Apple Announces Open Source Design Award 28
Pzykotic writes: "Apple today announced a new category to their yearly Apple Design Awards: 'Best Mac OS X Open Source Port' for individuals or collaborations. The winners will be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, during the week of this May 6-10. Winners receive an 'Ultimate' (Dual 1 GHz/GeForce4 TI/DVD-R/etc) Power Mac G4 system with an Apple Cinema Display."
Re:Apple bias on Slashdot? (Score:1, Offtopic)
"Janski writes "Looks like Slashdot.org now has an Apple section. It features a kind of ugly Aqua-inspired look, which makes things kind of hard to read. Check it out here." I dunno. The Green Aqua look is growing on me. I think they should call it algae. And, to everyone who's been submitting the "Oh my God! What will macSlash do? Slashdot is trying to kill you?" C'mon. There are already hundreds of Mac sites out there. One more isn't going to hurt us. In fact, I think it's a great opportunity, and I hope we can work with the Slashdot gang, like we've worked with others in the "Mac Web" before."
Somehow that sounds sinister. Like they're going to send some mac addicts with violin cases to Taco's wedding.
Check their comments. [macslash.com]
Re:Apple bias on Slashdot? (Score:1)
The macslash slashbox doesn't appear to be working. anyone else with this goin' on?
Obvious (Score:1)
Re:Obvious (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Think Apple is pricey, win one (Score:3, Insightful)
Go get yourself an old iMac on eBay or something. All the development software is free and if you do not win, at least you will have a machine to run a "free" streaming server from. [apple.com] And yes, there is source code avaliable for Darwin.
Now, get busy you have till April 5th to do a simple port.
Is it me or does apple kick ass these days... (Score:2, Interesting)
The right direction (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The right direction (Score:2, Insightful)
You've hit the nail on the head here. Simply compiling and packaging standard command line or X software is not the same as porting it to OS/X. Don't get me wrong - I have a huge amount of respect for the people porting XFree, the people behind fink, and all the others who are supporting Darwin. It's a huge amount of work, for which they deserve proper credit and kudos. But let's call a spade a spade - what they're producing are Darwin apps, not OS/X apps.
These awards will go to the handful of folks who have taken the extra step of doing a real OS/X port - with an Aqua interface that's compliant with Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, support for Services, hassle-free installs, etc.
Re:The right direction (Score:1)
Good God, man, have you seen a cinema display in action? There is a reason Apple puts them in drool-proof plastic. I just bought a house and just got laid off. When I saw one at a job interview yesterday and it was all I could do to not plop down the cash for one.
My plans... (Score:2, Funny)
What's with the "for-dummies" bit? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's with the "for-dummies" bit? (Score:1, Offtopic)
gtk (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:gtk (Score:1)
Yes, I know it's asleep.
How could this be anything but... (Score:2)
I mean, Fink it great, and the the window managers are nice, but Fink is not a port, and the WM's aren't really needed. OTOH, Gimp is a great open source replacement for the as-yet unavailable photoshop for OS X. Since dividing up a single PowerMac between the Gimp port team might be difficult I hereby offer to take the whole thing off thier hands, thus eliminating any ugly infighting.
Re:How could this be anything but... (Score:1)
When the MacGIMP team produces an Aqua version - that will be an OS/X port, and worthy of an award.
This should be on the main page. (Score:1)
Limited? (Score:1)
Re:Limited? (Score:1)
Re:Limited? (Score:1)
Re:Limited? (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, anything that isn't consistent with the look and feel of OS/X - that is, any command line or X11 application - is not considered a "true" Mac application by many of the Mac faithful. In their minds, there is a distinct difference between Mac applications, and applications that happen to run on a Mac. So, while Darwin applications will run under OS/X, they're not OS/X applications.
What Apple is trying to promote with this Open Source category, I think, is the porting of OSS code into "true" OS/X applications that will appeal to the "old school" Mac users as well as recent UNIX converts. It's not really a matter of how much effort is involved; it's more a matter of how well the final result is integrated into the "Macintosh Experience."
So, while the MySQL team has spent countless hours tracking down some obscure threading and signal handling bugs in MySQL on Darwin, they're less likely to win this award than someone who's spent a day or two knocking together a friendly Aqua client app for MySQL. It doesn't seem fair, if you consider only the amount of work involved, but if you think about Apple's goals, it makes a kind of sense.
Darwin (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Darwin (Score:2)
http://www.macslash.com/comments.pl?sid=02/02/2