Apple Losing Touch With the OS Community?

InfoWorldMike writes to tell us that InfoWorld's Tom Yager recently had the chance to sit down and chat with Apple about their closing the OS X Kernel. From the article: "The Mac platform is an overflowing basket of raw materials for innovators and creators of all stripes. It's what Steve Jobs would fantasize about if he still worked out of his garage, and you can bet that he'd be livid to find that the vendor locked some portion of his chosen platform behind a gate without a word of notice or explanation."

Comments

Part Deux

[American AC in Paris]

This is a follow-up to one of Tom Yager's earlier editorials, which was discussed recently on Slashdot.

Oh, and nice headline. I'd even go so far as to call it a sensational headline. You get a slow clap.

Jobs upset?

[TheWanderingHermit]

I doubt Steve Jobs would have been the one to get upset about thing being closed off, since very little of the actual innovation, creative, and design work ever was his. I can see Steve Wozniak getting ticked off about it, but I imagine he'd hack away anyway.

Jobs may be great at pushing the designers to do more, but he was NOT the one who did most of the hacking. He even exploded when Woz asked if he could help with the Apple's analog port.

Re:Jobs upset?

[ultramk]

Honestly, I don't think either one would have given a damn about this: they would have been too busy creating their own system from scratch. Neither one has ever been content to play in someone else's sandbox, and I can't picture them whining about someone else's system being closed off to them.

FWIW, I believe that both Steves were necessary for the creation of Apple as a world-changing phenomena. Steve W. was (and still is) the prototypical alpha geek, who views a technical challenge as a personal quest, and who doesn't "work" on a problem, he plays with it. Steve J. had the vision of a world where technology was put in the hands of regular people, and knew enough to make seemingly impossible demands from the people who worked with him, and for him. The kinds of demands that once they were met, resulted in a revolution. I've briefly met both men (at different times), and I have deep respect for what each brought to the table in that fateful partnership.

Vision without ability is neutered. Ability without vision is sterile. The one thing both Steves have in common is the refusal to accept the idea that something's impossible.

m-

Get things straight...

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Apple hasn't released the kernel for x86...YET. See this forum post from a Apple Employee:

http://lists.apple.com/archives/Fed-talk/2006/May/ msg00105.html

In my opinion if I had to put companies on a list, Apple would stil be high on my openess with developer list. At least Apple has all of the developer tools (Xcode and others) free for the taking. You still have to pay Microsoft to write programs for windows unless it's a batch file.

Re:Surprising if true.

[AKAImBatman]

The platform sells well to people who want a Unix, not people who want to hack the OS.

What about people who want to hack up an OS using a Mac? (raises hand) Believe it or not, cross compiling to the x86 platform using a PPC Mac and QEMU actually works. It's actually a better development environment than Windows, because you don't have to work around Windows' lack of Unix tools.

If you're weird like me, check out the OS FAQ for information on creating your own operating system, including the building of a cross-compiler. Bonefide also has some great tutorials on getting going with your operating system construction project.

Only official Apple response

[daveschroeder]

To sum up Apple's objections, they felt I had given a year-old story a fresh coat of paint and sensationalized it for an audience that wasn't affected by it.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

To date, the only official response has been:

Just to be clear, Tom Yager was *speculating* about why we have -- so far -- not released the source code of the kernel for Intel-based Macintoshes. We continue to release *all* the Darwin sources for our PowerPC systems, and so far has released all the non-kernel Darwin sources for Intel.

Nothing has been announced, so he (and everyone else) certainly has the right to speculate. But please don't confuse "speculation" with "fact."

Thanks,
-- Ernie P.

Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D. (408) 974-3075
Product Manager, Open Source & Open Standards; Mac OS X Product Marketing
Apple Computer; 303-4SW 3 Infinite Loop; Cupertino, CA 95014


and a response to a private message I sent:

Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 12:08:45 -0700
From: Ernest Prabhakar
To: Dave Schroeder
Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple [may not open] OS X Kernel for Intel

Hi Dave,

On May 21, 2006, at 11:41 AM, Dave Schroeder wrote:

When *will* something regarding a xnu source release on x86 be announced?

I know you probably can't answer this, so it's somewhat of a rhetorical question, but seriously: the lack of release of source for xnu on x86 represents a significant change in strategy to some customers with no corresponding announcement or roadmap. When will concerned customers be informed as to what is happening?

Generally speaking, when a final, irreversible decision has been made, we will find
_some_ way to let affected customers know about it.

If nothing else, the very fact I am telling you to *not* assume that something is true,
means *I* don't believe it is true. :-)

-- Ernie P.

Seriously, might there be kind of a, you know, huge developer conference coming up in a month and a half or so here where some of these questions might be answered? Especially since Tom Yager's speculation is just that - speculation - and extremely old news at that? Is it any wonder that both of Yager's articles are under "Opinion" headlines?