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Can Open Source Escape The Apple Horizon?
Meltr writes: "Yahoo has a story about how Apple is using non-GPL'd open source software, making proprietary extensions, and giving nothing back to the community. 'Apple simply found a source of cheap high-quality systems software that it could make its own without needing to give back so much as a bug fix, let alone useful software projects.' Good stuff." Inflammatory, but some of it is hard to deny. On the other hand, there is Darwin on x86 already, and Apple would probably be as happy selling boxes destined to run Yellow Dog Linux as OS X.
That's what we need valuable moderator points spent on. A joke that was old 8 months ago spewed by a karma whore.
Come on people. If those fucking moderators spent half their points rating comments with CONTENT, slashdot might still be worth reading.
You repeatedly post this same crap, it repeatedly gets corrected. Classic Macs boot a MacOS stub from ROM. There is no BIOS or bootloader. It's probably damn near impossible to boot any other OS on the system (even AU/X bootstrapped from MacOS).
Besides, in the other thread you say "Run along now, and buy more closed Apple hardware. We know how important your time is." Feel free to follow your own advice.
I want everyone to ask themselves one question.
Why do I program something and then release the code for it?
Possible Answers:
1. So others have the opportunity to learn from it
2. So others have the opportunity to contribute to it
3. So have the opportunity to be innovative and change the way software is written (in a positive effect hopefully)
4. I believe that people should have the opportunity to adapt the code to different platforms
5. I want to improve software quality and others to utilize this fact
6. I don't program.. but uhh.. GPL RULES!
7.
Apple isn't stabbing anyone in the back. Apple did Unix a favour. Literally, Apple has completed something miraculous which I believe should have been done long time ago. With one stroke, Unix was given a new look, a new feel, a new personality and tons of potential. What have they given back? They have brought Unix to the MASSES. Your mother and father, sister and brother. I've heard these promises from other variants and after all these years, nothing. Apple did what the rest of us couldn't. They've given back plenty. We should be saying thank you and taking a lead from them.
They didn't release their source code? Yes they did. Whatever they borrowed they gave. Sure they didn't give you the GUI. Ahh too bad. Listen, seriously sit down and ask yourself why you release source code. If it isn't to further progress and innovation then you are a hypocrite. All everyone is whining about really is not, oh they should be releasing the source, but really, why am I not getting credit, why is X not getting credit or its name proclaimed. Give it up. The problem is *YOU* not Apple.
So ask yourself, why do I release source code?
I know why I do.
To innovate and feed the mouth of progress.
Sure I may not get credit if someone uses my code. But you know what, I know its there, and I am content enough just knowing that I contributed.
Apple has provided the industry with a window of opportunity. Don't fuck it up like always.
Yeah, the story is really one-sided. They're basically saying, that because Apple doesn't open -everything- it doesn't matter if they open anything. In the case of the Sorenson codec, or much of QuickTime, there are licensing issues that make open-sourcing anything very difficult. Apple voluntarily makes its changes to BSD licensed software in Darwin available, they don't have to. And of course when they modify and enhance GPL'ed software such as gcc, they have their changes publically accessible too, as they must.
:-). These kinds of articles are just blatant grabs for readers.
I really wish ZDNet would disappear into the ground (and yes, I know people who work there, and they mostly feel the same way
--
This seems factually incorrect. They've given back code to FreeBSD. While it's certainly true that Apple isn't "all open-source, all the time," that's different from the claims made in the article. Where they've taken BSD code, they've given back code.
Some of what the author said is true, but not under the guise he presents it. It's FUD.
--Matthew
Let's see, he misunderstood the basic issues, didn't bother to check the facts, and let his own politics dictate the solution. Hmm, why *is* this on Yahoo instead of Salon?
Apple drew Darwin heavily from NetBSD (though it's now intended to sync with FreeBSD). As even a little bit of fact checking would show, Apple sent back massive number of bug fixes. They weren't requried to do this, but they did.
The writer's complaint isn't that apple doesn't contribute back to open source, but that it doesn't turn over *all* of its projects, and fails to use the Holy GPL.
hawk
"Apple is posturing themselves as a good-guy open source company. They are not. There are several things they could be doing which would greatly help the open-source community, such as releasing the code to Quicktime or their True-Type font technology."
The point the article missed is that Apple are playing the Open Source game, when it comes to those projects with an OSS heritage. As mentioned in many previous posts, Apple has contributed a slew of code, bug fixes, tweaks etc. during the development of Darwin/OS X, and more is likely to come. For the author of the article, however, this is not good enough. In order to play the OSS game by his rules, Apple not only have to contribute to those projects from which it has benefited, it has to be willing to open all of its projects to the OSS world.
In my view, this is extremely unhelpful to the Open Source movement. Why should a company like Apple get involved in the OSS community, if their only reward is to be derided for still maintaining some closed-source projects? Quicktime and True-Type were never open-source projects, and they bear no relation to the code Apple is using under the BSD license. There is no legal or even moral requirement for Apple as a company to become an entirely open-source house just because they make use of community projects.
There are other issues around this which could be the subject of valid debate, such as Apple's use of their own source license, but these are ignored by this article, in favour of this misleading attempt to shame Apple into opening up other projects.
As to Apple "posturing as a good-guy open source company", they have certainly trumpeting the fact that OS X is based on the "open source" Darwin core. However, I don't believe they have ever suggested that they are now an open source company. You won't see the term "open source" bandied about in relation to Final Cut Pro, AppleWorks, DVD Studio Pro, or any of the dozens of closed-source software projects Apple maintain.
Check out the Darwin site: it lists two major contribution to the open source movement: Darwin Streaming Server and OpenPlay & NetSprocket.
The former is a QuickTime streaming server, and the later pair is a set of toolkits to aid in multi-player gaming accross the net.
Both could proffit other platforms, such as Linux.
Apart from that, the Darwin code itself includes all the code you'd like to have to manage HFS and HFS+ partitions, AppleTalk & AppleShare networking, and a slew of other bits and peices that could also benefit Linux and other OSes.
Sure, Apple wont open source Quartz. But it too needs to turn in a dollar once in a while.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Except that most files out there are encoded with the Sorenson CODEC, so even if we had our own, we're still locked out of most/all content out there.
Let's face it - Apple has no commercial interest in allowing Linux users to view Sorenson-encoded AVIs, so it won't allow Sorenson to license it out to anyone else (that's my understanding of the situation, according to the Xanim site). And since commercial entities are incapable of altruism, it's a moot point to discuss it further.
But writing "our own" wouldn't suddenly make CNN start using it or whatever...
http://www.opensource.apple.com/tools/cvs/
Seems to me Apple is doing what it can with the resources it has available to it at this time. Apple must first answer to its stockholders - not, as much as some would like, to the opensource community. I mean jeeze, they just got X out the door. The framework is there for them to give back - and they seem to be headed in that direction. Just not as quickly as some might like apparently.
http://windows.scares.us
the BSD license, like it or not, is truly a 100% free license.
So, no, Apple are not doing anything wrong, but I wouldn't want them using the code I write in that manner. Hence the GPL/LGPL suits me fine in most circumstances.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
From my perspective as a long-term reader of the FreeBSD developer mailing lists, it doesn't seem to me that Apple has anything to apologize for. The people who work on FreeBSD understand that their code is available for anyone to use for any purpose, and none of them seem peeved at Apple's actions. One of FreeBSD's core team members even works on Darwin as well.
Apple has a policy of submitting as many changes as possible "upstream" to the open-source projects that they include in Darwin. If that's not good citizenship, what is?
Also, as an aside, they have open-sourced the Darwin Streaming Server.
--
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
So while you're screaming bloody murder, the people who wrote the BSD licenced code are wondering what the hell you're screaming about.
The open source community didn't write BSD UNIX or Mach. Individual programmers, and the institutions that funded or supported their work, created that software. It is their choice as to how to license and distribute the software. The so-called open source community has no standing to complain about how other people use that software.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
So...Yahoo is trying to do what? Show the world they spent their remedial reading classes masturbating to pictures in their anatomy textbooks? The code they used was NOT under the GPL and they never said they were going to join your fucking software communist ranks. I'm tired reading you fuckos whining about Quicktime codecs not being open sourced. Apple licenses the Sorensen codec and therefore CANNOT RELEASE THE SOURCE CODE TO IT. Besides the fact they fucking sell it making the free code to the codec in direct competition to themselves. It would cost alot of fucking money porting Quicktime in its entirety to X and your thousand fucking configurations of it. It cost them enough money to port Quicktime to Windows which they had to do because Windows was a prominent platform that lots of potential customers use. Even then the port was fairly rough. If you want to license shit fucking pay for it you whining commie bastards. Microsoft licensed TrueType from Apple and thus gets to use it all they want, do the same and you can to. Put your money where you whining fucking mouths are.
Apple had a great reason for opening the source of the Darwin kernel, it gave them some hype before Aqua came out to wow the public. It had the side effect of attracting alot of developer support since they could now learn about the kernel from the kernel. Apple never said they were going to be the new Linux mascot. Theres no reason for them economically to give code back to the "community", like a signifigant portion of you even fucking worked on any version of the Mach kernel. If you want support pay some money (ah yes that great fiend money!) and join the ADC and talk to the developers themselves. Fuuuuuuck Linux.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
People who write software and release it under the BSD license expect that it can be used by anyone. That is intent of that license.
If the author's wanted it to be GPL they would release it under GPL.
It still behooves Apple to feed improvements back upstream to simplify merging with the next upstream release. Its too soon for that with OS-X, maybe in a couple of months when they can stop and breath.
PS. I don't see any Open Source software written or maintained by Evan Leibovitch. Maybe he has, I didn't look too long.
It is the BSD license, it is perfectly legal. Everyone already knows that MS uses BSD code, and that is perfectly legal as well. The problem is the BSD license, which allows them to do it in the first place.
I don't like Apple or MS, but there is nothing to scream bloody murder about here. The BSD license allows these leaches to take their code, modify it and charge for it without giving a single dime back to the community.
So let's see... just because the BSD folks wanted it to be that people could use their stuff with no conditions other than a credit, you're saying that the BSD license has a problem?
What about their wishes? Don't they count for anything?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The BSD licenses have been around forever, and have been used forever to push good technology into the hands of corporations. How do you think Sun got started? By a couple of Berkely students that took the BSD code, made some modifications, and released them binary. What about the BSD tcp stack, which half of the internet uses? What about cisco IOS, which has a BSD base (altho it's pretty obscured nowdays)? What about all the vendors who sell black-box hardware (nokia firewall-1, etc) which are based on BSDi, which is just FreeBSD with some additional drivers and some other stuff like different SMP support? BSDi "steals" technology from FreeBSD and sells it to other people, and are the FreeBSD developers crying foul? Of course not, if they were really pissed they'd just start writing a GPL'd OS. What about all of the people selling Apache-based web servers? The developers who choose to release their code under BSD-style licenses do so EXPECTING that corporations will take that code, modify it and integrate it into a product, and release it binary only. Ce la vie. Grow up.
I am the king... of No Pants! www.penny-arcade.com
Okay, Apple uses an open source base OS (Darwin), which is based on BSD on Mach. They contribute their bugfixes back to the BSD crowd, which benefit them just as well as they benefit Apple.
Evan Leibowitch seems to think that by using open source software for the basis of their core OS somehow obligates Apple to open TrueType and QuickTime? When has Apple ever said that they would do that?
This ZD article has to be the toastiest flamebait I've read in a while. "Hey kids, all of a sudden Apple is raping open source, because they won't hand over the font and multimedia technology they never promised!"
< tofuhead >
--
It is still the dark of night.
'Apple simply found a source
of cheap high-quality systems software that it could make its
own without needing to give back so much as a bug fix, let
alone useful software projects.'
Well, that proves the BSD license does what it set out to do: make high-quality code widely used, thus setting a higher standard for all.
(8-DCS)
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
personally I want my software to work. I want the software that is running the web servers to which I connect to work. I want the software which runs my bank and my car and my coke machine to work and I know that not all of these systems are going to be open source. So if I write the best damned solenoid control software available and make sure everyone can use it, I'll be able to walk past someone banging the side of a coke machine for five minutes and say "well, it aint my code!"
How we know is more important than what we know.
Here's the open sourced Darwin Streaming Server, based on Quicktime Streaming Server: http://www.opensource.apple.com//projects/streamin g/
--GnrcMan--
That's because the article is wildly off target, and basing your opinion of Apple on it is unwise. The article took two instances of Apple not releasing their own code and from that extrapolated to "Apple is a parasite on open source development", ignoring the many contributions that Apple has made. There is tons of Apple-developed code in Darwin, and they didn't have to release any of it. By the end of this year, millions of ordinary users will be running an open source Unix kernel thanks to Apple, but all some people can do is bitch because Apple hasn't released every single line of code they've written.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Have you actually used Mac OS X? If you're not a Unix geek, it works very much like Mac OS 9, except applications multitask much better and the OS doesn't crash. "Unix" does not have to mean "unusable by mortals".
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
We, as a community, would want "free software" to be availible to anyone for any use. That brings along with it the problem of people just using the software the community has created without giving much back. That is the price of our ideas.
Let me reiterate our position.
``Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
This doesn't mean they are REQUIRED to do these things with thier own code however. Apple has the freedom to use the code however they like.
Apple is just reaping the benifits of our philosophy. If we disagree with them, that is our right. If apple wishes to be code-mongers that is their right as well.
> Apple has always been a company of closed software and closed hardware.
:)
No it hasn't been. Steve Wozniak was GIVING away schematics for his (at the time - new) computer!
http://www.woz.org/letters/general/10.html
Back in the early Apple ][ days, you could get the complete assembly ROM listing. Schematics were also widely available. (Hehe, I remember the mod that lets you add multiple 16K language cards, and I maxed my Apple out at 96K. Disk Muncher could almost copy a disk in 1 pass
IBM did the same thing with it's early PC.
That's what really started both companies: How easily hackers could hack and expand it. (Of course Apple targeting the schools and business users didn't hurt either. Along with soft good software like Visacalc (the first spreadsheet) and AppleWorks (I believe the first integrated application.)
Bringing this back on topic...
So Apple uses a BSD license. They are NOT under any OBLIGATION to give back. Yes, they are profiteering off other's people work, but guess what: The BSD license is *complete* freedom. Now, I don't want to start a flamewar of GPL vs BSD, but I really don't see what big deal is.
Somewhere along the way, Apple fall into the Not Invented Here Syndrome. Apple "embracing" the BSD license is 180 degree turn around for them. Give them more time and they might reach see the benefit's in GPL software.
Apple has contributed a complete microkernel-based Unix operating system, with source. Their paid engineers donated bug fixes to the NetBSD code base. They gave support to inter-BSD groups working on cooperative development. While he worked at Apple as chief Darwin engineer, Wilfredo Sanchez was also a member of the core development groups of Apache, FreeBSD and NetBSD, as well as contributing to countless other projects (MIT Kerberos 5, Perl, Sendmail...). Though he's changed companies, Sanchez is still active in Darwin development as well as other community projects.
Darwin is a pretty big deal for some of us. I have powermac hardware that is currently running Linux, but Darwin adds another option and sometimes supports devices that Linux doesn't. It is also among the only modern microkernel operating systems available to the Open Source community. But lest you think a complete Unix OS is too little to "give back to the community," Apple has also released an Open Source (admittedly not Free) streaming media server (!), network game development library, and some development tools.
Only a handful of profitable companies have done more for the community. I think your criticism was misplaced.
Hello!?!?! Anyone home!?!? The BSD license was designed specifically for this purpose! The Slashdot editors are spreading major FUD by expecting people to think that if it isn't under the GPL, it's not Open Source. Apple is using code released under the BSD license, and it's fully complying with the spirit and the letter of that license.
I use the BSD license for all my open source projects specifically because it does not restrict anyone's use of the code, like the GPL does. I once had a request from a company who wanted to use some of my code that I was planning on opening. They were concerned about the licensing, because their product is closed-source and doesn't mix well with the GPL. I told them that I was planning on using the BSD license, and the were very happy about that.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
i agree, and this is what has pissed me off about this "open source community" as of late. i'm a long time UNIX and Linux user, and recently i've been really enjoying using MacOS X as my desktop operating system. i love what Apple has provided to darwin and the underlying system and how helpful their developers have been with any problem i've had with MacOS X. i think what Apple has done is great, and i think it's a huge step forward from the completely closed software days.
but of course that's not good enough for the so-called "open source community." Apple made a huge change in offering the kernel and underlying system to their primary operating system open source, but instead of applauding this behaviour the "community" instead turns around and says "great, what are you going to give us next?"
it's never good enough. these people only want one thing: everybody else's cool stuff. well tough! Apple has provided a lot of valuable information with regards to Darwin and they have offered their code back to the community. but that doesn't mean they owe you all of their past technologies too! if you don't like it fine, don't use it, and go program it yourself in Linux. but of course that's not possible as i imagine the vast majority of people bitching about Apple's behaviour have never written a useful piece of open-sourced code in their lives.
for the rest of us, we'll just be happy using by far the best desktop operating system ever written. and we'll be quite happy with whatever code Apple lets us improve.
- j
Apple has done this, and those boot details are why you must have a "runty little MacOS partition". That's what the ROM in those older Macs expects to find in order to boot.
Do some research for once.
BTW- a handful of Apple's OS engineers on the darwin-developer mailing list will be happy to tell you in painful detail how the machine boots. Recent discussions have included booting on Mac clones too...
-pmb
QuickTime is a file format! The only closed part of it is the sorenson codec.
THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING LINUX CODERS FROM WRITING A QUICKTIME CLIENT THAT CAN PLAY EVERYTHING EXCEPT SORENSON MOVIES.
And once you do that, write a open source codec that doesn't suck to replace Sorenson.
-pmb
I know, because I'm one of the people working there. Apple is doing all of the Core OS work out in the open. Check out the darwin-development mailing list, where dozens of Mac OS X engineers contribute on a daily basis. This is unprecidented at Apple, allowing engineering types to communicate directly with developers.
And it's so very sad that someone like the author of that article has chosen to spin their own license dogma into a "Apple does nothing for me" story. It's sad becase myself and others are working 80hr weeks to share as much information as possible with our developers.
-pmb
Rant that agrees with you...
I have some code that we wrote GPL'd. It is under the GPL because it is easier from a business perspective to GPL it and let someone pay me for a more liberal license. I am likely to switch to the BSD anyways. Our corporate software license is based off the original BSD (with advertising clause) and the right to pay us to switch to a true BSD client. That's my open source involvement.
The Open Source community has written very little. The Mach microkernel was developed by researches at CMU. Like most research projects, some of their grant money was probably government money. Government research is NOT done to benefit whiny anti-corporate bordering on communist high school kids (which seem to dominate the slashdot posts). Government research is to advance national security interests or advance technology to benefit society and particularly the corporations that use it to power the economy. The US Government is interested in economic growth and security.
The BSD System was written by researchers at UCB. It was funded with some grants, and they developed a free implementation of Unix. That is made available for all Americans (and in this case, all people in the world) to use and advance the country.
My tax dollars should NOT be used to fund people whose objective is to derail one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy.
Linux borrowed heavily at various points from BSD. Linux also completely swiped the GNU toolset and now we have distributions, all but one of which don't acknowledge that they started as the GNU collection. The true irony is the RMS tirade about calling it GNU/Linux. I agree with his point that we want people interested in a Free Unix, not Linux in particular. If someone came and wrote this amazing new kernel, we would lose all the mindshare (and credibility and education done to the public) because it wasn't Linux, and they don't know GNU, they know Linux.
Major "Open Source" Milestones:
Kerberos: MIT Research Project
BSD: Berkeley Research Project
Mach: CMU Research Project
Apache: began as a set of patches to NCSA HTTPD (National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
I'm sorry, but university research has spawned some impressive technologies that people have hacked in new ways and done some cool work with. But there is no "open source community" that owns this work. All tax-payers own this work that was created for the nation on grant money.
Just because you run Linux doesn't mean that you own CMU, MIT, UI, and UCB's work. Sorry.
I hate to sound biting, I like a lot of open source software. I respect RMS's beliefs. However, this is absurd.
The fact that RMS defines freedom one way doesn't make it so. Instead of spouting about Free Beer and Free Speech, why don't you think for yourselves for a moment. RMS declaring freedom one way is all well and good. Without a doubt, BSDL meets even RMS's definitions. His complaints about the advertising clause is ironic, because if the GPL included in, there'd be none of this GNU/Linux issue.
RMS: I'm a fan, and I respect what you've done here. You've done a lot of great work. Unfortunately, ESR's minions have made a mess.
Alex
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). Check
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
(freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. Check
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2). Check
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
(freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. Check
Wow, looks like the BSDL is Free Software. Please repeat after me, The GPL is not the only Free Software license. Thanks for playing. Goodbye.--
The QuickTime file format is extremely well documented, and numerous players (and evern some editors, such as (I believe) Broadcast 2000) already exist for Linux/BSD/etc. That's not the issue. The issue is almost exclusively the availability of the Sorenson codecs. Sorenson actually would be perfectly OK releasing them on Linux if someone licensed them, but Apple will not allow them. (I apologize that I cannot remember the name of the application, as I do not use Linux anymore myself, but I think this came up with Xanim or something along those lines. The author was willing to license the Sorenson codec, but they informed him there weren't allowed.) Hence, getting QuickTime ported isn't the issue at all. Getting most QuickTime movies to use a more standard or open-source codec (such as DivX or the MPEG4 video codec, once that is released) and/or getting Sorenson on Linux should really be your focus.
I wish Apple would release a Quicktime player under the GPL. I realize that they can't release the Sorenson Codec due to licensing issues, but if they could make the player GPL and have the codecs imported through a neat plugin (even if the codec is binary only), Apple would likely get the support of Linux enthusiasts who port plugins from other codecs (like Divx) to Quicktime!
Plus, Apple is lagging way behind in the streaming market, with a GPL'd codec running on Linux/*BSD/Solaris boxes, their marketshare will certainly increase!
Doh!
This is not necessarily bad, because the GPL is fairly Free, and strongly promotes free licensing, which ought to put pressure on the software industry as a whole to become more Free. The BSD license, on the other hand, is completely Free, but does nothing to promote free licensing.
In an ideal world, all code would be BSD licensed, and Dell would give out free (as in beer) computers for everyone! In the real world, I believe that the GPL is useful for fighting back against Microsoft and Apple, who would like nothing better than to keep all software closed. But, do NOT make the mistake of thinking that somehow makes the BSD license unFree.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Perhaps this story headline should be "Apple violates GPL on Non-GPL'd Software." Or maybe "Apple Complies with BSD License." But that would hardly generate frantic posting and pageviews.
Apple is posturing themselves as a good-guy open source company. They are not. There are several things they could be doing which would greatly help the open-source community, such as releasing the code to Quicktime or their True-Type font technology.
The point is, they are pretending to be part of the community, while at the same time they are keeping the source closed to a few things the community could desperately use. Not that there is anything wrong or illegal with that. Its just deceptive that they are passing themselves on as nice-guy open-source type of people when they have no intention of giving back to the community.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
To a lesser extent, so is TrueType (being the essence of their desktop publishing market hold).
Just to pick nits, TrueType is nigh useless for pro-level publishing. Only PostScript fonts are used in serious works. Most service bureaus and printers will refuse to accept a job that uses TrueType fonts. They want PostScript only, because that's what the very expensive imagesetter that makes film that makes plates for the press understands. Or what the very expensive direct-to-plate machine understands.
TrueType is great for homebrew stuff that is rendered on a cheap inkjet printer, but the head cheese at my printer will throw my files back at me if I try to give it to her.
PostScript is the heart of the publishing industry.
Apple has traditionally relied on proprietary hardware and software to differentiate themselves from the hordes of Wintel PC manufacturers. If they did open source their software then everyone could make Mac-compatible machines and Apple would have to compete on price, which is not their strength. If you don't like their philosophical stand then don't use their products. Personally I will use whatever works the best, be it Freeware, GPL, proprietary, or whatever.
What is everybody complaining about? Or does the free software community now claim ownership of all code under the "all information wants to be free" act and now simply attack any company that doesn't GPL every last thing?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The bottom line is that Apple has released a Free, Open Source operating system and will be adding to it long after Eazel, Ximian, VA and the rest of the cuddly open-source media darlings have imploded. I doubt if this Leibovitch knows or cares to know anything about how much OS, compiler and toolchain code Apple has given away. Or if that Apple was supporting MkLinux development and putting Linux partioning options in their disk utility long before Dell and Compaq started even making noises about supporting Linux. All he wants is that the should give him their fonts, the Sorenson codecs and their industrial design, too.
By the way, does anyone know why since I upgraded to 10.0.2, my keyboard (USB or ADB) doesn't work in Classic? The mouse is fine and both work in native apps.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
The opening Yahoo article claims that Apple have used Mach for their own gain. But: 1. Thats the licence the mach team decided on 2. They released it back with all enhancements and a new I/O kit as Darwin... even on x86! 3. All the software is written in ObjectiveC as it came from NeXT... who wrote the ObjectiveC support you'll now find in GCC and GDB. AND FINALLY! I wonder what the principal designer and engineer of the Mach kernel would have to say: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/tevanian.html After all he is Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering. Duh. Nice researching there Yahoo.
[)amien
Because Apple is using technology licensed without restrictions, rather than under the GPL commonly found in Linux
Hmm, what license is gcc under? The GPL? and what did they do to their Objective C modifications to gcc? Release them?
the company can use Mach code, exploit what the open source community has done, make proprietary modifications, and give back nothing of substance. And that appears to be exactly what Apple has done.
Sure the CAN do that, but have they? Last time I checked, they were still releasing all the code for Darwin, which is what was based on the Mach/BSD licensed code. What they didn't release was the code to Aqua, which was totally propietary.
Another significant area in which Apple's actions hurt the open source community is in its refusal to offer any open source support for its QuickTime streaming video format. While some open source players support AVI files, certain vital components, such as the Sorenson Video Codec that provides QuickTime's data compression, are not supported. Apple has never released a binary player for Linux or a binary module for the XAnim video and animation player, and it has no stated plans to do so. Moreover, the company won't allow open source programmers to make their own Sorenson-aware players.
Apple can't release the Sorenson codec because they don't own it. They license it from Sorenson. They have released the specs for the Quicktime format, and there is no need for them to release a player because there are already several out there.
In short, this article was nothing but a collection of factual omissions, misdirections, and outright lies.
So apple is exploiting BSD license software. Big whoop, Microsoft, and damn near every company that makes a form of UNIX does too.
Exactly. If you don't want some other developer grabbing your code and incorporating it into their product and selling it without making the source available, then don't release it under the BSD license. Release it under the GPL instead.
As a Darwin developer, I can say that Apple has contributed massive amounts of code back in Darwin. Apple has donated hardware and money to various BSD projects (particularly OpenBSD). Apple, unlike M$, is trying to be a good coperate citizen.