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."

Comments

Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a

[oscast]

Rendezvous, code existing in Safari, QuickTime streaming server just to name a few

Re:Similar

[Ucklak]

I have to agree.

I run Linux, Panther, and Windows. It's far easier to connect Linux and OSX to a Windows environment than the other way around.
You don't even have to reboot Linux and OSX to join a Windows workgroup.

VPN for Mac also includes RSA encryption that isn't available for Windows except through 3rd party software.
Needless to say, I use OSX VPN for my terminal server connections instead of Windows.

It was not Open Source until they gave it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It was not Open Source until they gave it

[MasonMcD]

Right. Note that ZeroConf is the brainchild of Stuart Cheshire, and he works for Apple, so Rendezvous isn't some hobbled, second-hand implementation of ZeroConf, but from the horse's mouth.

Here's the history of ZeroConf:

The initial seeds of Zeroconf started in a Macintosh network programmers' mailing list called net-thinkers, back in 1997 when I was still a PhD student at Stanford. We were discussing the poor state of ease-of-use for IP networking, particularly the lack of any equivalent to the old AppleTalk Chooser for browsing for services. I proposed that part of the solution might be simply to layer the existing AppleTalk Name Binding Protocol (NBP) over UDP Multicast.

Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:everyone uses open source

[Synesthesiatic]

"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...."

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

Re:Yes, I am a Mac fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Mac have a repository of free software? (it's a genuine question - not a rant).

A couple. The most popular is Fink, but Darwin Ports has a following of its own.

Most common opensource packages compile out of the box on OS X as well, so you can roll your own of your prefer.

Re:Sun???

[Cajal]

Sun did most of the HIG testing for GNOME. They open-sourced OpenOffice. They developed NetBeans. They've developed an open-source XACML processing engine (http://sunxacml.sourceforge.net/). They developed an open-source connector for Evolution and their Java Calendar Server. They open-sourced Looking Glass, the Java 3D API and JXTA. Their grid computing system, Sun Grid Engine, is open-source.

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.

An Apple employee invented ZeroConf (Rendezvous)

[oscast]

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.

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/a rt icleview/30/1/3/

Now stop spreading FUD!

Re:Indeed

[zieroh]

But given that 90% of the OS was in pascal and some assembly with some programmers gone for good and with left over bad source codes

I was at Apple 10 years ago and I can say with certainty that System 7 (the OS at the time) was a mix of C and assembler, for the most part. Pascal had long since been eliminated from everything except MacApp.

Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a

[mrchaotica]

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.

Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a

[Halo1]

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

The KDE developers seems to disagree. FWIW, I have no idea whether they only submitted such a huge patch at once after the initial release of Safari, or whether they now submit their patches more incrementally. Most of what they change isn't that secret, after all Dave Hyatt talks about them all the time in his blog.