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Jordan Hubbard (of FreeBSD Fame) Hired by Apple
Anonymous Coward and many others wrote in to tell us that Jordan Hubbard is going to work for Apple.
Here's his post to the FreeBSD-announce mail list.
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For those already posting wild-assed assumptions (like it would kill these folks to look up their own answers - this is the web!) here's a couple of responses bundled up:
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FreeBSD is *not* the basis of MacOS X. The kernel is different and the utilities are a hodgepodge from a number of BSD distribs.
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Darwin is the MacOS X core and it's freely available. Indeed Apple has ported it to x86 (a platform they don't sell) and provides it the same support they do their PPC implementation. It's Open Source, go grab a copy for yourself.
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Darwin is the core of MacOS X - it's NOT all of it. The Classic, Carbon, Quartz, QuickTime, etc. parts remain in house & aren't likely to be released. Some folks whinge on about Apple taking advantage of Open Source - well yeah, that's why folks used the licenses they did. On the other hand Apple's also been contributing back a lot too (unlike MS) and while they may not have released your favorite bits they've been playing fairly.
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Yes Apple has rabid lawyers when it gets to things that involve their name & IP, especially their "look". Sure imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, on the other hand they spenty a lot developing their look & it's their trade dress.
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There is no "secret agreement" between Apple & MS regarding using x86 (at least that anyone seriously believes.) MS makes good money off of their MacOS products and wouldn't likely be strongly impacted by Apple using x86. On the other hand Apple is very unlikely to do so for a long list of reasons. Finally any such agreement would get MS in to too much hot water.
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Porting BSD tools to MacOS X varies in difficulty. For simple command-line stuff it's pretty straightforward, indeed lots of stuff makes just fine already. On the other hand taking advantage of MacOS X's Cocoa OO environment with it's "services", "frameworks", "packages" and other nifty stuff takes a bit more work.
- For ports that do GUI there's some work involved in going from X to Quartz but it's entirely doable. X-under-Aqua is available but it's kinda missing the point of running MacOS in the first place. Java-stuff of course runs natively, uses the Aqua GUI via Swing.
What's Hubbard likely to do? There's a spot open for managing the Darwin porting. There's lots of BSD-harmonizing to do. Many parts of MacOS X are still being tuned so any help there is likely to be appreciated. There's also been a push to make MacOS X Server shine so that's also a likely source of work. Finally there's just basic evangelizing and developer relations.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Net sales for year ending 09/00 :
Sun : 15.7 billion
Apple : 7.9 billion
Net income, same timeframe:
Sun : 1.85 billion
Apple : 786 million
Current Market capitalisation
Sun : 47 billion
Apple : 8 billion
Chris Morgan
"the next version wil be a lot less *nix-y". Uh. Not likely, they've pinned their future on OS X and its BSD foundation.
The graphic artists in your office who downgraded, its probably because Adobe has been slow off the mark in Carbonizing their apps. If they're like most graphic artists, they are dead in the water without Illustrator and Photoshop. "Low level access" to their computers has nothing to do with it. OS X protects users from having to do anything at the command-line. It's a different user experience than OS 9, but it's certainly not giving them anything like the complexity associated with the average Linux installation.
Apple would not have done better by continuing with OS 9. They've squeezed as much as they can out of a very old OS with no protected memory, no preemptive multitasking, and limited networking power. Not to embrace *NIX would have been suicide.
As for wanting "low-level access", a lot of Mac users do want it, but those that don't want it don't have to bother with it. Gee, what a concept!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Good idea, and one that I've heard before, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the old adage that just because you can do a thing doesn't necessarily mean that you should do that thing.
Follow my logic here, if you will.
Apple has long-standing hardware relationships with IBM/Motorola. Transitioning to x86 or even IA-64 would mean abandoning those relationships. Apple also has a very good processor in the PPC, and a large amount of time, money and code invested in AltiVec (the vector-processing capabilities of the G4 processor). I don't see Apple willing or even able to discard those relationships with any degree of ease.
"But what about selling both?" you may ask. And it's a good question. The answer is that Steve Jobs would have kittens - he worked very hard when he first became iCEO to get rid of excessive fragmentation of Apple's hardware products. Apple has revived itself on the strength of its four main offerings ("Consumer" and "Pro" desktops and portables - iBook, PowerBook G4, iMac, and Power Macintosh G4, for the uninitiated). To all of a sudden add completely different hardware into that mix - hardware that is fundamentally incompatible with everything Apple has ever produced - would break that successful, efficient model on a number of very basic levels.
Lastly, there's the Microsoft factor. Microsoft has virtually complete ownership of the OS market (Linux, *BSD, and micro-niche players excluded, natch) on X86. They are quite obviously aiming to continue that tradition on IA-64. The notion of Apple invading that space would lead to a number of typically Microsoftian reactions that would more than likely do severe damage to Apple's bottom line. It's an easy progression to imagine: first stage, Microsoft kills development of IE for Mac. Second stage, they kill development of Office:mac. Third stage, they "compete aggressively" (also pronounced "lie, cheat, and steal") to reduce QuickTime to irrelevance. Lastly, they use the momentum generated from those three maneuvers to point out that the Mac OS in any form (FUD, FUD, FUD) is now useless, as it now lacks an office suite, no longer possesses a leading web browser, and comes bundled with an irrelevant media creation/playback suite. Furthermore, (FUD, FUD, FUD) it uses (*gasp*) Open Source Software!
Any one of these things would be mitigatable. All of them would represent the complete and utter destruction of Apple. Maybe some folks around here consider that to be no great loss. But it will be - where would desktop computing be without Apple around to stea^H^H^H^H get ideas from? Face it, I think most folks actually enjoy seeing what sort of crazy, cool new or old-but-facelifted technologies come out of Cupertino.
I myself would genuinely love to see OS X on x86 hardware. I'd *love* to be able to use it instead of Windoze on the cheap-yet-powerful commodity hardware that is coming around on the x86 side of the market. But I know in my heart of hearts that Apple will never, ever, ever do anything that would give Microsoft an opportunity to force them out of business.
Sad, isn't it?
Chris Tembreull
Web Developer, NEC Systems, Inc.
Chris Tembreull
"My karma just ran over your dogma."
He can't work there - that means they'll have to give every copy of OSX away for free! Can't they see the error of their ways?- -------
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Definitely better than their original idea -- bringing in Theo De Raadt to lead their PR department.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...