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Mac OS X Intel Build Addresses Pirating
aardwolf64 writes "ThinkSecret has an article up detailing information about the newest Mac OS X 10.4.3 builds (which is currently said to fix almost 500 bugs with 10.4.2.) What is more interesting is the release of 10.4.2 (Intel) to developers. Universal binaries built with the new version (and apparently all subsequent versions) will not work on systems running the older version of the OS."
I remember old PC games being sold (illegally) in the streets. The CD included a directory called "crack" which contained some patches.
I wonder how long before someone hacks into the OS/X code and does this...
Since this is still not a publicly released Operating System available to buy, I'm not all that surprised they're taking care of this sort of thing now. There's no reason for them to care about the old versions of the Operating System if it is not available to the general public. Once the Operating System is actually available to buy this sort of thing will stop, but they want their developers to be using the most recent version available to give them the newest target. I don't really see a problem with this.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
Will binaries built using the currently available builds of OSX and Xcode work on future versions of x86 OSX? I can understand newer builds not working on older versions of the operating system, but is the same true of the reverse?
everyday is another shooter.
Well, the poster has one take on this, but perhaps the current release is incompatible because Apple has changed the compiler and some of the dynamic libraries? Perhaps this was not to specifically address pirating, but to fix bugs and to otherwise optimize the system. The OS X 86 project page has a slightly more informed discussion.
This gives a clear indication that apple is (as expected) not going to let it's new intel OS run on non apple hardware. Does apple have the means to stop (legal use anyways) typical beige box users from using a virtual server to run OS X though?
Perhaps with proprietary hardware that the OS relies on in some way which would have to be emmulated in a typical intel pc?
The system changed so much between Developer Releases that Apps for DR1 would not run on DR2, etc.
Major updates underneath between releases.
HOWEVER - this was when they were fleshing out the base of the OS. New libraries, new coding practices, new releases of major components that were incompatible with prior versions.
You could still coax some NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP apps to run, though. I imagine it's the same. Some Cocoa apps will run, some won't.
Is anything being done for straight ports of old X86 OPENSTEP code? It would be cool as rice to see a handful of the Unique apps (with source - no Lighthouse Suite, I know) running across the board (NS, OS, OSXPB, OSXPPC, OSX86).
I think it's more a matter of NeXT programming practice than anything. If the old version doesn't work, so be it - the old application doesn't need to go along for the ride anyway. Keeps people writing new software, keeps it fresh and in-tune with the theme of the system, & keeps the market alive.
Currently Apple requires NO serial number, registration, or any other verification to load OS X. People trade Jaguar, Panther & Tiger disk images on filesharing networks and they burn great. The same disks or legit copies can be used to load onto multiple machines on the same network. "Upgrades" bought from Apple require no previous version's SN to install, and cost the same as a brand new copy.
The big question is, does this new policy signal a change?I hope not, I appreciate Apple's laid back policy. Right now I'm trying to determine which flavor works best on my near-obsolete G3/333 "Lombard" Powerbook. It's convenient to be able to try out different options before I license a copy.
That's an interesting counterpoint to what I was thinking actually. While I fully support the whole "It's their OS, they don't have a monopoly, it's still beta, they can do what they like" idea, I was under the impression that Intel piracy could actually be good for them (something I want, since I, like you, want to continue using Apple's products). For now I'll ignore the debate of whether they could maintain their quality of software over a wider range of hardware or not.
If Apple released a generic version of OSX86, MS would jump up and crush them with all the marketers, lawyers and assasins in it's arsenal, so that's a bad plan. With OSX86 only on Apple hardware, nothing will change - MS don't care, you and I will still use it, everyone else will use Windows. With people pirating the OS, however, MS still won't react since they have nothing to react against, you and I still buy Apple products, but some of those Windows users try and like MacOS. After a while one of two things happens: they go out and buy a Mac, or Apple decides it's "unofficial" installed userbase is large enough for them to deploy a generic OS and still survive Microsoft's retaliation. End result: more tasty Apple goodness but with the advantages of PC or Mac hardware too. Maybe not the perfect plan, but plausible nonetheless.
As a institutional buyer. Mac OSX on unsupported x86 Intel hardware doesn't appeal to me. I want to call someone who is accountable if something doesn't work. Who tests out the possible drivers, hardware, software all are working smoothly. Not start childish finger pointing that I've experience from other vendors and wasting my time. I'm glad as a system administrator I don't have to deal with product activation on Mac OSX, as with Windows XP. The latest version of Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk AutoCad are also going the way of product activation, which is pretty annoying as a paying customer. All I want is my cloned loadset to work without having to register it every time I modify, upgrade or replace hardware due to failures.
To hackers who have the time and inclination to experiment with Mac OSX on their hardware. Power to them if they figure out a way to make it run on their customized x86 hardware. Businesses and institutions in general don't have that time and in the end its these companies and facilities that by the bulk of the licenses. A few lose copies of Mac OSX doesn't bother me, because it helps raise the platforms awareness as a viable and attractive alternative.
Yes, there have been a number of changes to the ABI, which is where I'm sure this break comes from. I'm sure Apple wouldn't bother doing this to stop pirates (they'll just repirate it) and breaking the ABI is sure to annoy the odd developer here and there (yes it should make no difference after a complete recompile, but of course it always does). There are also a couple more changes which quite a lot of people really think should be made, so I'd expect one more break before release :)
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
I've lost faith in pirates, actually. I used to believe that a small army of people working in their free time would easily defeat a few people writing defenses 9-5, but it seems like on some fronts the companies are winning. The biggest one I can think of is streaming WMV - it seems like it hasn't been cracked at all.
Then there's the fact that DRM is successfully being sold as a feature - an MP3 player is considered better if it supports "PlaysForSure" technology. Since when do I want to pay extra to give up my rights?
Anyway, I think it's probably pretty likely that OSX will be cracked eventually. But I don't have the faith in crackers I once had. I think that Trusted Computing will probably lock up our freedoms forever.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
I doubt they're purposely breaking things, I bet the APIs were just being worked on and it caused enough changes that older compiled software crashes and burns. Remember, it's a rather early beta, it's not a commercial release-- they're allowed to change the interfaces around.
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I think you'd be discouraging them too if there was a chance all your profits would die because you could go out anywhere and get an illegal copy of their OS and run it on generic hardware.
Sure some people would actually buy legitament copies of OS X for the MacTels, but a lot more people would just pirate it to save money and not buy an Apple Machine.
If you have a choice between buying an Apple Machine at $2000, but you can build an even more powerful machine for that price or lower and stick a cracked copy of OS X on it, where will you spend your money?
Believe me, I'd love to have an Athlon 64 FX-57 PowerMac over some Pentium Mac any day, but Apple has to keep itself afloat. They can't live off the iPod sales forever.
That's an interesting counterpoint to what I was thinking actually. While I fully support the whole "It's their OS, they don't have a monopoly, it's still beta, they can do what they like" idea, I was under the impression that Intel piracy could actually be good for them (something I want, since I, like you, want to continue using Apple's products). For now I'll ignore the debate of whether they could maintain their quality of software over a wider range of hardware or not.
It's true that Apple could benefit from some piracy on the generic vanilla PC side, but this would do little for the long run. There are many people who would love to run OSX and could care less what the PC it's running on looked like or the build quality. If Apple lets the situation get out of control it will put it's hardware business (which is Apple's real business, despite what people keep trying to claim about the iTMS and OSX upgrades) in jeopardy.
Also, Apple has an image as a serious company to maintain for their shareholders. They may want a little piracy to get word-of-mouth, first-hit-free publicity in the Wintel world. But if they stand idley by and become complacent about the piracy/hacking of OSX86 their shareholders are going to wonder how much Apple is working to protect it's core hardware business and their stock investments. Apple may be making a mint off iPod sales, but Macintosh sales are still the company's bread and butter. Apple has to show it's commited to a business plan in it's switch to Intel and not being blaise with the company I.P.
Wonder how much innovation will be sacrificed by pulling developers and stuff off creating great new features, and putting them to work creating copy proof/crack proof install media.
Give it 5 years, and they could have 95% people trying blindly, Microsoft style to stop piracy, and have given up making the OS better in the first place.
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No, it's off topic because this isn't a shipping product that we're talking about. It's basically a beta version only available to developers.
Furthermore, apple's not making money off of this. They allowing developers to download it for free.
And even more furthermore, the headline deals with software pirating, which doesn't earn anyone money.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
What is Apple thinking? They've got fans so dedicated that they're hacking OS-X to run on Intel boxes a full year before any mainstream applications are likely to arrive, and all Apple can think about is how to stop and discourage them.
You put too much faith in Slashdot's write-ups. This has nothing to do with piracy. All Apple can think about* is, in fact, how to make Mac OS X for Intel the best OS it can be, and since they don't have to worry about backwards compatibility yet, they're freely breaking things.
* OK, they think about iPods too.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
like "mplayer mms://machine.network.org/stream.wmv" ??
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An example of this (an old one albeit) was my first (cough) crack way back in time. I had bought ultima 5 but the disk (5 1/4) stopped working after a while. So I learnt assembly and did use debug to see why my game stopped working. After a short loading phase it went and XOR'd a small subset of instruction with number increasing by 3 (3,6,9 etc...) then if I recall correctly (it was waaaay long ago) it exchanged the interrupt 3 (the trace call interrupt) with a jump instruction and jumped right into the start of the code, which was only loading some waaaay off data into the disk interruption (13h) to read a bad sector on the disk. Depending on the result then it would say it is THE original disk or not. I simply exchanged the JMP with NOP, XOR'd by the correct number , wrote back the .COM programs. Et voila ! I could paly my game again.
The funny things is, this is only waaay later that somebody explained me that I had cracked my game. I just wanted to be able to play with something which had cost me 50$ and being 12 that was a lot of cash...
Nowaday the debugging is a bit more complicated and it all come down to the same : stop calling laserlok/safedisk/whatsoever checking that the CD is here.
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Maybe if the hackers would have waited for a good stable build, Apple would have delayed their strategy. Imagine if the x86 OS X hack had not been made available until 10.4.4, or 10.4.8... what would Apple have done then? It would be too late to pull this strategy out of their hats. As long as the OS was stable, and binaries could be built with some version of XCode, I, for one, would at least be very interested in running this client version as a web/ftp/appletalk server/proxy... but only for the coolness factor, as part of a 'collection' of cool Apple stuff that should not be (like an ANS running Rhapsody or something). But 10.4.1 is just too unstable, as far as I can tell, for it to be worth dedicating such a new/good piece of hardware.
The Admin and the Engineer
Gah! There is nothing stopping Microsoft from releasing a version of Windows that will run on PPC Macs of today. Why is this made such a big deal with the Intel transition?
One of the reasons that I switched over to the Mac was that I was fed up with the legacy crap on the PC. I mean, It's been over 20 years; you think we could do something about that memory area between 640k and 1M. Maybe we could replace those interrupt controllers to ones that don't have to cascade off of each other.
My only hope is that what people say about the final consumer MacIntel not resembeling the dev systems is true because I certanly don't want to be funding Apple so that they can transition into a PC vendor. I'll sacrifice the nice GUI and just run Linux on an ATX PPC board.
Really, Intel has been promising an end to legacy cruft for quite some time. They now have a real chance with Apple. Let's hope they don't screw it up.