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Workingmac.com Interview With Jordan Hubbard
LiquidPC writes: "workingmac.com has an interview
with Jordan Hubbard (one of the founders of the FreeBSD project, and
currently works for Apple on development of OS X). Questions range from
'How do open-source operating systems compare to closed-source operating systems?' to
'What does the future hold for FreeBSD?'" It's a quick interview, but a good read. Interesting that to talk about the Mac OS now is to talk about UNIX.
* Most units sold
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.
A little while back when rumours that the complete source of Windows 2k had made it 'into the wild', many open source developers were faced with the daunting proposition of keeping an eye out to avoid any Microsoft-originated source code.
Since he works for Apple, I have to wonder if Hubbard is not 'contaminating' any Open Source code he puts his fingers on.
The arguement goes as so... The way I understand it, Hubbard is working on Darwin, Apple's 'open source' OS. Darwin is equivalent to FreeBSD with a command shell. X and your choice of window managers can be installed on top of it, but it won't be OSX. Now, presumably, Hubbard must be exposed to a *lot* of proprietary code in order to best optimize Darwin to run the OSX user interface. Does this invalidate his open source efforts? Does he have a special contract with Apple so that any OSS can be released under (I'm assuming) the BSD license? Does Hubbard safeguard himelf from seeing any non-OSS code while at work?
It's possible, but somehow I doubt it. Anyone else know?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
you would know that it's because it takes a good length of time to get something as large as an OS ready. They wanted a nice stable, proven code-base to work from and so they picked a certain snapshot of FreeBSD and used it. That way you don't have to work out the nightmare of continuing to upgrade and merge old code with new code (which I get to do at work, wheeee). When Apple decided to go with OS X, FreeBSD 4.0 was likely in alpha stability.
OSX did not pop out overnight (or even in the last 6 months). You've seen how 'fast' Mozilla has come along, no?
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
This interview just scratches the surface. Let's see if we can get Jordan to answer questions on /. I'm sure that would be much more interesting.
Damn, you would figure you guys would read a bit more before you post ( but heck, this IS slashdot ).
Part of his duties, besides being involved in dariwn, are to keep working on FreeBSD.
Why you ask?
Because apple is source syncing many parts of Darwin with FreeBSD and there's soon to be a move to start syncing it with the 4.x branch.
Besides, that was the numero uno premise jkh had before he went to work at apple. According to his emails to the freebsd mailing lists, we wanted to assure everyone that his role in freebsd would not be compromised by his work at apple. If anything, freebsd is gonna get more benefits out ot it.
PowerPC port anyone?
"FreeBSD... because a pc is a terrible thing to waste."
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Gives a new meaning to illegal operation, doesn't it? Don't mix laws with operating systems, OK? Some things just don't have to be that efficient.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Mac OS X is a Unix. We check our disks with fsck, and we see what's running with top (although we have GUI apps we can use instead of the command line if we want). Man pages are all there. The default shell is tcsh. Emacs and pico and Apache are all there in every installation of Mac OS X. Strip off the GUI and you have Darwin, which is a Unix OS that's clearly derivative of Mach, BSD, and NeXTSTEP/OpenStep.
Here is an interesting tidbit: it is taking a longer time for the bulk of Mac developers to port their apps to Mac OS X than it has for the bulk of Unix apps to show up. It's easier to make a case that Mac OS X is not Mac OS than it is to say it's not a Unix.
I mean, MacGIMP is here on Mac OS X now, and Photoshop doesn't even have a ship date yet (although it's been shown off publicly and is apparently just waiting for Mac OS X 10.1). The GIMP is running in rootless X Windows right on the Mac desktop. This is a Unix, buddy.
Even though Mac OS X has been certified as a Unix by the Open Group, you don't have to ask them anything in order to figure out if something is a Unix. Kleenex(TM) is a brand name, but it is also a generic term. When someone says, "have you got a Kleenex?" they do not care if you hand them a Puffs(TM) or whatever. When someone says they want "Unix reliability" they're talking about the general reliability of all Unix systems, not about Unix(TM).
Linux is Unix. GNU is Unix (although it is clearly not UNIX(TM), and the (TM) is the entire reason for the acronym). In every technical way, GNU and Linux were designed and implemented to be Unix operating systems. It is so much about compatibility that it's amazing to see people trying to act like Linux is an island.
If it runs Apache, it is a duck.