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Is that sarcasm or do Mac users seriously need a grammar checker system wide?

I don't care about OS X in the slightest, but he does have a point. Apple tries to sell themselves as an open source ally, and yet they are withholding key elements of the OS from being open. Yes, you can boot the code with their binary driver, but thats not really the point. What if 6 months from now they decide that they dont want you using open darwin anymore and stop distributing that binary code? Then all the work that developers have done kind of becomes pointless doesn't it?

Off topic, who cares if he uses a handle? Most major sites have staff that use aliases during their posts. Check out arstechnica or slashdot or digg. Its the exception I think to see people using their real name on the web.

"Apple tries to sell themselves as an open source ally"

Apple tries to sell their products. (shocking?)

Does "open source ally" mean one should not use/produce any closed source softwares anymore?

Does everything have to be black or white?
How many have been infected with this "either you're with us or against us" virus?

Can we just accept that open source is not the only ethical way to develop software?

TechGeek, I am just very tired of this "for" or "against" open-source discussion.

I also find it irritating when the free software community reacts negatively to progress. When Google, released Picasa for Linux, for example, people had a problem with the method they used to port the application, even though it was released under a free software license. But this is a different matter.

Apple's committment to open source has regressed as a result of their switch to Intel. On the PPC970 architecture, OpenDarwin had access to all of the code they needed to boot the system. After the switch, the community lost this capability. Apple has made "progress" in the sense that now the free software community has a much more complete codebase for Intel hardware than they did before. But, compared to our fully-booting system on PPC, the current situation falls short.

The free software community is hell-bent on ridding the world of proprietary, binary-only kernelspace drivers such as Apple's ACPI driver. There are as many pragmatic reasons as idealistic justifications for wanting open access to kernel sources. Without open drivers, the community cannot help audit and improve code that is critical to the stability and security of our systems.

In this sense, I do believe that open source is the only ethical way to _distribute_ kernel code. Community development models are, of course, optional, but we must have the opportunity to use our distributed code review capacity to find and report bugs in security-critical code. If we can't trust the system, then it is useless to us.

Free software operating systems already have mature ACPI support for Intel architectures. I can't imagine that Apple cannot open this driver because of Intel's IP rights. I really wish Apple could provide a reason for why they can't open this code, because only then can the community figure out whether the goal of an open Darwin-based system is feasible.

You see, it's not so much that the community is demanding anything from Apple. We're saying that their substantial code release is a waste of their resources if they can't provide the sources for a bootable system. If they can't, that's fine. The community has plenty of other open kernels that run the GNU stack, we'll just have to live without Darwin.

AFAIK, It was not released under a free software license...

From the EULA:


Intellectual Property

You acknowledge that Google, its subsidiaries and affiliates, and/or third parties own all right, title and interest in and to the Picasa Software, portions thereof, and any software or other materials (not including user photos or message text) provided through or in conjunction with the Picasa Software, including without limitation all intellectual property rights. You agree not to modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Picasa Software. You also agree to not remove, obscure, or alter Google's or any third party's copyright notice, trademarks, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within or accessed in conjunction with or through the Picasa Software.


While I agree people should take or leave Picasa on Linux - it is another company creating a Linux App anyway - this is IN NO WAY a free software license! It uses Gecko and Wine heavily - that's about it.

When the Linux Kernel source can reduce its bugs and security vulnerabilities down to these proprietary drivers alone then I imagine the FOSS community will have a stronger case in having these corporations open up their driver sources, on a bug/security vulnerability, basis.

>In this sense, I do believe that open source is the
>only ethical way to _distribute_ kernel code.
>Community development models are, of course,
>optional, but we must have the opportunity to use
>our distributed code review capacity to find and
>report bugs in security-critical code. If we can't
>trust the system, then it is useless to us.

I disagree.

I accept that for code review then it can be beneficial for you (rather: a concerned MacOS licensee) to have access to the code. We might argue about whether you *need* absolutely *all* of it, but what you do NOT *need* is an ability to give the code to anyone who doesn't have a license to it from Apple, nor do you *need* it to be free (as in beer).

Unfortunately the zealots have destroyed the practical availability of source to customers with a requirement that anyone who pleases can have the right to compete with the vendor - and for what?

James

Anyone's more than welcome to mix their closed source and open source software as long as they follow licensing properly. However, there is an implied agreement that even though the software is free as in price, it still comes at a cost. If a large company like Apple wants to use open source software in their closed source products, they have an obligation to contribute back to the community and not just be a mooch.

Anyone's more than welcome to mix their closed source and open source software as long as they follow licensing properly. However, there is an implied agreement that even though the software is free as in price, it still comes at a cost. If a large company like Apple wants to use open source software in their closed source products, they have an obligation to contribute back to the community and not just be a mooch.

Apple has no obligation, moral, ethical or otherwise. Absolutely nothing is implied. The developers gave up the right to complain when they chose a BSD license. If they had any expectations beyond the satisfaction of knowing their code is being used successfully, then they chose the wrong license. And as for the "community" of non-developers that have contributed nothing to BSD but still expect Apple to open up, they have less right to complain than the devs.

Is Apple leaching? Certainly they are. The amount of money they saved on R&D by choosing OSS as a base for OS X is probably measured in tens of millions of dollars, maybe more. But they're doing nothing wrong. If that's an issue, then maybe team BSD should take a longer, harder look at team GPL. It amazes me that people will slag the GPL as being viral and then complain when people don't contribute back to BSD. It's idealism vs realism.

I think the most annoying thing about Apple's Open Source games with Darwin is the confusion it has created in the minds of their customers, I'm sure a lot of less well informed OSX users would quite happily sit there and tell you that OSX is UNIX, OSX is Open Source and therefore it's the same as Linux only better because apple charge for it. These people don't even begin to understand the differences between Free Software and Open Source Software or what Apple's Public License actually permits you to do with their code.

With Linux we have the right to make it run on any hardware that we wish, with Linux apple couldn't take our code and start using it without contributing changes back to the community, with OSX Apple restricts your ability to do so and with Darwin it holds back the one piece of software which might make it easier to do and encourages you to code under a license which gives Apple a free lunch.

Clearly if the driver contained open-sourceable code, Apple would open-source it. What you GNU kiddies don't understand is that in the real world, a company can't just decide "We're going to release this to the public!" when that code is partially or completely proprietary/patented by other companies. Your dream-like utopia just isn't realistic.

In this case, Intel probably has some hooks in said driver. Apple has already done you a great service by releasing the Intel OS X kernel source. Take it or leave it.

As predicted, a few angry fanboys have to scream that it's not enough, and that they want more. And you wonder why companies are hesitant to open-source their stuff?

<blockquote>Clearly if the driver contained open-sourceable code, Apple would open-source it. What you GNU kiddies don't understand is that in the real world, a company can't just decide "We're going to release this to the public!" when that code is partially or completely proprietary/patented by other companies. Your dream-like utopia just isn't realistic. </blockquote>

While it's true that large pieces of proprietary software almost always contain code licensed from a 3rd party and , as such, often couldn't be released as opensource even if that were desirable(see the early days of OpenOffice 6 when sun were busy removing all foreign code for an example), I seriously doubt that this is the case with Apple, wouldn't access to the sources for this module make hacking OSX about to run on commodity hardware one hell of a lot easier? If so then you can see the primary reason for not releasing the sources.

Apple haven't done anyone a great service in releasing the sources they have, they aren't there for our benefit but rather to allow Apple to continue to slap an Open Source core sticker on their product, remember the Apple Public Source license isn't designed to ensure the availability of code to you but to ensure that you will allow Apple to use your contributed code without question. Apple only release the source because it suits them and their PR machine to do so.

I think you're missing the point.

The open-source code you have now will not stop working down the road. It's already out there.

You are not thinking of open source, where code is given for oversight, contribution, and modification. You are thinking of free product, and that's a totally different objective.

Read the license, and tell me where what they're doing is in violation of that.

This isn't a matter of Apple pissing in the face of open source. This is a matter of a bunch of liberals with a hose up their ass getting all pissed off that someone switched their coffee enema to foldgers crystals. The end result is the same : they get their caffeine rush, but the method in which it's done has different terms, and it irritates them.

Get over yourselves. The world does not revolve around Richard Stallman and his freak-ass "share the software" acid trip.

Babe, you do realise that the ACPI code is actually opensource and available via Intel under the BSD licence; the very same code which FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and Linux all rely on.

Oh, and in regards to the 'contributions' there have been no 'contributions to Darwin by any opensource developer, hence there were questions as to the whole point of actually having Darwin opensourced in the first place!

I hardly blame Apple considering there is next to no contributions being made by the so-called 'feel good' opensource community - given the terrible performance of XNU at server tasks, was expecting *atleast* a dozen or two to start working on the XNU core to improve scalability and performance, but no one has taken that task on board.

So much for the 'scratching the itch' which proponents of opensourcing Darwin would have allowed.

Edited 2006-08-11 06:57

Oh, and in regards to the 'contributions' there have been no 'contributions to Darwin by any opensource developer, hence there were questions as to the whole point of actually having Darwin opensourced in the first place!

Well, the APSL, Apples way of interacting with sister projects (KHTML / Webkit) and the partial nature of Darwin, which is a freaky hybrid *Nix, may have pushed serious developers towards pure BSD. BSD doesn't have weird corporate hoops to jump through.

If he had any balls at all, he'd put his name to his senseless bitching.

Given how zealous the Mac community has become lately, I don't blame him for going by a handle instead of his real name.

just so you know the BeOS had that in 1999 with ClipUP so now youre owned due to your ignorance =)

just so you know the BeOS had that in 1999 with ClipUP so now youre owned due to your ignorance =)

It *is* systemwide, but not implemented by the OS makers, so I'm only half-owned

You mean r3nt3d?

I wonder, is this multiple selections at once, or sort of a clipboard stack? It sounds like the former, which would be pretty nifty.

Edited 2006-08-11 01:17

Because ethically and morally, a true friend of free software would release code that is compilable and in the case of an OS, bootable. Apple has benefited greatly by the use of free software in creation of their operating system, and while there is no legal obligation to release their source code, there is an ethical one.

...like I said. Corporations are out to make a buck, not friends.

There is no ethical obligation for Apple to release the source code for applications that they thought up, implemented, tested, and have improved over time -- all nearly 100% on their own. Were they using an open-source base for iPhoto or iTunes, then I would agree with you ... but come on.

Why would Apple want all the raging open-source zealots to rush in and take everything that they've invested so much time and money in creating?

If you believe that keeping source code proprietary is not a way to dominate your userbase, and consequently, unethical, then, no, Apple is under no obligation to open source its software.

However, whether closed-source software is unethical or not, I expect the people and companies I deal with to live up to their promises. I no longer deal with Microsoft as a customer because they have, from the beginning of my involvement with them to this day, been full of nothing but hot air (such as the promises of stability and innovation in Win9x) and incompetence (such as WGA penalizing legitimate users of Windows).

If Apple doesn't want to open source things, then it should stop painting itself as being in favour of open source.

They've done a lot to improve open-source, and given back their changes.

If you think that the fruits of hard work and money should be given away for free, when there is nothing to gain from doing so, then so be it. Apple is under no obligation to open source all of its software. Users are making the choice to go Apple in droves anyway.

Think software innovation and the world would dry up without open source? Think again. I, as a Mac user, do not give a damn that iPhoto is not open source. I use iPhoto. It works. I enjoy it. It makes my life easier. The same applies to every other piece of proprietary software that I have on my Mac.

Ideology does not make the application.

It is bootable.

Use the driver, Luke.

DUHHHHH

*curses idiots*

They are under no obligation to make it "easy" to backport changes.

In fact, they don't even have to make them something that can be backported.

They just have to make the source they use that's under GPL available.

Which last time I checked, they do.

If the Konq people want to bitch, let them. Apple is merely abiding by the license. If the Konq people don't like it, then they obviously picked a poor license. That's THEIR OWN FAULT / TOUGH POO.

The issue here is not that Apple is doing anything "wrong" or "immoral" or "naughty". The issue is self-righteous people who refuse to believe that there could possibly be anything wrong with their license. Everyone is all pissed because someone figured out that they 1.) Don't have to use GPL for everything, and 2.) GPL (WebKit, anyone) got pwned by their own terms.

Eat it folks.

If these GPL nuts were reallyl concerned about things being free (as in speech) they'd be using BSD. Fact of the matter is, they're not interested in giving things away to help people. They want to get rich / famous / hired. Their "free" software is totally rooted in "greed" and they get all prissy when they're not directly benefiting from there faux benevolence.

People like this piss me off so much it's not funny.

It's when I read utter garbage like this, I wish all proprietary companies would go fully proprietary again.

Apple's source dumps don't add one speck to this world. It only creates controversy and it forces the idiots out of the woodwork, who feel the need to defend companies that coopt a pure ideology for PR reasons.

There are a lot of simpletons out there who pat Apple on the back for "doing Open Source". It's just that Apple does Open Source the same way as I could be doing you.

Darwin as Open Source Software is an utter disgrace. Apples hot air about having Open Source underpinnings is just flag waving and then the flag isn't even theirs.

It probably would save a lot of people a lot of time. Since Apple releases Darwin as a playtoy and not as free technology, any serious development on that shaky base is a waste of time. Except for Apple ofcourse.

It's probably you, but it depends on what you mean by anti-FOSS zealot. In my experience there is a lot more zealotry displayed by the FOSS proponents than by anyone else.

zealot (n). 2: ..., a fanatical partisan
partisan (n). 1: a firm adherent to a party , faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance

Expressing an opinion that does not strongly support the political goals of the GNU Project and Free Software Foundation or other FOSS champions does not equate to being opposed to free and open source software. To state that the only software that's acceptable is "FOSS" is about as fanatical (see above) an opinion as one could have on the matter. Not everyone who doesn't take that extreme position is anti-FOSS.

moderate (adj). 1 a : avoiding extremes of behavior or expression : observing reasonable limits

I'd agree with the grand parent, Apple Zealots and others with Anti-FOSS sentiment do seem rather prevalent at OSNews. Any criticism of apple will be immediately greeted with negative moderation.

fence sitter (NOUN): Informal. One who takes a position of neutrality or indecision, as in a controversial matter.

We can all play that game.

A common sentiment these days is that people can only be for Free and Open Source Software or against it. That sentiment is fundamentally and provably close minded but if people want to frame the issue that way for themselves that's their choice.

Ignoring the fact that it is possible to support FOSS and closed-source software at the same time won't make it untrue, no matter how hard you try.

I heartily agree that there are a lot of zealots about - I just disagree as to who the zealots are.

I have no problem with expression of opinion. But there has been a lot of name-calling in some of the threads that have been modded up for no apparent reason.

"But there has been a lot of name-calling in some of the threads that have been modded up for no apparent reason."

Ah, you seem to have the delusion that modding has a relation to the quality of the comment.
You couldnt be more wrong, modding has NOTHING to do with how good or well-informed a comment is, it's all about making a popular statement, right or wrong, uninformed or informed.

Apple will never play fair, just like Microsoft, they'll use you, and when they're done(made their money), poof you're gone!

Beautifully stated. It's also why proprietary operating systems are complete anathema for me. With FL/OSS you have the source code available to use as a club, should your vendor decide it is time to screw you over.

Which is why source code should also be coveted by users who never compile for themselves. It puts you on equal footing with the vendor. As long as they care to provide what you need, you won't use your equality against them.