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Windows Phone Marketplace bans the GPL, and the App Store should too

20 points| soofaloofa | 15 years ago |arstechnica.com | reply

13 comments

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[+] jarin|15 years ago|reply
I don't see why anyone should have a problem with this. Microsoft is well within their rights to disallow software with certain licenses in their store, just as developers are well within their rights to not use the GPL in their libraries. If it's really so egregious and untenable, developers will go elsewhere.

It's just another case of Free Software advocates trying to push their philosophy on consumer-facing software by sensationalizing the "bad guys" policies (i.e. Apple and Microsoft). Free Software != Open Source.

[+] marshray|15 years ago|reply
"It's just another case" of very complex software licenses which depend on nontrivial assumptions about distribution and runtime architecture meeting up with equally complex business requirements and legal agreements.

It's so weird how so many comments are from people completely convinced that this a result of some grand scheme by MS to destroy "Open Source".

[+] gte910h|15 years ago|reply
Apple should ban explicitly GPLv3 software. v2 is likely compatible with the idea of an appstore with some tweaks to the license agreement.
[+] DjDarkman|15 years ago|reply
I find the story like this: Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot.

Open source software is something both Microsoft and Apple should embrace. If I were them, I would devise a way to enable even GPLv3 apps to coexist.

[+] technomancy|15 years ago|reply
This has very little to do with open source and everything to do with Free Software. I get that you can normally conflate the two, but in this case the distinction is crucial.
[+] darklajid|15 years ago|reply
The article claims that this is irrelevant and that you cannot distribute a GPLv3 app for iPhone/Windows Phones anyway (read "tivoization"), because of the license restrictions itself. Whatever Microsoft says.