Apple bows to pressure and releases code for IOS 4.3.3

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Apple has bowed to pressure from the open source community and released two important parts of IOS 4.3.3 under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), though questions have been raised as to whether it fully complies with LGPL.

Yesterday noted open source developer Harald Welte called on Apple to release the source code for Webcore and Javascript Core, two pieces of software that power IOS' Safari web browser. Although Apple typically releases source code under BSD, LGPL and its own licence, developers had become irritated that Apple had yet to release code almost two months after the release of IOS 4.3.

Such was the anger at Apple, Welte said, "It is not acceptable to delay the source code release for 8 weeks after shipping a LGPL licensed software." And it seems Apple wasn't able to ignore the calls for it to do the right thing, releasing the source code for versions of Webcore and and Javascriptcore used in IOS 4.3.3 under BSD and LGPL licences.

While Apple may have a poor record of dealing with customer complaints with its Iphone, even Apple realises that it cannot violate the licences that helped it to build the Mac OS X and IOS operating systems. There was no official explanation as to why Apple took two months to release the source code when previously it had been in the order of days or weeks.

Even with Apple's decision to release the source code for Webcore and Javascript, there have been claims that the firm still violates the LGPL licence terms. Under that licence it is expected that any source code released should be compilable, however according to open source developer Jay 'saurik' Freeman Apple's source code cannot be compiled successfully. Freeman claims, "Apple has simply never been in compliance with this license". µ