Since I was recently appointed as maintainer for GNU Shogi, this actually interests me quite a bit. One of the ideas far down on my TODO list was to make a version of it for the iPhone and possibly other mobile phones.One thing I find weird is this comment from the post: "a big-box retail store could reasonably claim ignorance to the contents of a prepackaged product, which Apple with its per-app-review process cannot". AFAIK, the per-app-review process does not include analysis of the source code, which I believe is not even submitted to Apple. So they can't actually check whether the app infringes on GPL software or anything of the sort. Their review is mostly targeted at functionality/usability stuff, and is made on top of the application binary itself. So putting the responsability on them as Distributors would seem mostly mistaken. I do think they are more prone to be considered a store, exactly like Best Buy in the example. (Log in to post comments) FSF takes on Apple's App Store over GPL Posted Jun 10, 2010 4:28 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
Mac App Store Download Would Not Stop
When a developer submits an app to Apple, they state they have the rights to distribute the application. Apple could care less what the licensing is for the source code.The primary reasons for Apple to reject an application (according to Steve Jobs) are:1. Doesn't function or do what it says it does2. Uses private APIs3. CrashesThe first reason is also why many applications get rejected for what people would assume are source-code violations. For example, Apple won't allow interpreters in apps. They aren't scanning through source code, they're looking at developer-provided descriptions. If a developer says you download scripts to their app, Apple will reject it on the assumption you're interpreting the scripts.I have no opinion on whether Apple can be considered a distributor or not. But you need to base your decision on the facts. FSF takes on Apple's App Store over GPL Posted Jun 11, 2010 0:09 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]
Analogies with big-box retail stores fail because big-box retail stores do not make the copies they distribute. If you were to distribute GNU Shogi through an app store or other online distributor, you would upload one copy to the store or distributor, and then whenever someone wanted a copy the store or distributor would make a copy and distribute that to the downloader.
If, on the other hand, you were to burn 10000 CD-ROMs with copies of GNU Shogi, put them in nice boxes, and sell them to a big-box retail store which in turn sells them to customers, the big-box retail store would not be making copies. They *would* be distributing copies, but those would be copies they bought from you and are reselling. That falls under a thing called the "First Sale Doctrine". In the US it is codified in the Copyright Act at 17 USC 109. The gist of that is:
Overall however this seems to show a shortcoming of the legal framework around this stuff; it wouldn't be unreasonable for it to be possible for the author of some program to accept responsibility for copies made by Apple.A separate problem seems to be the issue of restriction. This is a little thornier. I wonder would it be enough for the program, when downloaded (direct from the publisher's servers, using the App Store as nothing but a directory), for the program to show a notice saying "this is free software; source code is at X along with instructions for running it on this and other platforms"? Figuratively this would leave the user empowered to do anything they could with ordinary free software; the fact that the presently running copy can't be modified in situ ceases to restrict their actions in any meaningful way. FSF takes on Apple's App Store over GPL Posted Jul 22, 2010 14:09 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]
EDIT:I found one occasion of somebody being able to download a 64 bit only app to a 32 bit MacBook and being presented with an error message "Your purchase could not be completed". In this case it was a free app. I wonder when this message would pop up for a paid app (before or after the payment). 2ff7e9595c