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GNU-Darwin Dropping Cocoa, PPC Support
Johnny Mnemonic writes "MacSlash is reporting that the Gnu-Darwin ports project has taken issue with some of Apple's current policies, to the extent of: 'GNU-Darwin will not support or distribute any software which links to
proprietary libraries, and that includes Cocoa, Carbon, CoreAudio, etc.
There will be no native package manager from GNU-Darwin (pkg_add
suffices).
Second, we will be moving our operations to x86, and we are putting the
ppc collection into maintenance mode.' Astonished reaction on MacSlash, and recognition of the Fink alternative. Is this a worthy principled stand, or is it more like Kruschev banging his shoe in the UN? Will this help or hurt Apple's adoption of GPL technology?"
They're dropping these libraries but they haven't got anything worthwhile to replace them. This is a great way to kill their project.
Since when did apple adopt GPL technology? Darwin is based on BSD not gnu. Does OS-X even ship the gnu tool set by default?
Someone you trust is one of us.
For those who were wondering what the specific problems the GNU folks have with the APSL are, the GNU site lists their problems with the Apple License
Sounds like a project about to go down the tubes. Principles are nice, but when they get in the way of being an effective entity, it rapidly becomes prodigious to get rid of them rather than to cling to them. Any belief held too tightly can be harmful.
--
lds
That GNU-Darwin people decides not to link to "proprietary" libraries is, of course, a result of them using the GNU Public License so extensively-- and now the primary supported Darwin platform is not even supported in this project!
This makes me shake my and think "what the fuck." This project is not only shooting itself in the foot by choosing a platform not fully supported by the OS, but is also screwing over the real meat of Darwin's userbase: PowerPC owners. This move is akin to opening a car garage (in America) whose mechanics are all experienced in servicing American cars, and then changing policy months later, stating that the garage will only work on foreign models.
Where's the fucking logic?
Serisouly, am I the only one who is wondering who the Hell is in charge at that project? Kool-Aid Man? This move makes so little sense I can't tell if the people at GNU-Darwin are really that stupid, or if I am waking up in alternate realities every damn morning. I almost kind of hope for the latter.
This is the GPL in action, Mac faithful. Get down and kiss Apple's butt for choosing the BSD license.
What, the slashdot crowd says that standing on pricipals, even if it's like kicking yourself in the nuts, is a bad idea? How strange...
I'll probably get modded or flamed into oblivion for this, but here goes anyway...
Is this a worthy principled stand, or is it more like Kruschev banging his shoe in the UN?
No, it's more like a child on the playground at recess sitting down and crying in the middle of a touch football game because the other boys wanted to play with different rules. And then going off to play his own game on the other side of the playground by himself.
Maybe a bad analogy, but come on. From the statement on sourceforge, nothing in the situation has actually changed; it just seems like the project maintainers had been hoping that Apple would bow down and see the light, but it's been too long and they haven't. So we're taking our ball and going home.
If the APSL is not free software compliant, why not say that in the first place instead of finding issue with it now? If Apple's "support" of the DMCA was disgraceful, why bring it up now rather than before starting the project? I mean, I'm sure the burgeoning legions of x86 Darwin users will support you, but at the cost of alienanting all the PPC users. Priorities.
Donning nomex suit andd breathing mask; prepare for flaming in five, four, three, two.....
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Updates
Apple first released an updated version, 1.1, of the APSL but it remained unacceptable. They changed the termination clause into a ``suspension'' clause, but it still had the same kind of bad effects.
In January 2001, Apple released another version, ASPL 1.2. This version fixes two of the fatal flaws, but one still remains: any modified version "deployed" in an organization must be published. The APSL 1.2 has taken two large steps towards a free software license, but still has one more large step to take before it qualifies.
Below, is the original commentary on the first version of the APSL, version 1.0.
Original APSL Commentary
After studying Apple's new source code license, the APSL, I have concluded that it falls short of being a free software license. It has three fatal flaws, any of which would be sufficient to make the software less than free.
Disrespect for privacy
The APSL does not allow you to make a modified version and use it for your own private purposes, without publishing your changes.
Central control
Anyone who releases (or even uses, other than for R&D) a modified version is required to notify one specific organization, which happens to be Apple.
Possibility of revocation at any time
The termination clause says that Apple can revoke this license, and forbid you to keep using all or some part of the software, any time someone makes an accusation of patent or copyright infringement.
In this way, if Apple declines to fight a questionable patent (or one whose applicability to the code at hand is questionable), you will not be able to have your own day in court to fight it, because you would have to fight Apple's copyright as well.
Such a termination clause is especially bad for users outside the US, since it makes them indirectly vulnerable to the insane US patent system and the incompetent US patent office, which ordinarily could not touch them in their own countries.
Any one of these flaws makes a license unacceptable.
If these three flaws were solved, the APSL would be a free software license with three major practical problems, reminiscent of the NPL:
It is not a true copyleft, because it allows linking with other files which may be entirely proprietary.
It is unfair, since it requires you to give Apple rights to your changes which Apple will not give you for its code.
It is incompatible with the GPL.
Of course, the major difference between the NPL and the APSL is that the NPL *is* a free software license. These problems are significant in the case of the NPL because the NPL has no fatal flaws. Would that the same were true of the APSL.
At a fundamental level, the APSL makes a claim that, if it became accepted, would stretch copyright powers in a dangerous way: it claims to be able to set conditions for simply *running* the software. As I understand it, copyright law in the US does not permit this, except when encryption or a license manager is used to enforce the conditions. It would be terribly ironic if a failed attempt at making a free software license resulted in an extension of the effective range of copyright power.
Aside from this, we must remember that only part of MacOS is being released under the APSL. Even if the fatal flaws and practical problems of the APSL were fixed, even if it were changed into a very good free software license, that would do no good for the other parts of MacOS whose source code is not being released at all. We must not judge all of a company by just part of what they do.
Overall, I think that Apple's action is an example of the effects of the year-old "open source" movement: of its plan to appeal to business with the purely materialistic goal of faster development, while putting aside the deeper issues of freedom, community, cooperation, and what kind of society we want to live in.
Apple has grasped perfectly the concept with which "open source" is promoted, which is "show users the source and they will help you fix bugs". What Apple has not grasped--or has dismissed--is the spirit of free software, which is that we form a community to cooperate on the commons of software.
Could someone explain why the GNU-Darwin people think Apple will care what they do? I'm not against the protest per-se, in fact I think they're protesting some valid issues. But really, why would Apple pay any notice?
It's great to see people trying to hold companies to account for their actions. This is a bit silly though because they run the risk of becoming irrelevant by not supporting PPC and not including certain packages.
If this is good for anyone, it's the folks at Fink.
People who actually use computers are done a great disservice by this kind of petty political bickering. It's the open source equivalent of Microsoft's marketing gimmicks: Just noise that wastes my time.
Some developers appear to be so isolated from the real world of computing that they are convinced that users care about all this trumped up ideological puffery about licensing. As a current Apple user (and a former Linux user), I don't care. What I want is better, more innovative software. Yapping about licensing schemes doesn't get me better software, proprietary or free. These developers should stop pretending to be lawyers and start developing.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Like other posters have noted before, Darwin/Mac OS X is actually based on BSD-licensed software, not GPL-licensed software. If you want Linux on PPC, there are other alternatives.
However, that kind of problems only points at a much greater problem. Namely, the fact that a commercial entity (Apple) is heavily using open source in their latest software offering, even though their behaviour clearly indicates they are not interested in the philosophy of open source.
Finally, honestly, what's the point of Darwin only on x86? If I want BSD-style operating system on Intel x86, I'll use FreeBSD, or one of the other two, not some sort of bastardized version, which does not offer the reliability, security, or portability for which the other versions are well-known.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Surely they knew from the very beginning that Apple had no interest in the GPL or free software licensing. That they should be shocked to discover this now sounds like they were utterly and unbelievably oblivious, and this sounds impossible to accept.
I suppose maybe they hoped and believed they could "change" Apple by having a GPL/GNU centered distribution of Darwin. If so, that is amazingly nieve. Apple is a company that listens only to it's own evangalism, which is why it remains a minor player where new ideas are created so they can be stolen and marketed more effectivily by others who care less.
But Apple is also burdened by it's own cult mentality, where they know they can even sell customers crap, and they will continue to buy. So Apple is a small closed market all unto itself, a baby monopoly if you will, and certainly has no interest in outside views of what it should or should not do, or how it should or should not license.
So what was even the point of GNU Darwin then? I never understood it. It seemed like tilting at windmills at best. Darwin itself is just a BSD licensed kernel, based a bit on older xBSD kernels and some mach stuff, if I recall correctly. And if there is a desire to have a GNU/BSD distribution, why not start out from a current FreeBSD or NetBSD kernel and wrap a complete "GNU" distribution around that? (Debian GNU/BSD anyone?). At least that I could understand the point of...
GNU is free to have their opinion, and I agree that the "we can stop you from using your stuff at any time" is a little silly and makes software licensed under earlier versions of questionable value, but after 1.2, I don't see the big deal. So what if they require you to send back your changes? The fact that GNU is complaining about freedom to do what you want with software is both laughable and hipocritical. The GPL places severe restirictions on what I can and cannot do with my software by requiring me to provide source. I've got no problem with the fact that they require me to, nor would I have a problem with the fact that Apple requires me to send them changes. If I accept the license and use the software, that is the cost of doing so. They created the software and can put whatever license they please on it, that's their right.
However, for the creators of one highly restrictive license to call foul on another is nothing less than pathetic. The APSL does not "disrespect privacy" any more than the GPL disrpespects freedom. Each is a license with a purpose.
I think it's about time for Apple's actions to catch up with them.
How is this? What does Apple care with GNU-Darwin decides to shoot themselves in the foot? Apple releases a Darwin distro, and folks can use Fink to build it up to do useful stuff on thier Apple machines.
The only folks this will hurt are those die-hard GNU-ites who use GNU-Darwin for political or philosophical reasons. Anyone who is more pragmatic about thier software will just migrate to an Apple Darwin distro and Fink, or come up with an OpenDarwin distro, and be fine.
The GNU Darwin folks (and a lot the GNU folks) need to learn a little less from Stallman (follow your narrow principles singlemindedly wherever they lead) and a little more from Torvalds (be pragmatic and realistic about your circumstances to advance toward your goals). And don't ruffle your feathers and act "activist" over a software license. Be happy, write letters, but if you insist on being activist, do it for something that is going to really change the world and/or affect everyone - like human rights, free speach, privacy rights, or even the free flow of information (i.e. copyright, biological patents, etc). But really, concentrating all this energy and mindshare into the differences between some software licenses - geesh. There are more important battles to be fought folks - if you feel that this is that important, than fight for reasonable copyright and patent laws, fight for personal privacy and individual freedoms, fight for an open flow of information - and good software licensing will fallout from that. But worrying about the differences between Open and Free - it's really not that important in the grand scheme of things, what with the Patriot Act, DMCA, a religious political agenda being pushing (and succeding!) in our supposedly secular society, laws like NY's Rockafeller drug laws on the books - there really are bigger problems.
_sig_ is away
What the hell does this mean?
Since when did GNU define what "free software" is? I don't mind GNU, and I respect their goals, but certainly BSD and Apache software is far more free than GPL. GPL is highly restrictive. They have their social and political goals, which are well and good, but why is it that they expect everyone to agree or support them?
I really don't see any difference between this and myself whining the GM and MicroSoft don't support my personal political views or send my their source code for free, because I want them too. In my opinion, it's arrogant, petulant crap that this that tarnishes OSS more than anytihng else.
And I think it's about time that the open source community give credit where credit is due. Apple is one of the biggest commercial entities in the industry to have embraced large portions of your way of thinking to date. Five years ago we might have been discussing what Apple would have to do to earn some of that respect and it might have sounded something like "Yeah well, if they were to open source some of their OS, that would be cool..." and "it would rock if they used some of the open source software that's out there, participated in the development, and gave back to the community..."
Well guess what? Here we are. And some folks still insist that Apple is on the "bad side" because they don't kill their entire business by adopting the GPL and bringing their revenues down to Redhat levels. Give me a fucking break.
As far as Apple and the DMCA, the only time I can think that they did anything shitty there was to go after Other World Computing who was basically making a patch for iDVD allowing it to work with 3rd party DVD burners. The thing that most people never realized, however, was that the only people who would ever want to do such a thing were people who were ripping off the software. Think it through - the iDVD software was free when you bought Apple's DVD-burning Mac. It was not legally acquireable in any other way. Therefore, those who owned a legal license to use the software already had an Apple-branded DVD-burner.
I cringe when I reflect that Apple's legal department used this crappy law to do anything, it's true. I think that was clearly a mistake and deserves to be widely criticized. But let's be clear - going after OWC in general was the right thing to do.
There are two sides to this licensing issue. There is the GPL side in which commercial software is the devil and should eventually go extinct. Then there is the commercial software industry's position that open source is evil and will be the death not only of their business but of the software industry.
Clearly both of these positions are wrong. In order for the industry to go forward someone has to develop means of getting along...and middle-roads to take. Apple is standing at that meeting point, taking risks, putting their money where their mouth is, giving to the community, getting something back... They may not get everything right, but jesus, give them a little credit and stop insisting that the militant open source dogma is the only acceptable way.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
No -- why, because Apple pays an encoding license to the folks that license the DVD technology for every drive they sell. It would be cost prohibitive to buy that license for EVERY machine they sell. The encoding license from what I understand is far more expensive than just to decode the stuff.
As such, iDVD is only legal to use on Apple hardware -- which means the licenses was paid. To allow it to run on ANY drive would mean they would be in violation of their license.
Evil -- you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Unfortanate -- yeah -- because I'd like to edit dvds on portables without having to have access to my G4 Tower all the time. Evil...definately not.
yeah, wanting code that anyone can alter at will is really blinkered. Everyone knows that giving money to strangers and hoping they`ll do something at some point in the future is the way to go.
Thats a fair point, but as the guy said above, this sort of thing is a gradual process. It's real-world stuff. It's similar to the differences between I.T. and Computer Science. CompSci aren't bothered about costs, infrastructure, maintennance, support etc, they just want to do research. Trouble is, they bug the hell out of I.T. to provide them with the facilities to do so, without considering what's involved. It think the GNU guys think in the same way.
I'm sure in some ways Apple would like to go fully-open source, as I'm pretty sure they are aware of the benefits of it. But at the end of the day, they need to make money, and protect their investment. Maybe they can do that with open source, maybe not, buts it's not something to be rushed into.
And this isn't just a one-way thing. Apple (well, NeXT, but it's the same people) is largely responsible for GCC's Objective-C support, and continues to contribute code to the project.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
When several people pointed out this problem in his argument, Proclus defended his position by saying, "Consenting adults should be permitted to modify and copy software in privacy," which is an effective soundbite, but no more than a shibboleth; Proclus doesn't explain why this is such a critical public policy issue, and, judging from his replies, I don't think he can. We're not talking about an invasion of the bedroom -- this is a business contract for the use of specific software. If he doesn't like the license, he doesn't have to use the software, but it's tedious to have to listen to someone who insists on turning what is a contracts dispute into an ideological war.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
Apple definitely needs to improve their efforts with their OS<=9 users, but I think they have been making some smart moves with their OS X strategy.
Think about Apple's position - they needed a new OS that was stable and user friendly. World + dog knew that they were working on a system with a Unix core (via NeXT), so they couldn't very well pretend it wasn't true, although classic Mac users would be very turned off by a "geeky UNIX machine".
At the same time, Apple is a shrinking company; it's been laying off engineers, and research is minimal. Sales are crap, but improving thanks to the iMac. By opening up at least part of the OS and adopting more and more open source code and open standards, they save engineering time ($), and potentially benefit from a large pool of talent who want open source as a philosophy to work.
Don't minimize the huge sea-change that Apple made by embracing open standards. They were known for years for creating their own (sometimes superior but seldom embraced) protocols. Now, they're working with the community on those issues, and everyone is benefitting (Firewire, Zero-conf networking).
So, Apple plays up the UNIX angle, it's part of the promotion: "easiest to use UNIX ever". What does that get them? The ear of current Mac users, plus linux and bsd geeks who have been griping about the *nix desktop forever.
It's working too. Look at the people who work for Apple now. Look at O'Reilly gushing over OS X.
Why not use NeXT code? They are. Why not Linux? It's frankly a mess of inconsistency. Plus, as Fink proves, the vast majority of Linux apps are a recompile away.
I think Apple is playing a very smart long-term strategy. They're working on mindshare, getting the geeks and college students excited. They're staying out of the devil's bargain that Microsoft is making with the record and movie companies, and smart computer users respect that.
Hopefully for Apple, this will all lead to new software and more users, and potentially, a foot in the door when those new geeks start getting jobs.
I'm happy to be an Apple fan, but it's more like being a Packers fan. They don't generally win, but here's the thing; sometimes they do. And, they're innovators too (only community-owned team in the NFL).
compare fink to Gnu-darwin. From the end user perspective gnu darwin stinks. They dont respond well to critisism and they have never been very compatible with OSX. THe reason I think is they never really wanted to be part of OSX they wanted to replace it with a tottally GNU system rather than embrace OSX and bring GNU to OSX. For example, install GNU darwin and it overwrites lots of the BSD bin functions like make and tar. that's pretty absurd. No warnings no documentation worth reading.
I'm glad its gone. Now everthing will port via fink which is intended as an add on to OSX that brings GNU to OSX without replacing OSX.
SO this is good news
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Until Darwin is freed, activists such as myself will be leading users away from it instead of toward it. This antagonism towards Apple in the free software community has been aggravated by the DMCA fiasco. For example, Slashdot coverage of Apple has soured considerably since that time. We added the caveat to our Darwin distribution CD's soon after that (see grey box).
Until Darwin is freed? Are you confusing the OS with the dolphin from that lame SeaQuest show? Guy. Here's a clue (take two, they're small): Apple made Darwin as free as they apparently could and still survive. Granted, I sometimes wish Apple would do more, and maybe they can, but calling yourself an activist and taking a pretty weak stab like this at them is not going to help anyone. At all. Ever.
If Apple changes their stance on the DMCA, or opens more source, you can have your little self-congratulatory wankfest, but you won't have influenced them one little bit. People that run Mac oriented news sites, and people that write for Mac oriented magazines and other publications are the people that have a chance to be noticed. Mac owners aren't blind to these things as much as some zealots like to keep claiming, but they did make the decision they just don't care that much. Make them care without being a whiner and doing something stupid like this.
Clearly it is in Apple's best interest to repudiate the DMCA, to remove the onerous anti-privacy clause from the APSL, and to meet the standards of GNU Project, so that users can have a truly free OS, and so that activists can support Darwin instead of undermining it.
You've got your "truly free OS", the HURD. (Hah!) Go play with it and leave Darwin alone if you're a zealot, which is plainly obvious here.
Now pardon me while I go check my smoke alarm batteries. I think it's getting rather warm in this thread.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
How, exactly, is a C compiler *not* something that only someone in the nerd clique will use?
Originally the GPL had that clause as well, but it was removed in order to preserve peoples sanity. It's a stupid clause. What if you make an experimental change that doesn't work? Do you have to send a useless patch to Apple? What about if you alter the indents to make it look neater in your opinion? They don't really care about that. What about changes that are site specific? The list goes on and on.
The "viral" nature of the GPL is there to stop organisations forking it and then "taking over" the product by adding proprietary modifications that then may become popular, so effectively closing the source. If you never redistribute the code, that can't happen, so there's no need for it.
I see so much FUD about the GPL, really pathetic FUD. Stuff like "the GPL takes away my freedoms". That's BS - it takes away your "freedom" insomuch as laws against murder take away your freedom to kill people. Absolute freedom to do whatever you like simply doesn't exist in reality, why should software licensing be any different.
The GPL places severe restirictions on what I can and cannot do with my software by requiring me to provide source.
No it doesn't. The GPL places some very easily satisfied conditions on you if you modify then redistribute those modifications to somebody elses code. You can use that software for whatever you like, you can modify it in any way you want, but if you want to give other people that software it must be licensed in the same way as it was originally. Big deal.
It's called "grandstanding," and it's one of the few actual skills the GNU bozos have. Their skills aren't in software -- they have yet to create a single program that anyone outside the nerd clique wants to use. They literally can't give their stuff away.
/. failed to read or grasp the critical phrase "outside the nerd clique," citing supposed counterexamples that in fact are very much nerd-targeted, and completely unrelated to the desires or requirements of ordinary people.
That was one of my comments. See if you can spot the others, and win valuable prizes!
Just as on MacSlash, somehow various people on
Even for nerd-targeted software, GNU hasn't done well. They laboriously cloned a bunch of programs that were mostly written by a handful of actual innovators on PDP-11's a quarter-century ago. Big whoop.
The only original, which is to say non-cloned, programs from GNU that even nerds use in any significant numbers are autoconf and emacs -- gcc is a cc clone, but way behind commercial compilers in compilation speed and code quality. Autoconf is boring and trivial, while emacs is perhaps the most nightmarish and misbegotten program ever written. Other non-cloned GNU programs have sunk with few ripples for the most part. Not a stunning track record for the "vanguard of innovation and freedom." I have high standards for software, and I don't have much respect for this crowd of cloners and crap artists.
What about shutting down themes sites...the Sorenson fiasco...Apple's memberhip in the BSA...
I confess that I wasn't aware that those were DMCA issues.
Apple is not a "nice" company
I totally agree. Companies are incapable of being nice. This is the nature of companies - they exist to maximize profit.
Apple, does, however, have a great PR department and Mac fanatics believe Apple can't do any wrong. Their support of the DMCA is just one example of how self-serving they are.
I really don't know where to start with that one. The fact that Apple's PR department is irrelevant? The fact that Mac fanatics are just as you describe - by definition - but what about the rest of us? Shall we discuss GNU-Linux "fanatics" and "fanboys" who are totally irrational and won't see the truth even if it is under their noses? Would that be equally fair and accurate? The fact that "self-serving" as a criticism for a company really doesn't go very far?
While we're on the subject of how ethical Apple is, where is the outcry of support for Apple as they stand virtually alone resisting DRM? Surely the freedom-loving open source community is all over that, right? Perhaps I missed it. The criticism that people like myself are "fanatics who don't see the truth" is a dangerous one that can easily be turned back on the likes of the GNU-Linux community in spades. In the end, however, I think it gets us nowhere. Let's skip that part next time, shall we?
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
But I never said anything about having problems with restrictions. I agree that releasing a binary only, proprietary licenses is very restrictive, more so than the GPL (well, most likely). My problem is not with GPL restrictions, or APSL restrictions, or any restrictions at all. My only problem is with GPL proponents complaining about the restrictions of other licenses when their own licenses impose restrictions of their own. (If BSD or Apache proponents wanted to complain, that would be a different matter.
As for context, maybe you couldn't get it from this post... my thinking was actually the three (original, not the replies to the replies) posts in the thread. Not that I'd expect you to have read them all... my point being not so much that you "should have read it this way," but more by the way of supporting my assertion that my rewritten version was the original intent.
Anyway...
I still don't understand how saying the GPL places restrictions on software derived from it is stupid. I'm not saying restrictions are bad, I'm not saying the GPL is bad. I'm just saying the it places restrictions on derived software, which seems to me, not only reasonable, but factually true.
I agree that there is a lot of fuzzy thinking and such around GPL and coypiright law, and IP law in general. In fact, my entire reaction was to the common mistake that GPL==free software. What incensed me in the GNU-Darwin point, and, to a lesser extend, GNU's web page, is their explicit and implicit claim they and they alone can define what free software is and what a good license is.
To a large part, they have been successful. Much common media equates GPL with free software without understanding the implications or the foolishness of such a conclusion. GPLed software is a subset of free software, and though important, and even large, is dwarfed (in terms of users) by BSD/Apache style software.
If anything, BSD/Apache style free software should be considered the archtypical. Not only does it have fewer restrictions (in that it has practically none), but it's usage is huge. There's BSD software in Windows, Apache is the biggest web server, the most used Java libraries/frameworks are Apache style, etc.
As for you divergence, I agree. I personally wish that I could share my code without fear of having it stolen. To be able to do so would be a great value to myself, and, I like to believe, others as well.
We need to invade Iraq for several reasons.
If you are so determined to blast a country into little pieces I hope to you have a) signed up for the military and b) will be on the front lines getting shot at by a number of pissed of Iraqis.
If you feel that the war is worthwhile, you should then feel it is worth your life. Until then shut-up.
(If you are in the military and will be going over seas or already are, good for you, you poor, miserable pawn.)
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
The GNU/Darwin folk have been off in their own little world for quite some time now.
What's with their name? They aren't affiliated with GNU, the underlying OS is not GNU, and RMS never requested that they change the name.
The GPL does not prohibit linkage to proprietary libraries if they are part of the system, not even in spirit. There is nothing that is comparable to the core OSX GUI toolkits, not even GNUstep, so there's no moral (in the GNU sense) rationale for forbidding their use.
Imagine the OpenCD project banned software that linked to win32 or gdi. This is what GNU/Darwin has done. It's silly, spiteful and will ultimately harm only themselves.
Go Fink and DarwinPorts!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This is an oddly inconsistent rebuttal you make, Mike. First you chastise the original poster for not taking the time to read an article and understand the project he's slamming before doing so, then YOU turn around and barf undigested corn all over the entire Unix movement while at the same time admitting that you could care less about it and see it merely in terms of colored directory listings. If that's really your viewpoint on it, then why not take some of your own advice and admit that you don't understand the Unix perspective and thus aren't qualified to comment on why some people still see enough value in it to try to get it onto the desktop or "recreate" it in the form of FreeBSD? Trust me, it's about FAR more than colored directory listing.
:-)
If OS originality is also your only metric for success then you'd do well to look at some of the original OS efforts launched during the 80's and 90's and see how well they did. I'm not pissing on OS research by any means, and we've learned a lot from efforts like Plan9 (which have influenced some of the more modern changes in FreeBSD and Linux - "Unix" is hardly static), but making it sound like OS technology is somehow like a painting or a song and has to be "original" to be successful or relevant is just silly. Hell, that rule doesn't even apply to paintings or music these days either.
- Jordan Hubbard co-founder, the FreeBSD Project. Director, UNIX Technology. Apple Computer