Sun's use of GPL and/or debian source

[Deirdre Saoirse Moen]

At 4:45 PM -0700 8/17/01, Alan DuBoff wrote:
>Deirdre Saoirse Moen wrote:
>
>>  If you have specific questions, I can likely answer them as that's my
>>  main OS (which I'm writing this email on).
>
>The piece I was curious about, that I can't remember exactly is how the GUI is
>isolated from the GPL and/or APSL code? According to the GPL it must be
>seperated, and I'm sure that Apple has done that, just as Sun seperated the
>GPL tools from Solaris.

There is no core GPL code. It's not Linux, so the kernel itself isn't 
under the GPL, so there's no conflict with any core code. The amount 
of stuff that's GPLed is very small (gnutar, for example); the core 
stuff is mostly under BSD license.

In practice, it's no different than running a proprietary X server on 
Linux. What's so complex to understand?

>In Apple's case that would mean that they have to seperate the GUI (which
>includes Quartz and Aqua since both are proprietary) from the base OS (Darwin)
>and/or GPL tools (gcc, emacs, make, etc...).

Which is how it is. Again, what's confusing aboutt hat.

>It's a great system, and the GUI is very nice. I only wish that Apple would
>have been so generous as to have made the GUI GPL so everyone could enjoy the
>use of it, not only Mac OSX users. In Apple's case I 'spose it doesn't really
>matter since Darwin is kinda GPL (APSL), so the GUI must be completely
>seperated from Darwin and/or GPL tools.

Well, whatever, but as far as I'm concerned, the *important* stuff is 
open source. I can do all the important stuff I need with open source 
tools, so I don't worry about the "pretty layer."
-- 
_Deirdre    Stash-o-Matic: http://fuzzyorange.com    http://deirdre.net