Hi! On Sun, 2023-05-28 at 12:19 +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote: > Yes, that is the main problem. FWIW, I have reached out to Apple's Legal > Department and asked them whether it would be possible to relicense the > »hfs« package under a more permissive license such as MIT or any of the > BSD licenses. > > The source code for the HFS(+) filesystem utilities used to be part of the > »diskdev_cmds« [1] package but was later split into its own package called > »hfs« [2]. > > I argued that the »hfs« package is required for interoperability and it would > make it for distributions much easier to ship the »hfs« package if its covered > by a truly free license. > > I guess that the fact that the HFS code got split out of »diskdev_cmds« could > make it easier for Apple to change the license.
Alternatively, it would also help if Paragon released their HFS+ code [1] under a free license. They have done that for their NTFS code already [2], so chances are they would do it for the HFS+ stuff as well. I have reached out to the Paragon developer who got the NTFS merged into the upstream Linux kernel. Maybe they're willing to do that with the HFS+ code as well. Adrian > [1] https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-linux-professional > [2] > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=f7464060f7ab9a2424428008f0ee9f1e267e410f -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer `. `' Physicist `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
