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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
I couldn't get to the MacSlash article but I have to question the motivations of these GPL people. They say that Apple doesn't seem to be properly embracing GPL. Well that was never apple's motivation! They have been using the BSD license, and they use it a lot!! They both employ prominent members of the BSD community and have given back to the community in code as well.
I have to say I don't even understand the purpose of darwin-x86 myself. It seems like stupid factionalization again. If you want to run BSD and x86, run FreeBSD. If you want to run a secure server or a routing box, etc, go for OpenBSD. If you want to run on anything else, go for NetBSD. And if you want to run OSX...darwin! As it comes closer and closer into synch with FreeBSD, I just don't see the point.
I quite frankly hope that the gnu-darwin project falls into oblivion.
it won't help their project much.
_ __
Sure, they can't call the thing GNU if they keep all the proprietary stuff from the Cocoa angles in.
Apple is NOT ready to go all open-source with their stuff so its an impasse.
Can't really blame either side. The OSnews folks are plugging this in the commentaries as an example of closed-minded attitude of the GNU folks or either the greed of a silly corporation who has no clue.
I think that is the wrong response. It had to happen if the Gnu/Darwin project was going to stay true to its ideals. Still, moving Apple to be open-minded to open-source ideas is like moving a mountain with a spoon. It is happening but very slowly. I have worked for too many corporations to just get all knee-jerk and blast them immediately. They act of moving such a huge thing in a new direction is a slow process at best.
This is especially difficult when Apple is not really sure if it wants to change direction. On one hand it wants to open-source the tech or guts of the OS while at the same time protect its look and feel. It would be easier if Apple was totally sure of what it wanted.
_______________________________________________
ACK
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"
Look at the installer.
/tmp before they are overwritten).
/tmp...
First they want you to run it by doing curl http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/one_stop | csh as root, allowing them to run whatever they want as root on your machine.
Next, it downloads a bunch of GNU utilities (wget, killall, tar, and a couple of others) and replaces the standard system utilities with them, without checking checksums, or providing an easy way to back out the changes if something goes wrong ( some - but not all - are copied to
Then, these unchecked progams, are run as root, to download the rest of the packages. I see no attempt to verify that anything was downloaded correctly, let alone compromised.
You would think they could have at least used md5 or even cksum to try to make sure that they are downloading what they think they are downloading, or back up the system files they overwrite to some place besides
Obviously this is just an attempt at a troll (and not a very good one, at that). But I feel I need to correct a few of your points so that nobody is confused.
GNU license is vile and repugnant.
The [L]GPL is just another license; developers can read it, understand it, and evaluate it before choosing to license their software under its terms. Some of its properties (specifically the "viral" aspect) make some people uncomfortable, but we must assume that the software creators are aware of these, and choose the GPL anyway. And in the end, we must respect the wishes of the authors.
*BSD is dying.
LOL. Mac OS X seems to be doing fine, on the desktop no less, and OpenBSD practically owns the firewall market. *BSD is a lot healthier than GNU's operating system, the HURD.
FreeBSD is already dead.
I don't know what you mean by this. They have had some difficulties with leadership in the last year, but they are far from dead. The latest news on their web site is from just a few weeks ago. The ports collection continues to grow, and the developer community is burgeoning. FreeBSD is far from dead.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
I am sorry, but I have no sympathy for this sort of political posture. If you want to maintain control of your software and how it is used, why are you using the BSD license? The BSD license allows anyone to use the code you release with very minimal restrictions. If you don't want it used freely like this, then don't use this license.
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?
I've been up all night doing some Mac OS X device programming. Entirely from userspace code, using the gdb-based ProjectBuilder GUI debugger to debug it. No lockups and no rebooting (although that can happen by programming the IOKit. But it's less common than with kernel space programming.)
It is quite nice.
You can write device drivers for OS X, but you often don't need to, there are interfaces exported to userspace to allow you to do a lot of stuff.
The userspace interface for OS X' IOKit is based on (ducking) Microsoft COM. I've never heard much that's real positive about COM, but the way it's used here seems to make sense, in that you can instantiate C++ objects that talk to the kernel.
That is, the user code access to the kernel is largely done through C++ class interfaces. There are a few file-based hardware interfaces like in traditional Unix. I think that's mostly for compatibility with legacy code, and you still have to use the IOKit to obtain a file descriptor, rather than opening a file by giving its pathname.
While the kernel is indeed a BSD-derivative on top of Mach, the driver architecture has been completely replaced. In its place is a system of "kernel extensions" whose code is written in C++.
If you want to write a driver that extends an existing driver in some way, you subclass the existing one and add your specialization in the subclass.
Let's see if I can find you some documentation on this...
-
kernel extensions tutorials
-
IOKit Fundamentals
-
Writing an IOKit Device Driver
-
Accessing Hardware from Applications (that is, from userspace)
I think the IOKit driver architecture is a signficant advance over the driver architecture employed by any traditional Unix or Linux kernel. May I timidly suggest that some of them would do well to adopt it.Of course there is the question of license compatibility between the BSD or GPL and APSL. But you could adopt the architecture by rewriting the code, rather than adopting the actual Darwin source code.
Of course, most Linux hackers aren't into programming C++.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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.
...
This passage made me sick. The notion that any "movement" that is not compatible with FSF philosophies necessarily puts "aside the deeper issues" is so self-important and self-righteous, even coming from Stallman's mouthpiece. Sorry, there are plenty of people who have considered the issue who do NOT feel that our society must engender all the rules and restrictions that you would have placed on us. The FSF's world-view is not the only considered one. Many people who adopt non-"free" (as defined by FSF gospel) licenses do so after careful consideration of all the issues and deciding that non-"free" licenses more closely reflect the world *they* want to live in. Who the hell is the FSF to decide ? Keep your self-righteous ramblings to issues like GPL violations
clarifications anyone?
by proclus on Wednesday December 18, @07:05PM EST
Sorry, I just couldn't let the story to out this way, because truth is important to me.
All machines that are currently supported will continue to be supported in their current configurations, so we are not pulling out the rug as it were. The situation could be better than this, but the ball is now in Apple's court. I will say that Apple has been moving in the right direction with respect to these issues over the past few years. If projects like ours can stay engaged with them, there may be a chance. It is not easy, and may be overly optimistic, but there it is. I'd like to give some time for Apple to respond.
The main source for the Apple/DMCA story is at the following link, although it has been covered extensively on the web as an 'Apple DMCA' googlesearch will reveal.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955805.html
Based on my experience with the Adobe boycott and other anti-DMCA activism, I consider Declan as a trusted source. Here are some good stories about the impact of the DMCA in general and on Apple users.
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-656.html# lnk3
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06901
As for the APSL, this has been a long standing issue with the Distribution, which dates back to the founding.
http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/12/01/20282 54&mode=thread
Darwin is not free software, because the APSL is not consistent with the free software definition. For more information, check GNU Project.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
You may know Yves@gnu-darwin.org, who is a OSXFaq.com editorial contributor. His most recent installment is highly germain.
http://www.osxfaq.com/Editorial/open/index4.ws
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).
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/order.shtml
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.
The message for users is to educate yourself about software freedom. In this world of economic contraction, the DMCA, RIAA, and the patriot act, that might take some effort, but it will be worthwhile in the event that free software becomes more difficult to maintain. Here is the starting point.
http://www.gnu.org
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
Jakob Breivik Grimstveit
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
Gnu darwin packages some GNU software around the APSL licenced darwin OS from Apple. So really the benefits of GNU darwin is helping software mainainers to have their code compile straight out of the box on darwin and thus MacOSX.
OTOH you need to be aware of fink which brings the same kind of software to macosX and thus darwin.
Then you also have darwinports bringing to darwin the same has gnu darwin.
Gnu darwin will now only port x86 making the port "just" a little easier then the PPC one which involves endianess issue and other tricky stuff.
If developers are interested in darwin they should stick with the main developers of the OS (Apple), hence with PPC so interested party should join darwinports instead of Gnu darwin.
none Yet.
This comment comes from an AC over at MacSlash. Its hilarious:
" 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."
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
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."
or is it more like Kruschev banging his shoe in the UN
For those of you who might not be familar with why a person would do this, I thought I should point out that this is from the bible. A person bangs off their shoes to condemn a place.
Luke 9:5
"If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them."
Luke 10:10-12
"But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.' I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. "
Acts 13:50-51
"But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium."
So you can see that banging your shoes off is quite a big deal in a bibical Just a little background info.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
I've always felt that any post that starts with a line like that deserves to get modded into oblivion, just on principle. If you're going to say something you think will be controversial, just say it; don't spend time trying to impress us with how brave you are for speaking your mind.
That being said, I agree completely with the rest of your post.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
A) How exactly is Apple "choosing to enforce the DMCA"?
B) The GPL only has meaning because of copyright. Using the GPL to fight against copyright is like fucking for virginity. And you can only see Apple's behavior as contradictory?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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?
...I'm willing to entertain that he used "to" correctly. However, someone should inform him that "being" is intransitive. :-)
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
Let's see - the original manifesto reads like this:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- Yep. You can do this and still have Apple technologies (Cocoa, Carbon, Core Audio) handle the grunt work they were designed for. Pretty good compromise to attach all these ease-of-use goodies to your main event...
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- Yep also. Unless you need to have the control boxes mauve, puce and burnt sienna instead of red, yellow, and green. Or you need to reconfigure MIDI so that all the white keys are black. But really, how often does such low-level tinkering drive an app? This smacks of kids who play with the fonts instead of writing their paper...
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- Absolutely. Linking to core services doesn't stop this in the least.
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- Again - no problem. Gets done every day.
This amounts to shoe banging.
As I said over on MacSlash, GNU's Not Unix, and It Ain't Intuit, Either. This sort of behavior will not get a doorstop-style, Jehovah's Wittness visit from Steve. Alienating the platform in question will not get anyone to open-source the proprietary technologies that they get to make money on.
Don't hand out recipes and then punish me because I need to Cuisinart to make it happen at my house.
Here's what yiour actions predict: Apple will continue with certain core technologies, make money to buy bananas, maybe never invoke the DCMA again for anything, do quite well in either case, and you guys will be the backwater of open source software for a darn good platform.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Actually, the commentary on this GNU page is for all practical purposes irrelevant since it only properly addresses a version of the licence which has been superceeded. Apple made some significant changes to APSL to specifically address the reservations the open souce community had about their first attempt at an open source licence. I believe the authors of this comment need to rewrite it make it relevant to the current version of APSL, and if they don't, I suggest people stop referring to this out-dated material.
:
the above post is complete FUD. The analysis offered on the gnu site is completely up-to-date. Here is the proof which is completely verifiable, as opposed to bald assertions which turn out to be untrue in the parent comment.
Specifically
- latest version of the apsl is 1.2,
according to apple's own site here,
released on jan 4, 2001
- gnu apsl anlysis page last updated 2002/10/15
(shown at bottom of page)
which specifically addresses remaining problems
with apsl 1.2 (the latest release)
and while it still provides comment
on the initial problems with the 1.0 release,
this comment is clearly referenced
as referring to an older release
for which later releases corrected
only some of the problems
(and probably the gnu analysis page played a large
role in having these problems fixed).
so, in summary, please stop posting fud,
and moderators please check a posters assertions
before modding him or her up