The copyright to CUPS, the printing system used by most free software operating systems (and a number of proprietary ones), has been purchased by Apple Inc., and the former copyright holder and creater of CUPS has been hired by Apple to continue working on it. He has stated that "CUPS will still be released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms".
Reaction to this has been mixed, ranging from congratulating Apple on supporting such an important project, to concern about possible ulterior motives, based on Apple's mixed track record on working with the free software community.
Back when OS X was released, I personally thought Apple was seriously moving in the direction of freeing it's software completely. This would have made perfect business sense, as the distinguishing feature of Apple's products at the time was the awesomely cool hardware; giving users the freedom to share and improve the software that Apple provided to run on it would only serve to make the overall product more attractive. Ultimately, of course Apple evolved into as much an entertainment company as a technology company, with a strong motivation to release software that was deliberately defective in ways that prevented you from doing things with it that the entertainment industry didn't like, and which was therefore licensed to users in ways that prevented them from fixing these bugs.
In this light, one comment on cups.org strikes me as intriguing...
"Interesting that there's no mention or commitment to CUPS being licensed with GPL v3. While I understand the view to continue publishing as is with GPL v2, a sceptic might think that with Apple being a hardware and software provider, apple may have puchased CUPS with the intention of preventing it from going to GPL v3."
One of the principle goals of GPLv3 was to close the "Tivoization" loophole in GPLv2. Some hardware manufacturers that pre-installed GPL-licensed free software on their devices had found that they could comply with the letter of the GPL, but evade the intent, by giving their users the ability to create modified versions of the software while designing their hardware in such a way that only unmodified versions would run on it. This means your notional freedom to modify the software is practically useless, as in all likelihood your reason for modifying the software that comes with a prticular device is to run it on that device. GPLv3 requires people who distribute such devices to distribute the "keys" to unlock the device as necessary to run the modified GPLv3-licensed software on it.
Could it be that Apple forsees a potential need to "Tivoize" the printing system used in it's operating system, and is acting now to ensure the loophole remains open? I can't see in principle why Apple would baulk at repecting any "hyper-copyright" demands of text publishers where it has met every similar demand from record labels. Will a future version of OS X (or some future "iBook") restrict your right to print something on the basis of the publisher attaching some "no printing" flag to a file, even if it's otherwise legal to print it? Will it even perhaps "phone home" for permission every time you want to print something?