf) How to Find a Mac OS X 0-Day: 1) Find some open source package they use that is out of date 2) Read the change log for that software 3) Find a good bug 4) Profit! "The Samba on Mac OS X (on Monday) had an exploitable remote root vulnerability in it...it hadn’t been updated since February 2005!" If anything, Apple removing GPL software creates a better situation, because fink/macports/homebrew will be available to pick up the slack and provide more timely updates. Plus, it seems like FreeBSD is trying to get rid of as much GNU stuff as they can, so that more of what they release is covered under a BSD license (see BSD grep, for example). It may be that Apple is just picking up some of these changes from FreeBSD and doing a little bit of housekeeping on their end.
企业因 GPLv3 法律风险偏好宽松许可，BSD 替代使 Apple 的去 GPL 策略合理。
这不意外，尤其对关注 BSD 项目和公司回避 GPLv3 的人来说。GPLv3 纸面上很好，但增加了让企业不悦的限制。我曾为一家公司做合同工作，其律师禁止使用 LGPL 库，怕代码被“感染”；我后来写的不少代码以 BSD 许可发布，别人用周末就能用自己的库复刻产品。Apple 若有可比的 BSD 替代，用 BSD 替换 GPL 符合其利益；LLVM/clang 就是 BSD 许可且开放开发；FreeBSD 和 OpenBSD 也在移除 GPL。
X-Istence查看英文原文
This comes as no surprise at all. At least to those of us who have been looking at the various BSD projects, and how businesses are shunning the GPLv3. On paper the GPLv3 is awesome, but it adds some major restrictions that make it unappealing to corporations. I did some contract work for a company whose lawyers forbid the use of LGPL'ed libraries in their software even-though it means re-inventing the wheel a couple of times or using inferior libraries. They were deadly afraid that their code would somehow become infected and that they would have to open source they wouldn't allow it. Quite a bit of the code I ended up writing was later released under the BSD license free for use by the world, and one could replicate their product with their own libraries and a couple of weekends. (Company not named because 1, my name isn't attached to it so it won't be easy to find, and 2, I am under NDA still) Why wouldn't it be in Apple's best interest to use BSD replacements for GPL licensed software if those are available and are comparable. Apple's LLVM/clang compiler for example is available under a BSD license and even-though they hired the project lead the entire project is still open source and being openly developed. There has in the past (I haven't paid attention lately) been code sharing between Apple's Darwin Kernel/Userland back to FreeBSD and vice-versa. The same movement to remove GPL licensed software is being done in two major BSD based projects, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Both for very different reasons but with the same end result. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, more competition is a good thing. I am still hoping that FreeBSD picks up the CIFS stuff that Sun released with OpenIndiana because it works much faster/better compared to Samba and I've had WAY less issues with it. The GPL isn't so much fostering or creating an atmosphere for open source development, it creates traps and makes it harder to use the end product. btrfs will most likely never be available within any OS other than Linux. Isn't that the opposite of what you'd want as an open source developer, isn't the idea to spread your code as far and wide as possible, to have people use it no matter where? ZFS by comparison is available in FreeBSD, it is now available on Linux and Mac OS X. If I release something as open source I want people to use it, modify it, play with it and spread it around as far and wide. Would I like for people to contribute their changes, absolutely, but do I think that forcing them to do so under a license is the best way to go about asking for changes? No.
长期看放弃 GPL 可能削弱对 DRM、监视和后门的法律制衡，令人担忧。
我感觉所有人都在清除 GPL，不确定这是好的长期目标。我仍认为需要法律保护来防止后门、监视和 DRM；立法者只给了我们版权法来做法律柔道。拭目以待，但我对整体 GPL 清除不乐观；担心它带我们走向《黑镜》式的现实，而不是虚构恐怖。
jordigh查看英文原文
I get the feeling everyone's purging the GPL, and I'm not sure this is a good long-term goal. I still think we need legal protection against backdoors, spying, and DRM; and our legislators have only given us copyright law to try to perform legal judo with. We'll see how things work out, but I'm not optimistic with the overall GPL purge. I fear that it's taking us to a world where Black Mirror is a familiar reality instead of a fictional horror.
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