I recently made an iOS app that I’d like to distribute the source code for. I was initially going to license it with the GPL, but I read that apparently Apple’s App Store isn’t compatible with the terms of the GPL. Is there something that’s typically recommended by the FOSS community for this situation (other than just not distributing an iOS app)?
You’re going to have a hard time getting anyone to say in any concrete way that one license or another is compatible because apple has never stated which licenses are compatible or not. they only point at the terms of service and tell you to figure it out yourself and be prepared for apple to remove it at any time if they disagree with you/your lawyer.
IANAL but in general you can choose a wide variety of permissive licenses like: MIT/ISC Apache 2 or the BSD (2/3) clause licenses
Copyleft licenses are pretty much incompatible based on most agreed upon terms but maybe you have a fleet of lawyers better than apples that are willing to fight it out :)
Yeah, that’s what I was wondering about. Based on some initial research I did, I went with MPL-2.0. However, I get the impression that non-copyleft licenses are typically frowned upon in the FOSS community, so I wanted to see if there was a better option.
If you want to release your app under the gpl and are not sure whether you are allowed to on the apple app store you can always dual license your app, for example proprietary and gpl. That way you can have it on the app store without legal problems and it can still be F(L)OSS.
However, I have never heard of any legal trouble for releasing gpl apps, so I dont think anybody cares that its technically questionable. Thats an open legal question that no court has answered and I dont think they ever will.
Where did you read that?
A few different places (most of which I’m sorry to say I don’t remember), but here’s a notable one.
Yes indeed the Apple App Store is not compatible with GNU GPL v3 licence. Maybe
MOLMPLcan suits your needs.However plenty of open source apps under GPL v3 or AGPL v3 are available on the App Store and Apple does not care.
For example:
- https://github.com/Dimillian/IceCubesApp (Mastodon client)
- https://github.com/mlemgroup/mlem (Lemmy client)
- https://github.com/CovidTrackerFr/vitemadose-ios (COVID vaccines app)
Thank you very much! That’s very helpful.
What’s MOL? (Or did you mean MPL?)
Yup, I meant Mozilla Public License
Ahh cool, thanks! Yeah, that’s what I had done for my initial release, so maybe I’ll just leave it as it is.
What’s MOL?
My Own whateverIfuckingdecide License. /jk
It sounds like there’s been some change since that happened. I would review the current terms and GPLv3, if that’s the one you want to use.
I don’t know jack about shit, but maybe look into what license Jack Dorsey is using for his
newupcoming apps, Bitchat and Sun Day.It was pretty easy to compile them from source and deploy them inside of Live Container on my phone
