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The GNU-Darwin World
proclus writes "The GNU-Darwin Distribution was founded
to leverage the open source development dynamic and build the infrastructure for
scientific computing on a new platform. Now GNU-Darwin is a major free software
project, and the infrastructure, such as parallel computing and molecular
graphics software is available to everyone via the web and on digital media
discs. Check it out. Also, Apple
has written up a story
about it."
Apple has no reason to open source specific pieces of their code. They are and have been a publicly-traded, capitalist computer maker that functions to make money. The company wouldn't exist if this were the case... Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. That is where they get their revenue. That is where they must always pledge allegiance. ...especially since I own quite a bit of their stock. ;)
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
I'll be glad when someone creates a generic Ports that works across all platforms. The news that Gentoo, Fink and Darwin ports where working together was great news. Gentoo has Linux, Fink Has MacOSX, and GnuDarwin has x86 and PPC.
FreeBSD/OpenBSD and all those Linux (Cooker type) distros have broken ports. Even the Binary only distros have broken packages. I think OpenBSD said 20%+ of BSD ports where broken, (anyone have the numbers?). This could fix all those problems across platforms.
Very nice.
So this makes me wonder what the point is of using Darwin. With OS X as a whole, there are some specific benefits that exist. Apple has UI standards in place, provides some services, like iTunes, that you may want. They've done a lot of eye candy. But is there any real point in using Darwin alone versus, say, Linux? Or, if you specifically want BSD, then compare it to plain ol' FreeBSD. I mean, what's the point?
True, I wouldnt use Darwin either.
Linux and FreeBSD are my opensource distros of choice. But for Daily work, OSX gives me the power of *nix OS with all the same software. Throw in iTunes, and the nice collection of applications for OSX, its a hard OS to ignore if your a unix junkie.
And dont understimate eye-candy, KDE and Gnome look great, OSX looks perfect. Great time for opensource, pick your candy.
"VIM, Ghostscript, Gnumeric, LaTeX, PyMOL [...] Rasmol, gdFortran, LAM/MPI, AbiWord, GNUplot, and Raster3D"
...not much there to entice me away from Linux, methinks.
Actually, the GPL imposes restrictions on further distribution. Therefore, it can't possibly be considered free compared to a license like BSD.
...digital media discs...
so...like....it's on CDs?
GNU is open source.
Darwin is open source.
So... what exactly are we getting here? LinuxPPC is faster than Darwin, so if you wanted something closer to GNU than Darwin, wouldn't you use that?
What's the user benefit? This is for people who bought a Mac and don't want Apple's GUI work? Or is this all the stuff that Apple would like to put in Darwin, but can't, due to the GPL license?
Speaking of which, there's this:
Please note: GNU Project considers Darwin non-free software and therefore does not recommend the use of this operating system. (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html)
I mean, let me get this straight: GNU Darwin is the version of Darwin that the GNU project doesn't recommend?
Can someone clear this up in plain English?
(sig) The last bug isn't fixed until the last user is dead. (/sig)
This is the distribution that swore off PPC development because of political reasons, basically saying that Apple is so bad that they can't continue to use any part of the platform they are based on, but yet they are still producing that which they said they wouldn't (new stuff for PPC). They say silly things like "the most free" distribution, as if such a phrase has any meaning. They claim to be the premiere free software distribution for Mac OS X, which is plainly false, unless you are deluded into believing that only copylefted software is free software.
This is a project driven almost solely by politics, not technology, and they can't even be consistent there. Beware.
I used to follow the GNU-Darwin project quite heavily. I had installed it along side OS X and was even on the mailing lists. I must say that they do (or at least did) have extremely talented developers that have done a lot of good work for the project.
However, I found through the mailing list that the project is political to the extreme. Their most extreme bit of politics came when they decided to "discontinue" PPC development (as pudge mentioned) because they had issues with Apple. They were arrogant enough to think that this move would force Apple to backtrack on the things they had issues with.
It was about that time that I decided to drop GNU-Darwin completely. What kind of project drops support for the hardware that > 90% of their user-base is using? Well, from the looks of it they, not Apple, have backtracked and are still supporting PPC.
My advice would be to not take a second look at GNU-Darwin. Use Fink or OpenDarwin instead.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Final Cut Pro didn't have any competition on the Mac, e.g. it was an application for a nishe that didn't have an application, while I agree that Final Cut Express was an outright attack on Adobe... however you did say the Pro version and I beleve that that as an example is worth NULL and void.
The same thing goes for Soundtrack, there were no such applications for the Mac. Argument and examples are again NULL and void.
Safari however is discussable, I do beleve that MS had planned to terminate IE for the Mac and there was need for a standard browser included with the OS. It was thus necissary for Apple to create Safari, they didn't have any choise.
A more valid argument vould have been the Sherlock and Watson "incident".
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
I absolutely agree with this and the parent post.
/usr/ instead of /usr/local) is what turned me off GNU-Darwin.
The politics and annoying GNU/GPL preaching on various mailing lists (and in the early days the insistence on installing/stomping onto Apple-supplied system parts in
There are three "Darwin" DARWIN proper is the one used by Apple and coresponds directly with OSX releases. OPENDARWIN was founded by Apple and ISC to allow more people to contribute to Darwin. Apple takes no responsibility for OPENDARWIN. Features found in OPENDARWIN may find there way into Apples DARWIN. GNU-DARWIN is totally GPL. It was founded in response to APSL.
You seem to drift topics. The APSL has nothing to do with FCP, Safari, or anything else in those lanes.
>FCP
Best of its class, hands down. This is called "making a competing product" and is normal business strategy--not forcing someone out of the market.
>Safari
You really need to stop drinking the Kool Aid.
No one really competes with Safari, not because Safari, but because Safari is *good*. Apple distributed a sucky version of IE as its standard web-browser and that has a *lot* to do with the user experience for a typical user. They needed to replace it, and no other web-browser for the mac quite cut it.
Once again. They produced a better product. Safari is now my primary web browser, not because I haven't used Mozilla or Camino, but because it is the best for what I do on the web (speed counts for a lot).
>Soundtrack
Who did Apple "force out" with this one?
They also needed something so that labels could publish music in m4p format, suitable for the iTMS.
You want an example? Take Watson. But none of your examples quite cut it.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
If Apple hadn't stopped their cloning experiments which where at the time killing their own hardware sales then it's questionable whether Apple would still be here.
And we then we wouldn't have had Mac OS X. No Mac OS X, no darwin.
You have a valid point for most geeks, what's the point of using it over Linux or BSD.
One thing I will point out though is that it is a real boon having that entire layer of the OS open if your job is writing things like kext's and device drivers.
Don't blame me - this
Premier competed with it on the lower end and Avid Xpress on the high end. Yeah it found a mid range niche that no one one the platform was aiming for. But I'm not sure I'd say it has no competition. You left out Keynote as well - clearly a PowerPoint killer. One might also point out Project Builder and Codewarrior - although admittedly Project Builder came from NeXT and thus predated Codewarrior.
Actually, the clones weren't expanding marketshare - they were just eating into Apples, and at a time when Apple wasn't in a particularly healthy situation. Apple's 'choice' was kill the clones and survive, or let them keep going and die in a couple of years time, leaving the Mac market dead as well.
GPL = free software, copylefted: protects the [continuing] freedom of the FUTURE users, ensuring the software will STAY free software.
BSD = free software, non-copylefted: protects the [somewhat more ample] freedom of the CURRENT users, ensuring they can do [mostly] whatever they want with the code.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Take a look at their quickstart script, which they suggest that you use by piping it to csh as root.
The first few steps:
They never check to see if the download was corrupted, or if someone had replaced it with something else.
Is it so hard to do something like:
For each of the few programs and libraries that they need to download to get the package manager up and running?
I've complained about this before, and I'm sorry to have to do so again, but running an unverified binary as root right after you download it is one of the STUPIDEST ideas I have seen.
We never said that we would produce no more new stuff for PPC, but rather that we would not link to proprietary libraries.
You yourself wrote: Second, we will be moving our operations to x86, and we are putting the ppc collection into maintenance mode. Read it yourself if you forget.
Maintanence mode means that we will continue to provide updates and support.
... this is different from how it was before, how, exactly? And how does the addition of brand-new PPC packages square with this?
So
Uh, since many people still think it means what I said it means, no, it is not a dead horse. Again, how is it different from what it was before? Is there an answer, or not?
The point is easy. With Mac you get a business desktop almost as good Windows + a Unix dev box almost as good as Linux fully integrated. When you compare this with the alternatives like:
Windows & Cygwin, Linux & Wine, VMWare Mac offers the far better product.
People use Fink/Darwinports/GnuDarwin because they want more Unix software than what Apple provides out of the box.
Dude, I *emailed you* to confirm that story before I posted on MacSlash, and you confirmed it. Is there some other version of fair reporting you'd like?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
Guess that makes them eligible for the Darwin awards.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
Macs have been a better deal pricewise than PCs since 1995.
Its time to stop modding up "insightful" every troll who comes along and whines about Macs being "expensive". IT just isn't true, and its a sure sign the person has never used a Mac.
And the point to Darwin, since you're ignorant of what it is, is that it has Apples new IO system, IOKit, and quite a variety of other stuff that is Apple written, and does not exist in BSD or Linux OSes (unless its migrated there.)
There's more to OSX than "eye candy".... if you were a Mac developer as you claim, you'd know that.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I will argue that open-sourcing Darwin is for purely selfish reasons. There's no need for anything like altruism or ideology.
Apple chose to base OS X on BSD (FreeBSD, I believe) because it's a very good and stable platform. But they knew that they would have to make some changes to the kernel in order to port it to the PowerMac, since it's a hardware platform that that changes with each new release.
In order to reap the benefits of open source (getting updates from people all over the internet) they have to release their source as well. If they don't, then they end up needing a team of engineers to track and integrate updates that are made to the public source tree. And if the public tree undergoes an architecture change, Apple would have to integrate all of that - which can be expensive.
The only way to avoid this is for Apple to release their changes back to the community. In doing so, the community will have them in the baseline code that it uses for making changes. So when Apple then integrates those changes back into its own line, it's a relatively painless process.
In other words, by doing this, Apple greatly reduces their cost of using the BSD platform. And as a happy side-bonus, the rest of the world (that is, us) get access to the sources to the core of their flagship OS.
In your own words:
First, we are making explicit and binding the following policy. GNU-Darwin will not support or distribute any software which links to proprietary libraries...
Followed by:
Second, we will be moving our operations to x86, and we are putting the ppc collection into maintenance mode.
There's nothing at all ambiguous about this. You announced your intent to move your active development operations to x86, while putting ppc development into "maintenance mode." According to the commonly accepted, widely used meaning of the quoted term, your intent was to continue to apply patches and bug fixes to the packages you'd already made for ppc, but only create new packages only for x86.
The confusion here arises solely from the incorrect headline
Okay, let's run with that assertion. The natural question to ask is, why was the headline incorrect? Two possibilities come to mind. One is that you misused a common term, and the editors who wrote the headline assumed you were using it in the more commonly-accepted sense - given the general tone and context of the rest of the announcement, not to mention many of your messages prior to that, that's not an unreasonable assumption to make.
Another possibility is that the editors knew what you truly meant, but for some reason maliciously perverted the sense of your announcement for reasons of their own. As far as many of us are concerned, this idea isn't even half as credible as the first. To assume that every single one of the many editors out there misrepresented your statement would require a pretty high level of paranoia.
I'm giving you some benefit of the doubt, and assuming that your intentions were a bit more benign - let's say you really meant you'd be buying and using x86 workstations for most of your work, and treating ppc as a secondary target rather than your main focus. If that's the case, the fact is that your words and tone did not accurately convey your intent.
Or perhaps you wrote while angry, or frustrated, and later changed your mind. That's understandable - it happens to all of us from time to time.
You need to understand the fact that continuing to blame others for this misunderstanding is not helping your case or your cause. In the eyes of many in the community, you are damaging your own credibility as well as that of the project you represent. The best damage control you could possibly do right now would be to simply admit that you misspoke, or that you changed your mind. No one believes otherwise anyway, and your continuing denials are the reason the issue keeps coming up.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
(This isn't intended to stab at folks that still use Macs -- I'm just doubt I'll ever work in the Mac world again). They chose to serve folks who are willing to put down a fair amount of money for a polished closed-box experience. Not what I wanted -- I found Linux, and that was pretty much it.
Wait, so, you refuse to use Macs (which are perfectly capable of running Linux and other open-source operating systems) not because you don't like the hardware, but because you have a philosophical objection to being only able to buy them from Apple?
So this makes me wonder what the point is of using Darwin.
What would be the point of running NetBSD?
What would it take for Darwin to become just as suitable as NetBSD is?
What would it take for Darwin to become just as suitable as Linux is?
What's the point of running KDE instead of Gnome? What's the point of using emacs instead of vim?
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