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 ... "

Comments

Re:Open up their hardware?

[Surak]

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.

Open up their hardware?

[Chilles]

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...

[SvnLyrBrto]

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

This is something that was long awaited for

[f5426]

As a old-NeXTer now on OSXS, I was hoping for this long ago. I'll try to explain the issue to one unfamiliar with it:

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:

• They don't spend resources backporting egcs code to get the level of support MacOS developer are used to have
• They don't compete with Metrowerks
• They don't depend on Metrowerks

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