[mythtv-users] THIS IS A NON-COMMERCIAL MAILING LIST (WAS: Re: Torc for iOS - Application Submitted to the App Store for Review)

Erik Jensen eriksjunk at laurelwoodart.com
Thu Apr 19 01:04:24 UTC 2012


On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Gavin Hurlbut <gjhurlbu at gmail.com> wrote:
> I dare say you'd be hard-pressed to find a developer on this project
> who hasn't sunk a lot of personal finances into the development
> effort.  We don't do it for the money.  While it would be nice to
> recoup costs, I believe the real reason Robert chose closed-source for
> that app was because Apple will not allow GPL apps, and thus he had no
> choice.  At that point, trying to recoup some of the investment (which
> he should have no problems at all doing) sounds reasonable.

That argument makes no sense. First, as the copyright holder, there
would be no problem with him selling the app on the App Store and
still releasing the source under the GPL. Since he has the copyright
on the code he has written, he can release the product with as many
different licenses as he pleases. This would even guarantee that
nobody else could sell his code on the App Store, due to the GPL
incompatibility.

Second, I'm not sure where the GPL vs. closed source dichotomy came
from. GPL is not the only open-source license in existence, and there
is no problem selling, e.g., BSD licensed software on the App Store.
(In fact, there is plenty of BSD licensed code in iOS, itself.)


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