Mac OS X Kernel Source Now Closed

littleghoti writes "Macworld is reporting that "Thanks to pirates, or rather the fear of them, the Intel edition of Apple's OS X is now a proprietary operating system." Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code."

Comments

Initial impression

[rjamestaylor]

Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code

Good, because we know how that's helped Windows reach it's apex of security.

"If your OS is secured by keeping the code private, pray it's never, ever, released." Only takes one slip into the public to break that "security model."

Then there's those OSes that *assume* publicity of the source code and have different expectations for ensuring security. These "published" OSes also happen to be the "more secure" OSes available.

Go figure.

P.S. I'm not only referring to GPL'ed and BSD'ed OSes. There are other published OSes, the source of which are publicly accessible.

Disclosure: Mac OS X user here. Linux user here. Reluctant Windows user here.

Re:BSD vs GPL

[alistair]

I'm no expert, but I'm not sure this is true. The kernel for Macs and BSD is very different, the MACH Kernel is no BSD kernel. The parts Apple took from BSD relate to Networking and the user tools we often use from a shell, i.e. the shell and common unix commands most Mac users play with from time to time. The diaply code (Quartz, Aqua etc.) was their own and I think they have kept this closed.

For the BSD stuff they took, they wern't required to post anything back to the BSD communitity but my imprssion is that they have in every case. I don't think this would have been any different if they had taken a GPL equivelent, unless the GPL prevented them linking to a closed source kernel.

The code they have taken for Safari was GPL and I think they have contributed back to this. There have been numerous discussions around this as they did make huge changes optimed for Power PC which they contributed back but were of very little use to Linux on Intel and I would be interested to hear what people think now they have contributed back their Intel code.

I have to say that I am no expert in this, working mainly in the identity and directory field. However Apple's work with Directory Servers and Clients is on a par with the open source contributions of SUN, Novell and OpenDirectory and something I watch with great interest (and far beyond what I would expect from a company which mainly makes home based Macs and iPods.

Re:Sad day

[Space cowboy]

The deal here is that Apple is a company, not a bunch of (talented) hackers. They're here to make money, pay employees and execs, and (hopefully, 'cos I'm one) raise value for their shareholders. They're not a charity and they're not there to make the world a better place (well, Steve may disagree... let me rephrase: they're not there to make the world a better place for free).

The reason I'm replying to you is that you say "But they did grasp how to utilize open source to their advantage, but it was always in a way that was really not quite in the spirit of the open source community". I think that's unfair. Just because they don't want to lose control over *one* piece of s/w doesn't mean they don't get it - indeed they may "get it" all too well, if they're planning on releasing server-based machines in the near future... you don't really need much more than Darwin to have a server, so they probably would lose money to people self-building and self-installing "clone" machines...

Where they see there is an upside for them, I think they've been reasonably generous - Webkit (despite some initial negative feedback, they responded and made things better); there's a story about how to use Quicktime Streaming Server to get MythTV on your cellphone elsewhere on the main page; they put a lot of effort into gcc; etc. etc.

I don't think you can expect much more from a company - so it's not a 'sad day', they do indeed 'get it', and as you say - it's their right to do things as they see fit. I think they do more than most...

Simon

useful purpose

[r00t]

I happen to like fixing kernel bugs. It's fun, and it makes the bugs go away. (not suggesting that Apple should delibrately add extra bugs just for the thrill of fixing them though) Kernel source is educational too.

Oh well. I can still judge a Mac on hardware alone, and then install Linux if I get a Mac. That's what I did last time I bought a computer.

It sure irritates me to see BSD groups actually helping proprietary vendors compete against open source. Thanks buddy. Stallman got at least one thing right.

minor clarification on 'piracy'.

[nblender]

Some comments here indicate that people aren't entirely clear on the state of OSX86 piracy at the moment. Basically, it amounts to groups of people having started with the early release OSX86 code, and hand-integrating the Apple released patches back into it, as well as adding whatever drivers could be found in the Darwin sources, and/or binary patching Apple's kext's to produce, what today, is a 10.4.6 bootable/installable DVD that works on lots of non-Apple hardware. Indeed, I installed it on a corporate Dell laptop that my employer insists that I use.

Here's the problem, performance sucks relative to my Intel 20" iMac, it hangs frequently, and the network driver can't read the mac-addr. I also can't set the mac-address using ifconfig, so end result, is no networking. Screen resolution is also not able to match what the screen is capable of so the aspect ratio is wrong.

In short, while it's a cute hack and the novelty of seeing OS X running on Dell hardware is certainly nifty, it's far from production ready. Why did I dare to anger the Apple gods by trying to pirate OS X? I'm ok with it personally. I own 4 Mac's personally, have a G5 tower on my desk at work. My employer makes me carry this 20lb Dell around when I travel and I'm certainly not going to add weight by putting my powerbook in my luggage as well. So if I can have a few of the comforts of home-computing on the road with me, then I'll do it. It may not be completely legal, but I'm not taking any money out of anyone's pockets and I'm only using one instance of my OS X 86 license at a time.