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Apple Going the Open Sourcish?
Palmer Halvorson writes "A Wired story reports that
Apple will annouce a partial open source OS strategy
tomorrow during an "Apple Event" from their Cupertino Headquarters.
"
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This is just some desperate move to get some developper
mindshare back. But once develeloppers have had a sniff
of truly open software and are hooked to the total freedom
that it gives them, few will pay notice to Apple.
Apple wants complete control over everything at the expense
of their customers, just like Microsoft. They won't even
allow Mac clones anymore.
There are legal implications of looking at the LinuxPPC source; i.e., you'd have to do a cleanroom implementation because the Be people would never settle for GPL.
The Be people could reverse engineer the PPC stuff just like the LinuxPPC people did, but they don't think it's worth their time.
Sorry no.
Go to freebsd.org and search for
Rhapsody or (organic memory William sanchez)
Net/Free BSD is where parts come from. And Apple did submit bug fixes back.
I know you GNU/Linux people won't bother, but if you go to freebsd.org and search for Rhapsody or (again memeory) William sanchez, you'd know that Net and Free BSD are code sources, with OpenBSD thrown in there.
Do you know anything about the history of NeXT or Mach? NeXTSTEP and MacOS X are both based on Mach 2.x which includes BSD 4.[34] in kernel space.
Mach 2.x is a combination of Mach at the lower levels and BSD syscall interface living in kernel space, Mach 3.x moves the BSD stuff into userland.
Keep in mind WWDC 1997 where Apple told developers to go forth and develop for:
Newton
OpenDoc
YellowBox (prev. known as OpenStep)
By WWDC 1998, all three had bullets in their heads, with YellowBox MIA, like Rhapsody on X86 is MIA.
Before you go running off to develop for this 'brave new Apple' look upon the corpses of Newton and OpenDoc developers.
For me, all this would mean is the hardware SOLD Under the premise that it would work with Rhapsody (errrr Mac OS X) could now be made to work.
Be's position has been very consistent. Their site says "Sure, we could figure it out..."
It would be a bad business move for Be to use their limited manpower to reverse-engineer BeOS for G3 Macs. Apple could just play the MS-like "moving target" game by making sure each new Mac breaks compatibility with BeOS. Also, it is a very sticky legal situation for a *commercial* product to be based on reverse-engineering. Apple could probably stop Be from using the terms "Macintosh", "Apple", etc. in their advertising and documentation, making it very difficult for Be to support their own product without incurring lawsuits. LinuxPPC is not the potential threat to Apple that Be would be if BeOS took off.
There are at least 20 times as many x86 users as G3 users. Irrespective of Intel's investment, it's really a no-brainer to realize that getting better hardware support on the x86 platform is where it's at if the company is going to survive. As a corporation, Be has a responsibility to its investors (including Intel) to eventually become profitable.
Uhh, why do you think Apple took on the MkLinux port? *BINGO*!!! So they could port Mach over relativly seemlessly and write it off at the same time.
*sigh*
Yellow Box is not dead. Most of the apps shipping with MacOS X Server are written in it.
MacOS X Server ships with Yellow Box development tools.
Oh, did you mean Carbon? Sorry, but Carbon is the migratory path for current MacOS developers. The *head of the Carbon group*, at WWDC 98, told me in no uncertain terms that if you're moving an existing MacOS application to MacOS X (Server), use Carbon. If you're writing a new application, *use Yellow Box*.
Carbon is getting all the attention right now because they're still trying to keep the MacOS developers from panicking... silly people.
Newton and OpenDoc, yeah. Yellow Box is alive and well.
Steve Jobs once told me that there had only been three good desktops, and he'd had a lot to do with making two of them
I didn't know Steve Jobs coded for Enlightenment and GNOME. :)
Interestingly enough, these are some of the benefits your basic totalitarian regime will use to justify itself. "Government it too difficult for you guys, you should let us run it." "Look at all the inconsistentcy and inefficiency in a pluralistic society. If everyone were more the same, just think of how smoothly things would run.", etc.
hey, at least by giving away the lower-level stuff other OSes (Be, LinuxPPC) will be able to figure out how the HW works.
and the Mach kernel that OSX uses is a proprietary derivative which is NOT free
Why should we work for them? The have a closed hardware system which they jealously guard fanatically. There OS is barely any better than Windows 95, and they are just as likely to produce garbage. Down with both Apple and Microsoft.
This is just a shallow attempt to get cheap labor. If you want to work for free, make a free product with Linux, BSD, or Hurd or whatever operating system you prefer.
Personally I have no objection towards monopoly as long as that monopoly produces the best product.
The thing that I hate about M$ is they never produce anything as good as they promised.
Yeah, Apple isn't the best however. But at least it's better than M$. To pick one out of two, I would prefer Apple be THE monopoly.
Hey, what about in the coming decade Linux dominates not only the PC, but the WHOLE OS market(with its tremendous number of support platforms)?
Will you start yelling at Linus Torvalds and other kernel developers for monopoly?
Now if you are a Linux advocate and you want Linux rules, what you had written is just contradicting yourself.
Go for quality, not politics!
;)
Intel and Microsoft are just as much of a "closed" platform as Apple. Or have you forgotten how Intel likes to make propreitary sockets and Microsoft has kept Windows as the sole operating system on desktop PC's?
As a former Apple developer, which was screwed more the once, i will wholehartedly celebrate the death of this load of shit company.
And next time i hear a wuss agitating about how good is mac, i'm gonna beat'em to a bloody pulp.
OS X is based on the current Mac OS and heavily NextStep code, which itelf was modified BSD. In other words, its several generations from the free open source OS you're wailing about and you aren't going to find an equivilant anywhere.
hahahahahahha
Don't get your nads in a knot, develop for LinuxPPC instead.
Apple is just trying to get some of us
Linux developers to program for them.
Don't fall for that trap. I hope ESR is
not blinded by a stevish presentation.
Remember the GUI lawsuit and the GNU
request to boycott Apple.
Don't trust Apple - or any company
with glitzy presentations. Apple is
unlikely to give anything significant
back... they simply want to capture
mindshare.
Bruce
the links on the top of your web site are broken - might want to take the HREF's out for now.
Christopher
I knew several women in college who open sourced their asses. I also knew several men who pissed painfully a few days later...
As a linuxppc developer, I think that this might be a valueable way to get information about the low-level harware in Macs. Apple has always kept this information tightly to themselves. Even the MkLinux micro kernel relies almost entirely on the MacOS boot process to initialize all of the hardware, allowing that effort to disclose practically nothing about the hardware.
I doubt that many people will actually contribute to their micro-kernel (I sure won't), but they might benefit anyway by incorporating linuxppc drivers into their micro-kernel. Of course if they don't see a tangible benefit right away, they've still disclosed some hardware interfaces, and it won't be easy to take the info back. But they may well try (e.g. all of the Apple's CHRP documents went out-of-print and got yanked from their websites when Jobs came back to Apple).
Steve Jobs has been so paranoid about releasing information that this is really hard to believe (after all, clones could be built if the hardware interfaces are really know and the OS isn't in ROM). I'll wait and see what happens, but I don't expect much.
It sure would be nice not to always have to plunk at device registers to see what they do.
there is no ppc out there that is both cheap and open, like x86 hardware.
apple hardware is cheap but closed, open ppc hardware is expensive.
I think a lot of the newcoming 'let's buzzword our application' companies are missing some fairly big points. With a general 'opensourced' application under a restrictive license they may gather some bugfix help, but they will not gain any real developers. Opensource isnt a cheap way to get free programmers, since a lot of them are less than thrilled about doing charity work for corporations. They're in for a big disappointment.
Code reuse and guaranteed independence are major factors in OSS development. That means you can take code from an application and use it in another without violating any licenses, and it means the software wont be held hostage by a certain vendor. There are several licenses that work that way, BSD, (L)GPL, etc, and all mean the vendor gives up most of their control of the application (unless they can keep control by simply being the best choice, and thus preventing immediate branching of the code).
Giving up control isnt in a lot of companies buisness strategies, but they'll find out they cant have it both ways.
The majority of the nerds will stay in the community, while the companies may gain a few who submit fixes for the applications they actually need to use.
Apple are still refusing to give out any documentation on the Next, on the 68K mac, on the newton and on chunks of the PPC macintoshes.
Steve Jobs has screwed too many people to think they'll forgot how he treats his developer base and his buyers. "Your school is full of m68k machintoshes - tough shit" is the real Apple message.
Alan
Yea, you just keep thinking Apple gives a damn about YellowBox, in the same way the Newton developers were told how Apple cared about them.
If YellowBox isn't dead, why does it smell that way?
I'm reminded of an old USENET saying, where the first person to bring up Nazis or Adolph Hitler has lost the argument. Congratulations.
Ive heard that they have OS-X server running on SUN machines and Intel boxes(minus blue box and carbon). This is just the nature of how they built the OS. OS-X for intel was not killed, its just not going to be released for some time(i suspect until apple releases their own multi G4 high end servers). Dont bash Apple for not porting to other platforms, just be patient. If aple goes out of business, where will the innovation come from?
Dont trust the "think differnt" bunch at Apple .
They look at us and they can see is dollar signs.
This is a piss poor attempt to revive a stagnant
O/S.
Arrogant People Profit Losing Enterprise
Dont trust the "think differnt" bunch at Apple .
They look at us and all they can see is dollar signs.
This is a piss poor attempt to revive a stagnant
O/S.
Arrogant People Profit Losing Enterprise
..if Apple decide to open their hardware design, they will have nothing, since the pc computer maker are so much more efficient. Remember the dismall Apple hardware license experiment? Noone buy Apple's computer, cause they are so much more expensive.
Apple has no choice but keep everything shut. OR at least proprietary.
Let's look at things relatively. Everyone is comparing the openness of whatever Apple does to stuff like GNU software, which isn't really fair. Apple was *very* closed for a long time, and for Apple, this is an increase in openness. That's good, not bad. Apple did an OK job of being closed...they tended to gouge from a price standpoint, but their software always beat the snot out of M$. A company with solid code going more open. May not result in a perfect company, but probably one that's better than before.
..ever wonder if all thsoe big corp is thinking that open source is some sort of "inanimate natural resource'?
I mean they try to put their software in the open, and hope the wind will make it spin. shsss....
OSS is a community, if they don't play as a good community member, noone will care to do work together. (that include giving back to the community, and not just suckering the OSS community)
How Ironic!
Has anyone here heard ESR give a talk? I have, and I think the dude is puffed up on his own hot air. There's a real arrogance there that doesn't come across in the ascii. He acted like he was the reason that open source is big, by acting as a spokesman with his "cathedral etc." article, but then when I asked him a few very direct questions about how the economy of open source is supposed to work he was like "Look! I don't pretend to be the spokesman for all of open source!" WHAT?? That's the same thing as Charles Barkley's "I am not a role model" stuff; whether you think you are or not, if you're in the public eye you ARE a role model, just as ESR is (to the corporate eye) the rep for open source (or should I say Open-Source(tm)?)...if you're going to talk the talk of being a spokesman for ALL of us, ESR, you had better have the answers to questions when asked. I don't pretend to have all the answers... but then again I'm not being treated to power lunches by Steve Jobs.
All in all: if you aren't getting paid to work on it, don't work on ANY part of a proprietary system. This is exactly the kind of thing the big guys have been waiting for, their tight asses squench in joy at the chance of getting free work out of us. I'm not especially against proprietary software, if they think it's good enough to charge for it, go ahead, but i am against proprietary companies leaching off the opensource community; there are far too many things the talented of this community can be working on besides device driver grunt work for Jobs & co.
-ben
Don't get your nads in a knot, develop for LinuxPPC instead.
Unless you are doing assembly or drivers:
LinuxPPC = x86 Linux = Alpha Linux = ARM Linux = 68040 Linux = Mips Linux = Sparc Linux
The only difference (ideally) is performance. That is the whole point of an OS, to abstract the hardware from the user as well as the programmer.
Apple is NOT a friend to the Open Source community. If/When their latest move starts to look like it's cutting their revenue they will slam the door shut regardless of whose foot remains in the road.
Ever fix a Mac lately? Could you locate a motherboard from a clone maker?
Now, fuckhead, i wrote more lines of code using apple toolbox and CW than you can count.
I feel sorry for you and your-likes - products of Apple corporate bullshit. There is really no chance to bring you up from your blindness and enlighten you. Then only chance you loosers have is when apple dies you will be forced to move on. But then again, you all will be agitating for Be or NT or some other bullshit which will showup.
After all, they are out there looking for sucker like yourself.
Ouch!
Jackass!!
funniest screw-up i can remember is the article posted awhile back talking about WINE, where the second paragraph began "WINE stands for 'windows emulator'"..
(WINE actually stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator")
this is the reason apple based mklinux around Mach.
Mach supports kernel-hosting. Meaning you'll be able to run mklinux at the same time as mac os x, off the same mach microkernel. I dunno whether many people would want to do that, but it will certainly work better than sheepshaver.
hehe
Innovation will *STILL* come from the place where Apple has stolen it in the past, Unix.
Well.. I can see one thing...
If we take this base and make linux compatible with it we could run The top part of OSX on Linux...
You know.. KDE and Gnome aren't there yet...
Maybe that if we port and make drivers for intel we'll get the top part... I wouldn't mind...
The development process on OpenStep was realy cool!
Anyway.. as far as I know it is not just mach but it uses a modified version of Mach with Apple's old NuKernel... If we could get good multimedia support that would be a start...
No this is not bad at all...
But let's just wait to know what it will look like...
a bunch of people are complaining that apple is open-sourcing what is already open-source.
t .html
yes, mach and bsd were open-source to begin with. but apple's versions are tainted, slightly adapted to fit apple's needs withing the OSX framework.
apple COULD have not documented these changes, making their mach and their BSD incompatible with other bsds, and propeitary.
Basically all they said today is "ok, we're not going to be a bitch about this".
Be happy they aren't going to be a bitch.
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcclure111/ossresedi
As far as I know IA-64 will be proprietary...
It doesn't matter you have 20 different names on the box... if the insides are made by the same..
Anyway... I hapo AMD catches more market before the new architecture comes out...
Its Undeniable at this point that OSes are now
commodities.
At least Apple acknowleges this.
And at least Apple will have an easy to port to system from the many *Nixes.
Be could definitely reverse-engineer BeOS for G3 Macs (their web site says so). It wouldn't surprise me if some of their guys have done it privately. The obstacles are financial and potentially legal.
It would be really stupid for an upstart company like Be to spend their time trying to get their OS running on hardware from a company that views them as a threat.
I think their decision makes a hell of a lot of sense.
BeOS, NT and linux can do just fine without Apple
I agree with this and other responses.
I think the real value of "open source" (in a general, non-trademarked sense) for most application will not be the same as the value for things like linux and other, older applications that tons of developers volunteer their time on.
The real value will be buying an application and getting full source code to it. You may not be allowed to redistribute the code, but at least you aren't as dependent on the vendor. Should the vendor drag their feet, you can fix the code yourself. You can even branch from the vendor by starting your own version of the program, adding features and enhancements that you want. The main restriction will be that these are non-transferrable. This will also protect you from a vendor going out of business and leaving you with a dead-end product.
True, this can be had today through expensive source licensing for some products. But I'm hoping it will get more popular in the future due to "open source" being a buzzword.
It's not the greatest, but it's a step in the right direction.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Wrong OS.
This is not MacOS.
This is MacOS X Server.
Mach kernel, BSD 4.4 layer, + Apple GUI + development tools + a bunch of server tools.
This already has preemptive multitasking. It's Unix, ferchrissakes.
Some people *really* need to get out more often.
Multitasking is alive and well on the Mac. No it is not preemptive and no it does not function as well as Linux, Unix or Be, but it is there. The only major headache is that when you click on a menu all other processes wait until you decide what to do. Otherwise, I can have six different things going at the same time and they all get done... like I said, not as well as they could be, but for Joe Q. User multitasking is some buzzword that he thinks he should have even though he doesn't know why or what it would do for him.
I tried LinuxPPC and yes it did some things great, but for others it was just a dog. For example, listing the contents of a directory. If the directory had more than 100 items you might as well go get a latte, that's using the gui, not 'ls'. Also find file (really helpful since newbies don't have a clue where to 'find' all the crap in order to 'customize' linux). Time for a double latte. Both these processes wouldn't give up the processor without a fight and when they did, you couldn't much do anything else...just like the mac.
Alright, here's the downlow, Apple had it's chance, once it opened up cloning (which, btw is still active in some markets, just not the US), they had the chance to sell off their hardware end to PowerComputing, drop all pretenses of being a hardware company, gather up their collective nutz and gone after their OS two-fisted. But they didn't, why? Because if they did, they'd have been dead by now. If PowerComputing had released the iMac, they would've practically wiped Apple off the face of the planet, all of the schmoes who bought their little bondi beauties would've bought a computer with no future.
Like those wonderful UNIX GUIs.... whew can't wait for more of that crap.... oh wait I have KDE, E and Gnome (looks like dogshit, feels like dogshit, smells like dogshit, must be dogshit).... now I know where apple got all their ideas!
Thanks OpenSource! Now I know why I can drag and drop using any program in Linux using any GUI!!!
$245.00
I hope you are congratulating him because you brought it up, therefore he won the argument.
Hitler and the Nazis aren't the first (or possibly even the worst - ask the Chinese about the Japanese sometime) totalitarian government.
In any case, I think there are definite parallels. Uniformity is more efficient, but less flexible. Not all programming is general purpose. Not all programmers code the same way.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Yeah, the Germans have the Goethe Institute, which isn't quite the same as the Royal Academy in Spain and the Academie Francaise in Froglandia.
Interestingly, these institutions currently have the reputation for being bastions of linguistic conservatism, but this was not the case when they were founded. In fact, one of the reasons that modern day Spanish has such a regular spelling system is due to the fact that when the Spanish Academy was originally founded it totally regularized the spelling. They even went as far as getting rid of lots of irregular verbs and regularizing families of irregular verbs (i.e., they left these families of irregular verbs as irregulars, but they made sure that all members of the family were irregular in the same way).
But any institution, with time, becomes conservative and this is also what happened to these guys.
I'm glad we have no such institution/academy in English.
steve.m.chubb@bankerstrust.com
PS - I know that this isn't exactly a geekish post, but I _do_ think it was interesting, n'est ce pas?
I assure you if that UI was availible for linux, and it was closed source, it would be the most used desktop.
Period.
thats so true...
except for the slight fact that their GUI will be a ppc binary, and most of us have x86 machines running Linux
But Intel and Motorola give you the ability to write software for their chips.
Apple doesn't even do that for their hardware.
there are relatively few 'bugfixes'. however, x86 Linux supports more chipsets in general.
One day, when all you lame ass Open Source wanna be programers get "real" jobs, you might come to appreciate the effect that selling a product for $$$ has on your bank account.
there is an i386 directory in the kernel.tar.gz archive
Well, dork, half of the newspapers in Virginia are produces with the software i wrote. And it was running an Solaris, win3.1 and you shitty mac. And it's still running there on the same machines PowerMAC 601's i installed 5 years ago.
Speeking of emacs you, son, would be blind if you spent as much time in front of emacs as i do.
By the way, i released more products than you will ever start, little punk.
As i said before, GET A CLUE, and try to give some clue to your dork-mac-users friends.
The way I've read it on Apple's own pages, "Darwin" will include not only what you consider as having already, but quite a bit more, namely: their optimizations of the Mach kernel (which have not been open so far), their (so far proprietary) AppleTalk and HFS+ implementations, as well as the super cool (and also so far absolutely non-free) NetInfo system. If you don't see how this is major good news, you've probably never used anything of this (e.g. in its former Nextstep / Openstep incarnations) and therefore can't possibly know what you're talking about. Regards Piers Uso Walter
Amen, brother!
I too believed the nonsense and hype from Apple and APDA for far too many years. How long had we complained about System 7 memory management only to hear a solution was "just around the corner." And that awful firmware! And those are just a few of numerous examples...
After using and developing under Linux and *BSD for x86 and Alpha (both architectures that are well-documented, mind you), Apple's partial open-source announcement is an anticlimax - far too little far too late.
To any prospective Apple developer, stick to Linux or one of the free BSD's. This is where the REAL development is occuring.
from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/1999/mar/16opensou rce.html :
Is this just a typo (that accidentally got through the lawers) or did ESR totally sell out?
MkLinux has been around since before NeXT was acquired by Apple. If anything, the reverse is true: Apple chose NeXT over Be because of advances already made with Mach within Apple.
No way! You see, I, like many poeple don't care about Apple's semi-open software. Mozilla is free and a Linux port already existed. It was and is much more important.
Check out 8.5 -- all we get is the schlocky Sherlock and ...themes?!?! How about protected memory? Or usable virtual memory? They leave the important stuff behind, or just 'borrow' BSD
Then you obviously haven't used 8.5. The signifigant part of 8.5 was entirely native PPC code. It runs an older mac a HELL of a lot faster than 8.1...
More along the lines of Thomas Jefferson: "A people or person who give up even the smallest amount of their freedom in hopes of gaining order will lose both and deserve niether!"
Thanks, man. Just tell me what the hell we are doing on these thread with all the dorky-mac-loosers?
Well, maybe i am too upset waisting 3 years of my life developing for crappy os, and i have to let it out.
Go Linux !
Ugh! Fuckin' Open Source revisionist historians! The original PC was closed; Compaq reverse engineered it and broke it open. IBM was just in a /hurry/, so they used standard parts.
Dumbass. 8.5 requires a PPC, but that DOESN'T mean it's /all native/. Fire up MacsBug some time, and ask it how many traps are PPC and how many are 68k. There's still an assload of 68k stuff in there. Try running 8.5 both with and without SpeedDoubler (Connectix's superior 68k emulation engine) and you can still SEE a difference.
/i/ hate mac fanatics.
I'm a Mac user, and even
relatively few bugfixes? relative to what?
Motorola provides the chips to Apple along with IBM
There seem to be be a lot of confusion about Apple's decision to open source it's OS.
...). ...). ...)
... may be later??
... . So we shouldn't always spit on them. ...
One said:
> OS X Server does have something of an open source core, but it also has lots
> of proprietary Apple software on top.
True, the OS is open sourced, but Apple's applications running on top of it aren't.
Does this make the whole thing uninterresting?
One else said:
> Apple is NOT a friend to the Open Source community.
I donk think so. This is not Eric Raymond 's opinion (IHMO, he is a better Open Source
respresentant than you are), and this has never been NeXT's attitude.
One said:
> Apple is basically saying, ``We want to get lots of good press for opensourcing stuff we
> stole from the NetBSD people and the Mach people, but we don't want to actually give
> anything back to the community, like our user interface, which is the only decent thing
> about our software.''
Are you a BSD fan? the kind of fan that spit on linux because NetBSD didn't succeed
as much as Linux? Or an Open source integrist that doesn't understant that a commercial socity must anyway make (not necessarily steal) money ?
Should the free world fight to death the commercial world ? Linux is already an hybrid:
commercial apps on free OS. Commercial products which are partially open sourced
is a good first step. Let's wait and see how things evolves.
He also said that it worthed nothing as much of it came from Mach and BSD
(80 or 90%, he bet). But I think this prooves OS X worthes much :
OS X *IS* NeXTSTEP (at least Rhapsody is NextSTEP 5.1) so people should
look at what NeXT's attitude have been, not only what Apples' has been.
NeXT has not suffered from the NIH syndrom (Not Invented Here).
Their OS is based on public domain stuff (Mach, BSD, apache,
Their Developer Environment is based on public domain (GNU cc,
Their User Environment is based on public domain (tcsh,
When they stoped the 3DKit they gave it to the MiscKit (public domain)
And now NeXT STEP is open source which is a logical step because NeXT's
strength is OPENSTEP. So instead of yelling blindly we should be happy of such an initiative.
Is NeXT's work so ugly and proprietary?
NeXTSTEP runs on NeXT, PC, SUN, and HP.
OPENSTEP runs on NeXTSTEP, Windows, HPUX, and Solaris.
GNU implements a free OPENSTEP called GNUSTEP.
OS X is great because it is an user friendly unix, with a powerfull and portable
development environment, and lot's of applications (how about NetBSD?).
Open sourcing makes it even more wonderfull, because NeXT's users will be able to
enhance it, like developers do with Net/Free BSD or Linux or GNU HURD or else.
I will !!! since I am a NeXT developer since 1993.
This makes of OS X the first commercial end user OS which is a real opened unix !!!
Of course I'd like to have OS X for PC,SUN,HP
And It would be great if the Postscript server were open sourced (It would
really help the GNU STEP project).
But we can't have every think at one time I suppose...
> "They're trying to hit Linux right between the eyes," said one source.
I don't think OS X is trying to hit Linux or Free/Net BSD, on the contrary.
Linux is taking the good parts of NeXT's work:
User environment: the Look'n feel (AfterStep, WindowMaker)
Developement environment: GNUSTEP
And OS X must learn from the Linux/BSD free experience.
I can't understant why some linux/BSD fans don't like OS X. When GNUSTEP
gets finished (I'm working on it), Linux/BSD users will be able to easily develop
beautifull and portable programs and interfaces. And this is a key point for
linux: friendly user interfaces. This goes first by a porwerfull developer
environment.
Why does Linux get some credibilty? because of commercial socities such as
Oracle, Corel
GNUSTEP will be credible because OPENSTEP is, and OPENSTEP is APPLE
OS X is near Free/Net BSD because of its BSD layer. It is near MKLinux
and GNU HURD because of Mach. It is near the free world because of
GNUSTEP. Those communities could learn from and help each other intead
of saying "my world is the best, yours sucks".
"And again variety is the spice of life".
Back in the olden days, Jobs was forced to release lots of source from NeXT OS because FSF sued them vis-a-vis Gcc, Mach, etc.
Apple has no choice but release source of their Apache, BSD, etc.
I hate idiots that can't read a simple post. The guy said the "significant" parts of 8.5 are native. Second, he said "older" macs, not 68k.
> Apple has no choice but release source of their
> Apache, BSD, etc.
Rubbish. BSD and Apache use a BSD-style licence, which doesn't force commercial entities to release modifications in any or all forms. Apple could sell enhanced binary-only versions of BSD and Apache without any legal problems whatsoever.
GNU software is different, but BSD, Mach, Apache, XFree86, etc. are not GPL'd, and are thus truly free.
Englishish.
Any other questions?
slashdot broke my sig
Posted by Kromslyth:
Apple is more of a closed platform than
Microsoft. The OS only runs on Apples, Apple
only wants it on apples, Apple doesn't even let
people like the Be developers get info about
the G3 so they can make BeOs for it.
Apple is like if microsoft and intel were the
same company, and no one else could make pcs.
The only difference is that apple lost, they
lost big, they are now the underdog. They
are a monopoly and would be THE monopoly if
they could be. This is demonstrated with quicktime, they get developers to make
a *.mov file that only the new quicktime can
decompress. I get so tired of hitting "later"
over and over again. I'm so glad that I finally
found an mpg of the new trailer so I could show
it wherever without having to have stupid
quicktime.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
So we can add preemptive multi-tasking and a decent GUI, right?
Posted by PowerPalle:
Just the right words. Lets wait and see what they pull out of the hat. Personally i think it could be very interesting.
Lets wait and see what they say tonight.
PowerPalle
Posted by Bill "Willing Boy-Toy of the B:
I once heard (but I can't verify) that there is a similar effort WRT Hebrew. Apparently there are those who believe only words in the Torah (sp?) are valid, and new words should not be added to the language for new concepts. So, when they need a name for something like "floppy disk", they have to recycle an old word that meant something like, "eviscerate your enemy with a dull wooden spoon" (i.e., something that will hopefully go unmissed in common discourse).
--
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
...they are "open sourcing" a non-existent product? Great! When is MS open sourcing W2K?
Oh don't be stupid, please.
1. The LinuxPPC guys aren't worried about having to rereverse engineer the G3 specs, never minding the fact that Apple's probably a lot more willing to legally go after Be than LinuxPPC.
2. If Be used the LinuxPPC sources, how many people would immediately call for them to release the Be kernel (G3 version only, of course) under the GPL? Would they? Should they?
There are legitimate legal issues for a closed-source, commercial operating system to have difficulty porting in this context.
--Matthew
Rhapsody was mentioned once at FreeBSD.org, as 'this piece of software also runs on Rhapsody.'
Please.
--Matthew
What Apple is 'opening up' is the microkernel and the BSD underpinnings. These things were already free!
Apple is giving us nothing that we didn't already have -- they're just trying to pander to the free software movement and phenomenon. "Oooh, gee thanks Mr. Jobs for that BSD source -- I never would have seen it otherwise..." >:| The Univesity of Utah gives away their microkernel source, and I think Mach is free as well (not sure on that).
This is bullshit. Fuck Apple. I'll never buy their products -- they're no better than Microsoft to me. (And at least MS doesn't try to pass itself off as a free software company.)
I feel really bad for you Apple partisans. Wake up.
1. Yes, I know the BSD license allows the stealth of the code. That's why I prefer the GPL. And no, I don't think the Apple developers were pulling the pud...they were writing pud code. What I mean by that is that while the Mac OS UI is unparalleled (I personally LOVE it), the underlying OS is outdated and crappy. Check out 8.5 -- all we get is the schlocky Sherlock and ...themes?!?! How about protected memory? Or usable virtual memory? They leave the important stuff behind, or just 'borrow' BSD.
2. They want to keep their UI closed. Okay fine, I'll just not use it or develop for it then. And the Wired article didn't make it so clear that that was Apple's reasonable plan. It looked like Apple was trying to pass itself off as a free software-friendly company, which they are decidedly not.
3. The Mac OS UI will never become the Unix UI, even though it is the best. Too many Unix people refuse closed-source and freedom-subtracted software (look at KDE, another fine product, but based on closed-source APIs). The fact that GNOME still exists shows that KDE/Qt, and thus Mac UI/YellowBox, will not win everyone over.
Non-free software just does not cut it. Apple is not committed to freedom. They have repeatedly demonstrated this throughout their history.
Sometimes your a pri-madonna and then sometimes you hit the nail soundly into the board (IMHO). The press seems to be skipping the point while it focuses on the conflict. The articles about Linux seems to be more like they are covering a war than a movement.
~
Stories about opening software are portrayed more like throwing a litle meat to distract the watchdogs dogs before they devour you. Stories about Microsoft have the ominous feeling like Rome fortifying itself for the barbarian hordes pillaging the periphery of its empire. Stories about Linux seem to portray an unsympethetic somewhat unstable devouring beast, growing daily.
Its a romantic beast this GPL, and the way its shook the proprietary pillars even to Redmond is going to catch the attention of the press, not the technical details behind it. The press has heralded this fight for maybe a little over a year now, while geeks forsaw the convergence many years before that ran to join the ranks in hopes of bringing down the Microsoftonian Giant. And Richard envisioned it uniquely years before that.
Its exciting to watch, entrancing to listen to, just like the Gulf War on CNN. So when dealing with the press, everyone remember they are covering a war. They are looking for victory speaches and stratagies, big heros and hope. And the final battle ground will be convincing my mother that this software is safe and easy to use (and maybe even fun too.)
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^
My understanding of the matter is that it isn't the G3 chip that Be doesn't have the specs to, it is the motherboard specs/chipsets. But what do I know.
What kind of English is this?
id I miss when they started publishing
the secritive hardware specs for the macintrash?
I don't hate macs,...
thats a contradiction...you're fooling no one.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
Thanks for your typical X86 Linux users balanced viewpoint! You do the fanatically-ultra-open-OS-and-hardware stereotype proud! not.
oh ya...
Macs suck! Steve Jobs is a whore and Bill Gates is not that bad!
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
And next time i hear a wuss agitating about how good is mac, i'm gonna beat'em to a bloody pulp.
You shouldn't be in a society full of people. Seriously.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
http://www.publicsource.apple.com/
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
Also, nerds only work on that which is cool, and I think we have enough cool stuff to work on the way it is. :-) I think all of the best nerds are already working on their own projects.
Better jump on while everyone else is.
I wonder what will be the cool thing after "open source"?
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Wonder how it affects the guys over at Be, Inc.?
Come on.. the LinuxPPC guys have been able to port to G3 machines with no more help from Apple than Be had. I believe they even offered the necessary information to Be, who turned it down.
Be continues to spread this FUD about how Apple won't release the specs and that's why they can't port to G3, but it's nothing but a big lie. All they need to do is look at how the _open-source_ LinuxPPC and figure it out.
Why don't they do that? Look at all the Intel logos on their site. Figure it out.
Damn it, Be has fooled so many people with that G3 bullshit.
Haven't you ever wondered why LinuxPPC runs just fine on G3 with no help from Apple when Be, a company with millions in financing and some great programmers, just can't seem to figure it out? It's not because Apple helped LinuxPPC.
It's because Intel "helped" Be.
NeXT's version was 2.5-ish, while MkLinux uses OSF's 3.0. Reportedly, OS X will be 3.0-ish, with features imported from Utah's 4.0 version. So it's kinda hard to say how close they'd be right now. I suppose we'll know after today.
-cfw
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Did anyone else notice Wired's big screw-up?
The latter half of the article discusses the Perens/Raymond split. After doing an OK job of describing some of the concerns, they say something like this (paraphrased):
"Free software advocates and open source advocates both are careful to differentiate the movements. Free software is software distributed at no charge, while open source software is software that can be sold, but for which the source code must remain public."
Lest there be any doubt, the list of "free software" advocates (remember the above definition) includes RMS, the FSF, and Perens.
That has got to be the funniest screw-up I've read in a while. The implication from the article is that RMS and Perens are opposed to GPL-style software!
[obligatory clue stick reference deleted]
This one's going to be fun to eviscerate...
Apple is more of a closed platform than Microsoft. The OS only runs on Apples, Apple only wants it on apples, Apple doesn't even let people like the Be developers get info about the G3 so they can make BeOs for it.
One: the OS does NOT only run on Apple machines.
Two: Yeah, Apple only wants it on the machines they make. Just as Gateway only wants Windows to run on Gateways, Compaq wants people to run it only on COmpaqs, etc. They're a business, for crying out loud.
Three: Be's to blame for Be not having the specs. They can get the information they need whenever they're willing to get off of their lazy asses and get it from the LinuxPPC source (using cleanroom techniques, since they want to stay proprietary).
Apple is like if microsoft and intel were the same company, and no one else could make pcs.
A company is like a boolean expression. Right.
Seriously, however, you're not strictly accurate. Consider: the only thing Apple licensed out to clone vendors was the Mac ROM. Everything else could be made by the clone vendors. Now, also consider that the ROM is disappearing from Mac motherboards; The iMac and blue G3's are down to only a couple of things, and Sawtooth (the next generation desktop) will be down to the last few vestiges and will not contain any OS-level code. That goes a long way toward opening up the machine again; especially with an Open-Source hardware layer it becomes a relatively simple process to make a PPC motherboard and port the OS to it (well, OK, it's not simple, but at least it's easier than before).
This is demonstrated with quicktime, they get developers to make a *.mov file that only the new quicktime can decompress.
Actually, it's not the version of QuickTime that's the limiting factor there. It's the codec, which is called Sorenson and is not made by Apple. The producers of, say, the Star Wars trailer chose QuickTime/Sorenson of their own free will; no one made them pick that format, they could as easily have chosen any other format (though I've noticed that when done correctly Sorenson gets better quality than MPEG at a significantly smaller filesize).
They are a monopoly and would be THE monopoly if they could be.
Apple? A monopoly? Look at the marketshare statistics and tell me that with a straight face. As for your statement that they would be THE monopoly if they could be, so would Red Hat. So would Microsoft. So would GM or Buick or Mercedes-Benz; it's called business. The point is to keep a monopoly from occurring when it stifles innovation (which is always the case in the computer industry).
Attacking Linux is like shooting at a cloud of gas. It's not going to have much in the way of results.
If Apple release the Mach microkernel under OSX, this will allow Linux and OSX to coexist more easily, even possibly running at the same time. If it's a useful UI toolkit or technology, it'll get ported in some form (witness what happened with Borland's Turbo Vision, a formerly DOS-only framework). If it's something trivial and wholly dependent on proprietary technologies, nothing much will happen one way or the other.
The Mach and BSD used in NeXTSTEP and Rhapsody are proprietary derivatives; you can't just slap Rhapsody onto an off-the-shelf Mach implementation. An OSS release would change this, and allow it to run better with other systems.
Once saturation is reached, survival of the fittest will kick in. Projects which don't scratch anybody's itch and aren't cool enough for hack value will founder, whereas cool projects will keep taking off.
That's goodn News for the BeOS, we will finelly bae able to run on the Macs . If apple wants device drivers and other low level developers to work with hem in the Open source way of doing thing then they will have to publish some kind of hardware specification. Then Be won't be able to say : apple doesn't want to give us specs, it is just that we (ir Be Inc.) don't want to support the PowerPc version of BeOS .....
Thank's apple, I really hope MacOS X comes out soon so that the low level hardware docs of apples blue and Beige G3's has well has those of the upcoming and very exiting G4 boxes (SMP will make it's come back with that chip). Apple will increase its revenue. If apple wants to still have the lead I think they should publish Today the specs of their beige G3's. And when the G4 are released they could released the specs of the El Capitan.
none Yet.
The Mach NeXT used is an older variant that probably wouldn't bear much resemblance to what the MkLinux people are using
Well...kind of. The OS-X port on Sun was a necessity, because it flat out didn't work on PPC and the SPARC platform allowed for testing. I seriously doubt we'll ever see OS X on anything but an overprices PPC Apple HW box. They're not that willing to give up the old proprietary business that's killing them slowly.
Zip..Bang.
Right on and to the point!
Yes... multi-tasking on a Mac... only 5 years after everybody else had it.
[Re:subject]
:)
Linux might not have eyes, but X sure does!
-- Rick
I can't believe how garbled Wired got this story. The next time they call with a question, I'm going to ask them to put Andrew Leonard on the story, he understands this stuff better.
I would consider this software donation to be good Mac documentation. I don't really think that cleanroom techniques will be necessary to use it to develop other drivers, if you are not copying verbatim, you can consider it a published work and not trade-secret.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Wired wrote me and said they'd fix the way they garbled the definitions of free software and Open Source. They are editing the story now.
Bruce Perens.
...when has Apple ever said anything about 'free'? Well....when?! Huh?! Answer up big mouth!
When was it?!
nope, SGI's are are great. Alpha's a great processor. Too bad SGI is going NT. Too bad
Alpha's may not be around much longer. I cut my teeth using DEC ALPHA servers at college. I 'hated' UNIX back then but I learned to get the most out of it once I reached a certain point.
I'll still use anyhting that suits my needs the best. I've tried 'em all (BeOS, Linux, Amiga, BSD, etc.) and I still keep coming back to the Mac hardware to run Mac OS and occasionally Linux and Windows(under VPC).
Oh, so you're a former Apple developer huh?
What did you program? What's the name of the program again? What? You didn't actually produce anything you say?! Well then, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Damn anonymous cowards...
I said virtually the same thing in less words back in the 'favorite UI poll'. let's see how many people respond to your version of the idea :-) :-)
Personally I really like the Mac OS X Server UI.
It's the right blend of Mac OS/NeXTStep w/the all that unix goodness underneath. I had to leave Linux for the time being based on my needs and not on my wants so this is potentially a great thing for me because I can access the Mac OS from OS X Server. Freeing up the other computer for Linux tinkering and what not. I had to have a production stable server (ASIP6.1, linux wouldn't cut it), I had to have the Mac OS, so 2 computers. Now I can run 3 OSes on 2 computers w/out rebooting and I'll be happy as can be
big whoop! so what you're really saying is that either you can't finish what you start or you're coding is so bad you couldn't come up with anything worth releasing. you know, if you applied for a job coding they'd want examples of your work, esp. actual programs or projects that can be verified. what do you mean my likes?! I've probably spent more time bleary eyed in front of emacs coding pascal, then c++, then NLP rules than you have just sitting in front of a Mac ever!
Nobody around here is going to beleive you til you give us some names. Until then you're just an offensive blustering a.c. and you my dear man are the one who needs to get a clue with your outrageous uninformed comments as to who I am or who my friends are yadda yadda
Actually, with OS X Server, the Blue Box and a PC emulator, you could run three operating systems on one box.
Right now, Linux has excellent command-line processing, but still needs to make its GUIs, installation and maintenance more user-friendly to gain more widespread use.
If Mac OS X retains both its GUI and command-line processing, it will stand a good chance as consumer-oriented Unix.
MkLinux was meant as a trial baloon, and it didn't catch fire. It works. I use it every day, but it was just too far away from mainstream Linux, being based on MACH as a hardware abstraction layer. LinuxPPC has had a hard time getting off the ground without hardware disclosure from Apple. This move will benefit them. It will also allow Apple to fly another balloon labelled; "How can this open source stuff work for us?" They are not about to give out the goodies unless they can see what the advantage is. And I assume the stockholders would agree. (If this makes less-than-perfect sense, please forgive me; I'm writing this with a migraine.)
Dog is my co-pilot.
man, if i was was stuck with a flat dull gui like what the mac has, and wasn't able to change it, and had to see it every day of my life on every computer that i came across, i would just shoot myself. Better yet, i would go out and kill everyone else first, then kill myself.
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
Apple + Open Source = Rotten Sauce
eat up, Bill Gates is watching.
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
This is a fine example of a geek who needs to get out more. For god sakes, take a drive through the country or something. Calm down a little before your head explodes. Do you get this excited over everything in life, or just issues concerning apple operating systems?
Why doesn't everybody just coooooooool out!
They don't need huge gangs of programmers on every project. Most of those apps are finished anyway. When they get released open source, communities of users/developers tend to grow up around the product, and then the little adjustments and fixes start rolling in.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Hey all,
There was, for a while at least, the rumor that
someone out there would write a "red box" to
emulate Win32 on MacOS X for Intel.
Would the someone care to be a WINE developer?
Hmmmmmmmmmm?
And if someone could get Bochs in decent enough
shape, who knows? You could have a (slow) PowerPC port as well, perhaps..
Any1 out there have opinions about this?
This announcement is just too cool IMHO; more
important than the Netscape open-source
announcement..
-----
".sig,
Geez...one article without any specifics, and half of you guys go nuts. Lay off already!! Apple hasn't said ANYTHING yet, and you are bastardizing them for hijacking FreeBSD/Mach!
hmm it almost sounds like a win-win for Apple and its Mac users. MacOS server doesn't get split up, Apple can still get money for their investment in technology, bugs are fixed and features are added...
Problem is, you can't port MacOS to pc's or fancy workstations. (ok mac addicts can say pc's are junk but SGI's and alphas?)
---
now if bsd were to come to macs then you won't have the gpl problem. However, you still have the threat of Apple changing the code to mess BeOS up.
---
look if Apple doesn't want to work with BeOS then you don't play games with them ya hear? We're not just talking about 'no help'-this is active discouragement. They don't want BeOS on macs...at least not yet
btw, look at intel's investments in Redhat, VA Research and Cygnus and wonder why nobody sells linux workstations? Wonder why gcc is optimized more for x86 than ppc? Wonder why Redhat is getting all the attention?
---
BeOS does work with non-Apple G3 (ppc 750 to be exact) upgrade cards. Apple doesn't want BeOS. There's a big difference between not helping and hurting ok? There are no non-Apple G3 computers because Apple killed the clones.
---
They pulled the licencing only on the ROMS, that was the only part of the machine that the Clone Manufatures needed. The future version of the Mac OS puts the ROM in RAM, and puts it all on the CDROM which is the OS. The clones can reappear, and then Apple can have all of the Hardware incompatibilty issues that x86 has now. When you build your Linux kernel how many chipset bugfixes do you have options for. When I build LinuxPPC there are none.
Everyone who adds source to any gnu tools, FreeBSD, the Linux kernel, etc, is working for a bunch of for profits (RedHat, SuSE, Sun, HP, etc) for no pay.
Yellow Box is not dead, it's still the native development environment for Mac OS X. Carbon is fundamentally a legacy development model, and developers are being told that if they want to start work on a new project for OS X then Yellow Box is the way to go.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,33781,00.html?st .ne.lh..ni
'Many observers say that Linux has captured the efforts of the "alternative" developer set, drawing their talents away from Mac OS and other alternatives to Microsoft Windows. OS X Server does have something of an open source core, but it also has lots of proprietary Apple software on top.
"They're trying to hit Linux right between the eyes," said one source.'
---
Wha? TV & Movie Theme Songs? Oh yeah....
Be is whining. LinuxPPC runs on G3s just fine.
If Be was really interested in supporting
the PowerPC they'd just do the port. They could
just as easily support PPC based machines from
IBM too.
I like BeOS, it's got some nice features, but Be
is not being entirely truthful when they say they
can't do a G3 port.
English as she is spoke. Grammar which is considered perfect today was radical in years past; English which was proper then is not today.
AFAIK, only the French think a language can be controlled top down. They are wrong. Languages are what people speak and write daily. Languages change. If you understood what "soucish" meant, then you understand English. If not, then you have rigidified between the ears and should go join that French language committee.
--
Infuriate left and right
The Apple ][ was such a great success because anybody could be an Apple ][ hacker; adding hardware and software was ridiculously easy. IBM copied the basic idea for their PC, and that's why it took off. It would have been much less successfull if they had locked up the architecture and software as they later tried to do with the Micro Channel Architecture PS/2. That's when they lost big time in the market.
Apple did not remember the lesson. They locked the Mac up so tight and lost developers.
Now it's too late for partial measures. If they would release hardware specs, that would be a start, probaly help Linux ports.
Steve Jobs is their downfall and their saving grace. Without him they have no imagination. He fires them up, but only because he keeps such a lock on the machine and its software that they can perceive themselves as special and get worked up over it. They are doomed to be a niche player with Jobs in control. Someone less talented would doom them to disappearing. It will take someone with more self confidence to make Apple a real player again.
--
Infuriate left and right
Apple has done lots of work on Mach since they grabbed 2.5 (and later the OSF stuff). They have a totally new driver architecture, vm enhancements, and tons of other stuff.
You do all realize that the primary author of Mach (Avadis Tevanian) is the VP of Software (or something to that effect) at Apple now?
I don't think this is an attack on Linux, which really can't be attacked anyway. I suppose if Apple's plan is so attractive that it drains development effort from Linux, that would be harmful to Linux, but that is just a weird scenario.
> I wonder what will be the cool thing after "open source"? "Working ?" Naahhhh...
WebObjects, which is continually evolving, depends on it.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/1999/mar/16opensou rce.html
with everything going open source, there won't be enough nerds to work on it. don't get me wrong, any software is better when source is available but every article you read emphasizes that open source software is successful because of thousands of nerds contributing time and effort. with more and more software opening up, the source:nerd ratio is getting worse. will this not hamper the open source effect?
Talk about jumping on the ESR bandwagon of hype.
If it means anything to you purists, they won't be open-sourcing the entire Mac OSX. Only parts.
I really don't see how this is going to generate new business for Apple on its own. It seems fairly useless to open-source only part of an OS.
isn't the "bottom part" of the OS just a mach kernel? if so, this could probably make life a bit easier for some of the mklinux guys...
actually, the French are not the only ones taking that (stupid) position. the Spanish have a "royal academy of the language" too, and I think the German have something approaching. It's stupid, but not uncommon.
I for one am going to see what Apple actually does before juding anything.
Whether or not you agree with it, Apple DOES have an argument in favor of closedness.
Namely, they want to purvey consistency and reliability across their product line.
Apple-compatible hardware, for instance, tends to be true plug-and-play, precisely because of restrictions. I was trying to install Linux the other day and had to really muck around to get the mouse to work properly.
Interface-wise, Apple wants consistency. Personally, I can't STAND the fact that every X app is completely different. Hopefully, GNOME/KDE will help remedy the situation.
Basically, where Un*x users like customizability above all else, Apple goes for reduced customizability in favor of ease of learning curve.
What bothers me more is the "THE". Why "THE open sourcish"?
Yep...And their very first "Related Wired Link" is the story about the "forgotton" RMS...THAT should have been in Alannis' song...*grin*
1) There's a well-known and very easy workaround for the annoyance dialog--set your system's clock ahead a year. Launch MoviePlayer. Click OK. Set your clock back to normal. QuickTime won't bother you again for a year. Adjust as necessary.
2) The Sorenson codec is simply awesome, and worth the free download to install QT3. It's better than any .mpg I've seen yet. The old "teaser trailer" is now available in Sorenson. Download it again and compare it to the old version. Trust me. It's worth it.
Never refuse a breath mint.
> they get developers to make a *.mov file that > only the new quicktime can decompress
1) it's the codecs, silly. Problem works both ways, avi's can't be viewed if the proper codec ain't around.
OPEN Free. In next's case, Open == Multiplatform
2) Openstep ran on multiple systems, NextOS on 68k and intel, Windows NT, HP-UX and SunOS.
Personally, Next/Apple should have opened it driver development kit, a long time ago.
Now it's too late for partial measures. If they would release hardware specs, that would be a start, probaly help Linux ports.
Huh? What help do the Linux ports really need? Sure, there is some problems with the latest G3's (read Blue & White), but hell, it's tough to find a PPC Mac that won't run some form of Linux. Even the iMac with it's USB keyboard and mouse run LinuxPPC with the proper patches.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, the more Apple progresses, the more they seem to become the high end version of a PC. The new G3's have standard ports all over the place. They even gave up the Mac video connector they've been using ever since the Mac II came out in '86/'87. And the next version will even get rid of ADB.
The chipsets are becomming more standard, the interfaces are becomming more standard (I still have a IDE Performa that doesn't support slave drives, at least you can connect 4 UltraDMA drives to the G3s), and depending on what today's announcement is, the os itself is becomming more standard.
Apple is doing everything it can to not only survive, but to bring some innovation to the industry. And being a Unix developer by day, Mac programmer by night, it's nice to see Apple build on the strengths of Unix instead of following the same road it's been on, and the same one the Microsoft is carving out for 95/98/NT/2000.
And as far a Be is concerned, at this point, if Apple gave them the motherboard designs, I would doubt that Be would produce a G3 version of BeOS. If Be really wanted the specs, they could use the Linux source as a learning guide to the internals of the G3. And my understanding is that the chipsets didn't change that dramatically from the 604/604e machines to the original G3s
dennis
Bah. From what I understood, OS X was supposed to contain the orgasmic microkernel-based technology... careful now, I'm getting shaky... from Mach... yipes, this is bad... but wasn't Mach already opensource?
Apple is basically saying, ``We want to get lots of good press for opensourcing stuff we stole from the NetBSD people and the Mach people, but we don't want to actually give anything back to the community, like our user interface, which is the only decent thing about our software.''
Apple is another also-ran in the proprietary PC operating system software managle, along with DESQview, VisiON, AmigaOS/AmigaDOS, and OS/2. If I want proprietary, I'll go with Microsoft: at least then I get lots of device support.
Apple is more proprietary and anti-open than Microsoft.
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
How could Intel and Microsoft be as much of a "closed" platform as Apple? Even in your imagined scenario, you'd still have two companies providing things, not the single source garbage that goes into Apple computers like the iMac. Of course, you fail to realize that Microsoft and Intel don't always agree on what's best for each other, so you have things like Intel investing in RedHat (not in Microsoft's best interest), and Microsoft using things like the Alpha CPU and 3Dnow! instructions (not in Intel's best interest).
Not surprisingly, you don't acknowledge the wealth of non-Microsoft OSes that will run on the PC. What else will run on the most modern Macs other than Linux and Apple OSes? And equally unsurprising is the fact that you must never have heard of Cyrix or AMD. After all, AMD supposedly did sell more chips in retail last month than Intel itself did.
Please return to your iMac and your bowing down to Steve Jobs and quit pretending that you know anything about the industry or that Apple has any relevance to it.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
The comic relief I get from watching Cupertino and its zealots is outta this world (Just like you said, fanatics are indeed an interesting bunch). So, I guess they are relevant in this way, which isn't so bad--every court needs a jester.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Open-source English.
Down with proprietary languages!
I haven't looked through the mklinux source code, but as it includes the Mach kernel, isn't the majority of what Apple is announcing already open-source?
Of course, they have been reticent about releasing technical specs for the G3s. I wonder what this means for the folks over at Be.
I wouldn't trust Apple any farther than I could throw their entire corporate headquarters. They screwed Newton developers pretty hard. The sooner Apple goes out of business and takes Jobs' Reality Distortion Field with them, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
and the ones with the words don't know too w
1. Sun OS (pre-Solaris) was built on BSD. Wasn't free, wasn't open source. The BSD licence allows that. Anyone who thinks this is just Apple opening up source which is already open must think that all of the Next and Apple programmers have just been pulling their puds for the last 10 years instead of writing code.
2. I think what Apple wants is to divide the GUI from the OS. This is trivial with Unix, not so trivial with Mac OS and Windows. Apple wants the OS open-source, while the GUI (which is Apple's crown jewel) is closed source.
3. If the Mac OS X GUI layer can become THE UNIX GUI, Apple wins. It's APIs would be used to develop apps, regardless of the underlying OS. Whether Linux bigots like it or not, the Mac OS L&F is considered the best one out there. How much more popular would Linux be if it had the Mac OS L&F for a GUI? Is it worth paying Apple a few bucks for it? I bet it would be to a lot of novice users.
People who don't care about GUIs won't place much value in this. People who want a solid OS with a great GUI should be drooling at the possibilities.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
That's why I said Next and Apple programmers, not just Apple programmers. Apple had tried to re-write the OS and keep it backwards compatible (Copland) and failed miserably. So in December 1996, Apple went out and bought Next to get that modern OS foundation. Most Mac users care about the stuff they see (QuickTime, the GUI, even Sherlock and Themes) and don't care about multitasking and threading and protected memory. Apple has been concentrating on making them happy. The Next programmers (now Apple programmers) started with vanilla Mach and vanilla BSD, and added modifications. After about two years of work (some of it GUI-related, but most of it is internals), it's ready for prime time and Apple is open sourcing that work. That's some non-trivial work.
Non-free software just does not cut it. Apple is not committed to freedom. They have repeatedly demonstrated this throughout their history.
Even the Great God Linus says that there is a place for proprietary software. I think he's right. I've been discussing open source with a co-worker. My company's main product couldn't be open sourced (probably), but there are certainly parts of it which make a lot of sense as open source. A high-quality GUI with a consistent look and feel and good documentation for novice users might be one of those things which cannot be done via open source. At least, no one has done it yet (which isn't proof, but is evidence).
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Is it just me, or does it strike anyone else as odd that people will spend their time programming for a for-profit company for no pay?
They are secondary beneficiaries. The primary beneficiaries are Linus and the other kernel people.
I do understand this, but I think it even odder to work on something that will be of primary benefit solely to Apple. At least with linux, someone else can make money throuugh another distribution/Support Network/etc.... The major monetary beneficiary of this work on Apple's core will be apple.
So, let me get this straight. Apple takes Mach and BSD, then layers the Mac desktop & other stuff on top, and then they release the Mach & BSD portions as "open source" and we're supposed to pat them on the back?
aren't these the people who don't allow third party vendors to clone their machines? Did I miss when they started publishing the secritive hardware specs for the macintrash? And now they're trying to entice open-source people into doing free development because they are releasing 1% of the source code? I don't hate macs, but is this really going to have any effect?
-davek
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
The principal investigator for Mach, Rick Rashid, is now the VP of Microsoft Research.
cpeterso
Bah. Apple's rotten to the core.
--C
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Get it? Sour Apple....
never mind.
--
Beef
"Raging Moderate" of the
>Of course, they have been reticent about >releasing technical specs for the G3s. I wonder >what this means for the folks over at Be.
h tml
Last I heard it meant that BeOS won't run on the new G3's. Check out
http://www.be.com/support/qandas/faqs/faq-0408.
>If Be was really interested in supporting the PowerPC they'd just do the port.
But to do so would require some reverse engineering and thus opening them up for all kinds of legal problems.
If Apple has no relevance to the industry, then why are you wasting your time talking about it?
Fanatics are an interesting bunch.
--
InstantCool
Cool, now there's going to be Apple Sauce for everyone... Oh, have I missed the point somewhere?
At least they're trying. I'll hold judgment until after I hear what the plan is. And if ESR will be there, my interest is piqued.
aren't these the people who don't allow third party vendors to clone their machines? Did I miss when they started publishing the secritive hardware specs for the macintrash?
different companies publish different things. Intel doesn't release the schematics for the PIII, or Motorolla for the G3, or Ford for the Mustang or Gillett for its latest razor because their competitive advantage is that they have this information and others don't. IBM didn't WANT clones, they just couldn't stop them. Criticizing apple for not giving away all their specs is misunderstanding that Apple is at heart a hardware company who doesn't want to surrender their main source of income - their hardware.
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technologies fail, that doesn't mean that apple is always to balme for not supporting them. Apple also was the company which said go forth and develop GUI and multimedia and user-friendly applications. And the masses did and virtually every desktop spends most of its time with windows and pulldown menues.
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You really are an idiot.
Multi-tasking comes in many flavors.
The MacOS has had multi-tasking since late System 6 (1991). The Mac uses cooperative multitasking. That means that the applications running determine how much of the machine's resources are utilized. A poorly written program won't give up control when it is supposed to. (Some apps {like servers} take advantage of this). Recently, Apple has threaded just about everything in the OS. This is a good thing.
Windows95 uses (sort of) pre-emptive mt. WinNT uses better pre-emptive mt. UN*X has really good mt. BeOS uses what they call "pervasive" mt, which just means that they have threaded the hell out of the OS. Pre-emptive mt means the OS does the scheduling.
Whether pre-emptive or cooperative mt is used, it is STILL multi-tasking. Whether one is better than the other wholly depends on what you plan on doing with the box.
What kind of English is this?
Hackish. The same sort of English that allows words like "disgustitude", "hackification" and "winnage".
How about "Apple Source"?
Apple is basically saying, ``We want to get lots of good press for opensourcing stuff we stole...
Now, now. They didn't steal what was legally free for the taking. Don't forget that the whole point of a BSDish license is that it's exploitable for profit. Remember SunOS?
I dislike the flavor of what Apple is doing, too, but they aren't "stealing," and it's misleading to say so.
It appears I'm actually taking a middle ground here. I've been a Mac follower for years, however, unlike a lot of Mac followers, I also love Linux. I intend to have both, as soon as I can afford it. Now, on to the meat of my comment.
/any/ source code from any level of MacOS. I do wish they would release the GUI code, but that's a bit much to hope for at this point.
As a programmer, I am ecstatic at the prospect of seeing
Now, I can see why a lot of people are skeptical. But whether or not this is a brainshare grab, shouldn't we be glad to get something? This is a first step, and if we (programmers) are supportive, Apple is much more likely to continue in this direction. True, Apple will die, if no one works for them. But does that mean they're bad? Linux would die, if no one programmed for it.
So, I hold a lot of hope for the future. I hope some of the rest of you will join me in that.
Matthew Walker
--My DNA is Y2K Compliant
--
Matthew Walker
My DNA is Y2K compliant
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
Bitter much?
Alive, yes.
But well?
C'mon now sport, be real.
can't you just see the spit hitting the monitor while he's typing these well thought out (and rigorously spellchecked) replies?
No clones for now, but they'll be back. I think that decision was financial triage.