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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."
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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
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.
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?
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
1) Release open source software
2) Sell iMac which it runs on
3) PROFIT!
to accept the praise of personal wisdom is an affront to the very ideal i hold dear.
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.