
Apple Will No Longer Be Developing CUPS Under the GPL - turrini
https://www.cups.org/
======
koenigdavidmj
It might be appropriate to change the headline on this one, since it's still
an open source project, just under a more permissive license. I doubt I'm the
only one who panicked that it was going to become closed-source until I
clicked the link.

~~~
singularity2001
that's definitely a bad case of "lying by telling the truth" semantic
clickbait headline

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scblock
The only way I can see the title ending up like this ("Apple Will No Longer Be
Developing CUPS Under the GPL") is someone with a bone to pick about GPL vs
Apache chose it. The title of the blog post (which should probably be the
primary link, at [https://www.cups.org/blog/2017-11-07-cups-license-
change.htm...](https://www.cups.org/blog/2017-11-07-cups-license-change.html))
is "CUPS License Change Coming". The relevant message is that CUPS is moving
to Apache 2.

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atonse
The title is misleading. It should say that the license was changed to Apache
2. I favor APL over GPL in almost every instance but can anyone speak to how
this would affect end users?

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bitL
If Apple created unique printer driver modifications via proprietary patches
on top of CUPS, they wouldn't be required to give them to their customers (nor
competitors).

~~~
atonse
But it also allows a lot more companies to use it in their products.

Overall this seems like good news (unless you align with the FSF)

~~~
bitL
I think AGPL is the way to be honest due to companies left-and-right using
free software on the server-side/cloud, but never contributing anything back
nor allowing their users to make changes. But the current state is a complete
defeat of free software ideals using the very same free software that was
supposed to prevent it from happening. Kinda neat hack if you are on the "dark
side".

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chmaynard
The statement that CUPS was developed by Apple is disingenuous at best.
Engineers who know the full history of CUPS should speak up and ask the
cups.org site to remove this false claim.

~~~
dsp1234
Apple owns the copyright for CUPS.

Apple employs the original developer of CUPS, which is Michael Sweet.

Apple employees (Michael Sweet) made 150 commits in the last year and a half.
The next contributor has 7. He has 50k+ additions/deletions. The next
contributor has 8k.

It's safe to say that Apple develops CUPS.

edit:

Michael Sweet himself in this announcement also uses the terms "Apple is
excited to announce" and "we"[0]

[0] - [https://lists.cups.org/pipermail/cups-
devel/2017-November/01...](https://lists.cups.org/pipermail/cups-
devel/2017-November/017085.html)

~~~
chmaynard
Using your logic, one could argue that LLVM was also developed by Apple. I
think Chris Lattner might object to that claim.

~~~
Twisell
I think lattner will never bite the hand that feeded him and trusted him and
his team to develop a new language (Swift) even if he now is sailing with
another company.

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Sir_Cmpwn
Do they even own the copyright to all of it?

~~~
cowsandmilk
Yes, they purchased the source code when they hired the lead developer.

[https://www.cups.org/blog/2007-07-11-cups-purchased-by-
apple...](https://www.cups.org/blog/2007-07-11-cups-purchased-by-apple-
inc..html)

~~~
spystath
And further contributions are covered by a CLA [0]

[0]
[https://www.cups.org/AppleContributorAgreement_2011-03-10.pd...](https://www.cups.org/AppleContributorAgreement_2011-03-10.pdf)

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dozzie
OK, but it's not the end of the world (printing), because they're changing the
license to Apache 2.0.

