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Apple's Grand Central Dispatch Ported To FreeBSD
bonch writes "Apple's Grand Central Dispatch, which was recently open sourced, has been ported to FreeBSD and is planned to be included by default in FreeBSD 8.1. Also known as libdispatch, the API allows the use of function-based callbacks but will also support blocks if built using FreeBSD's clang compiler package. There's already discussion of modifying BSD's system tools to use the new technology." The port was originally unveiled last month at the 2009 Developer Summit in Cambridge. Slides from that presentation are available via the Dev Summit wiki.
My first question was "So...what does this do?" Apparently it is a more efficient way of scheduling threads on multi-core systems http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090903.pdf apple's site says this: "Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) in Mac OS X Snow Leopard addresses this pressing need. It’s a set of first-of-their-kind technologies that makes it much easier for developers to squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems. With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance whether they’re running on a dual-core Mac mini, an 8-core Mac Pro, or anything in between. Once developers start using GCD for their applications, you’ll start noticing significant improvements in performance. " So this seems good then.
It's a win/win, but the mini-Stallmans will never see it that way.
To the contrary: I am a huge fan of Stallman's philosophy and see Apple's work as win/win.
The people that are complaining are the looney Apple Haters, who try and find any point possible by which to attack Apple - never realizing until it is to late the latest position they are attacking from makes no sense.
Please do not taint all those of us who respect the GPL with the same brush the Haters paint themselves in corners with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley