[sword-devel] BREW Development?

[Greg Hellings]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 10:39 AM, David (Mailing List Addy)
<davidslists at gmx.net> wrote:
> On Thursday, June 16, 2011 10:00:45 PM Greg Hellings wrote:
>> As I understood it the FSF had (at least in the past) declared that
>> there was an incompatibility.  But IIRC, the incompatibility was
>> actually that Apple is always violating the GPL with its distribution.
>> Since the GPL states that the person doing the distribution is
>> required to make the code and any modifications to the program
>> publicly available to the people to whom they distribute the app.
>> Thus, to be in compliance Apple would need to have a place where
>> people could download the source code plus their technology for
>> digitally signing the compiled apps, etc, in order to be in touch with
>> the GPL.  (That's how I understood it. That could be totally bogus.)
>
> INAL (nor do I play one on tv, and I haven't even slept at a holiday in
> express) but  there is a Linux distribution called Mepis that is a derivative
> of Debian that got in hot water with the FSF for not distributing the source
> code themselves but rather upstream debian distribution. The FSF said that was
> not a valid way to distribute the source in compliance with the GPL, and thus
> Mepis had to distribute source packages drectly even if they did not modify
> the code. I would imagine app stores fall under the same issue.

That is in line with my understanding also. However, if the copyright
holder does not bring the case against Apple, I am doubtful anyone
else would be able to legitimately bring suit.  So just don't go
screaming to or at Apple about the GPL nature of the App and you can
probably slip in under the radar.  It may not be technically compliant
on Apple's part, but we're the ones who get to make a fuss about it,
not them.

--Greg