Apple Releases Rendezvous As Open Source

clarencek writes "Apple has released Rendezvous as Open Source, as promised. Excerpt: Starting today, developers can download Rendezvous as open source under the Apple Public Source License. Rendezvous is part of a broader Open Source release today from Apple which includes the Darwin 6.0.1 operating system and additional Open Directory plug-ins. Together, these underscore Apple's commitment to making core protocols freely available as open standards and open source."

Comments

APSL takes away rights

[I Am The Owl]

I wish that they would opt for a truly Free license, like the GPL or at least the BSD or MIT license. A corporate-created license such as the APSL only works to take away the rights of the users and anyone who contributes to developing the code for free. Doesn't anyone remember when...

• Apple sued developers of the KDE and Gnome themes that were "confusingly similar" to their Aqua theme?
• Made the decision to keep their window manager closed, in order to keep the community from benefiting?

I would have hoped that the open source community on Slashdot would have a long enough memory to remember the litigious injuries that Apple had inflicted upon us in the past, but I suppose those hopes were misplaced.

Re:APSL takes away rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has done a lot of bad and stupid things, but using a RMS "Purity-test" is not going to help anything. Open source is not in competition with Apple, and if they can be prodded into being more open-- all the better. Whose "us" anyway? Apple listened to their lawyers about KDE and Gnome, and settled things peaceably (as far as I know) The Slashdot community is not synonomous with "The open source community" or "People you say are cool, so everyone else sucks"

Re:APSL takes away rights

[BlueGecko]

* Apple sued developers of the KDE and Gnome themes that were "confusingly similar" to their Aqua theme?

Like it or not, Apple spent a good deal of money developing Aqua and cultivating its image. When users see Aqua, they immediately recognize it as an OS X system. It's like the distinctive styling of Jaguars and BMW that make it so easy to identify them even from a good distance. The KDE and GNOME themes threatened to destroy that branding before it got off the ground. I fail to see what's wrong with that. Apple didn't ban KDE or GNOME from transparency, or blueness, or even clumping all the window widgets together on the left. They just didn't want them copying their branding. Is it that hard to come up with your own unique theme without copying someone else? Or do you just have to have permission to flat out plagiarize everything you see?

* Made the decision to keep their window manager closed, in order to keep the community from benefiting?

So, just to make sure I'm entirely and 100% clear on this, your basic problem is that Apple only released all of their base system (which included many parts--NetInfo, OpenDirectory, OpenTransport, the HFS+ filing system, CoreFoundation, OpenPlay, and Rendezvous, just to name a few--that they had absolutely no requirement whatsoever to release) and not the entire system. Apple did not release that core because it is what distinguishes the experience from so many other pgorams, but still, look at all of the stuff you did get. Instead of focusing on the fact that Quartz, which probably cost millions to develop, remained closed, why not be happy that they have given you an excellent directory technology (NetInfo) and some very good networking technologies under an open-source license.

As for your complaint about the APSL: the APSL is recognized by OSI as a valid license, so unless your beef is with all of OSI, I'm not going to accept your complaint about the APSL unless you can be more specific about how it's taking rights away.

Re:APSL takes away rights

[BlackGriffen]

"Apple sued developers of the KDE and Gnome themes that were "confusingly similar" to their Aqua theme?"

That has nothing to do with source code and everything to do with branding. Apple wants people to be able to look at the screen and say, "Oh, that's a Mac," like they have done for years.

"Made the decision to keep their window manager closed, in order to keep the community from benefiting?"

There's a very good reason for closed sourcing the the window manager. Any monkey can find a free BSD variant online, but the window manager is sufficiently different from X and it's managers to make it stand out, so Apple doesn't want to lose that competitive advantage. If Apple lets go of that, then there would be no reason to buy a Mac when 50 clones came out on the x86 platform. Simply put, Apple isn't just in the business of building computers, and because they also make the operating system, they cannot afford to open source all of it unless they are willing to let go of what competitive advantages they do have.

Besides, I was under the impression that parts of the Red Hat distro were proprietary, no?

BlackGriffen

Re:APSL takes away rights

[BitGeek]

APSL only works to take away the rights of the users

Are you really so stupid that you think a license granting rights to source code with conditions is "taking away" rights?

They cant' take away rights to their property that was never given.

YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS TO APPLE PRODUCTS OR SOURCE.

Furthermore, its clear that you think suing somebody who STEALS YOUR PROPERTY is a violation of rights.

Great. Can I have your car?

Re:APSL takes away rights

[betaray]

If you can back up the claim that NeXT didn't invent the dock (that is that there's a OS with docks before NeXT), then I'd love to see it.

I love that you bring up cars, because EVERYTHING on a car was patented. You know why the Taurus didn't have rounded headlights the very next year after Porsches? Because those lights are patented, and Ford would either have to develop their own unique design, license the Porsche design, or wait for the patent to expire.

This is not a bad thing. This is also what you fail to address from my first post: What is the motivation for developing new technology if your competitors can immediately take what you've produced and sell it at a lower cost since they did not have to fund the R&D?

Just think of it this way, what if some open-source GUI guru came up with a wonderful new way to do things, something that would revolutionize the desktop and bring Linux to the forefront? Then Microsoft saw the idea and incorporated it into the next version of Windows totally negating any advantage Linux might have, and at the same protecting their position as the market leader. Assuming it was GPL'd you'd claim that they were in violation of the license.

Well, the street goes both ways. By ripping off the Mac GUI you're in violation of their license. In another post you seem to understand this. Just like you can't use even a small bit of GPL'd code and not GPL your program, and you can't take Apple's work without their permission. Remember the only thing that makes the GPL work is the existence of copyright law.

If you believe that closed source is bad, I can respect that. However, that does not give you license to steal from the people who develop closed source software.

On a completely different subject, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you might want to think about your attitude. Maybe you just like being an ass to people, but you're not going to change anyone's mind by starting of your posts with "Your full of shit" or generally insulting people. You just going to alienate and galvanize people's attitudes against your position simple due to the fact that you're abrasive. If your goal is actually to convince people of your point, you might try using more tact in your posts.

Since when was aqua a protocol?

[cduffy]

Keeping some user interface code closed is not a big deal. Keeping core OS code, interoperability-related code or protocols themselves closed is. Apple's position is reasonable.

Re:yes it is nice shame its not compatable with GP

[BlueGecko]

so from this *BSD nor Linux can NOT use the code

I don't understand where this comes from. You cannot easily integrate Darwin's source directly into the kernel, but certainly all of their independent libraries and programs are absolutely fine, and unless someone has a really convincing argument otherwise, since closed-source drivers can be linked with the kernel through loadable modules, I would assume that any of this code can be linked that way as well. In fact, while it is no longer under development, there was a project to integrate NetInfo with Linux. They apparently saw no problem. So what, specifically, makes this impossible, in your opinion?

Re:ahhh, newspeak

[spankalee]

How is Aqua a "core protocol"?

You can't be happy that Apple is participating in open source, you want them to give away everything. It's simple business that Apple has to retain some value added features in order to have something to sell (of course I'm sure you'd rather they gave everything away). Plus they wrote Aqua from scratch, it doesn't use open source code. Originally based on Display PostScript, they had to re-write the entire windowing and graphics system, and you want them to give that away? Basically, you're jealous.

They are not using open source like M$ used BDS tcp/ip stack, this is pure FUD. By all accounts they are contributing back to the projects they use, and are releaseing the core of their operating system as open source that even comes ready to run on open x86 hardware. They also hired Jordan Hubbard in part to make sure that they were able to work better with the *BSD projects.

Opensource.org

[bherrmann7]

I thought the trade marked opensource.org community says Apple's license is open source. Can't we rely on them to police these licenses?

It's the technology, stupid.

[marmoset]

So far we have several dozen posts complaining about licenses (so very Slashdot of you, really), and no one talking about why releasing the Releasing the Rendezvous source is so cool. Zeroconf is cool stuff. Imagine setting up a dozen machines at a conference or a LAN party and having them automatically self-configure their networking and discover each others services, without having to worry about subnet masks or a DHCP server. They already demoed a forthcoming version of iTunes that lets you play music from another 802.11 connected laptop without any configuration.

Oh, but I forgot -- bitching about the license is more important.

Re:It's the technology, stupid.

[Morth]

Imagine standing outside your local mac tech shop. Their network runs ZeroConf, when you open your iBook you are greeted on to their corporate LAN. It may be secure but it sounds likely that it is more Zero Security and lots of Conf to make it secure.

This scenario is not more applicable with zeroconf than without it. To use zeroconf you must have access to the network data, and if you do you have already compromised the network. It's not much harder to configure an ip yourself than getting one by zeroconf. And it's not much harder to sniff the network for service discovery either when you know how.

Re:on so many levels.....

[MalleusEBHC]

Sorry, but _your_ argument fails on one fundamental level: Apple is not required in the slightest to open source anything under any license. You should be happy that they have chosen to open source a lot of stuff under an OSI acceptable license. It's trolls like you who forget that Apple is a company, a company that needs to make a profit.

Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time someone uses terms like "free" or worse "truly free" and "GPL" in the same sentence, it make me want to cut my wrists.

The GPL is not free in any way. The GPL is extremely restrictive. The apple version only slightly more so.

The BSD liscence is just about as free as you can get. All they ask is that you give (C) credit. THAT'S IT.

But I agree otherwise. All this sudden Apple back rubbing is vile considering how evil apple has been in the past and IMHO continues to be.

Re:on so many levels.....

[drrobin_]

1) Release open source software

2) Sell iMac which it runs on

3) PROFIT!