The Ethics of Selling GPLed Software For the iPhone 782
SeanCier writes "We're a small (two-person) iPhone app developer whose first game has recently been released in the App store. In the process, we've inadvertently stepped in it, bringing up a question of the GPL and free software ethics that I'm hoping the Slashdot community can help us clear up, one way or the other. XPilot, a unique and groundbreaking UNIX-based game from the early/mid nineties, was a classic in its day, but was forgotten and has been dead for years, both in terms of use and development. My college roommate and I were addicted to it at the time, even running game servers and publishing custom maps. As it's fully open source (GPLv2), and the iPhone has well over twice the graphics power of the SGI workstations we'd used in college, we decided it was a moral imperative to port it to our cellphones. In the process, we hoped, we could breathe life back into this forgotten classic (not to mention turning a years-old joke into reality). We did so, and the result was more playable than we'd hoped, despite the physical limitations of the phone. We priced it at $2.99 on the App store (we don't expect it to become the Next Big Thing, but hoped to recoup our costs — such as server charges and Apple's annual $99 developer fee), released the source on our web page, then enthusiastically tracked down every member of the original community we could find to let them know of the hoped-for renaissance. Which is where things got muddy. After it hit the App store, one of the original developers of XPilot told us he feels adamantly that we're betraying the spirit of the GPL by charging for it."
Read on for the rest of Sean's question.
"That left us in a terrible spot. We'd thought we were contributing to the community and the legacy of this game by reviving it, not stealing from them by charging for it — and we didn't think $2.99 was unreasonable (and, again, the source is available for free from our page). It never occurred to us that one of the original creators would feel that we were betraying their contribution. We've discussed the philosophical fine points of free-as-in-speech vs. free-as-in-beer with him, and have suggested a number of remedies — such as reducing the price (it's now $1.99), profit-sharing with previous contributors, making the game free at some point in the future (once we'd at least recouped our costs), or going 'freemium' (offering a fully-functional free version plus a paid version with enhancements we added ourselves, with both GPLed of course). But in each case, the bottom line is that this developer feels the app should be free-as-in-beer period, and anything less is a sleazy betrayal of anybody that made contributions under that license. Which is a shame, because we deeply respect his work on this game and would love for him to be on board with the port — but at the same time this was months worth of work and we honestly believe we're going about this in a reasonable way.
Obviously, one of us has a non-mainstream understanding of open source ethos, but it's become clear we can't come to a consensus on which of us it is, and whether the 'spirit of the GPL' should allow selling GPLed software (especially when one wasn't the original creator of the software, but a more recent contributor). The only way to determine that, it seems, is to poll the open source community itself.
We're determined to do the right thing by the GPL and the community, and we'd like to hear opinions on this. Remember, we're not talking about whether it's practical to base a business on GPLed software, nor the best business model for doing so, and certainly not whether the source must be distributed for free (obviously it must be), but just whether charging for the binary version of an enhanced/ported version of a GPLed app (while releasing the corresponding source for free) is an ethically defensible thing to do."
Source code on webpage satisfies it (Score:1, Interesting)
It isn't possible to distribute the source code with the app purchase, making the source code available on your website satisfies the GPL. If you wanted to go a little extra you could put a link to the source code in the credits.
Lots of "GPL" software is sold.
Re:No ethical problem at all (Score:5, Interesting)
For now, anyway.
Remember when TiVo went by the letter of the GPL (v2) but not the apparent spirit? A new section of GPL v3 was born.
I'm not saying that in the future, a GPLvN -will- exist that includes terms regarding sale of GPL(vN)'ed software - but in the given case, why wouldn't there be.
Sure, the source to this game is available. Hooray for every other iPhone developer. However, if you're not a developer, you can't just install it on your device even if you compile it.
In addition, -if- a developer were to pick up the code and compile it.. they, in turn, can't distribute it outside of the iTunes store. ( I seem to recall Apple being okay with source code distribution when it concerns GPL - but a Google search seems to bring up lots of (old) blog posts about it being prohibited. )
On top of that, there's probably little chance that it would be accepted into the iTunes store, seeing as it's a 1:1 duplicate of an existing app.
The money is not the issue (Score:5, Interesting)
But is it legal to release any iPhone application under the GPL? Apple puts restrictions on what you can do with the application once you've downloaded it - i.e. you're not allowed to redistribute or modify it. Unless all of the copyright holders of the GPL code give their permission to release it under these more restrictive terms, that be a violation wouldn't it?
Reminds of this story (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No ethical problem at all (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember when TiVo went by the letter of the GPL (v2) but not the apparent spirit? A new section of GPL v3 was born.
And do you remember the huge, long, debate over whether what Tivo did really *did* violate the "spirit"? I don't think it did, and I think the GPLv3 is an overreaction to a complete non-issue. Even if you do acknowledge there is such a thing as a "spirit" to the contract, you still have to recognize that there are as many different interpretations of that "spirit" as their are users of it.
Re:Charge but continue to contribute (Score:4, Interesting)
Lots of people complain about Redhat charging every day.
As for CentOS, it is probably core to Redhat's business, as no body is going to develop an app on Fedora, and deploy on RHEL as you would have to retest everything, may as well use Ubuntu as RHEL if you are moving off Fedora, Ubuntu might even be easier to move to.
CentOS is what people that think they might have to deploy on RHEL for production use for skunkworks projects.
Re:this seems like the "TiVo" situation to me (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see where your arguments are coming from and I think your opinion makes sense.
However anyone can download the code from their website and compile it on the iphone simulator (which, together with XCode is a free download from Apple). You could argue that you still need a non-free os to run it which won't make RMS happy, but then again on a PC you more often than not have a non free BIOS that's needed to run the OS. And pretty much any computer has a non-free hardware.
Because of this, and other reasons, in my opinion there's nothing wrong with selling a GPL program on the Itunes store as long as anyone who bought it can get the source code.
Ethics were not violated. (Score:5, Interesting)
I checked out the authors site and lo! There was the source code and I even downloaded a copy for good measure.
There really isn't any reason that someone who has put a lot of work and money into building/porting/developing/fixing a GPL application can't charge for the complied binary other than having to listen to those who don't wish to pay and are far too lazy/technically lacking to compile their own from the source.
The only person "in the wrong" here was the one complaining.
I own a copy of XPilot for the iPhone as I couldn't resist the classical goodness. The author put a LOT of work into making it exceptionally polished and playable on a platform that it wasn't intended for. Not to mention (as the author did) the cost of development.
That was $3 gladly spent. As much as I rely on free apps, I don't much mind spending >10 on REALLY good portable device apps and >20 on desktop apps here and there. The thing is, they need to be significantly better than average to be "worth buying" in my mind. This is why I actually donate to authors of apps that are one, two or even three cuts above.
Show them some love people and perhaps fewer developers would charge you for the pleasure of initially using it in the first place!
Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC, Ok with the GPL, NOT apple... (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC, the apple developer agreement basically specifices that your code is effectively under NDA, because you are under an NDA to access the API etc.
Thus you can't legally do GPL code for the iPhone: you can't release the source under Apple's liscence, but you must under the GPL.
Spirit of the GPL (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course there's a spirit of the licence. You don't think that lawyerspeak is the most important value in life do you? Or that ethics consists of doing the maximum that you can get away with while still squeezing within the letter of the law? In fact, according to its author, the letter of the GPL is less important than its spirit, which is expressed in the preamble:
Now, is this spirit being upheld when you buy the app from the App Store? Do you have freedom to distribute copies of it to other iPhone users? Can you change the software and run your changed version? It's pretty clear that people who buy it from the App Store don't have these freedoms; even if they can get the source code from some web site, that's about as much use to them as the printed copies of source code that used to be supplied with IBM mainframes instead of a real online copy you can rebuild and run. So I think the original author had a point; he and his fellow contributors made the software with the expectation that everyone who gets it can freely share and modify it, but here most users cannot.
On the other hand, there are those who don't think this is what the GPL is about. For example Linus has said it's quite okay to distribute locked-down Linux installations that the user can't modify, despite the language about 'freedom' in the GPLv2 licence. So there is certainly room for interpretation.
Re:Clever...they figured out step 2! (Score:5, Interesting)
Step 1: Port game
Step 2: General controversy over game
Step 3: Profit!
IMHO this post was scored incorrectly.... this is not just "Funny" but is also just plain smart/insightful. this may have been a clever move, but it was more than that...this was just plain smart. creating controversy (especially among this community) is advertising. i imagine that sales for this game has gone up (and will continue to go up) since this post. i for one will probably pick this game up when i finish this post. like i said, many times controversy => advertisement...and a lot of that advertisement ends up being positive...i mean geeze....look at the tone of this thread... -ryan
Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
No spirit (Score:2, Interesting)
There is no "spirit" to GPL, there is only the legaleze.
GPL does not state GPL'd code cannot be sold, so you can sell it.
Re:Simple (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an honest question, not FUD or anything. Can you link binary made from GPL'd code dynamically to non-GPL'd library? I would guess yes.
And another question. If you need iPhone SDK (or whatever) from Apple to compile your GPL'd code to binary, are you linking anything statically from the SDK? And if yes, is SDK GPL'd and if not, isn't this in violation of the GPL? Here I would guess that SDK isn't GPL'd and this is a violation of the license.
I like to dabble with legal questions so I honestly would like to know :)
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, yes. But you can't install it on your iPhone unless you jailbreaked the device or you pay the yearly $99 developer fee.
So what?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you really cared about the "spirit of the GPL" and free software in the first place, that you wouldn't have given Apple your money for their extremely closed device. If the choice is between iPhone and Android, I think it's abundantly clear to anyone that cares about free software that Android is already a much, much more open platform than the iPhone will ever be.
All of this whining over the "ethics" of selling GPL software for the iPhone is just hypocritical nonsense. If you were concerned about free software ethics you wouldn't have an iPhone.
("you" in the general sense of course)
The platform is the problem ... (Score:3, Interesting)
We are not free to jump the hoops, we are free to try ... with no guarantee of success and with a substantial monetary cost.
Platforms which don't allow modified GPL software to run are inherently problematic, I do feel it goes against the spirit of the GPL to even distribute software on such platforms. I'm not really the only one, it was a major impetus behind GPL v3 after all.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
From the original disgruntled developer (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I'm that disgruntled original developer, and I'll let other developers chime in if they feel like it, though most of the conversations with Sean and Michael (SM) have been with me. I'm incredibly torn:
On the one hand, SM have put some life back into a project that's dear to my heart, and I'm really thrilled about that. They deserve thanks.
On the other hand, SM are trying to unfairly profit from the man-years of development work that went into XPilot, and that just rubs me (and the other developers that I asked) the wrong way.
Why is XPilot not free? "Covering distribution costs" is a joke. They are negligible ($99 per year amortized across all their projects) and I (and I'm sure tons of other people too) is willing to put the game up for free. This wouldn't be very nice to SM, so I was hoping to avoid that.
I even suggested to SM that they make it free after they recouped their distribution costs (which should be about now considering the PR it's getting), but that made them go ballistic.
Is the source is freely available? Well...
1) They haven't checked in any of their source since June (more than a month), though the latest release is from a few days ago.
2) The availability of the source code isn't clearly (or at all) advertised in the game, and until I complained about it, wasn't even advertised on the app store page.
It's pretty clear to me that they did this port wanting to make money from their development time, which is no different from a commercial venture, but quite different from the expectations of every other contributor of XPilot (and other open source projects). I would even say it's against the spirit of the GPL.
There are a number of other issues with selling open source software:
The only thing that might make sense charging for, as far as I can see, is the running of the servers, as that is a per-user cost someone will have to bear.
(I won't even get into the argument that it's against the GPL to even distribute through the app store, but I'll stay away from that since I think that's sad and better dealt with by lawyers and Apple.)
Re:No ethical problem at all (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if you do acknowledge there is such a thing as a "spirit" to the contract, you still have to recognize that there are as many different interpretations of that "spirit" as their are users of it.
However, the only valid interpretation of the "spirit" of the GPL is that of the FSF. They wrote it, thus they know what they intended. Any differing interpretations are just misinterpretations - just like this original xpilot author's mistaken belief that GPLv2 means a price of zero.
Re:No ethical problem at all (Score:3, Interesting)
I absolutely would. In fact, there are loopholes. Case in point:
A man with a lethal weapon (gun) comes into my house. He threatens to kill me. I kill him first. At trial, I plead self-defense. I killed someone, but I had no problem doing it. I defended my life, the lives of my family, and my property. I don't even think I'd feel bad.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
One might be able to make the argument that providing source code and build files isn't enough, because you can't distribute the "means" to get it on an actual iPhone, since that requires an extra fee, and Apple's approval.
I don't really agree with that interpretation, but this is contract/licensing law... I'd bet a lawyer could twist that in his favor.
As for the *actual* question that the article asks, as to whether this is all *ethical*, I'd say yes, it is. Good for him for taking the effort to port something valuable to the iPhone, and good for him for complying with the GPL and releasing all the modifications. The money he's charging for the app seems certainly justified: doing all this stuff does require time and money, and if people are willing to pay for the app which helps him recoup these costs, great. The fact that the original developer doesn't like this is a shame, but is pretty damned irrelevant. It's his fault for not picking a license that disallows selling modified versions of his app.
Re:No ethical problem at all (Score:3, Interesting)
While I basically agree the GPL3 wasn't really necessary, it's for the exact opposite reason as you.
TiVo did not violate the "spirit" of the GPL2, they literally violated the letter of the GPL2. TiVo distributed an executable, and according to the GPL2 they are required to supply the all of the they used to compile *that* executable. You cannot distribute an executable for complex photo-manipulation software and offer different source code sufficient to compile some tic-tac-toe executable. You cannot distribute a Cray-supercomputer executable and offer different source code sufficient to compile a same-purpose-but-different-executable for a Commodore64. The executable they created and distributed included a crypto-signature, and that signature was fully intended to be a functional element of that final executable. From their own point of view, their executable would have been incomplete and non-functional if they had left off that signature. The executable they created, the executable they intended to create, was intened to run on TiVo hardware by their own intent the crypto signature was a required functional component of that executable. That signature was in fact part of the executable, and creating that signature was in fact a part of their compilation process for the executable they distributed. Under the existing GPL2 they are required to provide all source materials they themselves needed and used to compile the executable they distributed. The key they used to create that signature is in fact part of the source code for that executable.
It is a violation of the GPL to offer incomplete source code.
TiVo violated the existing GPL2 when they deliberately offered a source code package that the knew and deliberately intended to be incomplete and insufficient to compile the complete working executable that they distributed.
The same issue applies to this case with the iTunes store. You cannot legally distribute GPL software on the iTunes store unless you include any keys or other materials that you used in compiling that executable for the iTunes store. As I understand it, iTunes contractually prohibits you allowing anyone else access to your unique developer compilation key. Distributing GPL software on iTunes would either be a violation of the GPL if you fail to include the developer compilation key you used, or a violation of your iTunes contract. To quote the GPL "If you cannot convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not convey it at all".
I really wish the of the Linux contributors (and copyright holder!) would take up this issue and sue TiVo or anyone else using this tactic of offering useless incomplete TiVoized source.
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Re:From the original disgruntled developer (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi Bjorn
I'm interested in getting clarification on some of the points you've raised.
On the other hand, SM are trying to unfairly profit from the man-years of development work that went into XPilot, and that just rubs me (and the other developers that I asked) the wrong way.
How is this significantly different from Red Hat selling RHEL? RH are also trying to profit from the man-years of development work that went into the Linux kernel, associated binaries, tools, environments and configuration efforts.
I see only the XPilot game on the site linked in the summary, but I did find other sites publicising XPilot for the iPhone so I'm not sure whether they have 1 project or many. Regardless, are you suggesting that all GPL projects on the iPhone must have their registration costs and time paid for by an original non-GPL application? They have to purchase bandwidth and computing resources, maintain the web site - why can they not continue to recover those costs too?
Is the source is freely available? Well...
1) They haven't checked in any of their source since June (more than a month), though the latest release is from a few days ago.
2) The availability of the source code isn't clearly (or at all) advertised in the game, and until I complained about it, wasn't even advertised on the app store page.
It's pretty clear to me that they did this port wanting to make money from their development time, which is no different from a commercial venture, but quite different from the expectations of every other contributor of XPilot (and other open source projects). I would even say it's against the spirit of the GPL.
I agree the offer of the source needs to be prominent - I see this has been fixed. But charging for the software is not, and has never been, against the spirit of the GPL. Witness RMS himself charging for EMACS on tape, before online distribution was viable. The GPL itself says you can charge for the act of transferring a copy (what else would you characterise the App Store installation as doing?) What if the charge represents only their own contributions?
As for the source being older than the binary - I'd raise two points.
There are a number of other issues with selling open source software:
The only thing that might make sense charging for, as far as I can see, is the running of the servers, as that is a per-user cost some
NO, Apple violates the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but my reading of GPLv2 is that Apple violates the GPL by publishing apps compiled under GPL licenses (v2 or v3).
Apple requires that all applications on its platform are signed with a private key as part of their DRM system. The actual "object code" the end user receives is encrypted with this key (and a small bit of its own special DRM sauce, from what I hear). Therefore, under the GPL, Apple would be required to provide the key used to make this encrypted copy of the application, and the source to any other inlined (not linked) DRM code (that is, everything that constitutes part of the "source code" of Apple's 'derivative work' based on the GPL'ed app submitted by the developer). From the GPLv2:
For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
And to the commenters screaming "it's ok because it's GPLv2!", this would NOT require the "tivoization clause" covered by version 3 of the GPL (the requirement to provide "Installation Information" for a "User Product", because the applications in question are not part of the original User Product being sold in the first place, and so they wouldn't be covered.
The "operating system exception" (the one that provided the GPlv2 loophole for Tivo) doesn't cover the private key in an iPhone app, because the private key for a specific published app does not constitute any of "the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs".
Seems to me that a quick Cease and Desist letter to Apple from one of the original software's authors for failing to provide source to the encrypted object code would be all that's needed to settle the debate. Of course, Apple would probably err on the side of caution and pull the app anyway, rather than mess around with potentially defending themselves in court for a GPL violation on behalf of a lone developer.
Re:From the original disgruntled developer (Score:3, Interesting)
If you release something under GPL at some point in time and someone takes that program, modifies it and then sells it, which everyone agrees is allowed subject to the terms of the license (in practice we all know that it is difficult to sell GPLd software for anything other than $0 since anyone else could simply post their purchased copy online gratis) then can you as the developer revoke your original grant of license under GPL retroactively? I have to think that the answer to that is no because once you pass the program on and other people continue to modify the program, perhaps even selling it subject to the terms of the license, do the rights of any one previous contributor, even if he is the creater, trump all subsequent contributors? What if Linus suddenly decided that the original Linux kernel GPL license was revoked, does that invalidate all subsequent versions and their contributor's right to use and distribute under the original grant of license?
What makes this case even more complicated is the App store and the closed nature of the "official" system for loading software onto an iPhone. Perhaps you might want to consider using GPLv3 in the future which forbids use of the software in an environment where DRM limits the ability to independently modify and re-install or reload the software? GPLv3 was designed to better address some of the problems that have occurred in recent years with tethered hardware and DRM locks effectively rendering GPL rights granted under prior versions of the license moot.
However, I think that I am going to have to agree with Sean and Michael on this one; You licensed under the terms of GPL and GPL allows selling or does not forbid it as long as the source code is freely available with the program and both can be redistributed by any further recipients, whether they want to charge or not. I would say that in the future you might want to use a different license or write your own if you disagree with selling; which is not prohibited under GPL.
Re:No ethical problem at all (Score:2, Interesting)
the GPL only covers the release of the source code for the program itself
Right, and US courts have repeatedly stated that things like this are a functional part of the initialization sequence of the program. The courts consistently treat things like this as a functional and integral part of the program itself.
I replied in more detail to someone else over here. [slashdot.org]
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