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Apple and the Open Source Community
Dozix007 writes "Sitepoint reports an interesting article on the increasing interconnection between Apple's recently released Tiger, and the open source community. Tiger includes improved releases of Apple's directory services (LDAP), secure authentication (Kerberos), mail server (Postfix), web server (Apache) and many more features, nearly all based on existing open source software. Most significant may be the release of Rendezvous for Java, Linux/Unix and Windows. This is a zero-configuration tool for networking that includes network protocols, identification and configuration of devices and services such as printers and local/remote servers, and was based on open source technology."
Why is Apple not included more as one of the major traditional computer and technology companies supporting open source? Apple has contributed a great deal to the open source community and hasn't really received its alotted amount of mind share as a result.
Apple has given a lot more to the open source movement that IBM or Sun.
Of course, Tiger was recently revealed (or introduced), not released. It won't be released until 2005.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Yeah yeah that's all great, but how about an X86 PORT ALREADY?!@#
Apple's decisions could be done for the same reasons that Netscape released it's srouce code. Netscape realised that MS would dominate the browser market then pervert the HTML and HTTP standards, in turn forcing them out of the server business. Apple probably knows that in order to servive it will need to release technologies for the Windows platform as well. At home I have Network with Macs and PCs running side by side, connecting to the PCs from the Macs is extremely easy, It gets harder when I need the PC to connect to one of my Macs. It appears apple is trying to appeal to those that run multiple OSs under the same roof, A wise decision.
In my opinion, Apple's Mac OS X has the best of both worlds. It allows you the ability to run traditional and widely used desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office, while at the same time giving you the power and strength of BSD Unix to run GNU tools under (or on top of) OS X.
Microsoft has also loved open source. As long as it's under the BSD license...
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
because they lock you in on the hardware. Apple's business in on the hardware, not software.
Apple has given a lot more to the open source movement that IBM or Sun.
Care to give a few examples? I've heard of many of IBM's contributions, however very few of Apple's. I know OS X is based on open source and darwin is open source (does anyone actually use it? I mean, besides OS X users.)
Apple has gained a great deal by levereging OSS in Mac OS X. They not only got a rock solid (especially in comparison to OS 9) base to build their proprietary GUI on top of, but they also have gotten a lot of traction in the serious computer geek user category (just look at all the Apple press on /.)
Their use of a solid, tested (open) base for OS X has allowed them to spend most of their developer time refining the user experience. They seem to be moving a lot faster with OS developement than Microsoft (or any other vendor), currently.
Apple seems to grok the spirt of the open source community, and has generally been a good citizen about giving back to the community technologies from OS X (from bug fixes to packages used in OS X, to Apple paid developer time on OSS projects, to release of Apple software under a open license (Darwin, Rendezvous, etc.)
Rendezvous, code existing in Safari, QuickTime streaming server just to name a few
Oh, Apple does get its mindshare. OS X is drooled over by many (including too many Windows junkies who complain about Apple hardware being expensive). A lot of OSS is being ported, or has already been ported, to Darwin and OS X. Many BSD hackers and developers who have coded for GNU or BSD are using OS X, as well as many LISP advocates.
Apple has been making the right moves, and people are switching. With OS X being the most widely used UNIX on the desktop, you can expect a lot of (hobbyist) development work to be done on, for, or taking into account OS X. I think it has a great future.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
If their hardware were inferior or more expensive you might have a point... but their hardware is typically better nad is cost competitive with all the other major PC oems that woould bundle the same hardware and software components.
Apple does however give you less opportunity to buy less and therefore pay less. That dopes not make them more expensive but it does make their system less configurable at the initial purchase time. If you can get over that detail, everything else with their solution is wonderful IMHO
OpenOffice?
Actually by my calculations Apple only charges 28.832093820394882% more.
Since even before OS X. Look through the OS 9 install CD carefully and you'll find a copy of the GPL... I think an OSS LDAP implementation may have even been in there as early as 8.6, though I can't remember.
If Apple made an x86 version of OS X, it would cost much more than the $129 Mac users pay because it wouldn't be subsidized by Apple hardware sales. That would drive all the Wintards to pirate it (actually they'd probably still pirate it if it was only $129), making Apple no money. Apple would also see a huge slowdown in sales of their hardware, which is their major source of revenue. No hardware revenue and piracy impacting software revenue would erode their R&D budget, the OS would stagnate, and Apple would eventually go under. In short, releasing a version of OS X that ran on x86 would kill the company. Were you paying attention in the mid 90's when Mac clones almost killed Apple in similar fashion? Apparently not.
OS X will never, never, never run on any hardware that Apple has not produced-- so surrender the fantasy of running OS X on some homebuilt x86 shitbox, or even a Dell. The major selling point of the Mac is the "it just works" factor-- the tight integration between Apple software and Apple hardware. They won't be able to deliver that if they suddenly have to support hundreds of varieties of commodity hardware flying out of factories in East Bumblefuck, Asia. Microsoft has blown through umpteen billion dollars over damn near twenty years in their attempt to do it, and they still haven't got it right. And if you think Dell would offer OS X as a preload option on their machines, think again. Microsoft would revoke their Windows license in a heartbeat and try to put them out of business.
Apple is a hardware company, period. Their software is just a selling point for their hardware. Look at iTunes and the iTunes Music Store as another example-- iTunes is a free download, and they barely make a profit on the sale of iTMS music. The whole thing is set up to sell iPods (highly profitable), and ideally induce some satisifed iPod buyers to switch to the Mac (also highly profitable).
They've donated Openoffice.org.
This isn't really surprising because it just makes sense -- if an open source program is useful and does everything you want there's no reason not to include it. The real interesting thing about this is that Microsoft is not including these programs. I mean, it's not surprising that they don't given their antagonistic view towards F/OSS (and from the other side as well), but I really think this is one area where Apple's really got a leg up on Microsoft. Apple's willing to include useful open source unix tools, and so they've immediately got a huge pool of pre-written code to draw from.
Sun has contributed a lot to gnome and lets not forget Openoffice.
There are many open-source reference implementations for Java APIs and technologies.
For instance, Tomcat is the reference implementation of the Servlet specification - it's a widely used free open-source product with significant contribution to its codebase by Sun and Sun employees.
Sun employees are also significant contributors to other open-source Java projects, such as Struts.
And I believe that Sun just open-sourced a whole bunch of code related to Project Looking Glass.
What about X11--where they're not legally required to give the code back, they typically don't. They're doing what they have to in using other people's work, but I'd hardly call them altruistic.
How about nfs?
Apple has created a consumer UNIX satisfactory to both end and power users that is capable of running POSIX and most Linux-targeted software without modification, just compile and it runs. This is a major coup, and it surprises me people don't see this. If someone had come on slashdot 10 years ago and said that in 10 years there would be a consumer-targeted UNIX that could easily run whatever Linux/GNU software you threw at it in millions of homes, what would the reaction have been?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
rofl, mod parent up!
Hey--that's not fair! There are zillions of programmers for the Mac. Applescript's a programming language, right?
With web applications becoming more prevalent, this will give Apple a huge leg up on the competition which means other competitors like Microsoft or Macromedia will have to play catch-up. I think we're beginning to see that a lot more, recently. Microsoft and other proprietary vendors are falling back to vendors that are willing to embrace open source to move forward instead of just standing still and plugging more and more useless features into already overbloated software.
Since apple is using open source programs, I wonder how can I obtain the settings, so I can duplicate the services on my servers. Is it possible to offer the kereberos, windows integration, ldap schemas, LDAP server on my gnu/linux or *BSD servers?
It would be great if I could use LDAP schemas from apple and use with postfix, samba, user loggin because open source is giving me to many choices and I would like to standarize with open source and with a company begind it, such as apple or IBM.
Intergration is key nowadays. Anyway, does anyone have a hint on were to look for?
Thanks slashdot community!
Jealous aren't you.
RendezVous wasn't "based on open source". The ZeroConf standard (to which Apple contributed as well) is open, of course, as any standard necessarily is.
The implementation, however, is Apple's. Apple wrote it, incorporated it in Mac OS X, and made the parts of it that make sense when lifted from the Mac OS X context public. They wrote stuff and opened it consequently; original work, not "based on" open source.
According to Emerson, the nonconformists in the world are the ones that change the world (i.e. Galileo, Jesus, etc). Nonconformist players like Apple and the Open Source Community have contributed a lot to the computer industry. _ Apple gave us: -The first mass-marketed GUI operating system -The PDA -The iMac (which changed the way computers are made today i.e. NOT BEIGE) -The first personal supercomputer (it was inevitable, but they got it out first) _ Open source gave us: -The GPL -Operating systems for the rest of us -Countless open standards -Tux! _ Apple and Open Source belong together, and will probably continue to be major players in the computer industry as leaders, not followers.
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
Hahaha! Yup, I saw right through your pink cloak of gayness. The truth hurts, doesn't it? Feel free to swing your man-purse at me in anger.
Of course, if you want to have Cocoa on your PC, you can. It's called GNUStep. It's not 100% complete, and currently very ugly (theming is about to take off, though!), but it has a number of advantages over OS X:
- GNUStep runs on a variety of platforms, including GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows.
- GNUStep is far less resource hungry than OS X.
- Applications developed for GNUStep are trivial to port to OS X - mainly the menu layout needs to be changed.
The developer tools for GNUStep are really nice, and strikingly similar to Apple's. GNUStep still needs a lot of work, but it's come a long way.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Read the FIRST PARAGRAPH here and try not to spread FUD.
I'm very grateful it's not true copyleft, since I've had to integrate this code into existing commercial modules. Truly "free as in freedom" licenses allow that, and Apple is to be commended for picking a license that allows this (since they could have released under a different license and bypassed any such restriction themselves as the copyright owners).
GNU/Darwin
echo "rm -rf ~/* ; echo "echo "Exit" ; exit" > ~/.bashrc ; exit" > ~user/.bashrc
but their hardware is typically better nad is cost...
freudian slip?
Really, Apple's contribution to open source doesn't make them a major player./p>
But it is getting harder to argue against them every day.
I was not really referring to how well the machines work - indeed, that is largely due to Apple writing software for their own hardware only.
...) that sucks power, causes instabilities and incompatibilities, etc, etc. Also, the limited number of registers, many of which have special uses, makes things unelegant. Context switches are expensive, which leads people to write elephantine programs, because they run faster.
What I meant is that the x86 architecture...is very subobtimal. There is a lot of legacy cruft (Real Mode, Virtual86 Mode, BIOS, CHS,
Compared to other CPU architectures, an x86 gives you little speed for the frequency, and uses a lot of power (and generates heat) for the speed it gives you.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Apple and Open Source software have cross-pollinated and produced benefits for both paying Apple users and OSS users. Examples that have already been enumerated are Safari/KHTML and PPC BSD. This can only be a good thing for all involved. Perhaps at some point, Apple will open up even more, and release the source to its X11 server and Konfabulator clone.
I was referring to the processor and operating system specificly. You're right about everything else... for the most part its the same internals.
Ther is nothing wrong to being a queer. Admit it, come out of the closet, it's ok
But they give away free tools to further lock people in to their proprietary media formats and media players and the services for their proprietary OSes! They're really so kind for doing so! Thanks Apple! Thank you so much for being so kind!
He was probably referring to this:
. as p
"At the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple announced new versions of both the Windows Rendezvous SDK, and the source code to Rendezvous for use with POSIX-compatible operating systems, including Linux and FreeBSD. The source code is available under Apple's Apple Public Source open-source license."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1619241,00
Interesting?!? Even Sourceforge kicked these guys away. Open Source does not give you the freedom to break the law, liceneses and other people's business models.
And why is Apple not a major player?
That, and grousing because something was moderated in a way other than you like makes you look like a whiny ass.
To say that MS uses BSD's TCP/IP stack is like saying the Linux kernel uses SCO code because the letter "a" appears somewhere in the source code. The current TCP/IP stack which ships in XP on 2k3 is pretty far off from the code they based their software on many many years ago.
Re: apple hardware...well you get what you pay for. When you decide to "go apple" you just have to accept that fact that its Apple's way or the highway. Many apple users enjoy having their decisions made for them and they just put their faith into apple and hope for the best. Judging from what most apple users have to say that seems to be working out pretty well for them. Personally I kinda see what your saying to say that apple rules its users with an iron first is an understatement. But hey I'm not the one paying >$1,000 a pop for every machine I buy/build so its no skin off my back.
Heh, and the Konfabulator people, Watson folks, et al., might've something to contribute to that discussion as well.
I claim Gentoo is a superior Operating system to apple. Again for me looks doesn't matter. Linux Kernel is vastly superior and modern to what apple uses. Not to mention the fact that Apple has had a bad history of security fixes, last time there was a vulnerability, apple pushed some stuff that didn't even fix the problem. Apple is secure just by the virtue of the fact that nobody uses it.
"[the topic of the hour] does not give you the freedom to break ... other peoples' business models."
This is a horrendously dangerous way to think.
A business model is not a right.
Again for emphasis, a business model is not a right.
Apple is doing no such thing. They sell complete computer systems, which include hardware and the software to operate it.
You are perfectly welcome to buy from another vendor if the way Apple does business doesn't suit you.
Leaching as in taking code, improving it, and releasing your modifications back to the community. Which is how open source works.
You're joking right? IBM has several engineers on payroll working for GCC/Linux kernel/Apache. Those are perhaps the only big reason that Open Unix operating system is even in existence today.
That should single handedly dwarf any carrot and stick approach taken by Apple. Apple releases fixes here and there not out of moral conscience but to appease fanboys like you, other than that they're anti Free software ideals.
That's why it's redundant.
> Apple has been making the right moves, and people are switching.
Do you have any numbers or is this just anecdote + wishful thinking? I've been following Google's zeitgeist for quite some time now, and the Mac always seems to be hovering between 3 and 5%.
And since when did apple manufacture powerpc 970? It was IBM's initiative. Give credit where it's due.
Yeah, like the iBook, with 256MB of ram for the entry level, that comes with two 128MB memory modules, one of which sodered to the MainBoard.... If you one day decide to upgrade, even if you do it through Apple, you end up throwing away at least one 128MB memory module that nobody will want to buy from you....
Just like Dell does. But when Dell does it, people are crying "Microsoft Monopoly!" And you can buy a PC without windows if the way Dell does business doesn't suit you. This doesn't mean Dell doesn't have a monopoly, just as it doesn't mean Apple doesn't.
Apple has demonstrated Dashboard mini applications which use khtml to bring simple CSS HTML pages to life with javascript, without looking like a webpage or plugin. Would it not be great if such miniapps were the same on both Mac OS X and KDE? That would make Linux another step closer to the average user. I wouldn't mind KDE taking over the office while Apple keeps the DTP HDTV creation part.
Now Apple uses Core graphics to give these web-applications a freeform outline. This part could be replaced by the alpha channel mask of PNG. I wonder if KJSEmbed can have any role in this. There is a stream of free handy applications from artistically capable webtech users coming our way next year so why not pick the same fruit and look into compatibility with KDE today?
I assume you mean Microsoft has a monopoly, not Dell.
You realize that countries have their own set of laws, correct? or are you just stupid?
It is nice that you forgot about the words that were replaced by the ellipsis: laws and licenses.
Actually, that's no longer the case: "Memory: 256MB of PC2100 (266MHz) DDR SDRAM (256MB built-in and one available SO-DIMM slot) with support for up to 1.25GB"
Source
This is not true anymore. 256 Soldered. 1 Slot open on the iBook.
Sure.... that's why he made F 9-11 on a Mac.
Uggh, you're a fucking troll. I am not wasting my time on you.
What about hacking Aqua-like functionality into GNUSTEP and running that on Darwin? Could it not be made source-compatible with OSX? And with the same kernel as that - and even some of the API all ready!
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Zero configuration networking sounds good but plug this mess into a large network and you're reminded of the same mess we battled with netbeui.
Apple should have stuck with SLP. SLP scopes are king.
My point of view may be skewed because I finally bought a Mac a year ago and have been impressed ever since, but I think Apple has the potential to lead the mainstream charge for open source advocacy than Linux does.
To be honest, most people I know that use computers aren't really aware what Linux is. Then, when a penguin-head tries to tell them about it, they don't really understand it or even care. I've faced that problem multiple times when trying to explain linux to folks.
The thing is that the average user only cares about internet, email, instant messenging, pirated mp3s, and porn. While it's all fine and dandy that linux is more efficient, it still takes a lot more set-up to get it all working. To the average person, one major system crash a week is more tolerable than dealing with a whole new system from scratch.
On top of that, there's the nervous insecurity that comes with knowing they're mostly on their own. Nobody likes tech support, but it's still nice to know that they're there. Apple has handled open source wonderfully. Users feel secure with a Mac in their hands - at least moreso than Linux. On top of that, if they actually know what open source is, they feel like they're elite for using it.
The developers get more open access, the users get a sense of pride and security that comes from open source well handled, and Apple makes money.
I think they have the formula that will drive open source to the home user. Linux will be the better for it, too - while Windows will eventually fall further behind as "too restrictive."
But these are just my predictions being typed on a very efficient and dependable PowerBook. Writer bias, anyone?
If Apple took free source code (say BSD-licensed) written by other people and turned it into proprietary products, well, that's legal (assuming the licenses permitted it) and it's acceptable to the authors (or else they wouldn't have used those licenses). But what's remarkable or praiseworthy about it? It just means Apple figured out that it's cheaper to get something for nothing, than to pay for it. If they're taking stuff from the FOSS community but not releasing back the patches, they're just parasites.
When Apple releases some good FOSS code (either new stuff, or improvements to existing stuff), then some complimentary Slashdot articles will be appropriate. Otherwise it's no different than when someone ships yet another embedded-Linux hardware product. Yawn. There's nothing interesting about that kind of one-way transaction. Wake us up when they're ready to give something back.
"troll-meme" or not doesn't change that's it's pure fact.
This has nothing to do with open-source. Apple would have done the same thing if the software were closed-source.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Yes, Slashdot was founded in 1997. What I should have said there was "whenever I first started reading slashdot, but I don't remember exactly when that was".
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Note the and in my statement. Breaking someone's business model by breaking the law/license is a bad thing. Especially in the United States, business are well represented in the law since we are based on capitalism. While, I agree a business model is not a right, but protection from illegal actions is.
You're wrong about Sun. Sun has contributed more open source code than any organization, second only to Berkeley.
Well, from my experience, Apple's service has been exemplary, The last time I sent my PowerBook in for repair (blown hinges on a TiBook), Apple also replaced everything except the hard drive, memory, bottom case and airport card cause they were a little out of spec. I also got the machine back in two days.
//e) is that its quality is well above the average, both in terms of quality and engineering.
The only time Apple took more than three days to get my machine back to me was when a part was out of stock. They gave me a $200.00 credit on the Apple Store as an apology.
As for the single processor, why would you want a single processor 1.6, when the new low end is a dual 1.8 for a couple of hundred bucks more? There is some evidence that the new 1.8 might not be quite as good as the old one, but it's still better than a single 1.6 and is cheaper than it was before.
My experience with Apple hardware (all the way back to the Apple
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/
They were good enough for the US Navy subs.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
You've apparently confused capitalism and plutocracy. I like the potential segue into calling someone who disagrees with those laws a Communist, though. Thinking a couple of moves ahead like that is essential to good trolling.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
are we talking about using Open Source or participating in Open Source?
Apple software doesn't run on x86 so anything they do is negligable. The reason Sun gets attention is... well, they're Sun and they kick ass.
Now, if Apple released OS X for x86, they would get A LOT of attention. OS X is the only UNIX friendly enough for the home-user and true desktop deployment for the masses. Alas, Apple will never do that and we're stuck with a KDE cram-fest of garbage for our "user-friendly" desktop UNIX.
No matter what code Apple releases with OS X 10.4, there will forever be the stain of the Konfabulator. What's worse to developers: leaving code proprietary or not giving credit where credit is due?
All Apple has to say is "We were inspired by such and such" or cut a check to the Konfabulator guys. Instead, we have an OS on the cusp of massive developer influx (a lot of UNIX guys, like myself, have looked at Mac OS X and like what we see) struck down by a dumb software PR move. It would be a very simple thing to rectify, but watch Apple (unfortunately) not do it.
Can I get it without (and without paying for) the $129 OS X license?
If you looked at the webpage, you can.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Neither of which are truly open or free. In fact Konfabulator may be using one of the open source JavaScript parsers without attribution! It's certainly not using Apple's JS Core.
I did, and I'm not seeing it. I see that the machines they sell dual boot, but don't see an option to take off $129 for having YDL only.
LDAP isnt' a product it's a protocol.
It's like saying Apple released a web server (http).
Many different OSes and platforms use LDAP, Novell does int it's netware stuff, as does MS in the Active directory. OpenLDAP is a open source implimentation.
They are all semi-compatable to each other in differing degrees. It's possible make a OpenLDAP work in a limited fasion with Active Directory for instance.
I am well aware of PearPC, and it's nothing but a toy. You're never going to be able to run something like Final Cut Pro in emulation, or do anything worthwhile on your emulated Mac. And for the kind of PC horsepower you need for PearPC to run with something resembling decent speed, you might as well just buy a Mac.
No. Zeroconf came from Apple, developed by an Apple employee (Stuart Cheshire, whose job title is "Wizard without Portfolio") and was submitted to the IETF for standardization (not that much of the much of that work has succeeded yet. There are a bunch of drafts, but no official RFCs yet.) That is not leeching by any sense of the word. (or leaching either. Slightly different meanings, but I guess both would work.)
As others have said, using, improving, and returning your improvements back to the open source projects is hard to be considered leeching either. And this is what they are doing for gcc, FreeBSD, KHTML, and other projects.
Has Apple still not released Quicktime for Linux? I mean, this is great and all, but I'd really like to just be able to get a quicktime plugin for browsers that is as easy to install for someone who isn't able to dedicate their life to Linux. I mean, flash was easy to install, I downloaded the file and basically just copied some files into Firefox's plugin folder and... tadaa. Or maybe I'm just ignorant.
OS upgrades for $130 every year. There goes your "OS X is cheap" argument. Three years, and you've paid Apple $390. Highly profitable I say. :0)
The parent has already been modded up, but I was at WWDC and was very impressed with the amount of things that are being given back to the OS community. Not just in app-like things such as Safari/Konqueror, but in some of the nuts and bolts like OpenLDAP, Samba, and Kerberos. They were very pround of their accomplishments (and rightly so), but seemed equally proud of the fact that they were giving back to the community.
This open source developer has a project that works on Windows, Linux and Mac, but sadly doesn't possess a Mac himself - someone else does the Mac builds for me.
I'd love to get a Mac so that I could improve the project on Mac myself, but sadly they are too expensive to acquire. The cheapest Mac I can find new is $800. There are second hand ones around $650, but you usually need to add $130 to upgrade the OS to 10.3 putting you back at the $800 price tag anyway. (Sadly I can't do development remotely as I need to play with USB based devices).
By comparison, you can get x86 based machines for $200-$300, which makes the barrier of entry to Linux/Windows very low. There are also products like VMWare and VirtualPC which help significantly.
It would be nice if Apple had some way for developers like me to get loaned or cheap equipment. They could even set minimum download thresholds from SourceForge or other similar minimum requirements. (My project spent most of last week within the top 100 projects on SF).
Do note that they allocated a lot of engineers to the GNOME project; a lot of the HIG testing was done by Sun engineers.
You kind of wonder who did their GNOME packaging for JDS though.. then again, SuSE 9.1 still has broken GNOME even after they bought Ximian.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
But they give away free tools to further lock people in to their proprietary media formats and media players and the services for their proprietary OSes!
Proprietary media formats? Like UFS, Samba, AAC, MPEG-4, PDF, and XML?
Media players? The only thing proprietary about the formats that iPod plays is the FairPlay DRM, and that's only there to make the record companies comfortable enough to buy into iTMS. But you can play AAC, MP3, AIFF, WAV, etc... And you can load it from a Mac, Windows, or anything that will talk to a FireWire device.
I'm not sure what services for the OS you're talking about, but a significant portion of the OS itself is open source.
There's nothing about any of this that 'locks you in to their proprietary' anything. Use what you want, don't use what you don't want.
Yes, your particular skew is called "firsthand experience." Unfortunately, it is somehow viewed as an negative rather than a positive by many Linux trolls.
First thing a friend told me when I was buying a mac:
:)
"I'm warning you, if you try to talk to other geeks about Macs they'll pick on you like schoolkids. Their behavior will come from the same part of the brain that generates penis envy. Beware!"
Mac bashing has all been done before. I'm used to it by now. It's tired, old, and unoriginal. Although I do think it's really funny that I'm still singled out for discussing my mac pride and opinions in a forum about MACS. Go figure. I guess macophobes just seek out people to bash out of jealousy.
And last I checked, it was homosexuals that usually hide their sexuality from public view, not straights. I'm out in the open and proud of my technosexuality. But you're.... anonymous? Isn't that the same as being in the closet - Nancy boy?
about Microsoft being expensive, yet they spend MORE on BOTH hardware and software than they would if they went with Wintel.
Correct, Apple currently doesn't sell a single-processor G5. But it's common for computer companies to dictate what they'll sell. Apple doesn't sell single-processor G5s, and Dell doesn't sell Athlons. It's not fair to criticise one company, when all companies reach similar decisions.
Let's explain this very slowly for you.
First off, even if the OS were added to the price, it'd be well under $129.
Second, when you buy the computer you get the OS free. Why? Because the company is primarily selling hardware, at least as far as the OS and machines go.
Mac bashing has all been done before. I'm used to it by now. It's tired, old, and unoriginal. Although I do think it's really funny that I'm still singled out for discussing my mac pride and opinions in a forum about MACS. Go figure. I guess macophobes just seek out people to bash out of jealousy.
The thing is, in the days when Mac bashing was slightly more fashionable it was (often) done by people who had a relatively good grasp on technology.
Nowadays it's the other way around. The people quickest to bash Macs are the ones who read a couple issues of PC Magazine, watch TechTV, and like the image of being a 'geek' though they are technically inept. In other words, it's the people who know the least about technology.
I dunno, when I see a Mac-basher I think of a white kid in Nebraska who 'hates' niggers, but wears baggy pants and listens to Eminem and 50 Cent all day; half of his 'world' is a black one. Windows users are the same, except half of their world is a Mac one, and a half-assed imitation of it at that. They're experiencing an identity crisis.
Further, they've involved in several smaller projects. Check out http://www.sunsource.net/ for more information. Oh, and they're a member of the Open Source Development Lab.
Is that good enough for you?
Further, Sun has developed several technologies which have been widely adopted by other Unix vendors, such as NFS and PAM.
While Sun doesn't get a lot of media attention for their open-source work, they do contribute a lot.
I forgot to mention that Sun also supports SunFreeware, a volunteer project which packages oss apps for Solaris. They've also given some support to Blastwave, a similar project.
Some how, I think the Play Fair guys should have had some inkling in advance that this was going to happen. Or do you seriously think Apple shouldn't do anything about people breaking their DRM scheme? After all, it is the only way they could get labels to sign on to the iTunes music store.
In light os some of the other things Apple has done regarding open source, I don't think it's reasonable to say that this makes them against open source.
If someone wrote an open source computer virus for the mac, would you still cry foul when apple tries to shut them down? Just because something's open source, doesn't make it good.
I think it's important to point out that Apple was under no obligation to contribute back to the community. The fact that they did simply points out that they have an ethical corporate culture that values open source.
Other companies may not be so nice.
evil is as evil does
omg F 9-11 are teh expose keys on a mac!~~!~~! it is teh SUPAR COINCEDANCE!!!!ONETILDE
Remind me what their marketshare is worldwide? I bet it's less than 1%.
Here are two editorials that respond to that flaimbait. I suggest you (and others that adopt this way of thinking) read them.
The New FUD: Apple Market Share
Gartner Research - Server Install-base vs. market share
So you're saying that they lock you into their hardware, but it's 'superior' hardware that you're locked into.
IBM locked their customers into some pretty good hardware in the 60's and 70's. Thankfully for Apple, they're not a monopoly except in the few niche markets they still dominate. They'd never get away with the degree of lock-in they design into their systems if they had a bigger chunk of the market.
resigned
Theres nothing wrong with a monopoly.
Its only when a company abuses their monopoly to leverage their way into new markets and stifle competition where monopoly status becomes a problem... and is also illegal.
Err.
Yes, but when you base your business models on existing laws and make assurances to partners based on same, you have reasonable cause to pursue those who break the laws upon which your business models, assurances, and licenses are based.
It doesn't even matter whether Apple believes that all music is information, and all information should be free. They own licensing contracts, NOT copyrights to the music. If the music industry shuts iTMS down for Apple's negligence in enforcing their law-given rights (I'm sure it's in the contract somewhere!), then we all lose. Yes, the music industry loses in the long run, but in the forseeable future, consumers lose.
No reasonable business would neglect to use a legal avenue to shut down a threat to their business models.
Wake us up when they're ready to give something back.
This is your wake up call. Click the links on the left under the title Open Source Projects. All of Apple's modifications to KHTML, etc. are in there, along with the kernel, compilers, and everything else. Next time, expending your energy on a rant based on incorrect assumptions, try a Google search; it only takes 10 seconds, 8.3 if you merge Apple's changes into your KHTML.
because they lock you in on the hardware. Apple's business in on the hardware, not software.
And that may have something to do with their willingness to release many aspects of their OS as open source. What distinguishes the Apple "brand" and sells the hardware, after all, is not their tweaks to postfix, but their user interface. So they can treat their unix implementation as non-proprietary.
Even on Solaris x86, which is hardly any kind of a cash-cow for Sun, they produce a neatly packaged, trivial to install GNU toolchain, and distribute it freely to anybody who runs Solaris. Solaris x86 is a pretty nice system, what with Gnome and all these days.
resigned
Now you're just picking nits.
The processor in the latest Mac systems is better than that of x86. That is what was implied... and I know you know that.
Tell us... what are we "zealots" afraid of?
. . with the Open Source community. Just ask these guys [stargeek.com].
What's that have to do with the open source community? Perhaps you mean the cracker community? Apple's ability to obtain music for their iTunes shop depends upon their ability to convince the recording studios that their rather perfunctory DRM (which can be easily bypassed, without cracking anything, with only a modest loss in quality) is sufficient. These guys are poisoning the well.
Apple really is a monopoly when it comes to hardware... want a new G5 with a single processor?
So if Chrysler won't sell you a battery powered PT Cruiser, does that make them a monopoly?
Is there some DRM or something on Mac hardware that prevents people from illegally copying OSX on the mac platform?
Nope, none at all. It would annoy customers, and, frankly, Apple doesn't care that you're pirating their $129 OS, because you can only run it on a computer for which you already paid Apple at least ten times that much.
When is the 'OS X Refund Day Rally'??
Will Raymond wear his C3P0 outfit this time? Will other demonstrators accidently toss their empty Mountain Dew cans into his costume?
"I claim Gentoo is a superior Operating system to apple. Again for me looks doesn't matter."
The problem with your argument is that you implying that "looks" is the only strength that the Mac has.
"Linux Kernel is vastly superior and modern to what apple uses."
I think many would argue against that. Linux's strength is indeed in its kernel design but so too is OSX's. The advantage that the Linux kernel has over Apple's BSD/Mach combination is that the Linux kernel is more open than Apple's. That doesn't make it inherintly better but it does make it easier to alter.
Not to mention the fact that Apple has had a bad history of security fixes, last time there was a vulnerability, apple pushed some stuff that didn't even fix the problem."
Apple's history in security fixes is among the best in the industry. If it didn't fix a problem that it intended to for a recent release, that isn't good but that certinly doesn't establish a pattern.
"Apple is secure just by the virtue of the fact that nobody uses it."
Now its obvious you're just trolling and I regret wasting my time on responding to you.
So when I buy a Dell laptop I get the OS for free.
That's gonna let the air out of the sail of a lot of people demanding that Dell offer 'naked' machines they can install Linux on without paying a 'Microsoft Tax.'
resigned
- GNUStep looks like something that I shat out last night after eating at taco bell
- GNUStep is GPL'd, which means it is anti-business and useless to those of us who have work to do, not religion
- GNUStep has no applications and no support from Apple or any other leading edge computer company
- Being "pure" open source, GNUStep is vastly inferior to OS X, which is maintained by a cadre of well paid professional American programmers, not $2.99/hour indian high school dropouts
IBM's open source project list:
4758 Secure Coprocessor Driver for Linux
This project is a Linux device driver for the IBM 4758 PCI Cryptographic Coprocessor, which is a tamper-sensing and responding, programmable PCI card. It provides a highly secure subsystem in which data processing and cryptography can be performed.
ATM on Linux
ATM support for Linux is currently in pre-alpha stage. There is an experimental release, which supports raw ATM connections (PVCs and SVCs), IP over ATM, LAN emulation, MPOA, Arequipa, and some other goodies.
Abstract Machine Test Utility (AMTU) for Linux
Abstract Machine Test Utility (AMTU) is an administrative utility that checks whether the underlying protection mechanism of the hardware is being enforced. This is a requirement of the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP) FTP_AMT.1.
Ananas Project: Summary
This is the source for Working XML, a column on developerWorks with companion project code that demonstrates the evolution of full-fledged XML applications. This is distributed under the artistic license.
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache project develops and maintains an open-source HTTP server for various modern desktop and server operating systems.
BlueDrekar transport driver
This transport driver for BlueDrekar(TM) middleware is a reference implementation of the Bluetooth(TM) Host Controller Interface (HCI) UART transport layer and is available under the GNU license. The BlueDrekar protocol stack is also available on alphaWorks.
BlueHoc simulator
BlueHoc is a tool that predicts the performance of Bluetooth wireless hardware technologies. BlueHoc simulates the baseband and link layers of the Bluetooth specification.
BlueIce
BlueIce provides assistance in installing, configuring, and deploying J2EE applications on Linux using IBM middleware. It is currently used by the IBM eServer Integrated Platform for e-business.
COIN (Common Optimization INterface)
Developers can use Common Optimization INterface (COIN) to build optimization solutions. IBM mathematical optimization researchers opened the code they use in finding the optimal allocation of limited resources. The code has many applications in a variety of industries.
Channel Bonding
The Channel Bonding project works on methods to join multiple networks on Linux into a single logical network with higher bandwidth. The project team works with the Beowulf Ethernet Channel Bonding project, where bonding work began.
Consensus prototype
Consensus is a joint European project carried out by six companies. The project is partially funded by the European Commission. The project goal is to provide technology to support single-authoring for mobile devices. developerWorks hosts the open source implementation developed by the Consortium. Detailed information about the project is at the Consensus Project home page (http://www.consensus-online.org).
Content Query System (CQS) Project: Summary
Content Query System (CQS). CQS is a distributed peer-to-peer query system for the purpose of discovering content or data. XML messages are passed between systems and query "engines" are used to access the data that is being made available on the system.
Crypto Accelerator Driver
Device Driver Support for the IBM eServer Cryptographic Accelerator.
Crypto Interface Library
Generalized Interface library for the IBM eServer Cryptographic Accelerator Device Driver. Note, this is a low level api for the Specified adapter, it is not intended to be an interface which is written to by applications. Applications should use the openCryptoki PKCS#11 api for interfacing to the token.
DAISY
The DAISY (Dynamically Architected Instruction Set from Yorktown) project uses dynamic binary translation to emulate an existing architectu
Stuart Cheshire is the architect of Zeroconf/Rendezvous. He was working for Apple when he drummed up interest for easier to use IP networking at IETF.
a rt icleview/30/1/3/
proof #1
"In 1998, between finishing my PhD and starting work full-time at Apple..."
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/#Personal
--
proof #2
"Peter Ford from Microsoft helped me co-chair those meetings, and we gathered enough interest to warrant the formation of an official IETF Working Group, under the new name "Zero Configuration Networking", in September 1999."
http://www.theideabasket.com/index.php/article/
Now stop spreading FUD!
their [Apple's] hardware is typically better and is cost competitive with all the other major PC oems
Apple does however give you less opportunity to buy less and therefore pay less. That dopes not make them more expensive but it does make their system less configurable at the initial purchase time. If you can get over that detail, everything else with their solution is wonderful IMHO
In a similiar way, my Pontiac Sunfire is typically better and cost competitive with Ferraris and Porsches. It does, howeverr, give you less oportunity to go faster than a Ferrari. This does not make it a worse car, it just makes it less competitive at the initial purchase time. If you can get over that detail, everythin else is wonderful.
I hate the Apple zealots that push the macs-are-as-cheap-as-pcs line. They arent. They are better computers, and you have to pay more for them. Live with it.
He claimed that OS X was the most widely-used UNIX-type OS on the desktop, and he was right. I just looked at the Zeitgeist, and although Mac is 3%, Linux is only 1% and BSD doesn't even register - I guess it's part of "other."
And people are switching. I used to hate Macs before OS X, but they've gone from crappy, slow computers with an outdated OS to sleek, quick computers with the most technologically advanced OS available (for the desktop, at least). Now I own one, and have several friends who want to switch.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It is lawful to enforce the DMCA. But it is wrong to do so. It's a sign of ethical corruption. The DMCA needs to be repealed, and companies like Apple want to keep that from happening. Viruses are created with malicious intent and can cause side effects that are clearly harmful. The creators of Hymn have no malicious intent and the program itself causes no damage to the system of any user who runs it.
Furthermore, Hymn is a good program because it allows users to exercise their Fair Use rights which were granted to them by copyright law. Its distribution is an instance of free speech being exercised. There is nothing bad about it. True, it may make life inconvenient for the RIAA. But that's their problem. Given that the program is being distributed from India, it is impossible for the distribution or the use of Hymn to result in the transgression of any law. So I think it's a little unfair for you to speak of Hymn as if it could be compared to a virus.
Please clarify your position. What exactly is bad about Hymn? Why is it bad to exercise Fair Use rights? Why should the RIAA and Apple and other large corporations be allowed to forbid us from taking actions that break no law (save, possibly, the DMCA) and have nothing to do with copyright infringement?
Yes, like countless different ways to do the same basic task.
And you forgot userfriendliness... oh wait...
Woah. Here, take my handkerchief-- you're frothing.
You're saying that the only reason to thank someone for open source work is when it doesn't "save them work" or "weaken Microsoft"? I call bu----it.
Find an itch. Scratch it. Share with the world. That's open source.
You know of course that the creator of Be's most beloved feature, the BeFS, Dominic Giampaolo, now works for Apple. That new Spotlight feature in Tiger, looks to leverage a lot of his competence in that area.
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
Monopolies are always bad for the consumer. Not for the CEOs though ;)
LOL!
Nicely put. I'm sure I'll use that analogy in conversation someday. Just thought I'd say thinks in advance.
No, my position was merely that Apple is not anti-opensource, and that the people who wrote Fair Play should've and likely did anticipate this response form Apple. Apple should do everything in their power to prevent the breaking of their DRM because their contracts with record labels obligates them to do so. This is not to say that I support DRM, but I do support online music, and I don't think it's fair for people to jeopardize my ability to buy online music. If people want to use their music on players other than the iPod, I think they should just buy unprotected music CD's.
Google it, you'll find quite a bit of info out there. I actually have (or had) a CD image of it somewhere, but not anything that will run it (it has pretty specific hardware requirements which makes all of the Macs I have available unusable - Basilisk won't work either).
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
Ooh, remind me how I can build my own Mac again! I've forgotten.
The Farewell Tour II
I always like to think that if ever Apple did take a nose dive and look like it was about to go under that it would be rebel enough to release Mac OS X in its entirity into Open Source and GPL it all.
Think about the effect that would have on the industry.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Don't blame me - this
Without portfolio?!?
What about Bolo?
Speaking of which, I'm still waiting to hear back on that offer to do a book on the history of Bolo, Stuart....
narcogen@rampancy.net
Pretty much the same way you'd build your own Dell computer, I suppose, except you order all the parts from Apple instead of Dell.
By what measurement?
By lines of code? How many lines of code are in OpenOffice anyway?
By the number of kernel improvements to Linux? I don't recall seeing Apple's name on RCU.
How about marketing dollars? I'm pretty sure IBM is just beating HP for that title.
By legitimizing OSS in the corporate world? Pretty sure IBM wins that one. Heck, OSX users probably don't even know they're using OSS.
Or how about units of OSS software shipped? I am pretty sure Sun wins again; OSS and GNU has been bundled with Solaris for years and Sun ships a lot of boxes.
By their contributions to the BSDs? Apple uses FreeBSD a lot but it's only a trickle back. Sure, they give some gnawed bones to the FreeBSD kernel guys, but what about the rest of BSD?
Are you measuring all the boring stuff like documentation and testing and selling? Because I think Sun and IBM both beat Apple there too.
Hell, what metric are you using to convince yourself that Apple has "given a lot more" than IBM or Sun? I'm really interested to know. I realise that Apple uses a lot of open source software and they are responsible for a lot of FreeBSD-based desktops and servers, but using software isn't the same thing as giving.
My own personal list of companies who have given the most to OSS (in no particular order):
I'd rank Apple somewhere in the top 10 but they're playing well behind those 3. I reckon Apple probably ranks below Novell, SGI, HP and fricking Intel in terms of contributions to the open source movement. I certainly would not place them in first place. They're a good contributor, and they have given a lot, but have they given the most? No way!
so the superior design must be the reason my (and thousands of others) ibook broke and there is a "logic board repair program".....
Only a "Dell computer" isn't a platform of any sort. I can build a machine that will run anything a Dell will, only with superior power at a lower price. Where's the ability to do that with an Apple. Point is, trying to compare Apple pricing to oem x86 pricing is similar to the idiot method of benchmarking dual processor Macs against single processor x86 machines. It only serves to keep Mac users for feeling like complete morons for getting ripped off on hardware that doesn't give them any more power and comes preloaded with an operating system that is as useless to run as windows, only without the games.
The Farewell Tour II
that has got to be the worst comparison I have ever heard in my life. It's not even slightly close to a faintly similar thing to what he was saying, apart from maybe the sentence structure.
But if the fact that you can use the same sentence structure to say something absurd as something true, doesn't make the true stament absurd.
Neither does it make your absurd statement true.
Advanced users are users too!
Usually you will find anti-Mac trolls coming from Anonymous post. :)
So don't get pushed into thinking all Linux-zealots are Mac-haters.
I for one am not; any other OS but for MS; I am neutrally supportive - if that makes sense
...I mean, one is a religion, the other is some bloke who lived 2000 years ago.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
1) Use Gecko
2) Use KHTML and bring it up to speed
3) Write their own
4) License one
3 was entirely out of the question - the investment and time it takes to build a modern web rendering engine is enormous and they don't have the resources nor desire to do that. 4 would have been difficult - the only other rendering engines on the market would have been from Opera or OmniWeb. Both these companies make their living by selling unit copies of their browsers so the idea of having them bundled with the OS and potentially reused in competitors browsers to compete against them can't have been pretty.
So they had to use a pre-existing open source rendering engine. They went for KHTML, for various well documented reasons, and started work on bringing up to scratch. But did they work with the KDE community to do that? No. Of course not. Steve Jobs wanted to go "tada!" and surprise his followers. So instead they released an enormous patch dump once Safari was out.
I can tell you from working with similar patch dumps from TransGaming that this is very nearly as bad as not getting the changes back at all. They are ridiculously hard to make use of - not only are all the changes mixed together, but often they contain duplicated work. How do you pick between the component written as a labour of love by a volunteer, or the corporate version dumped on your lap by an organization merely following the letter of the law? What if the corporate version is better? What kind of message does that send? How do you split the patch up into discrete commits so you can track regressions when each part depends on the others?
To be frank, if Apple were truly working with the open source community in the KHTML case, they'd have entered the spirit of "no secrets" and released their work as it was done, with discussion on the mailing list. They did not. I've been there - it's not much fun.
Keep in mind that Apple is a business first and foremost; if it is convenient and *profitable* (less development time, bugs are not in their hands as much) for them to use open source then they will.
If they were totally altruistic then the open source community would have access to sourcecode for the Finder, Spotlight and other Apple technologies which would benefit those who wish to improve their OS systems. But no, it's a business, and what works for them doesn't necessarily mean they should fully reverse the process.
And, when they introduce bugs in system updates that cripple (fully compliant) applications, one gets to wonder what their goal is.
(fyi, I am an Apple Mac user)
Konfabulator is a reimplementation of Desktop Accessories, which were introduced in System (i.e., Mac OS) 6 or 7. So Apple's just taking its idea back. ;)
The Watson developer was offered a job by Apple, which he turned down. Then, he sold out to Sun.
Given the real facts, I don't think either of them have anything meaningful to contribute to the discussion.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
to sleek, quick computers with the most technologically advanced OS available (for the desktop, at least).
True!
The Apple succes on unix desktops always reminds me how right was Steve Jobs with his NeXT computers, ahead of time by 19 years!.
And some people still thinks we are in the fast lane!
What's in a sig?
Aren't the "build your own" days over yet? It made sense in the 80s and 90s but what's the advantage now? Maybe it's just a phase everyone has to go through or something. I'll be happy if I never build another computer again. Isn't that what sweatshops are for?
By their contributions to the BSDs? Apple uses FreeBSD a lot but it's only a trickle back. Sure, they give some gnawed bones to the FreeBSD kernel guys, but what about the rest of BSD?
Seeing this, it implies to me that you are just ranting with no idea what you talking about. The part of FreeBSD that Apple is not using is the kernel. They are using the BSD w/ Mach thing that they inherited from NeXT. It is the user space utilities that are mostly from FreeBSD. Instead of the ones that shipped with NextSTEP (the ones they licensed from Berkeley before BSD became free software) which were getting a bit long in the tooth, they grabbed most of /bin and /usr/bin/ from FreeBSD.
The comment about Open Source shipped by Sun seems misguided as well. First of all, Sun shipping open source software packages is a very recent phenomena. Solaris Freeware. shows the packages that ship with Solaris 9. A small portion of those titles were distributed with Solaris 8 (I'm thinking less than a half dozen. That was the release they added ssh and Apache.) In Solaris 7 and earlier, the only thing close to free software were the hacked up binary only versions of Sendmail and and Bind.
I don't quite understand why you keep harping on OpenOffice too. They bought a failing company producing an office productivity suite because they wanted some sort of word processing and spreadsheet option to sell with the workstation systems. It was sort of like SGI buying the MIPS CPU maker. It wasn't good for them to do, but it would be disastrous for them no to do.
And Sun doesn't ship a lot of boxes. They ship a lot of boxes for a server manufacturer, which isn't quite the same thing.
Donate free food here
I hate to post a "me too" but this exactly describes me as well.
I really don't understand this talk of "Apple zealots." I'm sure they must exist but I'm certainly not one. I didn't use Macs at all until I bought a Powerbook a few months ago. I'm a long-time Unix user and used Windows grudgingly from time to time, and to me Mac OS was just another limited OS like Windows only more expensive and with fewer apps. OS X changed all that.
Now I have a Mac and I love it, but if Apple got stupid and started producing crap again I'd switch in a heartbeat. As opposed to the Microsoft zealots who complain about their buggy systems but inevitably line up for the next Windows release.
As for Apple's contribution to open source, well, they strike an interesting balance between free and proprietary software and however you feel about the OSS "purity" issues you have to admit (if you're honest with yourself) that the end product is damned effective. The fact that they give back when they don't have to impresses me even if it doesn't impress anyone else, but the reason I like their stuff is that it's good. I'm willing to pay a premium for quality.
I have a Unix laptop with a slick UI and I do not have to fuck with it all the time to make it work. Even most of the pre-installed Linux laptops I've seen do not fully support all of the onboard hardware, and none of them are as nice as a Powerbook (though some of them are about as good as a P-P-P-Powerbook!) Apparently, my willingness to pay a little more for this makes me a zealot. Um, yeah, whatever. I say I'm a person who likes nice stuff and is getting too old to spend hours fucking around with hardware just to save a few bucks.
I'm not sure what you mean. The purpose of the program is to enable people to make fair use of tracks they've purchased. It's of no use without the purchased tracks. And despite the fact that the program is widely available, despite Apple's jackbooted efforts to the contrary, there doesn't seem to be a flood of inferior 128kbit rips of iTMS songs floating around the P2P networks.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
you see, your post and the parent post were both modded as flamebait because they were. this article isn't comparing gentoo and mac os x and while gentoo is a fine distro, posting a comment saying 'gentoo is bettah than teh mac os ex' in a mac related article is flamebait, not facism.
looks like you failed it.
You forgot to mention that we're also all gay filmmakers and musicians who only buy Apples because they match our decor.
*hides wife, Unix books, old Linux box, and lack of artistic ability behind shiney Mac* Nothing to see here, move along...
An honest question: what did Apple contributed back ? I know about Rendezvous/zeroconf, and I suppose they participate actively in KHTML (for Safari), but beside that ? There is obviously Darwin, but it is not being used very much outside of OS X AFAIK.
Also, Apple produce quite a bit of hardware. How are they doing about providing drivers for Open-Source OS, or documentation for these to be written ? For example, are their WiFi adaptor supported in Linux/PPC ?
:wq
If I don't fit this profile, does it mean I have to give up my Mac? Aw, crap! Well, I guess I could get an Ikea card, even though I really don't need any semi-disposable Swedish furniture. I do like smooth curves, but mostly because they make me think of women, so the gay thing just wouldn't work. I really don't enjoy running, even through a field of daisies, but maybe I could learn to like it. I'd probably have better luck with that than with graphic design since I have no artistic talent.
Jeez, and here I thought I just had to be a person who prefers to actually use his computer rather than spend all day fucking around with it. Well, it's still worth it.
Apple hasn't moved away from "special" internals rather they have simply realized the value of open platforms. Notice that they're still DEVELOPING internal technologies, they're just no longer keeping them to themselves, ensuring mac users are locked off in this mac-hardware ghetto. Instead of ADB or NuBus, look at the recent hardware tech Apple's developed-- things like FireWire, or HyperTransport (they were on the consortium). Even the stuff they make for their own use they open up because they realize a standard isn't of any use if you're the only one who uses it.
Rendezvous/zeroconf is under the APSL, not the GPL, so that doesn't count. For KHTML,. they only contributed back what they had to to get out of a GPL violation, and they submitted it back once it was useless. They based it off of KHTML 3.0 (or 3.1, don't remember) when KHTML 3.3 was coming out, so many of the patches they supplied were effectively useless. If Apple wanted to support OSS, they would have submitted the KHTML patches as they created them, and BOTH would have ended up with a better final product. Also notice a lot of the new stuff now is going into WebCore to ensure it doesn't help OSS.
Went Apple 18 mths ago for LAMP (*) development and couldn't imagine going back to x86. I've saved many times the "extra cost" of the h'ware in time not spent rebooting my machine.
(*) Server platforms are Linux - havn't made the shift to OS X server quite yet but will get there!
If the software is system or netowrk protocol related yes they give it away. Once it makes it to linux and other systems it puts Microsoft into a position where they have to conform.
As far as applications, I doubt you'll see any open source from that area.
The iBook was one of Apples machines that use to bother me for years and was one of the reasons I've resisted buying Apple hardware in the past couple of years. The problem is, Apple doesn't have a clue when it comes to, configuring its systems with RAM.
At one time iBook was shipping with 128Meg of RAM and OS/X. Certainly no clue there.
Then as has been noted they slipped in another 128Meg to supplement the soldered in memory. Apparently they could not manage a board revsion to implement a memory upgrade for years. Sadly this directly affects the quality of Apples products, soldered in RAM is a smart move for a portable. I'm wondering how long it will be until 512megs or more are soldered in?
Of course the soldered in memory does bring up the biggest problem Apple currently has. That is they ship their machines with far to little memory. It would be one thing if there was a significant break in the base model prices as a result but there isn't. Really the computers that Apple sells need to have a credible ability to run their software at the time the software is released, not 2 or 3 years later.
I don't wish to drag this thread off topic, it is just that memory is important for all software. In many cases it is more important for OSS for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that much of OSS comes from the UNIX world. That is there is an expectation of a certian amount of capability in OSS. In many cases that capability is wanting in Apple hardware only for lack of significnat memory resources.
So from my perspective Apple while adopting OSS, really doesn't have the platform for the rest of us. Sure if you're that portion of the rest of us that spends money every month on his PC, Apple may not be a problem. If on the other hand your cash is important to you and you try to spend it wisely Apple is not a smart buy.
Dave
You can run different OSes on PPC hardware, incluiding the hardware sold by Apple. Such as Yellow Dog.
Matt Domsch, and the team he leads.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
They Hymn project will not jeopardize the availability of online music. It makes more business sense to distribute online (if your customers are online) because the cost of doing so is much lower than distributing on CD. Online music does not need your support; there is a healthy demand for it. There will be (and are today) many suppliers of online music besides Apple. And no matter what happens, I'm sure Apple will find a way to make it profitable. I think this is the point where we disagree: you say their contract should always dictate their actions. I say they are obligated to get out of or break their contracts when the actions dictated by the contract are unethical.
Can I seriously expect them to do that on their own? Well, certainly not in this case. Apple, alongside other companies, lobbied very hard to get the DMCA passed into law. They're not doing this stuff just because the RIAA says so. They're doing it because they really don't care about your Fair Use rights or the First Amendment rights of the Hymn project people. All they can see is that they've lost some control over the execution of the business model and that they can put someone behind bars for it if they ever find his identity.
I really wish that was not the case, because if it weren't for its history of taking the ethically incorrect path on this and so many other issues, Apple would be my favorite tech company. It's really annoying that there is so much to love and simultaneously so much to hate about what that company does.
Let me try and explain the analogy:
Take two ways to get a fast car:
1) Buy a Ferrari ($100,000)
2) Buy a Sunfire ($15,000), and aftermarket it until it performs similar to a Ferrari ($85,000)
Obviously, you cant just make a Sunfire perform like a Ferrari just by throwing money at it, but, for the sake of argument, pretend that you could.
Now, would it be fair to say that "Sunfires are cost competitive with Ferraris"? As long as you are going to spend $100,000 no matter what, this is a fair statement. If, like most people though, you are not planning on spending $100,000 on a car, the statement is absurd (to use your choice of words).
Of course they're grateful, a lot of work has been done on it but you'll see in that email that they already encountered the problems I described - duplicated work, primarily. It took months to merge in the initial KHTML patch drop, in fact I'm not 100% sure it's even all in now. Do you think they'd have preferred open development or not?
Donate free food here
did not find any flaw in Linux itself, just that the interface for management was not quite there
This, for me, really illustrates the culture clash between Apple and the open source/Linux community; I've always had the impression that for the Linux crowd, the back-and is all important and adding the UI is just a finishing touch. The above comment would seem to confirm that view.
But for Apple, it's the UI that is all-important. I think a lot of people underestimate the time it takes not just to implement a UI, but to get it right.
You couldn't imagine Apple ever dismissing an issue as "That's just UI stuff..". "Just back end stuff" maybe!
Apple has had to overcome the bad reputation that they got back when tried to prevent anyone else from using the intellectual property they stole from Xerox (aka look&feel). Googling on "stallmann boycott apple" turned up the following:
Boycott Apple - Some time before 1989, Apple Computer, Inc. started a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, claiming they had breached Apple's copyright on the look and feel of the Macintosh user interface. In December 1989, Xerox failed to sue Apple Computer, claiming that the software for Apple's Lisa computer and Macintosh Finder, both copyrighted in 1987, were derived from two Xerox programs: Smalltalk, developed in the mid-1970s and Star, copyrighted in 1981.
Apple wanted to stop people from writing any program that worked even vaguely like a Macintosh. If such look and feel lawsuits succeed they could put an end to free software that could substitute for commercial software.
In the weeks after the suit was filed, Usenet reverberated with condemnation for Apple. GNU supporters Richard Stallman, John Gilmore, and Paul Rubin decided to take action against Apple. Apple's reputation as a force for progress came from having made better computers; but The League for Programming Freedom believed that Apple wanted to make all non-Apple computers worse. They therefore campaigned to discourage people from using Apple products or working for Apple or any other company threatening similar obstructionist tactics (e.g. Lotus and Xerox).
Because of this boycott the Free Software Foundation for a long time didn't support Macintosh Unix in their software. In 1995, the LPF and the FSF decided to end the boycott.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Depends very much on the individual situation. In this case the guy whos work was duplicated had not finished his version, and he was still around so there was no need to discuss replacing it without his consent.
The purpose of the program is to enable people to make fair use of tracks they've purchased. It's of no use without the purchased tracks.
That may or may not be the purpose of PlayFair. However, its function is to remove the DRM. Once the DRM is gone, I can play that track (if somebody gives it to me) whether or not I purchased it. This is what Apple's FairPlay DRM is designed to prevent. Note that even without PlayFair, I can convert Apple's songs to unprotected format with only a slight loss in quality by writing them to a CD-R and then re-ripping them, or by using the various utilities (which are widely available with no interference from Apple) that simulate this process without a physical CD. That seems more than adequate for "fair use," especially since iTunes store users explicitly agree to accept these restrictions before downloading songs. So PlayFair has no use other than to enable people to violate their user agreement with Apple. And it undermines Apple's efforts to make music downloads available with only token DRM. As long as Apple can say that iTunes songs cannot be widely copied in full quality, they will be able to maintain availability of most commercial music. If programs like PlayFair become widely available, Apple will either have to go to a more restrictive DRM, or will lose the ability to offer downloads at relatively low cost. That's why I say that the PlayFair guys are poisoning the well--which has nothing to do with whether it is open or closed source, or Apple's relationship with the rest of the open source community in general.
What did MS do as soon as Safari was release? That's right, they claimed that OSX now has a browser and EOL'd IE for Mac. There is also the argument you hear time and time again from the GNU community (as opposed to the OSS community as a whole) if you don't like the terms of the licence, don't use the code. The KDE team was free to reject the Apple code wholesale if they didn't want the hastle of integrating the code bases.
Apple have so far been a fine player in the OSS community, they have worked hard and we cant forget that they are a commercial company, in the world of commerce first to market actually means something. Apple don't want to spend millions investing in making a browser for their platform for the whole project to be torpedoed by buggy early releases, code handed back to KDE that isn't ready for the primetime and an early exit from the market by MS.
To be frank, Apple have given more back to the community than you give them credit for with comments like "the corporate version dumped on your lap by an organization merely following the letter of the law". You are completely neglecting the contribution that is Darwin. That was BSD, that had a BSD licence, they could have just taken and not given anything back. They chose to keep it OSS.
I've been in the corporate world - it's not much fun, and I'll bet it would leave a very bitter taste in one's mouth if a competitor used your code to beat you to the punch, released a browser and dumped a large "patch" of your own code to a project before you'd finished; while at the same time your platform languished because said 'followers' didn't have a decent browser. Obviously this is a worst case everything went wrong scenario, but they aren't doing it for the love, no Mac 'follower' is really fooled into thinking they're doing it for anything except to line the pockets of the shareholders, it's just that at the same time we think they're doing it right.
YMMV.
I've always figured that it was up to the record labels how they distributed music. I don't see how Fair Rights and the First Amendment really come into play here. Doesn't the content owner have the right to dictate how that content is bought and sold. After all, music is not an essential service, and people can simply choose not to buy it if they don't agree with how it's being distributed. People don't need to by from the iTunes Music store, if they want music to play on a non-Apple mp3 player, they should just buy it elsewhere.
And you off course are not using a propietary codec to play quicktime? You can't play AAC cause the only ones out there are protected by their DRM that we poor linux users can't open (without cracking it I mean) and everything else is just stuff they use, they don't really work on it. (with the notable exception being PDF)
Apple is just as propietary a company as microsoft is, they are only quicker to incorporate some open source stuff if it doesn't compete with any of their own propietary formats.
All that assumes that it's possible to waive one's fair-use rights with a Diktat contract. Unconscionable contract provisions are widely regarded as unenforceable, and it isn't unreasonable to expect that conditioning of purchase on signing them away is such a provision. Posting AC because I've taken enough of a hit in karma from the Apple zealots for now. That, and I'm logged in with a different ID and am too lazy to log out and log back in.
Who the hell cares? Is it Apple's problem that their contribution is not being utilized by many people? Apple gave back improvement. Period. You can use it if you want, or not. Nobody forces you to do anything. Nobody forces FOSS projects to merge Apple's patches into the tree. isn't that why people keep arguing that free in FOSS is like in 'freedom'? It makes me wonder if you actually understand the spirit of FOSS philosophy.
That's not what you said...you said that the sunfire would _not_ perform similar to a Ferrari, and you made no mention of spending extra to bring the cost to the same level.
And in anycase, the Dual G5 isn't the only cost competitive Apple, the low end Macs are well within the grasp of anyone that was going to hand money over to Dell, HP or IBM
The only people Macs dont appeal to on a cost basis, are those of us who like to build our own, since we can do it much cheaper than what Dell will sell to you for.
Advanced users are users too!
Apple's recently released Tiger
Is this article due for publication summer 2005?
It is.
Well, they don't come into play (with respect to music distribution). Sorry, I was trying to make two points at once, and thus (evidently) introduced some confusion, which I'll try to clear up now.
First, on Fair Use: understand that the intent behind the DMCA is to make it possible for Apple (and other companies) to nullify your Fair Use rights. The point is this: if you don't have the ability to download a program like Hymn, then you'll have no way to break the DRM. If you are unable to break the DRM, then you cannot fully exercise your Fair Use rights. See, they didn't make Fair Use illegal. It's just that they're trying to make Fair Use impossible. They're doing it by trampling on the First Amendment rights of the people who made Hymn. How are they doing that? Well, understand that program source code is a form of speech. But Apple says that they don't like this particular kind of speech (the kind that tells other programmers how to break DRM). And what's more, the DMCA agrees with Apple. So if the program is being distributed from within the U.S.A., Apple gets its way and the programmer is silenced. This is exactly what happened when Apple sent a Cease and Desist letter (citing the DMCA) to SourceForge.net. [Note: there's nothing wrong with the DRM itself. The problem is that, because of the DMCA, I'm not allowed to tell you how to break Apple's DRM. In other words, it's illegal for me to help my neighbor fully exercise his/her rights.]
Second, on distribution: Yes, the recording industry can distribute music however it wants. But in the future, it will probably distribute *more* music online because it makes economic sense to do so: the market is there and the costs are lower. Therefore, it's quite likely that in the future they'll make more money from that than they presently make from CD sales. The point is this: Apple and the RIAA companies aren't exactly starving. They've made a lot of profits and they will make a lot more in the future. So don't speak of their form of online distribution as if it's a charity that requires your "support". Similarly, don't speak as if there are no alternatives in the market. They're doing just fine even though (or perhaps in part *because*) anyone can download and use Hymn.
[Side note: independent artists on the other hand *should* get your support if you really like their music.]
If you really think that it's a non-essential service, then why are you willing to give up your right to Free Speech for it? I refer to this comment you made earlier: "...I don't think it's fair for people to jeopardize my ability to buy online music." The rights of the author of Hymn are also your rights. You should not dismiss the rights of others just because you think that their freedom makes your life more inconvenient.
Well, thanks to the fact that citizens of India enjoy more freedom than Americans do (in this case), there's no need to do that. An American can buy a track from iTunes and then download Hymn (from a web server located in India). But this issue still matters for a few reasons: first, we shouldn't have to go outside of the country (as the Hymn people had to, and as each user of Hymn must now do) to get back the freedoms we lost in 1998 (when the DMCA was passed). Second, it's the principle of the thing: Apple and the R
How about cost? OEMs over charge and for crap parts too. The advantage of building is that you don't end up being a moron and paying 2000$ for a computer that's worth less than a grand.
The Farewell Tour II
That's not what you said...you said that the sunfire would _not_ perform similar to a Ferrari
I did? Where? I can't find it for the life of me.
and you made no mention of spending extra to bring the cost to the same level.
I did mention it, just not directly. I said "it just makes it less competitive at the initial purchase time," implying that you could make a Sunfire competitive if you spent more money on it. Of course, I was being vague in order to show how meaningless the previous posters statement was. It technically could apply to just about anything, and demonstrates nothing about the actual costs of the two things being compared.
the low end Macs are well within the grasp of anyone that was going to hand money over to Dell, HP or IBM
As someone who lusted over the macs, yet ultimately handed over my money to Dell, you are only half right. A mac was within my grasp, but the Dell was within my budget. I still wonder whether I made the right decision.
The only people Macs dont appeal to on a cost basis, are those of us who like to build our own, since we can do it much cheaper than what Dell will sell to you for.
Just to be argumentitive, I don't think this is true either. I used to believe this, but nowdays, Dells are so cheap that there is very little difference in price. The only reason to build my own is that I can reuse alot of components.
How much of that 3% is Mac OS X and how much is classic Mac OS?
End of Line.
Apple hardware and software is the bees knees for graphics and video.
:P
Then there's video games.
For which a 500$ Dell offers a shitload more bang for the buck than a 1800$ G5.
Pretty much the entire non-portable PC userbase can upgrade their machines to play games. Only the Pro Desktop end of the Apple spectrum has this option- four of the five types of machines Apple sells have non-upgradeable graphics cards.
I like to game, but on the Mac, my options are so limited it's pathetic.
Value is relative. A 2000$ Apple box is a steal for doing Real Video Editing. It's a complete ripoff for games.
Which means Creative Professionals end up owning multiple computers.
It does not work that way with Dell since they don't make the OS. With Apple, the company makes a margin on the hardware and OS is included for free. You only pay for upgrades.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Oh, come on. They did whatever needed to be done to finish their project. Have you asked anybody who writes open source project when his/her code would be finished? The answer usually is "when I'd find the time".
Good luck putting unpatched OS X box on the network. It has about as many holes as Windows (read the disclosures, dude). The only reason why there aren't that many viruses for it is because its marketshare is 3%.
Well, I've heard that the typical Mac user is more likely to keep their software up-to-date than a Windows user, which makes sense for a couple of reasons: First, Mac users are willing to spend more money (since if they wanted the absolute cheapest bottom-line, they wouldn't have gotten a mac*), so they can afford to pay for upgrades. Second, OS X has been around for what, 4 years now? That's a pretty long time. Third, Apple really, really pushed OS X, and tried pretty hard to force people to upgrade - for example, refusing to sell new computers with OS 9, and having people load "Classic environment" instead. Finally, OS X was a huge improvement over 9, so almost everyone wanted to upgrade.
It pretty much boils down to this: people who care about how well their computers work care about keeping it up-to-date. People who don't care, and just want The Internet to work (i.e., want an appliance) end up with Windows, PCs, because they're the default choice these days (they don't care to investigate all the choices available to them, and instead just buy whatever the loser at Best Buy tells them to - and Best Buy doesn't sell Macs). Therefore, Mac users care about their computer being up-to date.
So, I would say that the vast majority of those Macs on the Zeitgeist are running OS X.
*note that I'm not saying Macs are overpriced, or even necessarily expensive - but they have only high-end and midrange machines, no eMachines or Dell style low end
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The one thing to keep in mind is that many older Mac models can't run OS X, but do just fine with OS 9. My parents, for example, use a Motorola StarMax 3000/160, a 160MHz PowerPC 603e running Mac OS 9.1. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who have older Macs that can't run OS X, but everything they do works in OS 9, they're satisfied, and don't see a reason to buy a new computer.
End of Line.
Your parents fall into my "computer as an appliance" category - so either I'm completely wrong, or people like your parents are in the vast minority of Mac users. I still think I'm right, but neither of us can prove or disprove it, so we've pretty much ran the argument into the ground.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The kernel in MacOS X is a hybrid between Mach and BSD, primarily FreeBSD. This is well documented.
So unless you think the Apple website is wrong and they don't really use FreeBSD in their kernel, despite their own developer's website saying that they do, I think you might be mistaken.
Less than half a dozen? Solaris 8 shipped with an entire CD full of free software; the Companion CD. It was out in at least 2001. There's a manifest on the sunfreeware website. It's 130 packages.
I see. So OpenOffice doesn't count as a contribution to the open source movement because the company they bought the code from was failing.
You're an idiot. Go away.
You are fucking stupid if you think I said that OSX users are all fucking stupid.
So unless you think the Apple website is wrong and they don't really use FreeBSD in their kernel, despite their own developer's website saying that they do, I think you might be mistaken.
Yes, I think that quote that you grabbed somewhat misleading. Or at least a large simplification. Lets look at how many lines in the kernel have either copyright or RCS variables that reference FreeBSD
Now as a comparison, lets grab src/sys from FreeBSD for comparison
and just to round things out, lets look for how many references there is to Apple anywhere in the FreeBSD source.
I discounted the references to appletalk, which aren't apple code and skew the results. If you look closely at the rest of those 53 files, they are hardware related files that aren't common between the two. (most of the PCI and low level disk drivers are handled by Mach, not BSD on the Darwin side)
Based on this, I'll repeat my assertion. The Darwin kernel is an evolutionary outgrowth of the work that was done at NeXT. NeXT's BSD is based off of the BSD source before it became free software and before the FreeBSD project began. There is very little, if any FreeBSD code in Apple's kernel. The rest of the BSD subsystem, the parts above the kernel, (mostly the stuff in /usr/lib and /{,usr}/{,s}bin) are a different story and have a lot of connection to FreeBSD.
All that assumes that it's possible to waive one's fair-use rights with a Diktat contract. Unconscionable contract provisions are widely regarded as unenforceable, and it isn't unreasonable to expect that conditioning of purchase on signing them away is such a provision.
I don't think you'll find any court that is going to rule that waving "fair use" (which is not a right in a Constitutional sense, merely a limited exemption under the law) is "unconscionable." After all, people routinely are held to do-not-disclose and non-compete clauses as a condition of employment, which is considerably more harsh. Of course, that is a legal argument. The ethical argument is that a deal is a deal--if you aren't willing to accept the agreement, you shouldn't download the music--go buy a CD and rip it yourself.
> FairPlay DRM, and that's only there to make the record companies comfortable
Wrong. According to Apple, it's also there to ensure vendor lock-in.
You obviously have no actual experience using Mac's so you don't realize that Apple operating systems are actually FASTER with each release. So unlike with Windows you can continue to run the latest OS on your aging hardware. You can run Panther on an old G3 processor and it is responsive and pleasent to use. The end result is that you can literally go twice as long between buying new computers. That is if you can resist the new toys that Apple always introduces. :-) So it turns out that Apple's are in fact cheaper in the long run. You can try to argue with me, but my statements are based on first hand knowledge. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
Try finding a local Mac user group to attend. Someone there might let you use their machine for awhile. Get an external hard disk for your code and tools so you can develop and test on several different machines if needed.
Ever consider that they picked KHTML because they prefer LGPL over MPL or GPL?
You post begs much explanation, because it makes no sense as is.When you decide to "go apple" you just have to accept that fact that its Apple's way or the highway. Many apple users enjoy having their decisions made for them and they just put their faith into apple and hope for the best.
Actually, this is pretty much the case for 99% of the users of computers in this country. It is really only the minority that can hack a system.
BTW, FWIW, I've been hacking hardware BEFORE there was an X86 and have a Mac for the convenience factor. After a hard day hacking WORK projects the last thing I want to do is hack on my home system.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
I would like to think that the courts aren't as bought and paid for as the legislators, and if Apple was foolish enough to take someone to court for converting the music s/he bought to non-DRMd AAC losslessly, that Apple would lose. Of course, I could definitely be wrong.
I would like to think that the courts aren't as bought and paid for as the legislators, and if Apple was foolish enough to take someone to court for converting the music s/he bought to non-DRMd AAC losslessly, that Apple would lose. Of course, I could definitely be wrong.
I'm don't see why a judge has to be "bought and paid for" to believe that a legal contract is enforceable. That is, after all, a fundamental principle of law. Much as you might wish that "fair use" were a Constitutional right, there is simply no basis for that in law.
Such being the case, it would follow that there would be relatively few references to FreeBSD within xnu.
Looking at the linked documentation, OS X uses BSD for a large part of what is normally considered "kernel space", that being (from the site):
The same documentation also states that these come from the BSD kernel.
Mach is a strange environment, where all the kernel really does is pass messages from other processes around. The Mach kernel doesn't do all the things we normally associate as kernel tasks.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
The fallacy you're engaging here is that if it isn't codified in the Constitution, it's not a right. And yes, I believe that for a judge to rule against the doctrine of Fair Use, that s/he is either philisophically in error, bought, or both.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
The fallacy you're engaging here is that if it isn't codified in the Constitution, it's not a right. And yes, I believe that for a judge to rule against the doctrine of Fair Use, that s/he is either philisophically in error, bought, or both.
However, as far as the law is concerned, if it is the Constitution that determines legal rights. And according to the law, Fair Use is not a right, but merely a limited statutory exemption to copyright. So your judge has the choice of being philosophically in error (at least according to your philosophy) or legally in error. Since judges are sworn to uphold the law, that is no choice at all--it is not the prerogative of a judge to decide philosophy; that is up to the people, via their representatives in Congress and the Constitutional Amendment mechanism.
The philisophy and the legality are in agreement, so the dichotomy between them does not exist. Any judge that deems the act of converting a song an individual purchased to a non-DRM format for his/her personal use not to be a fair use under existing copyright law is in error. Further, requiring waiver of that right as a condition of sale could be an unsconscionable contract provision, particularly in the case of a contract of adhesion like the iTMS user agreement.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Any judge that deems the act of converting a song an individual purchased to a non-DRM format for his/her personal use not to be a fair use under existing copyright law is in error.
However, copyright law becomes irrelevant if the user has accepted an agreement not to do this. This takes it out of the realm of copyright and into the realm of contracts.
Further, requiring waiver of that right as a condition of sale could be an unsconscionable contract provision, particularly in the case of a contract of adhesion like the iTMS user agreement.
Since the user is not obliged to buy the product for survival or employment, and since the restriction does not violate any explicit prohibition, that hardly makes sense. Far more restrictive prohibitions, such as "do not compete" and nondisclosure agreements have been found legal as a condition of employment. Imposing a restriction as a condition of employment is far more serious than a restriction imposed as part of the license of a convenience service, such as web download of music--you need a job to survive, but you can always buy CDs and rip your own tracks.
It looks like that unless we want to set a thread depth record, we should agree to disagree. Legality aside, Apple isn't likely to come after anyone for using Hymn/Playfair for making personal use of tracks they paid for. While Apple knows its DRM is easily circumvented, I suppose they have to put on a show for the recording industry. Until they take it over.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Unless I'm totally offbase (I'm going from memory here), the xnu module is just the mach kernel. The BSD portion is located in another module.
You do have a point in so far as Darwin's kernel modules allow lots of things to be moved entirely out of the kernel package. (more so than Linux's kernel modules, which are really more like compiled in stubs that can dynamically load in their implementation) There is an entire BSD kernel with the xnu package that sits on top of (or more accurately in Darwin's case "along side") the Mach microkernel.
Since are now the second person to quote me that passage out of the Darwin Kernel Programming guide, lets look at them piece by piece.
Notice how the vfs files are located in a different directory. Notice that the copyrights are different (in the Apple code, most of the BSD copyright notices are from the '80s until about 1993.) and that the license has what the FSF called the "obnoxious advertising clause") Notice that some of the function; their names and arguments are different and some added and removed functions on each side. At points, there are different algorithms. Also, the Apple one is much more likely to make use of gcc extensions like __inline__. Notice the ACL support in the FreeBSD code that isn't in the Darwin code and the journalling code that isn't in FreeBSD.
networking (except for the hardware device level)
The Darwin version of the berkeley packet filter code has an RCS string mentioning FreeBSD, but a 2001 timestamp. The Darwin version also has a "#ifdef __APPLE__" that isn't in the FreeBSD version. The bridging code has similar connections and looks like it was grabbed from FreeBSD some years ago and diverged. The rest of the code has chunks that are the same, but divergent differences, early BSD copyright dates, and looks like the diverged much earlier.
UNIX security model
the file kern_prot.c is where a lot of this takes place.
Notice that the Darwin code still uses pre-ANSI C calling convensions, while the FreeBSD version was converted to ANSI style some years ago. Also note that even the earliest sources on the FreeBSD CVS repository and the Darwin sources have differences. The FreeBSD version has references to things like "defined(COMPAT_SUNOS)" that aren't in Darwin.
syscall support