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Apple Plans To Give GCC Changes To FSF
Zippy writes, "According to a message posted to the Darwin-Development mailing list, Apple plans to assign the copyright for its changes to gcc to the Free Software Foundation. Sounds like there are a growing number of folks at the company that get it. Now if they'd just open the hardware ... "
So, the fact that Sorenson would need to do the licensing is pretty much a non-issue at this point.
The organization standing in the way of this happening is Apple.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
It's not Apple's to open. You'll have to go to Sorenson the company, which made the Sorenson codec, if you want that.
What Apple can do is change its terms with Sorenson slightly. Unless I'm mistaken, Sorenson is currently not allowed to open their codec (which is a shame; all told I've found it to be better than even MPEG if the encoder is skilled enough).
So if you want this codec opened, it's going to take at least two actions: by Apple to loosen its terms with Sorenson, and then by Sorenson to actually open the codec.
I want to be fair... why is it when there's an Apple story, even Commander Taco has to put his 2 cents into the story summary?
How about Slashdot stories that are summarized with "Now if only CommanderTaco would fully open the Slashdot codebase".
News should be news and editorials are clearkly labeled JonKatz.
Pre-emptive comment: Please, moderators, don't knock this post down -- it makes Slashdot look bad when the mob can't rule itself.
For what it's worth, I also would wish for Apple to open their hardware. I also wish for Sun and SGI (IRIX) to do the same, I wish BeOS was open source, I wish BSD were more open to outside involvement (or updated their perception so), and if I were feeling really selfish I'd wish for everyone to get read/write CVS accounts to the Linux kernel tree and we vote on it's direction (no offense to our Fearless Leader).
Apple gets it plenty... they choose to open where they can and stay closed where it maximizes their chances for success. Simply being open isn't a recipie for success... Alpha is doing OK but it's a stagnant market relative to x86 (and maybe PPC?)
I've always been intrigued by Objective C's messaging model, but I've never used it because it's been too closely tied to Apple OS's... BUT, now it just got more interesting.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
even in their off hours
I can't claim to have seen the non-compete agreement, but I highly doubt they can claim ownership to something you coded at home, on your own equipment. Any attempt to enforce that (if it's actually in the agreement) would be tossed out of court anyway.
Finkployd
Now, it would not be unreasonable for their employment agreement to state that they won't work on such in their off hours (a sort of no moonlighting clause, which a lot of employers have and is itself questionable in some US states)
Even then, I would wonder if they would consider coding free software work (since no money is changing hands). I would thing that would be looked at as more of a hobby.
Finkployd
Some NC/IP agreements do indeed cover anything
you create during your term of employment,
even if you do it during off hours with your
own pc. The one our new VP has proposed has exactly this clause.
Although they may cover everything, I'd venture to guess that no company has ever won a case with that clause. The courts have been pretty consistant with cases where a company tries to exert control over someone's personal life in such a manner. For that matter the NC agreements that stipulate that you cannot work for a competitor for X number of years after leaving the company never hold up in court either.
Finkployd
If I sign a contract giving you the right to cut off my arm with a rusty chainsaw, and it goes to court, who do you think the judge will rule in favor of.
It's not legal for a company to dictate what you can do on your own time (they could concievable fire you over it, but not claim ownership over something you produce). So contract or not, it will not happen.
Finkployd
And yes, I'm sure most software companies would frown upon you for working at Redhat while working for them.
However, we are talking about the guy who, in his spare time, on his own machine, at home who submits code or runs an open source project. The company has no hope of claiming IP rights over his work if in this case.
Finkployd
That's true, and I've seen up close several cases of this type (all were in favor of the employee). The general gist of what I got from these rulings is that a company cannot deny you the right to make a living.
Finkployd
Apple sales counted for 35% of all sales to educational institutions last month. But the next highest vendors were Dell and Compaq with 15% each. Ca-ching for apple...
Except that there marketshare for educational institutions used to be 70%...
My journal has hot
You would sell out your BSD, HURD, etc. brothers for this convenience? You would even sell out fellow Linux users, who run on PPC or Alpha?
I am a practical person, and I realize their may be Business Reasons(TM) why a full source release is not possible or feasible. Thus, yes, I am willing to accept a binary-only release of the Sorenson CODEC if that is the only way possible to get it done. At the same time, I will continue to push for open audio/video encoding formats, so that you don't need a binary-only CODEC to get things done.
More importantly, if you check the xanim website, you will find that:
(1) The author provides DLLs for FreeBSD 3.1 already.
(2) The author will happily provide DLLs for any other platform, if you give him the tools to do so (either a cross-compiler or a machine with software).
Don't attack me about "selling out" the other platforms without knowing the situation.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Apple's Darwin operating system -- the kernel and utility layer of Mac OS X -- is Open Source.
You mean, "Apple's Darwin OS -- the kernel and utility layer of Max OS X Server -- is basically just BSD, and thus was already Open Source."
I am so tired of people pointing to Darwin and saying that Apple is a Good Company(TM) because they Open Source'd their OS. The fact of the matter is, it was already OSS before they touched it, and all the Darwin source release gets you is basically some device drivers and other low-level code.
The Darwin source release is not without worth, but it isn't the Big Deal(TM) so many seem to think it is.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
GPL, GCC. I assume they would use something else if they could.
I thought the BSD people were pragmatic?
But the GPL cannot take effect unless put in place by the legitimate copyright owner. If you work for a computer company, odds are that you have already assigned all copyright to all works to your company. Some companies, such as IBM, are pretty nice; you merely have to ask your manager to get permission to work on soemthing outside of work. But others are much tighter.
But anyway, the problem is that the owner of the code (the large company) has not placed it under the GPL; a legally unrelated person has done so. It would be somewhat similar to an employee selling, or even giving away, his employer's staplers and fax paper.
IMHO, the sign-over-copyright scheme is not as unreasonable as it first seems. It is obviously fair for work which is done on company time and on company hardware. But even work which is done at home probably benefits from the company; who among us has never researched something private during work hours? I don't particularly like it, but as long as people are dishonest and spend three hours a week working on a private project instead of their job, I cannot complain.
From what I had heard at an AMUG (Arizona Macintosh User Group) meeting, ATI hasn't been that forthright about releasing the hardware specs of their newest cards. The presenter said that should change soon since Apple is somehow fully supporting Linux with OS X.
Every rule has an exception, and this is the only rule with no exceptions! Huh? -- Spatch
Hey, are you aware of the story of the German guy who this actually happened to? Except he wasn't sitting in front of a computer monitor but in front of his TV set (left on, of course) for some remarkable number of years (four) after he died.
Of course, if a dead, mummified guy sat in front of a BSoD for 4 years or more, I'd be afraid the forces of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt would resurrect him as some sort of Barrow-Wight... scary, ne? O_o
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
http://www.bricklin.com/patenting.htm
Ok, VisiCalc wasn't OpenSource in the FSF sense because it wasn't copylefted. However, what it does show is that there was a more innocent time in computer science when:
I'm just glad this has been turned into a positive philosophy (with a legal backbone) rather than operating from just good will among hackers.All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
No, there is something known as the doctrine of apparant authority. As long as you appear to have authority to make a contract on behalf of a corporation (or partnership, etc.), then the contract is binding, even if you didn't actually have that authority.
So in this case, I'd say the person submitting it probably had apparant authority, and thus the code is, in fact, licensed under the GPL forever.
No, not at all. They couldn't be sued, because they own the software. Say I'm an MS employee and write a piece of software which I put into the Linux kernel. The act of putting it into the Linux kernel indirectly puts the software under the GPL. Now Microsoft can come along at anytime and sue me for doing that. I'm their employee, and thus they own that code. Thus, it is not my desicion what license it should be put under. When I put it into the Linux kernel, I put it under the GPL. However, I did not do it legally, thus the GPL cannot apply, and MS has every right to rip that software out of the kernel.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Microsoft's contract with the employee. If the software wasn't allowed to be GPL in the first place, MS would have every right to revoke that license. The guy who wrote it would get in trouble, and the code would be returned to MS. For example, if I work at MS, and I sign the no compete contract. Then, I write an amazing new VM for Linux, and place it under the GPL. A year passes, and by now my VM is a critical part of the system. MS then finds out, and fire me and revokes the license. Now the GPL can't control that. It says if you use GPL software in a propriotory program you're in trouble. It doesn't say that if you use propriotory code in a GPL program it automatically becomes GPL. In this case the VM would be propriotory code, and GPL would not control how it was licensed.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
... that of automatically associating open source with Linux, and forgetting about the earlier efforts of GNU and the FSF. No wondcer RMS seems irritated whenever he writes anything about how it should really be called Gnu/Linux.
But, then again, a quick check of gnu.org shows a founding date of 1984 for both Gnu AND the FSF. This is STILL almost a whole decade *AFTER* Woz had started freely giving out the schematics for the Apple I at the homebrew club.
john
Imagine all the people...
This on the other hand is mindless drivel repeated over and over. The shock value is gone, and it sure isn't a troll. Hell, I wouldn't even call it flamebait, at this point it's redundant.
All you're doing is enforcing the moderation system, many people don't even read below 1 anymore due to this foolishness. You're simply wasting your time and energy, and in effect ruining it for the interesting trolls.
Get a grip, get a life, stop being so friggin moronic. In essense, its just stupid now.
PS - In case this reply pops up without the parent, no need to look for the reference, it was the "Heil Jon Katz" canned post with the swastikas, etc.
This is not some kind of 'grand enlightment' here people.
Fred on the developers page
Apple joining BSD
So as you can see, Apple has no problem 'getting' the concept of OpenSource.
Apple STILL sees themselves as a hardware company and not a software company. (they look at where the money comes from) And if the latest rumblings out of the Apple rumor mill are to be believed:
1) 2+ years ago Jobs went to Moto and said 'it will be great in 2 years when we aren't using you as a supplier' (fact)
2) Apple backed down...they never DID carry through with the Rhapsody on Intel project. (fact)
3) Rumor site claimes "t Steve Jobs himself has met with Motorola executives and hit them with both barrels recently" (rumor)
4) "Apple in talks with Wintel vendors regarding OS X for Intel?! " (rumor) Is that the 'both barrels'?
It is possible Apple might just see themselves as a software company that HAPPENS to sell hardware, and make alot of money there. Parts of Apple grok what they do, and the world they live in. The question to be answered yet is: Does Steve Jobs and his management understand and be able to execute?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Having big companies freeing their product sounds like a Good Thing to me.
But why does everybody always say "this is nice, but...". Can't we just be happy with what we get?
If they want to keep the source code, or in this case the hardware, to themselves, let them.
It's just the way they choose to do business. It may not always seem fair, but i think a lot of companies have shown interest in Free Software lately and all they get in return is "ok. thanks. whatever. now give it all!".
That's what almost killed Apple in the past. For a while Apple did allow certain manufacturers to make MacOS compatible machines. The problem was, Apple did all the development, the clone makers just took Apple's work, put out a cheaper machine, and almost drove Apple bankrupt. The first thing Steve Jobs did when he came back was get rid of the clone makers. It cost Apple huge sums of money to buy back the clone makers' contracts, and it was (and still is sometimes), hotly debated among the mac community, but in hindsight, it most definately saved Apple.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Since gcc is distributed under the GPL, derivitave works, including Apple's, need to be distrubted under a license compatible with the GPL. Apple's modified gcc is just as free as the one distributed by the FSF.
The FSF requires all patches that want to be considered for inclusion in the main development sources (rather than remaining as a fork) have their copyright assigned to the FSF. This is done to prevent a situation that they have run into in the past where companies have said that their employees have had no right to give the FSF code created on company property and time.
So the only interesting part of this announcement is that Apple is trying to minimize their own work of backpatching their changes into newer versions of gcc to maintain their own forked gcc.
There's no such thing as an "apple patch." You're thinking of an "orchard."
heh...
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
Thanks, I agree that half is an exaggeration, And you hit what I thought was the underlying gotcha. If even x number of M$ employees bound by their non-compete or intellectual property clauses have contributed in ways that begome widely used, which I'm sure is happening, It puts M$ as many other companies who are propriatary and closed in approach in a very odd position, supporting that which they are philisophically opposed to. Interesting business problem, no easy way out.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Do Alpha motherboards include the full source code to the firmware? Are you going to complain when your 21164 motherboard won't take a 21364 CPU?
Yes. Tears almost flowed from my eyes while looking at the code. If only they released this before... there are sooo much things I wanted to do when I was an hard-core NeXTer that would just have been possible with the access to this source...
Cheers,
--fred
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So, exactly what hardware would people like them to 'open'? You can already stick in any graphics, sound, whatever, yeah? Dunno but I think you can also attach USB and FireWire devices too(not a MacMan, sorry if I'm talking crap!)
:o)
Open the motherboard or processor? Hmm. Don't think that'll be happening any time soon. Then again, why care? Transmeta has already raised interesting possibilities in the area of hardware emulation of other platforms, so soon you could run all your Apple and x86 software on one of those. So why care about what Apple does with its hardware? If its good, buy it. I was under the impression that this was the way most people thought...
Game dev and music blog
Not so! The GPL states in paragraph 4 that the license cannot be revoked as long as the licensee stays in compliance with the GPL. For Microsoft to be able to close up it's GPLed stuff it would need to prove that every licensee in the whole world collectively has violated the GPL (and thereby nullified their license). Not bloody likely!
Apple "gets it" far better that most /.ers do. They have been "getting it" long before /.ers noticed that they "get it". But what exactly is "it"? Not, I'll bet, what /. wants it to be.
"It", for /., is complete specs to all of Apple's hardware and software so that cheapskates can go to radio shack and build a complete clone without paying a cent to Apple. Never mind that they didn't have anything to do with making the Mac & MacOS the effortlessly working combo that they are. nor is this to Apple's benefit in any way. After all, how dare they not just give away everything for free, the bastards!
"It", for Apple, is that they are using the work of the Open Source community in parts of their products, and have some extremely cool additions of their own, and want to give this back to the OSC. And they do. "It" for Apple is also doing REAL design and engineering to make their hardware & software work effortlessly and seamlessly together in dimensions that the average kernel-hacking, hardware-soldering weenie will NEVER GROK, because some of us don't give a flying hoot about that stuff. We have work/fun to do and our Macs are tools to get that work/fun done as efficiently and easily as possible, i.e., by being in the way as little as possible.
Let's just, for a second, pretend that Apple did open up the hardware specs to the point where somebody could assemble a complete clone from scratch, firmware and all. What happens? Hundreds of vendors immediately rush to assemble shoddy replicas of the incomparably well-designed Mac and flood the market, without grokking the fundamentals of what makes the Mac so elegant, or why excellent design and architecture are important. How many shoe-string taiwanese shops do you think could do justice to Apple's current product lineup? Soon, the clone industry degenerates into a price war, since this is the only differentiator. Margins become so thin that simply sustaining profitability is a herculean struggle. Research and product advancement get short shrift for lack of investment, and absurdly incremental advances are touted as "next generation" by marketing flacks. The entire industry quietly sighs into an endless quagmire of mediocrity, forever condemned to rote by its own shortsightedness.
Oh, wait, that already happened. It's called the PC industry.
No Thanks. I'd rather Apple kept everything top secret and closed if it lets them roll out things like the PowerMac G4 and OS X.
Actually, it doesn't work exactly like that. Contracts that employee's sign when joining a company can specify that code the employee writes for the company, or code written using the technology provided by the company belongs to the company. The company, however, cannot claim ownership of code written by that employee in his own time in his own house. And, I doubt any Microsoft employee would be working in Linux code at work (where all machines most probably run just Windows).
------------------
Loban Amaan Rahman ==> Anagram of ==> Aha! An Abnormal Man!
I understand why FSF wants/needs the copyright assigned to the FSF so that the efforts remains fairly unbastardized, but what did he mean by the M$ comment?
He's suggesting that many of the kernel coders are Microsoft employees hacking Linux on the side for fun. A side effect of this is that Microsoft probably owns any code written by an employee (even in their off hours) because of the non-compete contract they probably signed as a prerequisite of employment. If there is significant amounts of code written by MS employees (and MS forces employees to sign such contracts -- standard industry practice) then it's true that all said code is owned by Microsoft and they could revoke its license.
I doubt it's half the code base, however. Though I suspect it's probable that if certain employers found out they owned chunks of the Linux kernel because of this we might see some real legal battles in the near future... it's not just Microsoft that sees Linux as a threat to their market strategy.
So, the question is: are we going to get Apple's current version of Objective-C/Objective-C++ into the main branch of GNU C? And what about Apple's Objective-C runtime (not all the libraries, just the runtime)? Is that available as part of Darwin?
It isn't going to happen...
Apples stratagy includes ownership of the Mac design. This allows Apple total control over the future of the Mac. The ability to discontinue what Apple wishes to reguard as obsolete and the ability to include R&D costs in the price of the machine (as such they can afford outragous R&D costs).
If Apple were to open the Mac hardware Apple would lose money.
Mind you they have no choice but to price compeate with PCs however they can charg a little more if/when nessisary. However when ever posable Apple would prefer to sell Macs for less than PCs rather than more. If Apple openned the hardware Apple would not be able to include R&D into the price as Mac Clones wouldn't have the same R&D costs (the price of making a clone Mac vs the price of develuping a whole new Mac and writing the operating system and providing support)
Instead of asking Apple open the existing Mac hardware it might be better to ask Apple to build a Mac around an existing standard. This way clonnerd don't have cheapper R&D costs as the primary costs would be on say IBM.. who could add the cost of the R&D to the CPU used in the design. This way everyone end up carrying the R&D costs down to the user.
Or better yet.. just ask Apple to document the existing Mac hardware and make it easyer to port other operating systems.. such as switch back to firmware drivers (Like that found on the NuBUSS) larg roms are cheap
I don't actually exist.
Apple is IMHO a pure hardware vendor, I wouldn't even be surprised if they budgeted their software development efforts under the marketing department.
Are you kidding? If AAPL were a pure hardware vendor, they'd get off their high-horse and start making money where the real profitability in the computer industry is: Wintel notebooks. There's a reason why AAPL doesn't have any official support for running operating systems other than Mac OS.
Apple couldn't care less that the first thing we do is wipe out MacOS and install a linux distro as long as we buy that G3 or imac.
Yes, that's true. However, they still don't support that. This is very similar to some ISPs, for instance. My ISP, Telocity, does not provide ANY technical support or installation assistance for Linux computers. But, they DO advertise that there service works fine with UNIX (and therefore Linux) computers. And they have no use policy which prohibits the use of UNIX or Linux-based computers. But, its obvious that they prefer you to use a Windows OS.
The same holds true for AAPL and Mac OS. Sure, their computers work with Linux. But you don't see any color glossy ads in CompUSA proclaiming that their systems work with Linux (although there is mention of course on their Web site, but only in the dedicated Linux areas). And they won't provide technical assistance for people wanting to replace Mac OS with Linux, although they will probably point you to some Websites that could help.
My journal has hot
Apple is IMHO a pure hardware vendor, I wouldn't even be surprised if they budgeted their software development efforts under the marketing department.
The outside of the imac or G3, the Aqua GUI of the new MacOS and all colorfull adverts are just there to create an image for the apple hardware. Opening up the source of any part of apple created software won't mean their computers become cheaper, it'll just mean their image just became a little better in a part of the hardware market that used to dislike them for their crappy OS. So now linux geeks will also start buying apple hardware because apple is a company that embraces the open source movement. Apple couldn't care less that the first thing we do is wipe out MacOS and install a linux distro as long as we buy that G3 or imac.
This is just proper marketing for a company that get's it's money from hardware and it's image from software. If they keep on this track I'll have to start buying APPL stock.
Apple "got it" from the very beginning. They just lost the way when the suits (john sculley and his cronies) wrested the company from its founders.
In the days of "Steve & Steve" Apple defined "Open Source" before the term was coined, and before anybody had heard of RMS, ESR, or Linus.
I still have all the documentation that came with the Apple ][+ that my dad brought home that day in 1981. Sadly, the Apple ][+ itself fell prey to a Florida thunderstorm some years ago.
That documentation includes:
A complete plan of the motherboard that my dad was later able to use to build his own Apple][ clone.
Commented assembly code for all the ROMs.
Documentation for the Apple Disk ][ 5.25" drive which consisted of a pair of books about 2" thick, including hardware plans for the drive and controller card as detailed as those for the computer itself. (*when was the last time you saw a 2" high stack of manuals for a COMPUTER? much less a 5.25" floppy?!?!??!?*)
Code (not source tho... mostly 6502 assembly)for damn near everything else as well.
The documentation that came with that computer is ASTOUNDING by today's standards. With the rise of Linux, we're only beginning to see the reemergence of such comprehensive docs.
And it is nice to see that Apple is returning to it's old ways.
john
Imagine all the people...
NeXT basically forked the gcc compiler, adding better objc support, extended the objc spec (protocols, distributed obejcts) and the objc compiler (ObjC++, ie: mixing objc and C++ in the same source). The compiler front end also changed (support for frameworks, for instance).
They also changed gdb (adding support for their additions and improving IDE support)
Those modifications were avalaible (well, it is GPL), but the objc runtime was proprietary. Hence, the whole thing was close to useless, as you could not integrate the modifications in mainstream gcc.
Gcc got better and better, so NeXT copied amount of code from gcc/egcs in their forked version of gcc, transorming it in a very strange beast.
But you just can't fight against open-source, so the OSXS compiler is now outdated, have bad C++ support, a lot of quirk, and long outstanding bugs.
Apple is not in the business of make dev tools (but NeXT was). They just have to secure their position by not relying too much on an external vendor (ie: metrowerks), hence MPW. Now metrowerks is owned by motorola, a company with which they have intimate relationship. So assigning gcc mods to FSF is a very logical move:
And, it is very good for the community as it will reduce the differences between Cocoa and GNUstep, which is good for everyone.
Cheers,
--fred
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