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Apple Posts Their X11 Source

Posted by pudge on from the here-an-x-there-an-x-everywhere-an-x-x dept.

fdiv_bug writes "This happened a day or two ago, but it slipped my mind to report it. Looks like Apple has released the source code to their X11 implementation for Mac OS X." Also check out more downloads at OpenDarwin.org.

8 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Nice by fateswarm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nice to see some code spread on the net.

    It doesn't really matter to real programmers if it's gpl or fbsd or anything.

    Having the source and getting ideas from it is a good thing.

  2. Interaction with Open Office... by henele · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As a mac user only really currently on the outside of the open source movement I mostly want to see how this links with the development of Open Office, which I am very interested in...

  3. New Benchmark? by henele · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm fairly new to the mac dev scene, and haven't played around with this code yet, but at over 50MB, and it being easily accesable, could compiling this become a new benchmark to add to the huge list of those floating around the mac web today?

  4. Complexity by gidds · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I know you didn't mean this too seriously, but there's a serious point here. Why do we want to characterise an entire corporation, with hundreds (thousands?) of staff, as a single entity? Can't our minds cope with the idea that all those different people might not be having exactly the same thoughts?

    And even if they were, they might still do some things we think of as `good', and others we call `bad'. Corporations, like people, are complex things. Humans tend to think by simplifying, categorising, and labelling, but we must realise we're doing it, and avoid it when it loses too much information. The world is a complex place.

    As Anonymous Coward said above, Apple has done many good things, and some bad ones. That's all there is to it. Predictive value? Well, I predict that in future they'll do some more good things and a few more bad things. Wow, huh?

    (As it happens, I like a lot of the things Apple are currently doing, and I like their kit enough to own some. I'd like to see their stuff become more popular. But I've no illusions; I wouldn't like to see them have 90%+ share, just as I wouldn't like to see anyone have that sort of share. M$ may have an unusually immoral corporate ethos, but I doubt any company in their current position would be entirely altruistic for long. Power corrupts, and all that.)

    (Er, sorry, this post has turned out inappropriately serious for this place! Feel free to insert hackneyed one-mouse-button-sniping, lame puns, and unrelated whinges as appropriate...)

    --

    Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.

    1. Re:Complexity by bedouin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, it's kind of like being a prisoner who was abused by guards and staff during a 15 year sentence -- you'll come out with a tendency to distrust authority. Or maybe kind of like a black who lived in segregationist South making a white friend -- it's a slow, difficult process.

      Likewise, after 10 years of Microsoft garbage flooding the market, people have developed a hatred of large computer corporations (at least here on /.) So, even when Apple does a few nice deeds it's only right that people feel a little awkward about it.

  5. Open Source Mac OS 9 ? by Slur · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So how long before Apple opens the source for Mac OS 9 - or at least the Mac OS 9 Finder? I'm sure there are plenty of APIs in there that were abandoned, from the TCP/IP stuff to the printing architecture. I'll bet there are a lot of geeks who would love to get their hands on Mac OS 9 and continue extending it, do some speed improvement, maybe bolt on a little pre-emptive MT, protected memory, and a real VM. I for one would love to hack the Finder into a standalone Carbon application to run under Mac OS X.

    --
    -- thinkyhead software and media
  6. Re:Damn Apple... by cehardin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow, that's a lot of money. However, check this out:
    a 25 license version of windows 2000 Advanced Server cost $4000.
    That's only for 25 clients!
    http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/adv ancedserve r/howtobuy/pricing/default.asp

    Unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server (v10.2) is only $1000. So even if you pay for OS 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 you will still come out ahead if you had chosen microsoft's products.

  7. I DO wish they would release it, though... by alispguru · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they released it, people in the open source community would get to see a big Quartz application, solving problems they are familiar with. If the code were unusually pretty or slick, it might encourage others to get to know Quartz better, and to write their applications in a way that could more easily take advantage of it when ported. They would also eventually get the bug-stomping benefits of lots of eyeballs caressing their code.

    The only reason I can see for them not to release the code would be that it uses uncommonly good generic window system algorithms that they don't want copied by others.

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.