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Mac OS X Kernel Source Now Closed
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed May 17, 2006 10:11 AM
from the nice-while-it-lasted dept.
from the nice-while-it-lasted dept.
littleghoti writes "Macworld is reporting that "Thanks to pirates, or rather the fear of them, the Intel edition of Apple's OS X is now a proprietary operating system."
Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code."
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Mac OS X Kernel Source Now Closed
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Re:Great news! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://das.doit.wisc.edu/)
The state of Darwin x86 hasn't changed since the day the Intel-based Macs shipped.
In fact, Apple's only action since then has been to release MORE source; APSL sources that correspond to the entire PPC Darwin tree with the exception of the kernel.
This has been discussed for MONTHS in other forums, has already been covered by slashdot, and has been beaten to death on Apple's mailing lists.
Darwin x86 *as an OS* is dead. The actual part of the Darwin strategy people cared about, i.e., the Darwin OS *components* being open, and all of the projects (like WebKit), etc., are all open, alive, and well on x86 and PPC. Apple releases parity Darwin source releases with each Mac OS X release.
See for yourself:
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ [apple.com]
The only item of note not present is one thing: xnu (the kernel).
All of Apple's open source projects, all of the APSL-licensed projects - which Apple is under zero obligation to continue releasing - and all of the GPL-licensed projects (of course) are still there.
So, in sum, paint this as some kind of bad news if you want, but if anything, it's OLD news, and actually, the pieces of Darwin people actually care about and use - indeed, both of the things you allude to in your post - are still alive and well on x86.
The only thing you can't do is make a bootable Darwin OS for x86 any more. And if you can explain to me why anyone would want to do that for any useful purpose, well, I'm all ears.
Re:Parent is not redundant (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.ideaspike.com/ | Last Journal: Monday October 22, @04:43AM)
So, you're new here?
useful purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday May 05 2006, @11:53PM)
Oh well. I can still judge a Mac on hardware alone, and then install Linux if I get a Mac. That's what I did last time I bought a computer.
It sure irritates me to see BSD groups actually helping proprietary vendors compete against open source. Thanks buddy. Stallman got at least one thing right.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://das.doit.wisc.edu/)
All of the "Darwin" pieces that have always been open on PowerPC are still open on x86 with the exception of one notable item: the kernel. Most people who leveraged "Darwin" never even touched the kernel. Almost all of our any many other enterprise customers' usefulness comes from the open source OS components of Mac OS X and projects like WebKit, Open Directory, Darwin Streaming Server, etc.
For a time it appeared Apple had killed off everything but the GPL pieces of Darwin x86. However, that was a delay resulting from the fact there's basically one person at Apple packaging and setting up the sources for distribution. Since the subsequent release of the rest of the sources, Apple has done parity releases of all traditional Darwin components and projects on PPC and x86 - with the exception of the kernel.
In other words, the actual usefulness of what the vast majority of Apple open source users actually used "Darwin" for is still there. If you want to argue that its usefulness is all of a sudden severely crippled because the kernel is gone, well, in the enterprise community, one we found out that the rest of the sources would continue to be released on x86 as normal, the kernel being gone was barely a blip on our radar.
But hey, if people want to make a big deal and say "Mac OS X is now closed!" (what does that even mean?), let them.
Re:Great news! (Score:4, Informative)
Which is something anyone who has ever worked professionally with open source components of OS X is aware of -- that Apple's marketing of their commitment to open source is exactly that, marketing, and goes only skin deep. None of this is to fault those who are working on it, but the fact that all of the open source releases were after the fact, repackaged, as well as Apple's bug tracking (radar) being strictly internal, never inspired a lot of confidence. For a long time, different parts of the OS were being released in different ways which helped a lot adding to the confusion.
"in the enterprise community, one we found out that the rest of the sources would continue to be released on x86 as normal, the kernel being gone was barely a blip on our radar."
So what else could Apple do at this point that would barely show up on your radar? Let's say they start going nuts with itunes drm, and start locking down everything itunes depends on. Oh well, you never needed to recompile the C library anyway, right?
Aside: I actually *did* need to recompile Apple's C library back in the OS X 10.0 days as their loginwindow had no extension API and I was working at a site that used Kerberos for logins, so I patched crypt(2) and used magic values in the passwd db. This never made it into production as 10.1 was released shortly thereafter but we were using a patched, hacked-together loginwindow plugin after that for about a year before the API was opened up in 10.2. Now I hear loginwindow itself is encrypted or obfuscated in some way to depend on the TPM as a deterrent to pirates, as it is considered a "core component" of the OS. It's only a hop skip and a jump from there to the chaos currently going on in the Windows world where Microsoft is making everyone rewrite their GINAs to a new API for Vista.
Duh! (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.lindyzen.com/)
Re:Duh! (Score:4, Interesting)
What's more, I have personally used the ppc kernel source to compile an x86 kernel. I haven't tested it, since I lack an ICBM, but I'd assume it would work.
The only difference I noticed was that the official x86 kernel includes Rosetta, while my self-built kernel didn't[1]. If I was to take a wild guess, it'd be that Apple does not have the right to distribute the in-kernel parts of Rosetta, and accordingly cannot distribute their x86 xnu branch.
[1] Note that there may well be other differences, but I hacked on binary loading stuff, so that one really caught my eye.
Re:Duh! (Score:5, Funny)
Thank God for that! The world is a safer place, since you don't have an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.
Not sure what this has to do w/ x86 testing, though...
Re:Short version (was:Duh!) (Score:4, Funny)
(http://randomcoolzip.blogspot.com/)
Re:Short version (was:Duh!) (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.fredshome.org/)
Re:Short version (was:Duh!) (Score:5, Informative)
In reality they use the software to drive the hardware sales. But they're not a software company.
Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:5, Informative)
(http://das.doit.wisc.edu/)
Also, "Mac OS X" has ALWAYS been proprietary. It's sensationalistic and shoddy journalism to say that "Mac OS X is now closed". Mac OS X has ALWAYS been closed. It's Darwin that has been open. And "Darwin" is more than a bootable OS: Darwin is Apple's open source strategy AND an OS; but the usefulness has always come from the open source components of the OS, not the usefulness of Darwin as an OS itself. Darwin's usefulness as an OS is, shall we say, "limited" at best, and always has been.
This has been beaten to death on the darwin-dev list, and there is no new information. Apple has taken no new recent action whatsoever, and in fact, the most recent action is that it has opened up more source code in the x86 tree, not less. Indeed, all of the traditional Darwin source with the notable exception of the kernel itself:
The thing that's not open in the x86 tree is xnu (the kernel), and it's not possible to create a fully bootable binary x86 Darwin OS, as it is for PPC. In the Darwin/OpenDarwin community, this has been discussed for months.
In fact, this article by Rob Braun (formerly of Apple, and a member of the OpenDarwin core team) was published in February 2006: http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200602/apple.html [daemonnews.org]. This was then covered on slashdot, to which Rob issued this response: http://www.opendarwin.org/~bbraun/slashdot_respons e.html [opendarwin.org]. These two discussions cover the issues very well.
I predict, however, that this Macworld UK article will be seen as "new news", and will be picked up by the tech outlets, and trumpeted, exactly as the headline hopes, as "Apple closes down OS X", even though the source for pretty much everything (except the kernel and drivers) is still available. In other words, everything that a normal person needs Darwin sources for is available. In 5 years, I can think of ONE instance where I looked to the kernel source for confirmation of something, and that was only for *confirmation*, and only because it was convenient - not because I needed to rebuild the kernel. I know of no other non-developer/programmer Mac OS X adminisrators/system engineers/enterprise users who have ever had any reason to rebuild the kernel or any drivers.
If the kernel and driver source were available, it would, however, be used for one purpose: to churn out hacks to get OS X to run on non-Apple hardware in a much faster and higher-quality way than has been possible to date. Will OS X be hacked anyway to run on non-Apple hardware, and will it continue to be, regardless? Yes. If people are willing to replace enough of the OS with the ugliness they're using to get it to work, absolutely. But it will continue to be ugly. Releasing kernel and driver source for the current iterations of OS X on x86 will only make their jobs infinitely easier, while brining little to no benefit to conventional users, power users, and administrators of OS X.
I'm sure people will find a way to make a huge deal about this, though, even though a huge deal has already been made about it in various forums, including slashdot and other tech news outlets, and on several of Apple's mailing lists.
I'd like to point out that this was my initial reaction: http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0602 &L=macenterprise&T=0&P=58970 [cuny.edu]
Since then, Apple has posted all of the APSL sources, and it was just a legitimate, honest delay. The PPC and x86 trees are at virtual parity with the sole exception of the kernel and drivers. So I'd submit that "Apple closes down OS X" is highly inaccurate for two reasons:
- Most of OS X was never "open" to begin with; if he wants to say "Darwin", great, but I suppose "Apple closes down Darwin" wouldn't be as sensationalistic and guaranteed to get as many page v
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday November 12, @02:31PM)
To which, I guess the answer is: Flubajugalubums.
I honestly doubt closing the sources will make much of a difference. There's an awful lot of pirated binary-only programs out there. Meanwhile, those with legitimate uses are locked out. Doesn't really make much sense to me.
Perhaps a better solution would be to deal with the piracy issue by, well, catering to a clear demand. What's better, 1,000,000 MacBook sales, and 10,000,000 people with illegal copies of Mac OS X on their Dells, or 1,000,000 MacBook sales, 2,000,000 people with paid-for, unsupported, $100 copies of Mac OS X on their Dells, and 8,000,000 illegal copies? If people are going to do it anyway, and they are, you might as well make some money from them.
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't think this would cut into their hardware sales, dilute their brand, and create angry customers despite the fact that it's 'unsupported' you don't understand the first thing about Apple's market.
If you want to run OS X unsupported on a PC then go ahead and pirate it, I'm sure Apple doesn't care. If you seriously want to run OS X then suck it up and buy a Mac. You need to stop deluding yourself and think critically about how its in Apple's interest to sell OS X for beige boxes. First of all, it's not a question of whether they'll lose hardware sales, it's a question of how much. Would they be able to make up the sales with OS X for Dells? Especially given the stability and support issues? Seems like a losing bet anyway you slice it
Look, Apple doesn't have a piracy problem. They don't have complicated DRM. They don't waste money on anti-piracy crusades. They just do a little obfuscation where its convenient, and it's working great for them.
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:4, Informative)
The much lauded Viginia Tech supercomputer uses a hacked kernel... the memory management was completely replaced.
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.spamgourmet.com/)
Btw, its kernel, not kernal.
Sure. Kazushige Goto hacked the memory management system on OS X to get it to perform better for high performance computing.
People hack Linux kernels all the time for specific needs or tweaks.
This is why we like open source so much. It empowers us to make things work instead of passively putting up with closed source's inefficiencies or bugs.
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.mightylayoutboys.com/)
So, is this why Goto is considered harmful?
[rimshot]
Sean
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://das.doit.wisc.edu/)
Sounds pretty useful to sophisticated OS X users to me!
To Apple, letting a relatively small population of niche scientific users "slim down" the Mac OS X kernel is massively outweighed by preventing the Mac OS X on x86 hacking community from being able to easily and quickly deliver an extremely polished distribution of Mac OS X for non-Apple Intel hardware, instead of the ugly hack they have now.
Most of the usefulness of "Darwin" in the enterprise, developer, and system administration communities has come mostly from the open source Darwin components and projects, period. Not the ability to rebuild or hack the kernel, and not the ability to build Darwin as a bootable OS.
Is it a loss? Sure.
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:4, Informative)
I use a Mac for my research because it is a great desktop and it has a unixy feeling (I say feeling because it is still a headache to get some programs installed/compiled which are a breeze in any other of the more traditional flavors; especially with the Intel transition, there are some things that do not compile).
But besides that, I have to say, it's been proven with hard facts and my own experience that MacOSX is not an efficient OS. I don't know why they would even want to spend time hacking the kernel, or use MacOSX for a massive grid. Use Linux, FreeBSD or anything else more efficient, and hack it to improve it even further.
I am not trying to give an excuse for Apple, but it is just clear that Scientific computing is not the forte os MacOSX, even though Apple might market it as a strong point.
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:4, Interesting)
What has been your experience with Apple's XServe Clusters [apple.com]?
But regareding your hard facts and your experience, what do you know that the technicians who built the following systems don't?
So can you describe your experience with Xgrid [apple.com] and why you think it's so bad. And regarding software, what problems do you see with the following software packages, or have you not used any?
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, well there you go. Who needs the kernel or drivers?
Re:Extremely old, and misleading, news (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://whineymacfanboy.googlepages.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 12 2007, @09:28AM)
After massive bad publicity, yes, Apple offered that - I don't think you've really managed to refute the OP's point. Apple are takers, not contributers to Open Source.
Anyway, I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to an Apple Shill. I note that when this story first broke, you posted the following: [slashdot.org] Like we're going to believe anything you post about Apple again.
Re:Apple might be worse than MS. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that there's anything wrong with that -there are good arguments in favor of that view. The problem is that corporate reality sucks sometimes.
WTF?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that the only people who are getting wound up about this are the people who either don't like OS X to begin with or are reading the spin and missing the actual point.
Re:TPM (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Friday August 17, @08:29AM)
Apparently, at least some of the shipped Intel Macs contain TPM modules [masternewmedia.org]. Unless anyone can find evidence to the contrary, it's probably reasonable to assume they all have them...
But why is the rum gone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But why is the rum gone? (Score:5, Funny)
Apple Pirates: We are disinclined to acquiesce to your request.
Software Pirates: ???
Apple Pirates: Means no.
Software Pirates:
Who cares, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.conmicro.com/)
I want my desktop and laptop to work, period. Keeping them that way is Apple's problem. I pay the (really, not all that much once you compare apples to apples, so to speak) premium in price to get a system that I can plop on my desk and run without having to be constantly tweaking and hacking on it.
This might make a big splash here, but in the real world, nobody will truly care.
Re:BSD vs GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
For the BSD stuff they took, they wern't required to post anything back to the BSD communitity but my imprssion is that they have in every case. I don't think this would have been any different if they had taken a GPL equivelent, unless the GPL prevented them linking to a closed source kernel.
The code they have taken for Safari was GPL and I think they have contributed back to this. There have been numerous discussions around this as they did make huge changes optimed for Power PC which they contributed back but were of very little use to Linux on Intel and I would be interested to hear what people think now they have contributed back their Intel code.
I have to say that I am no expert in this, working mainly in the identity and directory field. However Apple's work with Directory Servers and Clients [apple.com] is on a par with the open source contributions of SUN, Novell and OpenDirectory and something I watch with great interest (and far beyond what I would expect from a company which mainly makes home based Macs and iPods.
Re:BSD vs GPL (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Of course drivers for devices only found on PowerPC aren't available in the x86 source tree (which makes sense). Also drivers for x86 hardware isn't available nor has it been stated by Apple if they will or will not be made available (for all we know Apple could be waiting for the unification coming in 10.5).
The only real loss to developers is not having IOKit from the x86 source tree however the IOKit available from the PowerPC tree is likely nearly the same if not the same (it contains some ifdefs for x86, etc.).
Sad day (Score:4, Insightful)
So this doesn't come as any surprise to me. And I really don't have any ill will towards Apple, as I understand their position they are in. But I don't agree with the position they have taken but that is their perogative.
Re:Sad day (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday April 27 2007, @02:20PM)
The reason I'm replying to you is that you say "But they did grasp how to utilize open source to their advantage, but it was always in a way that was really not quite in the spirit of the open source community". I think that's unfair. Just because they don't want to lose control over *one* piece of s/w doesn't mean they don't get it - indeed they may "get it" all too well, if they're planning on releasing server-based machines in the near future... you don't really need much more than Darwin to have a server, so they probably would lose money to people self-building and self-installing "clone" machines...
Where they see there is an upside for them, I think they've been reasonably generous - Webkit (despite some initial negative feedback, they responded and made things better); there's a story about how to use Quicktime Streaming Server to get MythTV on your cellphone elsewhere on the main page; they put a lot of effort into gcc; etc. etc.
I don't think you can expect much more from a company - so it's not a 'sad day', they do indeed 'get it', and as you say - it's their right to do things as they see fit. I think they do more than most...
Simon
Closed source software stops piracy! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://scorch.quickfox.org/)
Obligatory: Will someone fork the last open code? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.random--precision.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday May 17 2006, @10:35AM)
Would something like that even be worth it without some vendor support or tie-in? It seems a shame to let such a nice chunk of code go to waste.
I don't believe this is because of pirates... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.lqx.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 08 2003, @10:41PM)
This is an awful lot of drama though if that were the case but trying to figure out Apple's true motivations is always a crap shoot.
Re:I don't believe this is because of pirates... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.blakestah.com/)
Re:I don't believe this is because of pirates... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~anaesthetica/journal/ | Last Journal: Thursday August 30, @01:22PM)
The reality of the situation is that Apple did not only appropriate the Win API, but they also appropriated the Windows NT kernel. They've been stripping out the Windows-specific hacks, grafting on some of their lessons-learned from Darwin x86, and created a new kernel for OS X. That's why the source is now closed: because it contains substantial portions of NT kernel source.
First the move to Intel, now leveraging that move to take advantage of the technically superior NT kernel (unfortunately weighed down by Microsoft bloat normally, it will now be freed to flourish under a lickable interface). XNU was useful for the initial transition, but is being abandoned for performance concerns.
They really ought to give me my own column. I can out-moonbat both Cringely and Dvorak.
Initial impression (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://robotterror.com/slashdot | Last Journal: Thursday November 04 2004, @05:48PM)
"If your OS is secured by keeping the code private, pray it's never, ever, released." Only takes one slip into the public to break that "security model."
Then there's those OSes that *assume* publicity of the source code and have different expectations for ensuring security. These "published" OSes also happen to be the "more secure" OSes available.
Go figure.
P.S. I'm not only referring to GPL'ed and BSD'ed OSes. There are other published OSes, the source of which are publicly accessible.
Disclosure: Mac OS X user here. Linux user here. Reluctant Windows user here.
Oh Snap (Score:5, Funny)
(http://wilhelmrahn.googlepages.com/home)
This fucking pisses me off .. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://darwinsource.opendarwin.org/10.4.6.ppc/ [opendarwin.org]
Re:This fucking pisses me off .. (Score:5, Informative)
Thumbing through the XNU source, all the assembler and C sources for the Intel platform is still there
GPL vs BSD (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe a change to solaris eventually? (Score:4, Interesting)
Slows down driver development (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.dashboardbuddha.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 12 2004, @12:40AM)
Some drivers can be made in user space, but a lot of drivers need to be coded in kernel space. When OS X first came out years and years ago, the procedures for writing drivers was horrid. Even today, it's still easy when writing drivers to make a coding error and get a kernel panic. Each kernel panic has a bunch of stuff in the log that allows developers to trace back the problem that caused the kernel to crash.
On PowerPC, the source code for the underlying drivers is available. This is invaluable since not only do you have the point in your code where you have a crash, but you can also figure out what IOKit or the kernel was trying to do that caused the crash. Being able to see exactly how the driver family is using your device is very helpful in figuring out either how to work around your bug or how you can remove it.
With the Intel OS X drivers, however, there is no source. You can't look back and see what the kernel is trying to do that caused your driver to soil itself. This makes debugging a pain in the neck since now, instead of being able to try and figure it out for yourself, you need to get Apple involved if you need more information. Having the PowerPC source isn't sufficient since the drivers are different between x86 and PowerPC. Case in point: right now I'm developing a USB audio device that works just fine on PowerPC but the moment you plug it into an Intel based Mac the OS kernel panics. I suspect a div by zero in the x86 driver, but I can't verify that since I can't see the source. Instead I have to rely on Apple to tell me what to fix.
Thankfully starting with Tiger a number of the more obscure kernel interfaces are actually a bit more abstracted for dlils and the like for which in the past reading kernel code and other drivers was almost the only documentation. That's still no reason for getting rid of the sources.
Although this lack of source is no new development, it really doesn't affect end users. The only people really building custom kernels for running OS X are the XPostFacto [macsales.com] guys for running OS X on legacy hardware or PowerPC accelerators, and they never needed x86 code anyway. It affects hardware developers like myself and can make debugging a pain in the neck, especially if you don't have any of those paid-for ADC tech support incidents left.
ed
sad but completely understandable. (Score:3, Insightful)
I recall a few threads back an article linked to benchmarking the new Apple laptops, a dell running a hacked (read, stolen, a DVD image most likely DL'd from
any number of sites) copy of OS X was used as an example, this is both unfair to Dell (who I hate) and Apple (who I happen to like) the OS was configured to run properly on Apple hardware and by luck ran well enough on the Dell to run some basic benchmarks.
Apple has been submitting a large amount of code for nearly all of the OS that runs underneath their closed GUI (always has been closed) and this policy is sound for a company that attempts to make a profit, if it threatened their business model they would be foolish to release it and in the case of the gui it would threaten it to have others build the gui on linux or solaris or aix. Apple continues to submit source for items that do not compromise their business model, previous to the x86 move Apple had little concern regarding their OS/look/feel appearing on anything but Apple controlled hardware, it could be done (MOL as an example) but this was always out of the reach of the general population. With the move to x86 they have to rely on DRM (hate that too) to ensure that their profit (they're a hardware company?) continues as their OS is really only sold as an upgrade (not a full version like the folks from Redmond sell) and on the condition that you are running it in the environment for which it was designed (read the shrinkwrap license, which I also hate).
I would imagine that the module(s) for TPM are very cleanly written and very easy to defeat given a little effort and a recompile, if you've looked at any of the code Apple has released you'll know this to be true, with little to stop them we could be seeing HK and/or Chinese Macs (really they are already, almost all manufactured PC's are) rolling in for a bit less then Apple could afford to profit from.
As an open source advocate I am saddened to see this, as a stockholder I am quite happy.
Linux l33ts, welcome to Apple's world (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.televisio...com/show.cgi?show=44)
Or, as rewritten by Apple marketing for your black turtleneck wearing, latte-sipping Mac hipsters out there:
Apple is proud to announce QuickKernelTM, the completely revamped heart of Mac OS X. With patented, proprietaty innovations optimised for the high performance IntelTM Dual CoreTM architecture, QuickKernel is offered as an exlusive benefit to new Apple customers. Buy an Intel-based Macintosh today, and we'll throw in QuickKernelTM for free!
"We are excited to announce that we're making QuickKernelTM retroactively available to anyone who bought an Intel-based Mac within the past five years," CEO Steve Jobs said. "But act fast -- this free offer will not last long. We estimate QuickKernel adds at least $199 in raw speed enhancement to every Macintosh sold."
QuickKernel further boosts speed with its ClosedSourceTM architecture, which prevents performance hiccups caused by "credits," "comments" and "disclaimers" typically added to the "source code" of the open source kernel typically used to repair WindowsTM PCs. ClosedSource is delivered in a highly optimized UberBinaryTM format that is many times faster than the uncompiled source code delivered by "open source" operating system vendors.
"QuickKernel is the fastest way to deliver content to your iPod, greatly accelerating MP3 playback," Jobs said. "It also keeps your black shirt from fading in the wash, disappears scratches from your U2 EditionTM iPod and enhances the graphics on your Ruby on Rails blog."
Why they did it... (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Saturday January 13 2007, @02:19AM)
Did anyone ever actually recompile? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://garethpotter.com/)
Would that we could concentrate on some real news for a change.
iqu
I don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a long ponytail.
I have a lazy eye.
I could stand to lose a few pounds.
Pretty much all nerd here.
There's no reason for anyone to care about this while they're getting work done. If you've got a product that's going to do/enable you to do the work you need it for but you don't use it because of libre/gratis masturbation, you're ridiculous.
2k at home, xp on the road, osx for layout, linux and hpux in the server closet.
minor clarification on 'piracy'. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the problem, performance sucks relative to my Intel 20" iMac, it hangs frequently, and the network driver can't read the mac-addr. I also can't set the mac-address using ifconfig, so end result, is no networking. Screen resolution is also not able to match what the screen is capable of so the aspect ratio is wrong.
In short, while it's a cute hack and the novelty of seeing OS X running on Dell hardware is certainly nifty, it's far from production ready. Why did I dare to anger the Apple gods by trying to pirate OS X? I'm ok with it personally. I own 4 Mac's personally, have a G5 tower on my desk at work. My employer makes me carry this 20lb Dell around when I travel and I'm certainly not going to add weight by putting my powerbook in my luggage as well. So if I can have a few of the comforts of home-computing on the road with me, then I'll do it. It may not be completely legal, but I'm not taking any money out of anyone's pockets and I'm only using one instance of my OS X 86 license at a time.
Welcome Back To The World of Closed Unix (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks like OS X is taking a few tips from the 80s. Most Unix developers are accustomed to having access to the source code for the system; this dates back to the mid-1970s when universities bought Unix licenses from AT&T including source code to study. This practice ended in the 1980s when source code licenses from AT&T started to cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Then, in the 1990s and 2000s, we get BSD, Linux, OpenSolaris, and even the original Unix sources (from Caldera). Having access to the source code of the kernel is useful for understanding how the system works, creating device drivers, and optimizing the performance (research experiments, for example). Removing the kernel source code is a loss. As a FreeBSD user, closed-source Unix just doesn't make sense to me, and this removes one incentive of the Mac (although I'm still planning on getting one).
Then again, NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP were completely closed source (but that was due to AT&T licensing; BSD wasn't fully unencumbered until about 1994), so I guess most NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP users who switched to the Mac have no concept of having access to source code.
Think this is "closed", you've been sheltered! (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.scarydevil.com/~peter/ | Last Journal: Monday September 26 2005, @06:53PM)
What, unbundling the documentation tools and the compilers and even the man pages, and selling them back to you for outrageous prices?
No?
Most Unix developers are accustomed to having access to the source code for the system;
Even when I was at Berkeley working on 4BSD that wasn't true. Only the CSRG guys had access to that source, everyone else was stuck with (if they were lucky) photocopies of the Lyons book.
Having access to the source code of the kernel is useful for understanding how the system works,
Yep, and you still have that. You don't have the x86-specific stuff, but you have everything else. And there just isn't that huge a difference between systems... hell, I was debugging Digital UNIX kernel problems by referring to the FreeBSD sources in the '90s, and the differences between XNU PPC and XNU x86 are trivial by comparison.
As a FreeBSD user, closed-source Unix just doesn't make sense to me
Then stick with FreeBSD.
As a former FreeBSD committer and 386BSD patchkit maintainer, I'll continue to use the best tools I have available: Mac OS X on the desktop and FreeBSD in the server room.
Its okay (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if it had been any other company, Slashdotters would be demanding public hangings at dawn...
Re:Its okay (Score:4, Insightful)
*MANY* has been the time where I've seen Microsoft, Novel, IBM, etc, put down for some move or another. And then Apple does the same thing a few months later and they are praised for doing it. I've also seen numerous instances of the reverse...Apple does something to control their product and get praised massively for it, then when Microsoft does the same thing six months later everyone starts dragging out the "M" word ("Monopoly") and cries for government intervention.
Bill Gates could eradicate world hunger and he would be chastized for it here on Slashdot. Steve Jobs could run over a group of nuns and orphans while on a naked drunken rampage and he would be praised for reducing the world's ever-growing population, supporting the alcohol industry, and becoming a nudist.
Re:AAAARRRRGGGHH! How could they be so stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://das.doit.wisc.edu/)
Which is pretty much useless, and always has been.
Apple can still claim the same level of openness it always has, because all of Apple's open source Darwin components and projects (things like WebKit, etc.) are still open on x86 and PPC.
Take a look:
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/ [apple.com]
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ [apple.com]
See my post here for details:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185992&cid=15
Re:AAAARRRRGGGHH! How could they be so stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good one Apple ... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.lqx.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 08 2003, @10:41PM)
Apple: We can't seem to figure out how to stop people from taking our code and running it on none apple hardware
So, they close it up.
Awesome
With that attitude, you probably weren't going to legally anyway.
Re:devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.sacredsoulrecords.com | Last Journal: Thursday July 03 2003, @05:17PM)
Re:This is speculation. (Score:3, Informative)