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Mac OS X Apps on Zaurus
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller reports progress in the mySTEP project to run Mac OS X applications on the Sharp Zaurus. Though not yet ready for production, the newest release brings more maturity and features, and Dr. Schaller invites anyone interested in integrating mobile, low-cost, handheld computers with Mac OS X-based IT applications to contact the project. In particular, Dr. Schaller would like to locate someone interested in developing and contributing a new menu system (NSMenuView, NSMenuItemCell) to the project."
Wouldn't that require a reverse engineered implementation of apple's APIs? Or is this just talking about a portable framework so the same apps can run on both platforms?
Personally, I'd be more intrested on being able to run OS X apps on desktop intel linux than a pda
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
As excited as this makes me, it's tough to hear. I purchased a Zaurus SL-5500 almost a year ago, and I waited... 6 months for firmware 2.38 to be syncable with anything on OS X, and even then I had to use Qtopia Desktop for everything (As opposed to Ximian Evolution or Microsoft Entourage). Then Firmware 3.10 broke sync ability. I gave up 6 months later and sold it. I would LOVE to purchase one again now that it's close to running openstep apps, however... Not without either a Microsoft Entourage or Ximian Evolution sync solution!
Well, uh, no.
This guy is taking the 'OpenSTEP' API set, which was opened up and published by NeXT, of which GNUStep is a legal implementation, and porting it (via GNUStep) to a handheld.
So that one can enjoy MacOS X applications on a handheld device.
Now, I'm not sure 'enjoy' is the right word, since on my 2304 x 870 screen setup (two 21" monitors) I still feel like I could use more desktop space for MacOS X. I cringe at the thought of a handheld running it. But at worst it's a solecism, not a ripping off of Apple. They published the APIs, someone else came along and made another implementation (with NeXT's blessing, if I recall correctly), and this guy is porting it to a handheld and updating it a little to be more compatible with MacOS X.
In summary: lighten up. You're sounding like the type that gives us Mac users a bad name.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Why not make an API and some glue code so Aqua apps can be compiled on other platforms without problems. I could make SomeRandomProgram compeletely with Carbon (which is pure C/C++), and then take that same code, link against a glue-API, and have the same program work in X11. The same idea could be done with binaries, although only NetBSD has any Mach-O support ...
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1) Preference panes are Apple technologes
C ocoa/Ref erence/ApplicationKit/ObjC_classic/Classes/NSWindo w.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000013/BCIBIAJJ
n 62p?q=ns window&a=view
In what way? The System Preferences panel is not really in any way different than any one of a dozen implementations of preferences for a dozen other programs. There's nothing new there. Admittedly, if it looks identical to the Apple implementation, *IDENTICAL*, then it's a bit of a rip. But nothing too exciting.
2) Menu extras are Apple technologies.
Okay. What's a Menu Extra?
3) The Finder is an Apple technology.
This specifically doesn't run the finder, it runs something vaguely similar that he's putting together himself.
Unless what you really mean is 'anything called 'The Finder' is an Apple technology.' Or 'anything that looks kind of like the Apple Finder is a rip-off,' in which case basically every OS's GUI that is even vaguely usable today is a rip-off. I explicitly include some of the better Linux GUI work.
4) Cocoa (not OpenStep, but Cocoa) is an Apple technology.
Look, here's how you create a new window in Cocoa:
NSWindow *myWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect myContentRectangle
styleMask:(NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask)
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:NO];
(c.f. documentation here:)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/
And here's how you create one in OpenStep:
NSWindow *myWindow = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect myContentRectangle
styleMask:(NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask)
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:NO];
(c.f. documentation here:)
http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/802-2112/6i63m
Now, may I remind you that this is a WINDOW. In MacOS X, it's got colorful lickable widgets, it's displayed in Display PDF, it's got Quartz Extreme accelerating it (and is therefore drawn totally differently in some cases than in others.) In contrast, in Solaris OpenStep, it's displayed in X, and in Display Postscript in NeXTStep, its widgets look completely different, it has three different kinds of graphics implementations, it does different things when you click and drag in it, and just in general it behaves very differently than it does on the Mac. So this isn't some kind of 'really similar' special case. This is representative of the whole language.
Now, given that, I'm leaving you to guess how different Cocoa and NeXTStep/OpenStep actually are.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
From what you describe, PortabilityKit will allow anything programmed for OpenStep/GNUStep to also work for OS X. Is there a program that allows Zaurus firmware 3.10 syncing to a system running a GNUStep/OpenStep environment or program built on GNUStep that I don't know about? :)
> He specifically mentions Mac OS X applications.
...and talks about updating the implementation of OpenStep (which is open source)
He specifically mentions recompiling MacOS X applications for use with the palmtop. Don't work unless they are recompiled. So the ONLY thing at issue is Cocoa. You can't run native MacOS X applications on the handheld; different processor, and trust me, he's not doing processor emulation.
>
> to be compatible with Cocoa (which is not).
Let's distinguish the OpenStep API from the GnuStep implementation, shall we? GNUStep is a 'free' (as in gnus) implementation of the 'open' OpenStep API. You can't copyright or patent an API.
Even given that, though, I'd agree with you if they were reverse-engineering the entire API from scratch. But when the changes are like 3% of the damn API base, give it up! Reverse-engineering the hundred or so class-pieces of the Cocoa APIs that have changed since GNUStep was implemented isn't even INTERESTING, let alone offensive.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.