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OpenDarwin Project Shutting Down
niabok writes "According to a message sent by Rob Braun to the OpenDarwin mailing lists, the OpenDarwin project will be shutting down, saying that 'OpenDarwin has failed to achieve its goals in 4 years of operation, and
moves further from achieving these goals as time goes on.' The project's servers will remain online long enough to allow developers to move their various projects elsewhere."
Well, I don't really get how much "open source" there is in Apple's effort. To me it looks more like "open-source compatible". In other words, with tools provided you can compile your open-source software (read: linux code) for Darwin. However I don't really see a full open-source effort. To me open-source means that you have to release the source one way or another, and Apple doesn't release any piece of source code. It's not enough to be based on FreeBSD to acquire the status of "Open-Source".
Sorry, this is another of those marketing schemes of Apple's. In fact it's one of the main reason I am staying away from it.
P.S. What is Microsoft did the same?
Thanks, I misunderstood the announcment. Still sad though, Apple should be giving more back to OSS - it owes much of its comeback to OSS (though not Free Software because it doesnt' seem to like GPL stuff much, like many corporations).
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The reason for this project failing is simple. MacOS is an "alternative operating system". If people value Free Software, it does not make sense to go from Windows to another proprietary operating system like MacOS. People who value Free Software either use Windows (because they have to or are pressured into doing so), or they use a Free Software operating system like Linux.
The only people who use MacOS are those who want an alternative operating system and don't care about whether it is Free Software or not.
Smarten up...A real unix system...Linux/BSD is the only way...
As a Linux user of four years who has recently bought their first, personal, mac laptop I wish to call bullshit. I'd like to point out that OSX still plays a very important part in Linux development (less so in BSD) - specifically in regards to new features. Take for example xgl/compiz and xcompmgr which will be in full deployment for when Vista ships to compete with the M$ eye candy...Sure it only came into the lime light when Vistas beta's started shipping and the glory project status moved to them though without earlier projects like luminocity (etc) which was an attempt to add mac grade eye candy to Linux there wouldn't have been the ground work or the test case for this. And even now look at xcompmgr with transett or compiz - they just basically fashion themselves after inbuilt mac effects or 3rd party add ins that have existed for awhile under OSX.
On top of that mac make computers end users like and OSX Just Works(tm) which for a Linux user is really handy some days when Debian sid decides it wants to blow the heads off all the toys. It also interconnects flawlessly with my other Linux boxes through ssh, samba, nfs, vnc and everything I need (I use Fink for random unix tools I need).
Lastly OSX shows every day users that there are Real! alternatives to Windows that don't have the stigma of To Hard attached that they can try and enjoy. So really outside the RM ethos of everything should be open (to which, hypocritically in context of the above, I subscribe) there isn't really much reason for a mac user to smarten up and switch, try maybe, to Linux (and a mac user wouldn't touch BSD).
I ate your fish.
We feel "who cares what other people are running?". I feel the same about OSX users as I do about windows users, I don't care at all. Linux users on the other hand do bug us, since they do such stupid shit to their servers, and then when we take over when they get fired, it takes forever to clean up the mess.
Look, not to get too preachy, but that's the problem with FreeBSD and projects with other, equally open licenses, like MIT, etc. As I said in my not-so-tongue-in-cheek blog to the audienceless ether years ago...
These licenses [X11, BSD, MIT] don't do enough to protect the contributions of the people that made the code -- they essentially enable legalized plagiarism. It's certainly one's right to make code that's this unregulated, but these licenses are from nearly overly altruistic motavations.
I'm using OS X right now. I'm happy FreeBSD enabled its creation. I'm posting from Safari. I'm happy Konq's code helped Apple build this very fast, mature browser. Without totally free and open licenses like the ones I wrote about, above, we wouldn't have this OS X.
Yet at the same time, this happiness doesn't change that I wish Apple would have partnered with GNU/Linux. We'd see a very different OS X and a very different collaboration (some would argue a "collaboration" would be a new thing, and I believe I agree) between Apple and the GNU hacker community today. Linux has not yet come close to hitting the tipping point on the desktop for the typical semi-technical user. With Apple's help, it would be much closer. With BSD's sabotage -- the license -- that help and the FreeBSD code has been thrown into the closed system of consumerist capitalism.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Somehow I don't think the end of OpenDarwin is going to mean Apple will stop lifting code from the BSDs. Why should it? BSD is not and never has been about creating a world seperate from commercial software. They're not "lifting" the code, they're using it according to it's liscence, which is something nearly every vendor, commerical or not, does, if only for OpenBSD's ssh implementation.
If the BSD developers cared about their code getting "lifted," they wouldn't have released it under the BSD license, which was designed to permit exactly that. That's sweet that you're offended for them, but you don't have to be.
Also, to clarify, OpenDarwin was the community-driven fork of Darwin. Darwin itself is still open-source (which the BSD license does not require).
The reason apple is popular isn't because they have lot's of shiny ads. Okay, maybe that's one reason but microsoft has lots of shiny ads too. The reason apple is popular is because it is EASIER TO USE. Slashdotters often seem to forget that most of the world are not geeks and don't want to have to deal with making things work. With windows you actually have to solve your own problems and do work to get your computer to do what you want it to do. Macs just work, do a lot of your work for you, allow you to be lazy, and allow you to have almost no knowledge of computers. Macs may be slower, they may be uglier, they may be more expensive, but they don't make a non-geek's life a living hell the way a windows box does. Since the majority of the world consists of non-geeks, it is likely that most people would use macs if everything wasn't so currently entrenched in Microsoft's monopoly.
That wasn't the point at all. The point is that Apple has been saying what great OSS supporters they are, and now they are even discontinuing the tiny bit of code sharing they have done.
There's nothing illegal or really wrong here... just more of Apple's slimy marketing tactics.
But hey, who can argue with the company who came out with the first 64-bit computer?!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
They took from many open source projects but returned precious little to the community.
Are they in violation of any software license? No? Then Apple has absolutely no obligation to give anything to anybody. If "the community" wants more than "precious little," they should put that in the license terms, eh?
That's like getting a plumber bill for $150, paying $150, then having the plumber come and complain that you didn't give him a massage, too.
Comment of the year
Having used both Mac and Linux. I've come to this conclution. Linux is powerful. Mac is powerful. But lets face it guys when was the last time you had to stay up all night getting an freakin program installed on a Mac?...that wasn't open source "cough". Linux works well as a server not a desktop and even then a simple sudo yum update on a production box can blow away the config files you spent 4 days setting up don't say you've never had any "simple" problems with linux also there not even one server management package that comes close to Apple's on Linux. Here is the way i look at it say you want a barn. You have two options you can buy one that is already made and start using it the way it was designed start being productive or you can build one which you may not know exactly how to so there's alot of stuff to learn and figure out before you're ever able to use it. There's an infinite amount of ways you can build it which has its benifits and disadvantages. Main disadvantges being time and energy. Apple has its "way" of doing things, because of this it is easier to control what you are able to do. When you have control you have stability. Now some of you may say blaaaa thats why we use OSS. Everytime i've gone to do something on a mac there's hardley ever a better way to do it than their way. WHICH WORKS!! at any rate some how i'll suffer through my Quad G5 with 8gigs of ram and my 30" Cinema Display with my working NVIDIA graphics card drivers......ohh pooo i wish i could have a fancy linux box :-P
Pile of wood or Amish construction!!
No, they are not. Apple's code sharing has always happened via its own website. OpenDarwin was not run by Apple, although several Apple engineers supported and actively participated in its various projects.
That doesn't mean that it's sad that Apple has not been able to create a satisfactory policy which allowed external developers work directly on Darwin and contribute to it. It's not like they can't do it in general, as in case of the WebKit project some external developers even got direct commit access (which is more than what the OpenDarwin people wanted, afaik they just wanted their fixes to be incorporated by Apple).
I guess in case of XNU, things conflict(ed) too much with Apple's product secrecy policy...
Donate free food here
You'll be astonished at how little hoop-jumping is necessary on Linux these days.
:|
That there is still any hoop-jumping is a problem. And that there is now little hoop-jumping should not be cause for astonishment. I know the Linux user mindset - the kind of macho need to hack around in the terminal just to do something trivial like getting wireless working, converting WEP keys to hex with my bare hands - because I have been there myself, but now I just want to get on with my work (and my life) - Linux wastes too much of my time. Now, I should say that Ubuntu is making real progress and demonstrating that there is a recognition that 95% of the computer-using population see a computer likewise - as a tool to get things done - but it's not there yet. And for those of us that don't want to wait (because, again, we actually have stuff to get on with, or, say, want to use software that other people use, like Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver), Mac OS X is the better choice.
Don't even get me started on Windows, mind...
iqu
Qt is internally a work of art
This is precisely why GNUStep gets no traction: the Linux crowd actually believes that a cross-platform abortion like Qt is acceptable. Of course, this isn't surprising for a community that still hasn't admitted to itself what an abomination X11 is.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Qt, a toolkit written in a language that Trolltech finds so deficient that they extended it, a language that has such a baroque library that Trolltech wrote their own. As for Glib and GTK+, I have been through a fair bit of the code, and it is a work of art. I'm not saying that the Qt code isn't a work of art, but your criticism of Glib/GTK+ is bullshit.
If anyone had been keeping up with Rob Braun's musings about Open Darwin and Apple's behavior with the OS community, this decision was simply not a matter of 'if' but 'when.' The following links below illustrate that this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather the final straw:
A Brief History of Apple's Open Source Efforts
WebKit and Apple's Open Source Efforts
Those are just for starters. And to top it all off where Braun gets to the meat of the matter:
Why Darwin Failed
It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out that the holdouts on the Darwin project have finally had it with Apple.
In a nutshell: Apple have never let anyone touch their code which is a twisted beige box-grade edition of FreeBSD. If something burps no one can help outside of Cupertino. Worse, Apple deliberately makes it nearly impossible to report bugs and allow for patches to be made. This extension of Jobs' secrecy policy is why some holes remain wide open while the rest of the *nix world have patched them a long time ago.
With OpenDarwin shutting down not too long after Apple closed down OSx86, Apple execs selling Apple shares all over the place, and the exodus of two former NeXT gurus, it isn't hard to see what path Apple and OS X are heading down.
Go ahead and mod me as a troll for preaching against the Gospel of Steve, but if key players both at Apple and in the developer community do not believe in OS X (or are giving up on it entirely), how can the rest of us do so?
Ah, so BSD-style licenses explain why Apache, the various Mozilla projects, and Python have been total flops that nobody uses for anything.
Let's get real for a moment. Linux has become popular on servers for the same reason Java did, i.e. it generated a lot of press buzz, and has companies like IBM and HP pushing it to their customers (which they call "partners" to make things look cosy and pally). This means that the majority of corporate Linux setups (and by corporate, I mean any corporation, big or small) were chosen by people who don't know or care what the GPL is, have never heard of Stallman or the FSF, think a Gnu is a type of ungulate that lives in Africa, and would be happily using one of the BSDs if that was what their big "we take care of everything" hand-holding "partner" was telling them to use instead. Geeks within such companies have zero real-world input into any money based decision-making process, and use what they're told to use, hence the fact that Microsoft can sell them Windows and MS-Office for their their desktops, server-side Windows with Exchange for departmental services, Visual Studio for development, while Linux with Apache etc. live on their web server farms. If these people gave a fart about things like the GPL or what their pet geeks think is great, they wouldn't let anything from MS within a mile of their corporate buildings, and would be using open source tools to build their Linux-hosted webs instead of costly proprietary stuff like WebSphere and Tivoli, which are just incidentally supplied by those same "partners" who recommend, install, and support Linux.
The GPL is therefore no more relevant to Linux's success than a lack of it has been to the immeasurably greater success of Microsoft's products. It is popular on servers because it works, is free as in beer, leverages existing corporate UNIX expertise, and a lot of business people have heard of it thanks to their everything-including-the-kitchen-sink IT service "partners", whereas few have heard of the various BSD variants. By the same token, it is a flop on the desktop because, for far too many non-geeks without access to a geek, it doesn't work properly with the hardware they have, fails to leverage their (albeit minimal) expertise with other operating systems and software, and most consumers either haven't heard of it, or know the name but are extremely hazy about what it is.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
(A) OpenDarwin wasn't run by Apple.
(B) Apple is sharing code both by distributing it directly and (occasionally) by having Mac OS engineers commit it directly into the FreeBSD tree. The latter means that people from Apple are doing all the adaption work to actually make the code directly usable by the upstream.
While I wish there was even more of (B), I blame the low level on inadequate tools - the version control systems in use make this a pain to do. That's also the reason for much of the divergence of Free/Net/OpenBSD.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Of course the GPL is relevant to Linux's success; it comes with a political / philosophical movement behind it. Whether or not that matters to end users is not so important, but a lot of hackers seem to be motivated by the philosophy. Without the hackers, there would be no Linux.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
this gets way off topic of the article, but is on the topic of this thread. I have been using computers casually for 12-15 years now, and I gotta say, I have never wanted to save two or more files into a single folder where their name was the same but case was different. I can see some benefit in security, so that you don't mean to run "MySqL" but you get the virus "mysql" instead (just used to prove a point). But, really, who has a need to save files like Foo.txt, FOo.txt, fOO.txt, etc. all in the same directory, and doesn't give them a more descriptive name? But I guess thats just me being a hobbyist and not a professional sys-admin/programmer.
I think you're really missing the point. Consider the reasons why Open Darwin failed as a project. They couldn't generate the community interest and involvement necessary to further the project. This in itself is surprising, because OS X has a relatively large userbase, and is different enough from other *NIXs to be interesting.
So why was nobody interested in Open Darwin? Because it's Apple's product. There is no sense of community ownership, or community involvement, working on Open Darwin amounts do doing free R&D for Apple. Moreover, Apple won't even release the really interesting parts of OS X, and can, at any time (as they've demonstrated with the x86 release), withhold code if it is convenient for them to do so.
It's naive to believe that GPL vs BSD has nothing to do with the failure of Open Darwin. If the BSD code had been GPL'ed, Open Darwin could be a true community project. Apple wouldn't be able to withhold code at any time, it would have to release interesting kernel drivers, and they couldn't take peoples' changes and close them back up later. Of course, that is not to say that just GPL by itself would've compensated for the complete lack of tact with which Apple approaches its open source projects, or that this occurrance is necessarily the fate of all BSD licensed projects, but rather that this event is a textbook demonstration of one of the shortcomings of the BSD license.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Maybe Apple did this because 99.9% of the people in the world have found that case sensitive filesystems cause more confusion than they're worth? Just guessing.
My favorite quote is from Philip Greenspun: The great case-sensitivity winter descended upon humankind in 1970 with the Unix operating system.
Even for an AC, this gets my vote for dumbest post of the week. Both OT and inane, and extra credit for throwing in Craigslist. Well done!
Well, you can optimize for hardware/software, or you can optimize for users. Users' tolerance for working in ways constrained by system limitations is diminishing - they expect the computer to work the way that is intuitive to them. We've got about a million times the power of computers 20 years ago. I think it's pretty obvious that the user argument is going to win here.
Constitutionally Correct
Yeah.. how silly of them to make software that matches human behavior.
Why can't we have filesystems that are character-encoding sensitive? Foo.txt{ASCII} and Foo.txt{Unicode} are clearly different at the data representation level, so why can't filesystems recognize that simple, obvious fact?
Heck, while we're at it, let's add font-sensitivity: I want my Foo.txt{Arial} to be distinct from my Foo.txt{Helvetica}. Then we can throw in attribute-sensitivity, so Foo.txt{Unicode, Garamond, bold, oblique, second 'o' red} is the truly unique identifier it was intended to be.
If the BSD code had been GPL'ed, Open Darwin could be a true community project. Apple wouldn't be able to withhold code at any time, it would have to release interesting kernel drivers, and they couldn't take peoples' changes and close them back up later.
Actually, if the BSD code had been GLPd, Apple wouldn't have used it as a starting point.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
with the appropriate implementation, a case aware but case insensitive file system is essentially equivalent to a filesystem allowing only lowercase characters (but allowing for a display name including mixed case). this makes most of your issues go away (most operations just need to canonicalize the input filenames to the lowercase equivalent and then perform the operation as if the filesystem were case sensitive) completely as well as fixing a normal user searching for "foo*" as they may or may not remember exactly if the document is really "Foo*" or "fOo*" or some other variant. the only issue left is if the user really does want a case sensitive search for "foo*" as they know they have a lot of documents that are "Foo*" or "foo*" but only want the latter. this really isn't nearly as common as the first instance and should not be the case the system is optimized for.
when designing for a user, very very rarely (never) should you make something harder for the user but easier for the programmer. as many have already pointed out, most users really want case aware case insensitive filesystems.
we didn't need another crappy wannabe Linux, we've already got BSD.
What the hell are you talking about... BSD has been around since the 70's. If anything, Linux is a wannabe BSD.
Well they are very careful with the viral (yes, I feel it's appropriate) nature of the GPL, and are careful to never put GPL stuff (at least that we know of) anywhere inside the OS directly,
Aren't you listening? NeXT had no trouble using gcc, no matter how "viral" you think the GPL may be. What they weren't doing is satisfying their requirements under the GPL, and once they were forced to, their contributions were nearly useless.
Sometimes I wonder, no matter what its intentions, if GPL is actually helping the masses much (vs BSD liscensed software, etc), or mostly idealists/software purists and those whose situation affords the effective running of Linux-based OSes.
Most of what Apple is shipping as "OS X" is based on open source software: the kernel, the compiler, the command line environment, and many of the libraries. I wouldn't be surprised if the total contribution of Apple developers to OS X is less than 10%. And for many of those open source software packages, Apple has had no problems in choosing software under the GPL license. Apple doesn't mind getting software for free, they just don't like having to comply with the licenses.
Is Apple "idealist" when they demand that I pay for their software? I don't think so. And neither are GPL software developers when they demand that Apple comply with the GPL. If Apple doesn't like the GPL, they can buy all the software they need commercially, or choose BSD equivalents.