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Mac OS X Kernel Source Now Closed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nice-while-it-lasted dept.

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."

2 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. Initial impression by rjamestaylor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    --
    -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  2. useful purpose by r00t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.