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Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 Leaked?
patr1ck writes "Mac Daily News is reporting that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 processors has been leaked to the internet already. Apparently the version running on the development kit machines is easily transfered to run on any x86 machine. Conspiracy theorists unite: an Apple marketing scheme?"
If this increases Mac's market share, at least in terms of software, how will it deal with an increase in viruses, worms, and trojans. Mac's will get them, that's for sure, but the deciding factor I think will be how well they respond to vulnerabilities.
Yeah but howabout the old "turn abck the clock" trick or given enough time regedit it into working. I know I for one would love to have Tiger 10.4.1 on a PC - I am typing this on Tiger right now and it is an amazing OS.
Conspiracy? Apple leaked this? Please..... Apple is making people buy this with an Apple PC they have to return. They took and will take any step possible to stop this from happening.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
You would probably find it interesting to know it just booted on my Athlon 64 X2.
The Crimson Dragon
Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years." http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/06/liveupdate /index.php
why cant they just run the normal Max OS X binaries on X86 if they're universal binaries like they speak of?
Before I download it....does it run on systems with an AMD processor that is equal to an Intel G4???
if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants
I would be surprised if there wasn't a hidden serial number in the OS on each PC they distributed. I bet Apple, and their lawyers, will know exactly who leaked this very soon.
I have some doubts whether this was a leak or a "leak". However, even if it was an unintended (by Apple) event, it could turn out to be the best things to happen to Apple, ever. A sudden boom in OS-X86 (you heard it here, first) could shake some cojones in Apple's executives' pants, and cause a paradigm shift in that company's strategy.
Basically, a shift from hardware towards software-based revenue.
Or not. Apple might utilize this event just to market OS-X86 to new users, users that would otherwise not have bought a Mac, and increase their future sales of Intel-based Macs. However, this strategy would work only on a fraction of those who tried OS-X86 for size, so the effect would be limited.
I say, Apple, have some balls and start selling OS-X86 and related applications! Stick it to Microsoft and cause a stir in the desktop OS marketplace.
Sigged!
Of course, the only way that this would make sense is if the developer release is time-limited. Let's face it, Apple is not ready to take on Microsoft head-to-head right now; it would be suicide for Apple to allow an easily-hacked version of Mac OS X that could run on cheap-ass hardware out the door.
Now, assuming that the dev kit *will* time-bomb, this would be a brilliant move. Of course, it might still be hacked, but the fact of the matter is that only a very, very small subset of the potential market will bother will figuring out the hack to keep it running.
As I've said before, the only negative impacts I see of Apple moving to Intel are:
1. (Temporarily) Increased costs for current Apple hardware/software owners.
2. Decreased competition in the desktop CPU marketplace.
Other than these two items, this whole thing is a net plus for the entire world, even Microsoft, who will surely benefit from direct competition with Apple in the future. Dell could possibly turn out to suffer some losses from this, eventually, but Michael Dell is an arrogant ass who deserves being taken down a notch.
Which of course, is not to say that Steve Jobs isn't arrogant at times, as well, but at least Steve is a consistently proven innovator who constantly (and relentlessly) pushes the technology industry forward, whereas Dell is, and always will be, just a cloner.
So, by all means, grab a copy, check it out. If you haven't developed for Apple hw/sw before, I think you might be pleasantly surprised enough to switch.
If you want to market OS X to non-Mac users, you have to get it to them. Limiting yourself to a handful of technologically knowledgable geeks, and then only those who do not have a problem with blatant copyright infringment, is going to "get it to" a very small group of people, relative to the population Apple wants to get it to.
And yes, it's going to be a subset of geeks who do this. Why? Because relatively few people are willing to set up dual booting computers simply to test an operating system. Very few people are willing to do that and download what's presumably in the order of 2-3G (Panther is 3 CDs plus a developers CD, I don't have Tiger but I'm guessing it's larger) from the Internet to put themselves in a position of being able to try it out.
If Apple wants to get this out to non-geeks, they have to create something similar to "BeOS for Windows", where installation is a matter of downloading the system from the Internet or copying it from a CD, unzipping the file, and then running something, from Windows or maybe by booting the CD, that boots into BeOS. I think Apple knows that this is what would be necessary, together with a very substantial (far more than Be did) advertising campaign.
What this may, ultimately, boil down to is Apple putting a toe in the water to see how bad piracy might end up being. They're releasing a one-off unupdatable OS (as you've said) that has no restrictions built into it whatsoever. If it ends up on a few thousand unauthorized desktops, then Apple's going to breath a sigh of relief and incorporate minimal restrictions in the final releases. If it spreads like wildfire, with millions of unauthorized installations over the next few months, then Apple will feel obliged to put far tougher restrictions into the eventual release.
A demo though? They don't have to release a stealth demo. They can do so publically. It makes little sense that this is a demo. A test, perhaps, but not a demo.
BTW, I'd be surprised if the developers boxes do not have serial numbers in their operating system copies that can be traced. It'll be interesting to see if there's a lawsuit over this.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
... I would expect that it would be a lot like the old Rhapsody DR1 and DR2 releases were on x86 (anybody else remember those things?), except with newer and shinier "eye candy." That is to say, assuming it can even be booted, hardware support will be *extremely* limited. In fact, it may be even worse because while the Rhapsody DR releases on x86 were intended to target beige-box PCs (if only a few models thereof), this build of Mac OS X was only intended to target a single, very specific "PC"... namely the transition kit system Apple is making.
I would hazard a guess that would-be Intel Mac "owners" will have the most luck with something as similar to the transition system as reasonably possible (which would I believe be a Pentium 4 660, running on an Intel OEM motherboard w/ one of the 900-series chipsets and using its onboard graphics, maybe an Apple-supported optical drive couldn't hurt, etc...). And that's assuming Apple hasn't had special tweaks made to the BIOS that OS X/Intel looks for before running (they lock out non-Apple optical drives with special firmware, why would they be so careless when talking about a full OS running on non-Apple-blessed hardware, unless of course this is really a marketing conspiracy...?).
In summary, I think most of the people who download this (again, assuming it actually has leaked at all...) will be "eleet dood skript kiddiez" who expect they'll be able to pop a DVD into their Athlon 64 PC w/ killer nVidia graphics card, boot up and install OS X, and get a free "SuperDuperPowerMac G6+!!!" to play with iMovie and such on. But the chances of it actually being that simple are slim-to-none. It could still be a fun toy for more knowledgeable computer geeks though.
-Frank
Say some intern at Adobe or Macromedia snuck the cd over to his desk and copied it. Apple can track it down, but what are the going to do? Jobs can yell and scream, but he can't cut a company like that off, Apple needs them.
.. what would happen if Apple decided to just offer the OS without the hardware? MS is in an enviable position of having a monopoly on x86 pc operating systems. There is some competition but none of it is taken seriously at the moment (except for servers). Even cost conscious companies choose windows over linux for their desktops.
Mac OS X x86 fixes this.
It's got a unix touch yet it is user friendly (unlike almost any other flavor of unix). It performs well and doesn't suffer from any of the trademark Microsoft deficiencies (security fixes every week, poor usability, an indifferent software vendor, the occasional BSOD & a hefty pricetag). Users apparently seem to like it and there's a decent selection of OSS and commercial desktop apps (including MS office!).
Apple should be able to get 5% marketshare of the PC OS market within a year or so. I expect that there is a turning point where the marketshare will grow rapidly at the cost of windows. For example, a deal with Dell might be such a turningpoint. That means a steady flow of revenue that outperforms anything that can be realized through Apple hardware sales. Most of it is profits because they already did the hard work of writing & porting the software.
I'm actually wondering why they wouldn't do this.
Jilles
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/
:)
The "developer machines" running P4, about 4GHZ, were sold to attendants (some 2000-4000 people, I'd say) for $999, I'd say a bargain price. Now what's the chance a brand spanking new computer with brand spanking new ultra secret operating system gets stolen from one of 2000 nerds? Conspiracy or not, the leak was something that had to happen.
Now the tricky news. The machines are just for development before the official release and are to be returned somewhere around the end of 2006. I wonder if the system stops working then
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
One point worth noting is that this Beta appears to work on non-Apple hardware. It demonstrates that the Apple OS DOES, or CAN, work on non-Apple hardware. And it provides a running sample of the Apple OS running on non-Apple hardware, that might be useful in analysis to make the final release run on non-Apple hardware.
After all, once Apple makes the switch to Intel, people should be able to run Windows and Linux on them. So you'll get everything you'll get from buying any other x86 machine, but you'll also be able to run OSX trouble-free.
No, you could do it. They're not churning out millions of these discs at the moment, and a few thousand discs is quite plausible with a dozen or so burners over a few days. Many small run CD producers (and pirate operations) apparently use this sort of a setup, so the infrastructure already exists. And it isn't fundamentally different from the mass floppy disk duplication operations from years ago.
Whether they would, is another matter entirely, and I think you're right that they probably wouldn't. I just think you're overstating what a logistical problem it would be.
it's pretty easy; there are many ways to do it. The basic part is knowing how to automate finding function-calls. For C++, if they're not inlined, then typically a bunch of stuff gets pushed on the stack (including return-addr), which makes it easy to identify functions.
Either find the bad function or run the binary with a software or hardware(e.g. periscope) wrapper, buffering the last n (e.g. 8192) instructions. Set the date to > 31dec2005, see the last chunk of instructions before it dies.
If the stuff isn't inlined, just issue a return-stmt in the function the most rarely called (easy to gather static-code statistics about function-addrs : #addrs-calling-it). If the stuff is inlined, it's tougher. I won't get into the case when it's all inlined because the compiler can optimized away any predictable info. Instead, some funcs could be inlined, usually the most-nested. Either patch all occurences of the inlined most-nested func, or issue a return-stmt in some of the outter funcs. If you're lucky, you might even see the comparison-stmt using 31dec2005, and you can probably globally replace that with 31dec2030.
(same poster)
Consequently, knowing how to crack binaries helps to write code which is tougher to crack. Instead of static-gotos, like call_foobar();, you can make it tough by using a lot of inlining, having non-static paths (e.g. polymorphism), and avoid assembly-reuse (e.g. useless templates, for example, have foo_foobar and use many different Ts, the cracker won't easily know all those functions are the same).
Tons of inlining, polymorphism, and code-independence won't make it impossible to crack, but it will certainly reduce the pool from 100,000+ who can crack it to ~10,000 who can and ~1,500 who also have the patience to (heavily inlined code w/ dynamic binding such as polymorphism & code bloat via templates is a PAIN to crack)
Does anyone else foresee the leaked build being used to hack universal support into the official released version?
Commercial CD burners are capable of customizing each burn automaticly in the way you describe.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
There are four elements to a per se tying violation:
With the proposed tying of MacOS x86 to Apple hardware, we clearly have 2, 3, and 4. Apple's only defense is that the OS is an "integral part" of the hardware/software offering.
That defense just blew up. If you can run the thing on a stock PC, clearly the tying and tied goods are separate products.
This is an area where software/hardware companies consistently have lost. IBM lost decades ago, which created the IBM compatible mainframe market. Sony lost in the Connectix case. There will be cheap Mac clones from China, and Apple won't be able to stop them.
I guess FreeBSD is totally flawed due to its lack of one particular application, of which there are probably open-source tools to do the same thing.
No, not really - the grandparent poster was pointing out that OS X is not equal to FreeBSD and followed up with a rhetorical question - if this *was* equal to FreeBSD, then how come there are applications, such as iPhoto, that won't run on FreeBSD but will run on OS X? Because it's not equal to FreeBSD, obviously.
Without resorting to trolling and/or name-calling or casting people into stereotypes (as every other direct ascendent of this comment), let's settle for the facts that a) FreeBSD and OS X are both good, solid OSes with their own benefits, and that b) FreeBSD and OS X are not equal. If you think that OS X has absolutely nothing useful over plain FreeBSD and that you're just happy using FreeBSD, then good for you! Keep using FreeBSD, and keep not using OS X, but there's no need for you to flame others over it (or for others to flame you over it, for that matter).
as I have been saying since (before) this whole thing started is that Apple should have been (and be) releasing Live CDs (or DVDs) of thier OS. more so now than ever before. People test drive cars, preview movies and music, we try BEFORE we buy. We re not very apt to abandon what we know works for something with promise with little or no recourse.
If Apple sent out free (or low cost) Live Disks that supported a fairly wide range configurations, anything outside of that Apple can say we don't support it. Tack a few crippling in it (such as no burning and limited application saves etc) and you ahve an excelent preview package.
Now Apple if Apple believes that thier OS has the goods and that it stacks up to what is out there, this is the perfect way to make that statement. And if it really has it, it will show in a shift in marketshare. And if that happens then we will all really see the security and stabilty that OSX has (or doesn't).
--
the OS is only as secure as its most ignorant user.
We've all seen Apple doesn't have many morals in terms of who it will and won't take down. I see them having a room of 20 people googleing the net for the next 3 months, finding any traces of how to get it (be it nzbs, torrents, etc.), and threatening swift and harsh legal action against anyone supplying info to get it. Perhaps it will survive on traditional p2p networks though (I don't think Apple has the knowledge or experience to take people down on that like the RIAA).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Right. That's why Apple will never switch to Int... No, wait. That's one thing I don't understand about the switch. Apple makes its money on hardware. If OS X can be hacked to run on every Intel box, Apple stands to lose big time. They must have some way figured out how to insure that OS X runs only on Apple hardware.
"Mac OS X (by virtue of the fact that it's largely compiled with gcc) is quite easy to port"
This claim is just silly; anyone who's ported code between UNIX machines knows that simply being compiled with GCC doesn't give portability. MacOS X is extremely portable because it was originally written very carefully to be portable (NeXTSTEP ran on 680x0, x86, HP-PA/RISC, SPARC) and Apple has carefully maintained that portability.
That being said, I agree with your main point -- MacOS X is highly portable, and anything written using Cocoa or Carbon should be easily or trivially portable to any OS.
So one interesting side-effect of the x86 migration is that once app's are compiled with universal binaries, it's very easy for Apple to add additional CPU's and have everything just work. So Apple could use those amazing next-generation SPARC's on serves, x86 on high-end desktops, and PPC's in low-end machines, and everything would "just work".
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Today Apple is really a strong software company with a limited access to the software market. Giving away the OS for a while must look tempting.