Nothing about the GNU family of licenses requires simultaneous -- or "timely" -- release of source for a binary. Just because it's usually done that way in the OSS operating system world doesn't mean that it must be done that way. (In fact, it's usually the other way around for OSS: the source precedes the binaries.)
Nor, by the way, are they required to release it to any random user out there; they are only required to release it to people who receive the binaries (it's not clear if this must be honoured if the binaries aren't received legally, but I suspect it does).
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure it implicitly requires reasonably timely release of source for a binary. There's nothing in the license about any period of time that you're allowed to leave it before providing source, so I assume it's supposed to be fairly immediate. To put it another way, the license would be useless if they were allowed to wait 100 years before providing source. Since that's clearly not okay, why should waiting 6 months be okay either?
Fairly immediately?! What the hell does that mean? We all need to spend less time talking out of our asses, playing armchair lawyers, and more time either heads-down coding or going to law school.
... and maybe we all need to spend less time being aggressive asses.
They made it pretty obvious that they were speculating, and were not trained in law. What, is that illegal now? Is it bad form? Is it offensive? They make a fairly good point about allowing an infinite period of time, which adds to the discussion.
You, by insulting the poster needlessly and grossly missing the point of the post, have added nothing to the discussion.
I usually try to refrain from doing this, since I'm also adding nothing to the discussion, but this is becoming an alarming trend.
Yes, speculating i.e. talking out of your ass is offensive. It wastes everyone's time. It's a dangerous trend. Baseless speculation forms the bedrock of the vast majority of content that appears on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. It is dangerous because it's "facty" but has no value.
You and your sanctimonious defense of people's right to spout what you admit is nonsense are part of the problem. Part of a healthy culture, whether it's our culture at large or "hacker culture" is a respect for facts and thoughtful, informed opinions based on knowledge and experience. The "victim" of my comment is pissing all over a set of ideals that we should all hold sacred.
Civility plays an important part in effective communication. You may feel that you are merely stating your opinion directly and with force. But an argument is only as strong as its ability to persuade. When you put people on the defensive--when you force an emotional rather than rational reaction--you rob an argument of its power.
Aside from that, there are two other reasons to be more civil. One is that it's just a nice thing to do to treat people respectfully even (or especially) when you're telling them they're wrong. But if that doesn't persuade you, it's worth remembering that civility is explicitly required in the HN Guidelines.
Good points. I, however, am dispirited by watching comments devoid of value not getting subjected to the same sort of enthusiastic down-voting as comments that reflect exasperation at those very vacuous, time-wasting comments.
A culture that prefers polite nonsense to harsh truth-telling is a weak culture. At the very least, both should be punished, but I don't see that here.
Do you think that maybe you're being a little bit oversensitive about this? I wasn't pissing all over anything, simply offering my opinion that I don't think it's okay to wait to release the source code. I have plenty of respect for facts, knowledge and experience; if Eben Moglen pops into this thread to offer his opinion I'm happily going to defer to him.
If it's so essential to hold our tongues unless we're formally qualified experts on a topic, there wouldn't be much discussion on HN. That would kind of suck.
"You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source"
Unless you provide the source, you cannot provide binaries. That means that, unless the source is conveyed (or conveyable) Apple cannot offer binaries based on it.
All we need it a copyright holder to oblige Apple to obey the conditions under which the software is generously provided by the community for Apple to build their very successful products. Apple is free to use the free and open source software other people and companies offer provided they respect the licenses.
That's the GPLv3; Apple ships no code licensed under the GPLv3.
The GPLv2 reads: You may copy and distribute the Program ... provided that you ... Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange.
Apple does provide access to the code upon request, though it's often not very timely ...
Nor, by the way, are they required to release it to any random user out there; they are only required to release it to people who receive the binaries (it's not clear if this must be honoured if the binaries aren't received legally, but I suspect it does).