this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Apple makes the source code to all their core utilities available? Nobody cares but they do.
Why do they?
They are BSD licensed (very similar to MIT). According to the crowd here, Apple would never Open Source their changes. Yet, in the real world, they do.
Every Linux distro uses CUPS for printing. Apple wrote that and gave it away as free software.
How do we explain that?
There are many companies that use BSD as a base. None of them have take the BSD utils “commercial”.
Why not?
Most of the forks have been other BSD distros. Or Chimera Linux.
How about OpenSSH?
It is MiT licensed. Shouldn’t somebody have embraced, extended, and extinguished it by now?
Why haven’t they?
Apple makes the source code for many open source things they distribute available, but often only long after they have shipped binaries. And many parts of their OS which they developed in-house which could also be called "core utilities" are not open source at all.
Apple did not write cups.
It was was created by Michael R. Sweet in 1997, and was GPL-licensed and used on Linux distros before Mac OS X existed. Apple didn't want to be bound by the GPL so they purchased a different license for it in 2002.Later, in 2007 they bought the source code and hired msweet to continue its development, and at some point the license of the FOSS version was changed to "GNU General Public License ("GPL") and GNU Library General Public License ("LGPL"), Version 2, with an exception for Apple operating systems."
In 2017 it was relicensed Apache 2.0.
Finally, "In December 2019, Michael left Apple to start Lakeside Robotics. In September 2020 he teamed up with the OpenPrinting developers to fork Apple CUPS to continue its development. Today Apple CUPS is the version of CUPS that is provided with macOS® and iOS® while OpenPrinting CUPS is the version of CUPS being further developed by OpenPrinting for all operating systems."
I loved this comment as much as a person is allowed to love it
"Commercial" is not the opposite of free/libre. In fact, GPL licensed software can be "taken commercial" with a guarantee that it will remain libre, whereas BSD-licensed software doesn't have those guarantees.