Believe it or not, one of Microsoft's shared source licenses is fully compatible with BSD and GPL licensing.
Yes, friend, I know that. One of their licenses is open source. I'm not referring to that one as a "shared source" license, the whole "shared source" debacle is about Microsoft trying to confuse the issue, and I do not go along with their shenanigans.
Since Apple uses Samba, CUPS etc. Not really much from Apple either.
I have already brought up a number of protocols that Apple came up with that aren't "Samba, CUPS, etc". You have even acknowledged that one of them is useful, is it beyond conception that the rest might be?
And don't forget that if they want it in the dock, they have to add it there too
WHat the **** does that have to do with anything? If they want it in the task bar in Windows they have to do that too. Sheesh.
Wrong, to install a specification application, you would normally download and open the.rpm or.deb file.
And then find all the rpm or deb files that it depends on, that they didn't include, that are on thos or that repository. All those repositories have to be in the config file. If you've got a rich commercial ecosystem that's going to include components from multiple sources, some of which (in Windows or OS X) are bundled in the package... in Windows they get stuck into the right place by the installer, on the Mac they get located by the Framework system, in Linux... you gotta go look.
I've been in "RPM Hell" looking for dependencies often enough.
And even if they provide a bunch of debs, or they don't have any dependencies outside the repos you're already using, if they don't have a repository, and you haven't added that to the database, you don't get any of the management advantages you're talking about for that application. So, really, you DO need to add it.
Beyond Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and a few games, I honestly haven't seen that much better commercial software out there [...]
Most people only use a small part of the ecosystem. But it's a different part for everyone. And it only exists because the system encourages it. Linux, both in culture and in design, doesn't.
The developers are not actively working on this code, integrating it with FreeBSD
What, like gcc? Don't be silly.
It doesn't matter if they see GPL as the most restrictive, they won't work with code that is more restrictive than the BSD licensed code for their projects.
Then why the **** are they shipping GPLed and other non-BSD code, *by default*, as part of FreeBSD, in/bin and/usr/bin? I'll tell you why, because you're completely wrong about what licenses BSD developers are willing to work with. 100% wrong. How do I know? I'm one of them.
I don't see what is wrong with the system keeping track of installed applications on the system, updates and software management.
The system does keep track of installed applications on the system. It just does it implicitly, rather than explicitly. And it lets you install multiple versions of applications, just by putting them in different appdirs. And, yes, people really DO need to do that. I've been a system admin for 20 years and I've frequently had to work around installers for users, on commercial UNIX, Windows, Linux, Macs... having a singe appdir that, in almost all cases, "just works"... is a huge advantage.
I brought this up earlier in the thread already. I just don't really see Apple being more open than Microsoft is. Microsoft has made numerous opensource contributions as has Apple.
Microsoft came into open source kicking and screaming, and they still have source out there under restrictive "shared source" licenses. The absolutely worst behaviors you have pointed to from Apple are petty compared to the whole "shared source" debacle.
And Microsoft's open source doesn't include the things you most need to interoperate with Windows for open source developers, like file systems, kernel and network APIs and protocols. To get that kind of thing you need to sign NDAs. Which makes them completely irrelevant to how open they are.
Just because you personally don't think Apple's APIs, protocols, and so on are useful doesn't mean they're not being amazingly open about them. The difference between Apple and Microsoft is night and day.
For example, on my Kubuntu system, I have additional sources for certain specific applications:
OK, you're Joe Average, and you want to install Mikes Cool App. On Windows you download MikesCoolApp.exe and run it, and it installs. On Mac OS X you download MikesCoolApp.dmg and run the.pkg or dragg the.app to Applications (or, in my case, I put it in/Local/Applications to reduce the amount of 3rd party stuff I have to copy out of/Applications when I upgrade). On Linux... you edit a config file and add the URL for a new repository and run the installer.
And then when you want to install a new box, you hope that all those repositories are still there. I just drag/Local over from my backup, and pretty much everything works. Really. Almost all the things I have problems with are programs that come with an installer and don't allow me to install without one, and badly behaved applications that depend on specific OS versions or unsupported APIs. And since Apple quit changing the APIs every minor version (that was a big problem in the 10.1 era) about the only apps I *have* to upgrade are things like APE.
No "installers", no central database, just a bunch of property lists that the system keeps track of.
Are you trying to imply all development on the Mac should be for commercial purposes
No, I'm saying that the biggest advantage of Mac OS over Linux is the fact that there's lots of commercial software out there. If you don't see a point to that, why aren't you doing everything on free UNIX? I sure wouldn't be bothering with OS X if it was just UNIX with a white color scheme.
You are not going to see FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD developers using code that is more restrictive than their current BSD license
Sure they are. There's whole subdirectories under/usr/src on FreeBSD for code under more restrictive licenses, including GPLed code... and most BSD developers would agree that the GPL is one of the most restrictive open source licenses out there.
Most of this thread still makes no sense to me, sorry. I'm having a good deal of trouble figuring out how any of it relates to the original point about Apple being more proprietary than Microsoft.
I personally prefer to have all the software on my system centrally managed by a software management systems, that automatically update, install, uninstall all the software with just one click - the end result is not complex.
That's great, but a central repository seems pretty much incompatible with a thriving commercial software ecosystem to me. If you don't care about that, fine, but then why are you programming on the Mac?
If you want your BSD license code to remain BSD, as in, only the same restrictions as BSD, it is also incompatible for developers who develop only under the BSD license.
I think you misunderstand the point of the BSD license. Really, I do.
Microsoft has trained people to click "OK", "Open", "Run", "Install", "Continue", or whatever button (wherever it is) that gets you past the idiot box.
Apple had until recently avoided this mistake. NOT (as some people have said) by making the buttons more meaningful, but by simply NOT trying to use warning dialogs in place of good design.
For example, Mac OS doesn't ask you if you want to move a file to the trash, and it doesn't ask you if you want to empty the trash, because these are common actions, and the dialog box becomes something you reflexively accept.
Recently, as I say, Apple has started to deviate from the path of virtue. I've caught my Mac in bed with promiscuous dialogs on many occasions.
But by comparison with Windows (particularly Vista)... my Mac's still pretty much a dialog virgin. Really.
T-Mobile doesn't control the Blackberry apps I install, I very much doubt they'll control the apps I'd put on my Andrioid-based phone.
They control the Java apps on my Nokia 6263. Like all carriers, they control as much of the phone environment as they can get away with.
And carriers have explicitly said that one reason they preferred Android to OpenMoko was that Android gave them more control over the phone.
Apple's Iron Fist of App Control
That's typical for non-smartphone cellphones. And that's what I have said from the start that the iPhone isn't a real smartphone... it doesn't have an open application environment the way real smartphones (like Palm, Windows Mobile, and so on) do. Just because the iPhone applets are written in Objective C instead of Java doesn't change the fact that it's just another closed platform.
Android may turn out to be really open, like Palm (or I guess your Blackberry), but I suspect it's going to be closed, like the iPhone and Java phones.
Seriously, unless you knew that link or guessed it to begin with. You wouldn't find it on Apple's site.
It's also linked directly from developer.apple.com.
There's probably more links you didn't find.
I don't know what you're talking about here.
% man man man(1)
NAME
man - format and display the on-line manual pages
Microsoft resolved the DLL hell issues long ago with Windows XP.
By massive brute force that isn't practical for anyone that doesn't have as tight control over the OS as Microsoft.
This isn't much different from forcing a a install of a.pkg file that was made for a specific version of OS X.
You don't need an.pkg file to completely and fully install most applications, with all included shared components completely handled, simply by copying it to any folder and running it once. If you move it, running it once will completely update all the "lazy" references to the new location.
I have numerous experiences with finf, fink, macports etc.
That's precisely what I'm talking about. OS X packages using the NeXT Framework and appdir mechanisms don't have those problems. Those problems only come when you drop back to the traditional UNIX model.
Additionally the whole packaging model of software in OS X tends to be broken.It allows applications to be treated as folders, moved around (I saw someone pirate software in a Apple store this way with his iPod - hilarious stuff),
That's not "hilarious", that's "how it should work". You've been brainwashed into thinking that software distribution NEEDS to be complex and require complex packaging schemes.
but due to the fact there is no central registry tracking the packages - you run into problems where OS X tries to run a program, but can't find it because you moved it to execute something
That is technically possible, if you move an application by copying it and deleting the original, then don't run it even once.
(if you don't believe me, it's clearly stated by "Mac OS X Leopard - Beyond The Manual") and you end up sometimes with really broken setups.
You can, I suppose, but I've been downright abusive and I haven't managed to break anything yet.
The other fact is, Apple releases software under certain licenses that prevent it from being used with BSD and GPL code,
Cite, please.
You have to work REALLY hard to make it impossible to use your software with BSD code. Even with the old BSD license about the only license I can think of that wasn't compatible with it was, well, the GPL.
On the other hand, "T-Mobile did not specify whether such a thing would be allowed if a third-party were to develop it" does mean "T-Mobile can control the apps you install on the phone".
The explorer turns to his trusty native guide, and points dramatically into the distance, and asks "what's that"... and from then on the mountain he was pointing at is known as "Mt YourFingerYouFool" in the local language...
The point isn't "you can't run Skype". That's just the finger. The mountain is "you can't just install anything you want on your open source Android phone".
There is currently no Skype compatibility, although T-Mobile did not specify whether such a thing would be allowed if a third-party were to develop it.
If it wasn't Tivoised, this wouldn't come up, because they wouldn't be able to prevent anyone from installing anything they want on it.
Apple have been starting to lose touch with the FOSS community when it comes to Darwin, they don't even post modern releases of Darwin anymore, and one has to figure out the URL http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ which I might add is not simply posted anywhere on Apple's site telling you, you can find the latest sources there.
Um, the top level link to Apple's open source releases has always been www.opensource.apple.com and the link to Darwin is on the front page. That *is* posting modern releases of Darwin.
I have found that Apple's documentation is practically useless on Darwin, because it is all focused on OS X, rather than Darwin.
Trolltech's QT documentation is focussed on QT, not Linux, too. You don't go to XOrg to get your UNIX documentation either. The basic UNIX documentation, on any UNIX system, is in the reference manual. And there Apple does a better job than pretty much any Linux distro I've ever used.
See, Linux documentation itself tends to be a bit scattershot. I often run across man pages that simply say "go to this website" or "look it up in Info" (which means "you better enjoy using Emacs"). Apple's man pages are amazingly consistent and complete by comparison.
The BSD subsystem in OS X does not perform to specifications either.
You think? It's missing some subsystems (UNIX tape APIs, for example) but it's a pretty straight UNIX implementation. And the man pages are up to date. And if they're not, the source is available. AND you don't need to sign away your right to publish what you find out from that source, like you do with Microsoft.
[bunch of griping about how certain components aren't useful for interoperability]
Well, first of all, I was responding to your claim that the open source code was "just the kernel and some old BSD tools". That's complete balderdash, and you know it. As to the benefit of things like the NeXT code... the whole NeXT application framework model is the best scheme I've seen anywhere for distributing software that has to interoperate with each other, because it bring "late binding" to libraries and shared files. It avoids Microsoft's "DLL Hell" and Linux's "RPM Hell".
I don't know about the merits of launchd. It's certainly an interesting approach to system startup that's arguably better for desktops than the traditional UNIX "rc" files. Again, it uses "late binding" to reduce the complexity of the restart process. There are of course other approaches to it... but having developed their approach they chose to release it unencumbered so other systems can use it.
If they choose to.
Just like any other open source project.
This isn't moldy old stuff like a Windows installer framework that nobody uses any more, which was Microsoft's inaugural Open Source project. It's something the engineers at Apple believed was useful enough to replace the NeXT system starter, which was already a step ahead of inittab and/etc/rc.
Then there's mDNSresponder, Apple's Zeroconf implementation. But that was apparently not "open enough", or it was too tainted by Apple.
The biggest problem with Apple and Open Source isn't Apple, it's the open source community looking at what Apple's offering and rejecting it because it's Apple. The open source community treats *Microsoft* better than that, and Microsoft actively fights people who do open source implementations of THEIR protocols and APIs.
I can get all the source code to products from Microsoft provided I sign certain NDAs with certain assurances and give a reasonable explanation as to why.
Yes, and you used to be able to get all the source code to VMS on Microfiche. That doesn't make either of them open systems.
Open systems are all about interoperability. Publicly documenting what you're doing, so that other people who aren't you, or your partners, can work with you. Source code is only part of that process when it is freely redistributable. Source code distributed under NDA is irrelevant to open anything.
Well, beyond the stuff that was already GPL before they adopted it (thus, preventing them from close sourcing it - ie: webkit). I can get access to... The kernel and some old BSD utilities.
Have you actually looked at what they're distributing? They include almost all the command line tools except for some (like ditto) that they're trying to get rid of. That includes most of the non-GUI code from NeXT, most of the new tools (like launchd), the whole framework behind their Framework library model. It's a hell of a lot more than "the kernel and some old BSD utilities".
The code that Apple isn't distributing is also largely self-documenting because of the design of the Cocoa framework and Objective-C, and it's also far better formally documented than Microsoft's code. Reading technical books on Windows you come up against situations over and over again where the documentation says one thing, Windows does something else, and the author has to throw their hands up and say things like "it appears that the FooObject returns a BarObject under all situations, even though it's supposed to return the object requested in the Baz method...".
They both seem pretty closed to me, the only advantage is that with Microsoft, there is a chance to get into everything.
But only by abdicating from the open source and open systems communities. That's a hell of a string.
Desktop Linux will not continue to grow until somebody gets the UI out of diapers.
The UI isn't the problem these days. The problem is the software installation model. And going with the Windows installer model isn't going to help... Windows and the traditional UNIX models both share a huge bundle of problems that Linux distros try to avoid by having installation driven from a central repository, and Microsoft solves by brute force: monitoring the system and forcing shared files to the "right" version when installers override them. Going with the Microsoft installer model won't cut it, because not only does that require more brute force than any distro can afford to spend, but there's no central authority that can decide on the "right version". Yes, versioned libraries reduce the problems to some extent, but there's no consistent versioning model for executables and other shared files... so you still have to deal with the fact that EVERYONE can't be/usr/bin/perl.
THe NeXTstep application model, where the applications and libraries are distributed in directories, with shared files resolved at run time wherever those appdirs are found, is a more practical path for the long term. It's what OS X inherited and it's a big part of why OS X has a working software ecosystem. It doesn't matter whether it inherited the Mac OS user base or not, if application developers had to deal with DLL Hell or RPM Hell that would have dried up long since.
Just because you can download some of the source of OS X, doesn't make Apple an "open" company.
Just because Apple isn't as open as Red Hat, that doesn't mean they're less open than Microsoft.
Why can't I run OS X on a Dell, or Lenovo laptop?
Because Apple wants to sell OS X as what is effectively a $129 upgrade, instead of a $629 hardware-independent retail box. Which is what they'd end up charging if they didn't bundle it in the cost of the hardware.
They already tried it without bundling the cost of the OS with either the hardware or the software, and that didn't work. I'm not personally convinced that they couldn't make the transition to a pure software model, but it seems Steve Jobs is.
There hasn't been anything else about Terry Childs, has there? Last news was that he didn't plant a logic bomb or hold anyone to ransom, and it's likely he wasn't guilty of anything but taking the BOFH stories too seriously.
This reminds me of the hullabaloo a few years back when the antivirus companies were trying to push AV software for Palms and Pocket PCs, despite the lack of any mechanism for a remote exploit and the lack of any viruses propagating in the wild. More people had crashes and data loss from handheld AV software than from deliberately installing the much-ballyhooed Phage malware on their Palms.
I suspect that there's going to be more damage done to productivity and the bottom line from whatever snake-oil these guys are selling than from all 98-times-zero "IT hostage" incidents they're warning about.
Even if the file had no DRM at all, you'd only be able to download it once.
If the file had no "copy protection" you could transfer it to your PS4 when you dump your PS3, and then to your PS5 when you dump your PS4... even if you watched it on your PSP and your Playstation Wearable and Playstation Implant. Instead, look at these restrictions on backing up and restoring copy protected media:
If you perform any of the following operations after backing up, copyright-protected video files in the backup data may not restore correctly. - Format the hard disk - Restore the PS3(TM) system - Move copyright-protected video - Download copyright-protected video - Play copyright-protected video that has a time restriction for the first time.
The types of data that can be restored on another system are as follows: [...] - Video files under (Video) *2 [...] *2 Does not include copyright-protected data.
What kind of backup is it that you can't restore if you replace the system you backed up?
I can only download videos from the iTunes store once, but once I download them I can back them up and copy them and play them on up to 5 concurrently activated computers... and deactivate a computer and activate a new one when I need to. And even THAT level of "copy protection" is annoying enough that I haven't bothered with it after buying several episodes of Eureka I'd missed.
DRM-protected Windows Media videos have similar or stronger restrictions, but even those aren't as bad as Sony's.
If you can buy a 1G SD card for $8, then why are you saying that a shuffle with 1GB and an MP3/AAC player is a "$5 shuffle"?
In practice, once you add the MP3 player, you're looking at more like $32.00 than $8.00. And it won't play AAC.
So that's only a factor of two "Apple Tax", which is typical.
Disclaimer: I don't like the regular iPods, but I do have an iPod Shuffle I bought when they first came out. It's got decent sound quality... better than my daughter's iPod Mini let alone the $80 MP3 player I replaced with it (when I bought that, three years before the Shuffle came out, $80.00 was a decent price for a 512MB player). I'd need to listen to one of those $24.00 SD-based MP3 players before buying one.
Can you recommend one that's got two driver transistors per channel like the shuffle? That's not something that shows up in the specs online.
For that matter, if the student was at a private party in CA, NV, WY, NM, OK, IA, MO, KY, MS, NY, VA, SC, GA, FL, MD, CT, RI, MA, or NH, they were not necessarily breaking the law.
Did you just say you wrote Workbench for the Amiga?
You know, it really sucks when you can't even remember the name of your own software after 20 years.
I wrote a replacement for the standard Amiga Workbench. I just googled for it, and realize that I got mixed up. My replacement was originally going to be called "The Programmer's Workbench" but I shipped it as "Browser". It used the same basic layout, operations, and files as Workbench, but wasn't restricted to showing icons... it showed all files (not just files with icons) and file details, and had a file dialog that let you open folders and files by name. It went out on one of the Fish disks, and I quit maintaining it after AmigaDOS 2.0 came out because they incorporated most of the features of Browser in Workbench 2.0.
Slashdot Mirror
Believe it or not, one of Microsoft's shared source licenses is fully compatible with BSD and GPL licensing.
Yes, friend, I know that. One of their licenses is open source. I'm not referring to that one as a "shared source" license, the whole "shared source" debacle is about Microsoft trying to confuse the issue, and I do not go along with their shenanigans.
Since Apple uses Samba, CUPS etc. Not really much from Apple either.
I have already brought up a number of protocols that Apple came up with that aren't "Samba, CUPS, etc". You have even acknowledged that one of them is useful, is it beyond conception that the rest might be?
And don't forget that if they want it in the dock, they have to add it there too
WHat the **** does that have to do with anything? If they want it in the task bar in Windows they have to do that too. Sheesh.
Wrong, to install a specification application, you would normally download and open the .rpm or .deb file.
And then find all the rpm or deb files that it depends on, that they didn't include, that are on thos or that repository. All those repositories have to be in the config file. If you've got a rich commercial ecosystem that's going to include components from multiple sources, some of which (in Windows or OS X) are bundled in the package... in Windows they get stuck into the right place by the installer, on the Mac they get located by the Framework system, in Linux... you gotta go look.
I've been in "RPM Hell" looking for dependencies often enough.
And even if they provide a bunch of debs, or they don't have any dependencies outside the repos you're already using, if they don't have a repository, and you haven't added that to the database, you don't get any of the management advantages you're talking about for that application. So, really, you DO need to add it.
Beyond Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and a few games, I honestly haven't seen that much better commercial software out there [...]
Most people only use a small part of the ecosystem. But it's a different part for everyone. And it only exists because the system encourages it. Linux, both in culture and in design, doesn't.
The developers are not actively working on this code, integrating it with FreeBSD
What, like gcc? Don't be silly.
It doesn't matter if they see GPL as the most restrictive, they won't work with code that is more restrictive than the BSD licensed code for their projects.
Then why the **** are they shipping GPLed and other non-BSD code, *by default*, as part of FreeBSD, in /bin and /usr/bin? I'll tell you why, because you're completely wrong about what licenses BSD developers are willing to work with. 100% wrong. How do I know? I'm one of them.
I don't see what is wrong with the system keeping track of installed applications on the system, updates and software management.
The system does keep track of installed applications on the system. It just does it implicitly, rather than explicitly. And it lets you install multiple versions of applications, just by putting them in different appdirs. And, yes, people really DO need to do that. I've been a system admin for 20 years and I've frequently had to work around installers for users, on commercial UNIX, Windows, Linux, Macs... having a singe appdir that, in almost all cases, "just works"... is a huge advantage.
I brought this up earlier in the thread already. I just don't really see Apple being more open than Microsoft is. Microsoft has made numerous opensource contributions as has Apple.
Microsoft came into open source kicking and screaming, and they still have source out there under restrictive "shared source" licenses. The absolutely worst behaviors you have pointed to from Apple are petty compared to the whole "shared source" debacle.
And Microsoft's open source doesn't include the things you most need to interoperate with Windows for open source developers, like file systems, kernel and network APIs and protocols. To get that kind of thing you need to sign NDAs. Which makes them completely irrelevant to how open they are.
Just because you personally don't think Apple's APIs, protocols, and so on are useful doesn't mean they're not being amazingly open about them. The difference between Apple and Microsoft is night and day.
For example, on my Kubuntu system, I have additional sources for certain specific applications:
OK, you're Joe Average, and you want to install Mikes Cool App. On Windows you download MikesCoolApp.exe and run it, and it installs. On Mac OS X you download MikesCoolApp.dmg and run the .pkg or dragg the .app to Applications (or, in my case, I put it in /Local/Applications to reduce the amount of 3rd party stuff I have to copy out of /Applications when I upgrade). On Linux... you edit a config file and add the URL for a new repository and run the installer.
And then when you want to install a new box, you hope that all those repositories are still there. I just drag /Local over from my backup, and pretty much everything works. Really. Almost all the things I have problems with are programs that come with an installer and don't allow me to install without one, and badly behaved applications that depend on specific OS versions or unsupported APIs. And since Apple quit changing the APIs every minor version (that was a big problem in the 10.1 era) about the only apps I *have* to upgrade are things like APE.
No "installers", no central database, just a bunch of property lists that the system keeps track of.
Are you trying to imply all development on the Mac should be for commercial purposes
No, I'm saying that the biggest advantage of Mac OS over Linux is the fact that there's lots of commercial software out there. If you don't see a point to that, why aren't you doing everything on free UNIX? I sure wouldn't be bothering with OS X if it was just UNIX with a white color scheme.
You are not going to see FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD developers using code that is more restrictive than their current BSD license
Sure they are. There's whole subdirectories under /usr/src on FreeBSD for code under more restrictive licenses, including GPLed code... and most BSD developers would agree that the GPL is one of the most restrictive open source licenses out there.
(poke)
OK, you're right, they do warn about the non-reversible action by default.
They don't, however, warn you about the far more common reversible action.
Windows does.
Most of this thread still makes no sense to me, sorry. I'm having a good deal of trouble figuring out how any of it relates to the original point about Apple being more proprietary than Microsoft.
I personally prefer to have all the software on my system centrally managed by a software management systems, that automatically update, install, uninstall all the software with just one click - the end result is not complex.
That's great, but a central repository seems pretty much incompatible with a thriving commercial software ecosystem to me. If you don't care about that, fine, but then why are you programming on the Mac?
If you want your BSD license code to remain BSD, as in, only the same restrictions as BSD, it is also incompatible for developers who develop only under the BSD license.
I think you misunderstand the point of the BSD license. Really, I do.
Microsoft has trained people to click "OK", "Open", "Run", "Install", "Continue", or whatever button (wherever it is) that gets you past the idiot box.
Apple had until recently avoided this mistake. NOT (as some people have said) by making the buttons more meaningful, but by simply NOT trying to use warning dialogs in place of good design.
For example, Mac OS doesn't ask you if you want to move a file to the trash, and it doesn't ask you if you want to empty the trash, because these are common actions, and the dialog box becomes something you reflexively accept.
Recently, as I say, Apple has started to deviate from the path of virtue. I've caught my Mac in bed with promiscuous dialogs on many occasions.
But by comparison with Windows (particularly Vista)... my Mac's still pretty much a dialog virgin. Really.
T-Mobile doesn't control the Blackberry apps I install, I very much doubt they'll control the apps I'd put on my Andrioid-based phone.
They control the Java apps on my Nokia 6263. Like all carriers, they control as much of the phone environment as they can get away with.
And carriers have explicitly said that one reason they preferred Android to OpenMoko was that Android gave them more control over the phone.
Apple's Iron Fist of App Control
That's typical for non-smartphone cellphones. And that's what I have said from the start that the iPhone isn't a real smartphone... it doesn't have an open application environment the way real smartphones (like Palm, Windows Mobile, and so on) do. Just because the iPhone applets are written in Objective C instead of Java doesn't change the fact that it's just another closed platform.
Android may turn out to be really open, like Palm (or I guess your Blackberry), but I suspect it's going to be closed, like the iPhone and Java phones.
Seriously, unless you knew that link or guessed it to begin with. You wouldn't find it on Apple's site.
It's also linked directly from developer.apple.com.
There's probably more links you didn't find.
I don't know what you're talking about here.
Microsoft resolved the DLL hell issues long ago with Windows XP.
By massive brute force that isn't practical for anyone that doesn't have as tight control over the OS as Microsoft.
This isn't much different from forcing a a install of a .pkg file that was made for a specific version of OS X.
You don't need an .pkg file to completely and fully install most applications, with all included shared components completely handled, simply by copying it to any folder and running it once. If you move it, running it once will completely update all the "lazy" references to the new location.
I have numerous experiences with finf, fink, macports etc.
That's precisely what I'm talking about. OS X packages using the NeXT Framework and appdir mechanisms don't have those problems. Those problems only come when you drop back to the traditional UNIX model.
Additionally the whole packaging model of software in OS X tends to be broken.It allows applications to be treated as folders, moved around (I saw someone pirate software in a Apple store this way with his iPod - hilarious stuff),
That's not "hilarious", that's "how it should work". You've been brainwashed into thinking that software distribution NEEDS to be complex and require complex packaging schemes.
but due to the fact there is no central registry tracking the packages - you run into problems where OS X tries to run a program, but can't find it because you moved it to execute something
That is technically possible, if you move an application by copying it and deleting the original, then don't run it even once.
(if you don't believe me, it's clearly stated by "Mac OS X Leopard - Beyond The Manual") and you end up sometimes with really broken setups.
You can, I suppose, but I've been downright abusive and I haven't managed to break anything yet.
The other fact is, Apple releases software under certain licenses that prevent it from being used with BSD and GPL code,
Cite, please.
You have to work REALLY hard to make it impossible to use your software with BSD code. Even with the old BSD license about the only license I can think of that wasn't compatible with it was, well, the GPL.
On the other hand, "T-Mobile did not specify whether such a thing would be allowed if a third-party were to develop it" does mean "T-Mobile can control the apps you install on the phone".
Even if you could put a VoIP app on your phone,
The explorer turns to his trusty native guide, and points dramatically into the distance, and asks "what's that"... and from then on the mountain he was pointing at is known as "Mt YourFingerYouFool" in the local language...
The point isn't "you can't run Skype". That's just the finger. The mountain is "you can't just install anything you want on your open source Android phone".
Unless I misheard, this phone will require a gmail account to actually use it - even if you don't use their mail, calendar and chat apps.
I didn't get that, just that it only supported gmail, IMAP, and POP3.
But I wouldn't be surprised. If you don't trust Google, don't get Android.
Besides, do you really trust AT&T or T-Mobile more than Google?
As expected, it's Tivoised...
There is currently no Skype compatibility, although T-Mobile did not specify whether such a thing would be allowed if a third-party were to develop it.
If it wasn't Tivoised, this wouldn't come up, because they wouldn't be able to prevent anyone from installing anything they want on it.
Apple have been starting to lose touch with the FOSS community when it comes to Darwin, they don't even post modern releases of Darwin anymore, and one has to figure out the URL http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ which I might add is not simply posted anywhere on Apple's site telling you, you can find the latest sources there.
Um, the top level link to Apple's open source releases has always been www.opensource.apple.com and the link to Darwin is on the front page. That *is* posting modern releases of Darwin.
I have found that Apple's documentation is practically useless on Darwin, because it is all focused on OS X, rather than Darwin.
Trolltech's QT documentation is focussed on QT, not Linux, too. You don't go to XOrg to get your UNIX documentation either. The basic UNIX documentation, on any UNIX system, is in the reference manual. And there Apple does a better job than pretty much any Linux distro I've ever used.
See, Linux documentation itself tends to be a bit scattershot. I often run across man pages that simply say "go to this website" or "look it up in Info" (which means "you better enjoy using Emacs"). Apple's man pages are amazingly consistent and complete by comparison.
The BSD subsystem in OS X does not perform to specifications either.
You think? It's missing some subsystems (UNIX tape APIs, for example) but it's a pretty straight UNIX implementation. And the man pages are up to date. And if they're not, the source is available. AND you don't need to sign away your right to publish what you find out from that source, like you do with Microsoft.
[bunch of griping about how certain components aren't useful for interoperability]
Well, first of all, I was responding to your claim that the open source code was "just the kernel and some old BSD tools". That's complete balderdash, and you know it. As to the benefit of things like the NeXT code... the whole NeXT application framework model is the best scheme I've seen anywhere for distributing software that has to interoperate with each other, because it bring "late binding" to libraries and shared files. It avoids Microsoft's "DLL Hell" and Linux's "RPM Hell".
I don't know about the merits of launchd. It's certainly an interesting approach to system startup that's arguably better for desktops than the traditional UNIX "rc" files. Again, it uses "late binding" to reduce the complexity of the restart process. There are of course other approaches to it... but having developed their approach they chose to release it unencumbered so other systems can use it.
If they choose to.
Just like any other open source project.
This isn't moldy old stuff like a Windows installer framework that nobody uses any more, which was Microsoft's inaugural Open Source project. It's something the engineers at Apple believed was useful enough to replace the NeXT system starter, which was already a step ahead of inittab and /etc/rc.
Then there's mDNSresponder, Apple's Zeroconf implementation. But that was apparently not "open enough", or it was too tainted by Apple.
The biggest problem with Apple and Open Source isn't Apple, it's the open source community looking at what Apple's offering and rejecting it because it's Apple. The open source community treats *Microsoft* better than that, and Microsoft actively fights people who do open source implementations of THEIR protocols and APIs.
I can get all the source code to products from Microsoft provided I sign certain NDAs with certain assurances and give a reasonable explanation as to why.
Yes, and you used to be able to get all the source code to VMS on Microfiche. That doesn't make either of them open systems.
Open systems are all about interoperability. Publicly documenting what you're doing, so that other people who aren't you, or your partners, can work with you. Source code is only part of that process when it is freely redistributable. Source code distributed under NDA is irrelevant to open anything.
Well, beyond the stuff that was already GPL before they adopted it (thus, preventing them from close sourcing it - ie: webkit). I can get access to... The kernel and some old BSD utilities.
Have you actually looked at what they're distributing? They include almost all the command line tools except for some (like ditto) that they're trying to get rid of. That includes most of the non-GUI code from NeXT, most of the new tools (like launchd), the whole framework behind their Framework library model. It's a hell of a lot more than "the kernel and some old BSD utilities".
The code that Apple isn't distributing is also largely self-documenting because of the design of the Cocoa framework and Objective-C, and it's also far better formally documented than Microsoft's code. Reading technical books on Windows you come up against situations over and over again where the documentation says one thing, Windows does something else, and the author has to throw their hands up and say things like "it appears that the FooObject returns a BarObject under all situations, even though it's supposed to return the object requested in the Baz method...".
They both seem pretty closed to me, the only advantage is that with Microsoft, there is a chance to get into everything.
But only by abdicating from the open source and open systems communities. That's a hell of a string.
Desktop Linux will not continue to grow until somebody gets the UI out of diapers.
The UI isn't the problem these days. The problem is the software installation model. And going with the Windows installer model isn't going to help... Windows and the traditional UNIX models both share a huge bundle of problems that Linux distros try to avoid by having installation driven from a central repository, and Microsoft solves by brute force: monitoring the system and forcing shared files to the "right" version when installers override them. Going with the Microsoft installer model won't cut it, because not only does that require more brute force than any distro can afford to spend, but there's no central authority that can decide on the "right version". Yes, versioned libraries reduce the problems to some extent, but there's no consistent versioning model for executables and other shared files... so you still have to deal with the fact that EVERYONE can't be /usr/bin/perl.
THe NeXTstep application model, where the applications and libraries are distributed in directories, with shared files resolved at run time wherever those appdirs are found, is a more practical path for the long term. It's what OS X inherited and it's a big part of why OS X has a working software ecosystem. It doesn't matter whether it inherited the Mac OS user base or not, if application developers had to deal with DLL Hell or RPM Hell that would have dried up long since.
After years on Mars, with no resupply? You'd need advanced zombie technology for that, regular frozen mummies just don't have the staying power.
Stolen code and NDA-encumbered code isn't open in any sense of the word.
Just because you can download some of the source of OS X, doesn't make Apple an "open" company.
Just because Apple isn't as open as Red Hat, that doesn't mean they're less open than Microsoft.
Why can't I run OS X on a Dell, or Lenovo laptop?
Because Apple wants to sell OS X as what is effectively a $129 upgrade, instead of a $629 hardware-independent retail box. Which is what they'd end up charging if they didn't bundle it in the cost of the hardware.
They already tried it without bundling the cost of the OS with either the hardware or the software, and that didn't work. I'm not personally convinced that they couldn't make the transition to a pure software model, but it seems Steve Jobs is.
Apple (who is even more proprietary than Microsoft)
Oh, cool, you mean we can download the NT kernel source now?
No matter how much you try to repackage and redesign a turd, it will still be a piece of shit when you're done.
You'd be surprised.
There hasn't been anything else about Terry Childs, has there? Last news was that he didn't plant a logic bomb or hold anyone to ransom, and it's likely he wasn't guilty of anything but taking the BOFH stories too seriously.
This reminds me of the hullabaloo a few years back when the antivirus companies were trying to push AV software for Palms and Pocket PCs, despite the lack of any mechanism for a remote exploit and the lack of any viruses propagating in the wild. More people had crashes and data loss from handheld AV software than from deliberately installing the much-ballyhooed Phage malware on their Palms.
I suspect that there's going to be more damage done to productivity and the bottom line from whatever snake-oil these guys are selling than from all 98-times-zero "IT hostage" incidents they're warning about.
I use rot26 because it's twice as powerful as rot13!
Even if the file had no DRM at all, you'd only be able to download it once.
If the file had no "copy protection" you could transfer it to your PS4 when you dump your PS3, and then to your PS5 when you dump your PS4... even if you watched it on your PSP and your Playstation Wearable and Playstation Implant. Instead, look at these restrictions on backing up and restoring copy protected media:
What kind of backup is it that you can't restore if you replace the system you backed up?
I can only download videos from the iTunes store once, but once I download them I can back them up and copy them and play them on up to 5 concurrently activated computers... and deactivate a computer and activate a new one when I need to. And even THAT level of "copy protection" is annoying enough that I haven't bothered with it after buying several episodes of Eureka I'd missed.
DRM-protected Windows Media videos have similar or stronger restrictions, but even those aren't as bad as Sony's.
If you can buy a 1G SD card for $8, then why are you saying that a shuffle with 1GB and an MP3/AAC player is a "$5 shuffle"?
In practice, once you add the MP3 player, you're looking at more like $32.00 than $8.00. And it won't play AAC.
So that's only a factor of two "Apple Tax", which is typical.
Disclaimer: I don't like the regular iPods, but I do have an iPod Shuffle I bought when they first came out. It's got decent sound quality... better than my daughter's iPod Mini let alone the $80 MP3 player I replaced with it (when I bought that, three years before the Shuffle came out, $80.00 was a decent price for a 512MB player). I'd need to listen to one of those $24.00 SD-based MP3 players before buying one.
Can you recommend one that's got two driver transistors per channel like the shuffle? That's not something that shows up in the specs online.
For that matter, if the student was at a private party in CA, NV, WY, NM, OK, IA, MO, KY, MS, NY, VA, SC, GA, FL, MD, CT, RI, MA, or NH, they were not necessarily breaking the law.
Did you just say you wrote Workbench for the Amiga?
You know, it really sucks when you can't even remember the name of your own software after 20 years.
I wrote a replacement for the standard Amiga Workbench. I just googled for it, and realize that I got mixed up. My replacement was originally going to be called "The Programmer's Workbench" but I shipped it as "Browser". It used the same basic layout, operations, and files as Workbench, but wasn't restricted to showing icons... it showed all files (not just files with icons) and file details, and had a file dialog that let you open folders and files by name. It went out on one of the Fish disks, and I quit maintaining it after AmigaDOS 2.0 came out because they incorporated most of the features of Browser in Workbench 2.0.