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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 ... "
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).
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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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