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Google Gets Serious About Open Source Mac Projects

Posted by Soulskill on from the much-more-productive-than-freecell dept.

mjasay sends us a link to a CNet story, which begins: "In the '20 percent time' that Google employees have to work on projects of personal interest, it turns out that an increasing number are spending time writing open-source projects for their Macs. Google has long had a fondness for the Mac, with upwards of 6,000 of its 20,000 current employees opting to use the Mac over Windows. It is in the 20 percent employee development time, however, where this statistic becomes interesting. At Google, development time translates into products. The more Mac-friendly employees, the more Mac-related development. The more Mac-related development, the more Google-sponsored Mac-based open-source code. As Google's Mac Developer Playground demonstrates, some of this code is quite interesting."

14 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Open source on non open OS? by kipman725 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To me open source on a non opensource OS (apple has a patchey history with opening bits of OS) has always seemed a little contridictory and defeating the purpose of running a free or opensource system.

    1. Re:Open source on non open OS? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To me open source on a non opensource OS (apple has a patchey history with opening bits of OS) has always seemed a little contridictory and defeating the purpose of running a free or opensource system.

      That's just plain silly. You don't have to have the source code for every tiny little bit on the computer for source code to be useful. Really, how many people need to dink with the kernel, be it Windows, OS X or Linux?

      Sharing code is useful at the application level. You should re examine your zealotry, son. It's gonna cause you some grief. Mark my words ... You'll grow a beard, be shunned at parties. You will want to put posters of RMS on your wall. Your mother will disown you.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Open source on non open OS? by MMC+Monster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know. Is Firefox on MSWindows useless? At some point they'll have to call a proprietary library.

      The nice thing is that they can put wrappers around the proprietary function call bits and potentially make the software run on multiple OSs. (As Firefox does.)

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    3. Re:Open source on non open OS? by Eighty7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's just plain silly. You don't have to have the source code for every tiny little bit on the computer for source code to be useful. Really, how many people need to dink with the kernel, be it Windows, OS X or Linux?
      You really think it's just the kernel? Jobs (goes for ballmer too) has complete control over his platform. Are you going to make all your users pay for 10.5? If he stops supporting Carbon, what can you do?

      My biggest gripe is with repositories. It would be absolutely trivial for MS to set up a repository & kill off 90% of the malware. Apple supposedly cares for its users - an add-remove button like ubuntu's would go a long way towards providing quality applications. I'm sure it's possible to add a repository afterwards, but it's nowhere as easy (popular) as ubuntu's default. When you find yourself having to explain to yet another person that legal, free, world class software actually exists -- remember that you're doing it because you're on someone else's platform & they want to make it difficult because they're in the business of selling proprietary software.
  2. Here is another proof that CNET doesn't know Mac by Ilgaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When you write a story about open source and Google on Mac, you don't miss QuickSilver.app which is a record breaking download which turned to open source and Alcor, the developer is a Google employee.

    See the numbers just at its versiontracker page
    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22549

    Also here is its source along with various Alcor programs:
    http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/

    There is no chance you miss a 200.000 downloaded (just a single site!), used by newbie to advanced developer profile utility. Unless you have never used Mac regularly and sit there and write a story about Google and Mac code of course. Another thing to include in that story is the fiasco of Google Desktop search which seriously made everyone paranoid with its method of install, method of running and the idea of shipping that Windows wonder to an OS which invented dynamic/extended search in its core.

  3. Mac developers don't do cross platform. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not true for "open source" OS X software. Developers on this platform are generally opposed to cross platform application development and Apple works hard to ensure that applications written to OS X will not easily be ported to other platforms.

    If you disagree, can you name a single significant open source desktop application that originated on the Mac and is now cross platform (supporting Windows, Mac and Linux at least)?

    This is why I consider the Mac OSS community to be a bunch of leeches. They've ported most open source unix applications to OS X but to date have given nothing useful back. The attitude seems to be that its fine for them to use stuff from BSD or Linux, but if you want to run their software, you should just buy a Mac. And that makes them a lot more like Microsoft than the person who asked the original question.

    1. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by GalionTheElf · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you disagree, can you name a single significant open source desktop application that originated on the Mac and is now cross platform (supporting Windows, Mac and Linux at least)? Handbrake.

      Please note though that I'm not particularly up on the politics here, but handbrake is a brilliant, once mac-only, video conversion tool.
      --
      I'm going over here and I don't know why!
    2. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by cleatsupkeep · · Score: 5, Informative

      Transmission.

      http://www.transmissionbt.com/

    3. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Insightful
      This is why I consider the Mac OSS community to be a bunch of leeches. They've ported most open source unix applications to OS X but to date have given nothing useful back.

      I think you misunderstand how it works. The original author rarely ports it to a platform he doesn't use. He makes the source available, and someone who is willing and able to make it work on another platform can do that. You even said it yourself - "They've ported." If few Mac open source projects have been ported to a particular platform, blame the users of that platform, not the people who don't use it.

    4. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apple works hard to ensure that applications written to OS X will not easily be ported to other platforms.

      Just like KDE works hard to ensure that applications written for KDE aren't easily ported to other APIs? And GNOME works hard to ensure that applications written for GTK aren't easily ported to other APIs? And X.org works hard to ensure that applications written for xlib aren't easily ported to other APIs? And Be works hard to ensure that applications written for belib aren't easily ported to other APIs? And Microsoft works hard to ensure that applications written for Win32 aren't easily ported to other APIs? And Sun works hard to ensure that applications written for Swing aren't easily ported to other APIs? And Open Group works hard to ensure that applications written for Motif aren't easily ported to other APIs? And QNX works hard to ensure that applications written for Photon aren't easily ported to other APIs? And Donald Knuth works hard to ensure that documents written for TeX aren't easily ported to other markup languages? And Intel works hard to ensure that x86 assembly code isn't easily ported to other architectures? And Toyota works hard to ensure that gasoline-powered internal combustion engines can't easily run on hydrogen?

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    5. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by blacklint · · Score: 5, Informative

      Did you actually look at that link? Darwin Streaming Server and CalendarServer are Apple written server applications that can be run on other operating systems, not the other way around. I've personally run Darwin Streaming Server, the open sourced version of QuickTime Streaming Server, on a Debian box.

  4. Re:Why Mac, though ? by Cannelloni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it's a damn good and user-friendly operating system, with a large user base and a vibrant developer community and thousands of professional and home user applications. That's why.

    --
    Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
  5. Re:Incorrect summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Incorrect summary and incorrect correction. I work at google and we get to choose twice: on the desktop and on the laptop. Most developers choose a linux desktop and mac laptop. A few choose a windows laptop, but end up installing linux on it as well.

    Also, nothing in the company is 'by default'. If it involves how you work, you get asked how you want to do it. If it's not something completely insane, it's usually approved, since forcing you to go work in a way that you're not used to causes loss of productivity until you get used to the new way.

  6. Slightly Stacked Deck by Brownian+Motion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You limit to significant open source programs that have to originate on Mac OS X.

    That's right, let's compare vs. Linux (1991) vs. OS X (2001).

    And, since you said, 'significant', this makes it a bit harder, as to be significant, something generally has to be around for awhile, reducing OS X's ability to produce something.

    And guys like you crack me up, as, a bunch of significant open source programs did not originate on Linux - the Gnu tools, gcc, perl, Apache, X11, python, samba, java, and I'm sure the list goes on.

    I couldn't find out where mysql started. But that's three letters out of LAMP that didn't originate on Linux. Linux could not have originated ON Linux by definition, and I'd have a hard time counting it anyway, since it owes heavily to Unix in design and implementation. (Note: this is not a knock on Linus, or Linux, just if you're getting picky, w/o Minux or UNIX linux would not exist.)

    Apple has made contributions back to open source, the easy example here is KHTML which even ended up changing it's name to WebKit.

    Apple has originated open source projects as well. Take a look at iCal Server, which is an open source, cross platform Calendar server written in python.

    launchd is open source, and I vaugley recall that it inspired some changes in Linux booting.

    Others have noted several user supplied open source projects.

    It's hardly a one way street Open Source -> Apple.