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Apple Closes OpenNI the Open Source Kinect Framework

Posted by samzenpus on from the closing-the-door dept.

mikejuk writes "The OpenNI website, home to the widely used framework for 3D sensing, will be shut down in April. When, in November 2013, Apple bought PrimeSense for $350 million, people speculated how this would affect the Capri mobile technology but no mention was made of what would happen to OpenNI, the open source SDK most often used as an alternative to Microsoft's closed SDK for the Kinect. After Apple acquired PrimeSense, its website quickly shut, but the Developers link still points to Open NI. The status of OpenNI is a not-for-profit whose framework allows developers to create middleware and applications for a range of devices, including the Asus Xtion Pro. It claims to be a widely used community with over 100,000 active 3D developers."

17 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Why the negative doomsday tone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "...Fortunately the code will continue to be available via GitHub..."

    1. Re:Why the negative doomsday tone? by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      You put far too much faith in random stuff you read on the internet. OpenNI is NOT Kinect specific. It works with other sensor systems too.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
      http://www.openni.org/

    2. Re:Why the negative doomsday tone? by jo_ham · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because it shows how lame Apple is. They are totally comfortable taking open source code to use for themselves, but damned if they'll give anything of value back.

      Right, that's why Clang and LLVM are not being developed, or Webkit, or... oh never mind. Sorry kid, I didn't mean to let reality intrude on your blissful state of hate and ignorance.

    3. Re:Why the negative doomsday tone? by jo_ham · · Score: 2

      Ahh, WebKit, you mean KHTML that Apple STOLE from Konqueror and that Google and Opera had to fix with Blink.

      How do you "steal" a GPL project by adopting it and working on it? Isn't that the point of open source? Code that is available for anyone to use and improve (Apple did give give back their changes, as fully stipulated in the licence).

      Is it only "stealing" if a company you don't like uses open source code?

    4. Re:Why the negative doomsday tone? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      When did Apple steal credit? Apple explicitly lists all their open source contributions.

      Apple didn't invent Webkit, the forked it from KHTML.

      When did Apple claim otherwise? In fact, Jobs has said they started WebKit from an open source project "For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products."

      And stealing credit is expressly verboten by the GPL.

      Again, when did Apple actually do that? Apple may not name every single open source contribution every single time in every press release when they mention code. Probably because they make so many contributions that this is not novel thing. In code releases, everything follows what the GPL requires if you've evey checked out the code

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  2. Re:Shutdowning by GrammarPoliceChief · · Score: 5, Funny

    any*

  3. So fork it by presidenteloco · · Score: 2

    Fork it all!

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
    1. Re:So fork it by the_B0fh · · Score: 2

      Why fork it? As the summary clearly says, it is still available on github.

      Do you have reading comprehension problems?

    2. Re:So fork it by dbc · · Score: 2

      Oh, yes, that will help. Not. The current generation of hardware will have a driver stack. Effectively meaning that PrimeSense-based projects are dead, because new generation hardware will have a closed stack. PrimeSense in open projects now has no future.

    3. Re:So fork it by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      Yeah. You still aren't grasping the concept. Apple is no longer maintaining the project.

      You're confused. Apple never was maintaining the project. Apple bought Primesense. OpenNI is a consortium of which Primesense was only one member.

      There's no need to fork it. It's on GitHub. Contribute to it. 2 developers other than OpenNI already have.

      https://github.com/OpenNI/Open...

      You seem to think there is a third option available to you: keep the project going, but don't fork it. Since you aren't Apple, that option is not available to you.

      You are mistaken.

    4. Re: So fork it by the_B0fh · · Score: 2

      Says who? Apple bought CUPS - it's still going strong at http://www.cups.org/

      Apple uses FreeBSD as it core, and still pushes patches back to FreeBSD. Apple did fork KDE's browser, but KDE itself is now using the fork, WebKit. LLVM, etc.

      Apple wrote Grand Central Dispatch themselves, and open sourced it as well.

      http://opensource.apple.com/

  4. The knights who say... by sconeu · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess Apple was worried about the Knights who say (Open) NI!!!

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  5. Apple v. Samsung anyone? by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Until Apple attacks users of such a fork with its software patents.

    1. Re:Apple v. Samsung anyone? by Calydor · · Score: 2

      Or a knife.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  6. Re:shutdown? by chemish · · Score: 3, Funny

    Lack of compile time warnings. Someone should look in to it...

  7. Re:Shutdowning by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    See? There's corruption even in the Grammar Police! No one is safe!

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  8. 100,000 active developers? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely at least one of them could lead a new project then.

    So in November Apple bought a company that has some side project developing Open Kinect software, which obviously has little interest for Apple. This month, they give a heads up that the website for that side project will be shut down. The code for the side project will continue to be available through GitHub.

    I'm not seeing much that's rage worthy here. Out of those 100,000 active developers, there is probably at least one that can set up and maintain a website

    But it seems like the real complaint is that, since the takeover, there have been no paid staffers supporting the project. That does suck for the developers, but again I don't see why Apple would be obligated to continue that. With 100,000 active developers, I'd think they could each cough up a few bucks to cover a couple salaries if they really cared all that much.

    --
    #DeleteChrome