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Will MacIntel Kill Apple Open Source Efforts?
An anonymous reader writes in to say that "Rob Braun (OpenDarwin core developer claims Apple's open source efforts are now dead, because Apple is afraid of assisting OSx86 piracy. First, Apple withheld the source of cctools required to to build Darwin. Now it seems they are no longer releasing the source to OS X's xnu kernel. "
So they missed a chunk of headers. It's happened before, and been fixed. I see no reason at all for Apple to get out of open sourcing Darwin. They won't include the TPM related kext's, of course, but the rest should be fine.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Calling OS X "Linux with a better UI" illustrates a profound ignorance of the OS X operating system, from the frameworks (Cocoa and its related APIs, the best application development framework bar none) to the core technologies like Mach and BSD. Ignoring its top features by dismissing it as a "proprietary system with candy coating" strikes me as counterproductively idealistic. If you feel pressure to switch, then switch! Whatever gets your job done better, and believe me, OS X gets the job done.
Not to mention that it's likely Apple just hasn't put the sources up yet in this situation. It took them a while to post the new Darwin sources, but they got them out. The only proprietary things in OS X are Aqua and related technologies.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Apple's switch to Intel didn't kill Apple's open source efforts...
People using Apple's open-source efforts to pirate Mac OS X killed Apple's open-source efforts.
The prediction that Davorak reported on was flat out wrong. Apple won't do that. So what if Vista will boot on a Mac. People don't buy Macs because they don't run Windows, they buy them because they do run OS X. Why would they switch? Your argument is that they will have to move OSes because of hardware support?
What hardware support? Everything I've plugged into my Mac from the last few years has worked just fine. I plug in a USB drive and it works just fine within a few seconds, compared to a Windows XP computer which either asks me to install the generic driver, or generates 5 little pop-up balloons telling me that it found this, that, mounted this, did that, and it is ready to use. Printers? Most printers in the last few years (and most all of the big names, Epson, HP, Canon, etc.) support OS X. CD burners and such? If they are USB they use the generic USB storage drivers. If they are FireWire they use the generic FireWire storage drivers. Same with cameras and camcorders. Mice work without drivers. With everything going USB/FireWire (fewer and fewer reasons to buy expansion cards these days) work. Major manufacturers of other things (Adaptec, for example) sell products for Macs.
I see no hardware driver problem. Mac hardware is supported now, and things will only get better if Apple's market share improves.
As for switching to Windows, that makes very little sense. They would have to rip out the Windows GUI and put in the OS X GUI. That means that they would only be using the NT kernel. Why would they do that? That would put 99% of the computer world in the hands of MS. They would be beholden to MS for updates to add new features, new kinds of hardware, etc that wasn't already supported. The idea of a using a subsystem of POSIX and NextStep to make "OS XI" and run it under Vista or whatever is insane.
Basically, you are saying that Apple will, because they moved over to x86, dump 5 years of having a great OS (this doesn't include NextStep) to make a desktop environment to run on top of Windows (ala MS Bob) because of hardware drivers?
Huh?
Apple won't ditch OS X. Everyone likes OS X. Even Dell said they would sell OS X if Apple wanted to let them (I don't think they should). Moving over to EFI doesn't change things (although I would have liked OF better). They can keep their OS tied to their computers (within reason).
The idea of Apple moving to Windows is idiotic. Sorry, but it is. That would put them in direct competition with Dell and Sony and HP and such. With the margins they are used to, they would be slaughtered out of the market.
I've got $5000 that says Apple will move to quad-Cell processor based iPods before they will port their OS over to Windows (yeah, I know, makes no sense).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I'm not saying this as an Apple fan-boy, this is a free software issue. How can software truly be free (as in speech) when you place these sorts of restrictions on people who want to use it?
Speech can be limited and still be free. Insert usual lines about yelling fire, etc.
If your goal is to ensure that everyone has access to the code (and its descendents) that you write, then the APL/BSD license is bad. Many people working on GPLed software believe in that. Otherwise you're just doing work for a commercial enterprise for free.
If your goal is to try to get as many people to use your code as possible, the BSD license is fine. If your goal is that every person in the world has the option to benefit from the code that you write, it's not. There's a place for both licenses.
Apple (from limited reading of the posts) brought nothing to the table but wanted a leg up from Linux. Unless your only goal in life is to have your code used by whoever, there's no benefit to helping Apple in this case. And Apple wasn't overly helpful to getting read/write access to HFS+ access in Linux.
Who cares whether Apple gives you back their changes or not? Could they actually make a significant improvement to Linux-NTFS?
Yeah, why not? Its not like Apple hasn't been able to make significant improvements in many areas of computing. Better error codes, better integration with languages other than C, better cross CPU support. Apple has done some unique stuff with filesystems that are virtualized on top of another very different filesystem, which is where you want to go with NTFS/LInux integration. I can think of lots of things it might offer them.
Are the Linux-NTFS developers admitting that Apple can do things that they themselves are too dumb to figure out?
I can't see why they wouldn't admit this. Apple has access to some of the best developers in the world. They can hire the very people who wrote NTFS.
I'm not saying this as an Apple fan-boy, this is a free software issue. How can software truly be free (as in speech) when you place these sorts of restrictions on people who want to use it? Make whatever philosophical and ethical arguments you wish -- it's just wankery. Ultimately it boils down to pure selfishness. You don't want anybody to play your game unless they play by your rules
Damn straight. Its called building an open source community. One of the main goals is to make it hard for people to write non open source software. The pain that apple is experiencing is deliberate. This is exactly why Microsoft is worried about academia using the GPL, because lots of commercial software starts as government / academic software. 15-20 years from now many apps might cost 3x as much to develop if they want to avoid being GPL licensed.
How can software truly be free (as in speech) when you place these sorts of restrictions on people who want to use it?
The GPL creates freedom for users of software by putting restrictions on developers. The BSD license destroys freedoms for users because it wants to empower second generation developers. Very different purpose.