The Mac platform was always considered a premium platform, hence much of its software is shareware or commercial. In the recent days more freeware applications have emerged, but the majority are small utilities and not full scale applications. Enter the world of GNU which can not only provide “free” applications as in beer, but most importantly, “Free”, as in Freedom.I am writing this article after my personal adventures trying to find a functional, yet free, spreadsheet for OSX. There is none. BC is too basic and OOo/NeoOffice are big, slow and ugly (I absolutely refuse to install them again).
What sprang into my mind immediately was the very convenient package of the Free GPL gimp.app. These guys have done a great job making Gimp “look” like a native Mac OS X application: the theme used, the icon and launcher used, the automation of it. While most OSX users don’t like X11, they dig gimp.app just fine, because of the convenience involved and its appearance as a native app.
So, why not do the same for Gnumeric then? Gnumeric is a great application, one of the best GTK+ apps ever written. I can tell you right away, a native-looking Gnumeric (via a freely available GTK+ theme that looks like Aqua) would make waves in the Mac OS X userbase even if it had to run under X11 (which now gets installed by default on Tiger btw). Gnumeric is much smaller and much faster than OOo/NeoOffice so people who just need a spreadsheet they could find heaven with it.
But then again, why not move one step further and look at the rest of the GTK+ application base? The consensus of picking an app for porting should be:
1. No freeware exists with similar functionality on OSX (so Gaim, Liferea are out).
2. No native port was done for that app (so Abiword, X-Chat are out).
3. Should not depend on Gnome or has lots of dependencies (e.g. mono, pygtk, perl-gtk apps), or the binary will be huge and makes things more complicated and more bug prone (so Evolution, Nautilus, Muine, Epiphany etc. are out).
So, here is a small list of OSS GTK+ apps that would be interesting to port as they bring functionality that current OSX freeware don’t really provide (yes, we know that these are Free GPL apps and not “freeware”, but the point of the article is bolstering ‘free as in beer’ apps, not JUST as in Freedom): Planner (project planning), Drivel 2.0 (multi-blog enabled), gLabels (labels and business cards), Kipinä (athlete’s log), Inkscape (vector graphics) and Dia (diagrams). And then, there are Bluefish (HTML and other languages), Screem (HTML and design), Anjuta (non-XCode IDE) and Pan (newsgroup client), but these probably have some free equivalents already, just not as advanced.
So, if you have some development experience and you also have a Mac, please use this tutorial to use the tricks mentioned there to build other GTK+ applications and provide the easy-to-use binaries to the Mac userbase. Yes, Fink and DarwinPorts can provide these apps, but most Mac users are not known for having a great relationship with a terminal or package managers. A simple .dmg that they double click and load an app is what most people want: convenience to the max!
And for most of that it doesn’t really matter what the processor architecture is, now, does it?
Just to let you know, someone already did port X-Chat to OSX. GO look for xchat Aqua http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net/
The short while I’ve owned a mac (got myself a mini two months ago), I’ve found a lot of freeware tools, and programs, so I’m personally not complaining. You can find a ton on Apple’s page, if you haven’t already looked there
Oh no you didn’t. It is pretty offensive to the free software developers to call their apps freeware. If they knew you, they’d surely lynch you.
PS. The GIMP link needs to be fixed.
The reason why this is called a “freeware” is because Mac users DO NOT CARE about “open source and gnu”. They care about “software”, and if something is free (as in free of charge), even better. And if it happens to be open source, well, even more better.
This article was written from the point of view of a Mac user who doesn’t wanna pay for apps, not a Linux user who cares about open source.
We know the difference between ‘Free’ and ‘free’ just fine, thank you.
Have a great day.
DarwinPorts indeed supports prebuilt dmg packages and you can easily install them via WebDAV. The last (incomplete) build run for Tiger is available here: http://packages.opendarwin.org/Tiger-Packages/
No, it does NOT do it right! I tried it the other day. It installs stuff on /opt/ and it does NOT create an icon on /Applications, neither it puts the dependencies inside the .app folder but the deps are scattered all over your /opt and if you want to DELETE a Darwin package, you can’t, without resorting to the command line.
So, no, neither Fink or Darwin “cut it” for a Mac user.
Eugenia,
There is a fundamental difference between freeware and free software. Many of which stem from legal and license requirements. I really don’t think you know the difference between freeware and free software.
You also committed a blatant error in you misunderstanding. Free software is not necessarily free, as in you pay nothing. I could write free software and charge 15 million dollars for it. It would be free software, but not necessarily freeware.
Besides, it’s just an insult to open source and free software developers. And not surprisingly, you seem to condone it. I don’t care what you’re views are with regards to free software or freeware, just stop propagating confusion and flawed premises and errors.
Funny
You want the cool proprietary OS. But you’d like
it for free too probably. And the the apps. For free of course.
Aren’t you a fan of Linux? Use it instead then
Sorry, but my opinion is that people that makes a great
work (on a program, on a job, in a mine..) deserve something
back.
Apple model is ‘pay your stuff’ (much more than windows eg).
Apple customers are in my experience the ones most likely
to buy instead of copying and keen to register shareware.
And this is the kind of customers Aple likes, of course.
For sure there can be GPl’d programs for OSX, and great
ones too, but imho it makes no sense to have a whole
linux installation under a different os.
Just stick with linux…
Or what you like from apple is the bells and whistles
your penguin can’t give you?
My 2 cents and some off topic
Are you out of your mind, Eugenia!? As we do not care about the OpenSource comunity? I think you’d better watch what you are writing. You could end up pissing off a lot of people that way.
The article states:
“3. Should not depend on Gnome or has lots of dependencies (e.g. mono, pygtk, perl-gtk apps), or the binary will be huge and makes things more complicated and more bug prone.”
And then:
“…GRAMPS (geneology)…”
Sorry, Eugenia, but GRAMPS is a PyGTK application. Please do some research. Also, I can’t understand why the hell PyGTK apps are out. Hell, Python is already included in Tigre by default! And how can Python app be more buggy than C app? They won’t segfault, at the very least.
I can assure you, I know the difference, stop being off topic please. The point of the aritcle is to “create easy-to-use packages for Free GPL apps, to bolster the freeware base”. Yes, Free apps and free apps are NOT the same, but for the COMMON END USER, it will be (because in both cases he pays nothing), and for a platform, that’s what matters ultimately. Yes, there is the possibility that someone will CHARGE for these packages of the Free GPL apps . But the *chances* are that he/she won’t.
>”…GRAMPS (geneology)…”
well, then, GRAMPS removed. Python might be included on Tiger, but pyGTK is not. Bindings just complicates things a lot.
>Sorry, Eugenia, but GRAMPS is a PyGTK application. Please do some research.
I was sure it was a C one that’s why it was there.
>For sure there can be GPl’d programs for OSX, and great
>ones too, but imho it makes no sense to have a whole
>linux installation under a different os.
Nobody wants for a full linux installation. But having for a few good Free apps is desirable, like the ones Apple ALREADY USES: e.g. Samba.
Funny guys, you are getting pissed off when someone asks for a port of a GPL app, and yet you are calling these apps “open”. Open my ass.
I want to run Mac OS X more than I want to run Linux because the desktop experience is better. But I wouldn’t mind some of the good GPL apps.
The look but more importantly the feel differs enormously between the average gtk application and mac os x applications. If you blindly port that people will get a really low opinion of freeware/opensource software. You looked at Gimp.app, now use it and compare it to the average cocoa application. Then you will now what I’m talking about.
It would be better if there were more opensource cocoa applications using some algorithms from a opensource application. (like adium and gaim)
You’re forgetting why people write open source software: for the fun of programming. They give it away because perhaps someone can improve upon it.
*They do not write apps because mac users want cheap software*
The primary goal of free software is to run on free operating systems. Most of us don’t care if it runs on some proprietary UNIX or windows.
Don’t like the price of Mac apps? Come to linux or Free/Net/OpenBSD. We could use some talented icon/theme designers.
When was the last time you donated to an open source project? Contributed code?
Thought so.
…the ‘common end user’ (==ignoramus, per your words’ intent) doesn’t read this site.
>Don’t like the price of Mac apps? Come to linux or Free/Net/OpenBSD.
And do what there? Use the crappy X desktop environments? No, thanks. I tried them and came back to OSX running.
>We could use some talented icon/theme designers.
It’s not about the theme mate, it’s about the integration and usability.
I’m not ranting about ports or Apple using some GPL software
Just – you admit it – what you like in OSX is the desktop experience. Aga, “bells and whistles” that make a difference.
And they can’t be but native btw, the post following yours makes a point. Same goes with Windows, same goes with Linux.
Port whatever you want, use whatever you want… Just mind why you like that proprietary os that much
It’s not about the theme mate, it’s about the integration and usability.
From my experience, Windows is a great platform to enhance with free software. I can only suppose Mac is even better (otoh there’s the menubar issue, which I doubt most free software handles correctly).
I’m soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sick and tired of hearing that somehow free software (or GNU, or anything released under the GPL) belongs to ‘Linux’. It’s actually the reverse – Linux would be nowhere without free software.
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and pay greater attention to your context and audience. Defending a defenseless position that was eloquently pointed out and subsequently replied with what amounts to the toddler taking the bucket and shovel out of the sandbox is pathetic.
Either know what the hell you are promoting in an editorial or expect those that do to reply. Get used to it or by all means go write freeware.
Something you fail to address are the options open to Cocoa developers and whether one chose to write applications and if they want to give them away are they free software based upon BSD licensing/GPL or whatever.
The best bet for porting GPLd code natively into OS X is via GNUstep and its ObjC code base.
Perhaps if the GNOME and KDE folks would collaborate with some ObjC experts in the GNUstep space they might see more of their tools Cocoa-ified. Just a thought.
Yurgen wrote:
>Don’t like the price of Mac apps? Come to linux or Free/Net/OpenBSD.
And do what there? Use the crappy X desktop environments? No, thanks. I tried them and came back to OSX running.
>We could use some talented icon/theme designers.
It’s not about the theme mate, it’s about the integration and usability.
Hate to piss in your wheaties, mate, but having both OS X and Linux I can tell you that OS X has a way to go to reach some parts of Openstep integration as well.
I really hope OS X leopard gives me back the power to dwrite nsmenus or whatever that gets rid of the antiquated MacOS menu system and lets me have a freaking Workspace I can reuse instead of the crammed dock presently available.
For those who didn’t work at NeXT and Apple, let me just say the SHELF that never materialized is a step in the right direction.
I really wish Steve would convince Keith Olhfs to come back and improve the UI Team.
No, it is not pathetic. I simply wrote my article with a DIFFERENT standpoint. The problem here is that most of our readers ARE Linux weenies, and so they only care about their GPL. My standpoint was from the Mac-Joe-User, not from a perspective of an editor. Here is the reasoning of a Mac-Joe-User:
1. GPL apps are free of charge (most of the time).
2. Someone port them so I can use them on my OSX.
I EXPLAINED very clearly that this is not the case if you try to split hairs, but for the COMMON user it will surely LOOK that way. Why nobody can’t understand this viewpoint here? I take my brother as an example. He won’t give a rat’s ass about GPL and Free software, he will only care about free software, meaning, software that he won’t pay for, like gimp-app for OSX. THERE ARE A LOT of people who think that way, so my article was written from the standpoint of the “common osx user”, NOT the editor of OSNEWs.com who is into tech things.
As for your questions:
1. No, I don’t care about free Cocoa apps. I simply asked for ports of existing Free apps because they are already there and apparently is not too hard to port them.
2. No, Gnustep is NOT the best bet to port apps, because there is NO gnustep app worth porting. They all suck or they are too primitive.
The GPL is not the only Free license around (guess which one do I like?
(Please consider this post as a generic zaelotic rant on the GPL vs BSD issue)
On the whole I think you’re right Free software needs better packaging, but I think you’re underestimating fink or darwinports, I’ve come across a lot of old-mac people who did not care a bit about unix but were using it a lot
Funny guys, you are getting pissed off when someone asks for a port of a GPL app, and yet you are calling these apps “open”. Open my ass.
Its open/free because you’re free to port it yourself if you need it so desperatly.
Or pay a FOSS developer to do the port.
The reason why open software is developed on an open operating system is because you never know when Apple/Microsoft/Sun decides they don’t like the competition and makes some changes to break your app.
Removing Python apps from your list because you need to install another wrapper is ridiculous if you consider that Inkscape uses GTKmm.
GTKmm is not as bad as python is. When Python gets upgraded, it usually breaks a lot of previous python apps. Having apple upgrading python and then breaking a pygtk app is not so cool.
DarwinPorts installs only “Aqua” apps under /Applications but, in order not to interfere with system libraries, it puts all the other packages under /opt/local so you can easily get rid of them: in the past many problems araised when using Apple’s versions of basic libraries such as fontconfig, libiconv, gettext, ecc, and at the end it had been better duplicate them.
The real problem of DarwinPorts is IMHO the lack of Apple’s support: it will suffice 2 or 3 donated Xserves to devote to a central building cluster or an automated Xgrid P2P network to distribute the burden of compiling optimized packages for x86-64 or G5.
> Its open/free because you’re free to port it yourself if you need it so desperatly. Or pay a FOSS developer to do the port.
Which is exactly what the article asks too: Someone port these apps, so the mac users can use them, as there are no free alternatives on their platform.
> The reason why open software is developed on an open operating system is because you never know when Apple/Microsoft/Sun decides they don’t like the competition and makes some changes to break your app.
This is utterly stupid. Are you out of good excuses as to why we have so many GPL trolls here pissed off over the article’s suggestion to port more GPL apps to a closed platform?
Don’t like the price of Mac apps? Come to linux or Free/Net/OpenBSD.
And do what there? Use the crappy X desktop environments? No, thanks. I tried them and came back to OSX running.
Don’t know what to do? There’s plenty of projects that could use some help: coding, translating, repackaging for foreign operating systems…
I’m sure you have some spare time.
Oh, you want to use FOSS and never give anything back?
Whatever, Eugenia. Calling me a Linux weenie for your blatant errors and possible spread of misinformation. Oh, and what about BSD/Apache/LGPL/MIT/X11 free apps, are those not needed on the Mac platform? And do you think your Mac-Joe-users know what the GPL is all about?
I thought so. There is a reason why terms like “free software ” are defined and should be used appropriately. The concept didn’t just fly out of people’s asses or from Linux weenies, as you so eloquently put it.
>Oh, you want to use FOSS and never give anything back?
Of course! Why would I want to give anything back when something is already freely available? I am not a loser you know.
Oh, you mean for “the community’s sake”? Well, I am no part of any OSS community, I am a Mac user. And I am not even part of the Mac community either. I just happen to use this computer because it works better than any X-based OS or XP. And the more free-of-charge software, the merrier.
If you don’t want me to use these apps, don’t release them for free. It’s as simple as that.
Well, I am no part of any OSS community, I am a Mac user.
Thats one of the reasons we don’t spend *our* time porting projects to OSX. Most of it has a BSD or Apache licence. It’s up to the OSX users to do the port.
If every MacOSX user was just a leech, there would be no open software on OSX.
> It’s up to the OSX users to do the port
AND WHO asked YOU, the Linux/BSD user to do these ports??? The Mac devs/users should do the port!
I use VLC, VNC, Firefox, mplayer and a few other on my powerbook and they all came with a dmg image.
None of them comes with an autopackage or similar on linux.
the OSS communities may feel that OSX users aren’t worthy of their time, but how else would you gain mindshare than by convering people using non-freee platforms of the benefits of free software?
the attitude is contrary
No, it is not pathetic. I simply wrote my article with a DIFFERENT standpoint. The problem here is that most of our readers ARE Linux weenies,
What the hack is a Linux weenie according to your temporary lapse in wisdom?It would be not done likewise from a objective point of view to entitle MacOSX as a gay/lesbo OS,only good for editing pornpics , doing some infantile development and initiation of brainfarts.
I get a bit ambiguous feeling about the fact someone wants to ride premium has the cash but wants to have applications for free without contributing something back other than FUD and misinformation.I guess something must be apealing about OSS after all from the point of view of MacOSX jane/joe average.
Most open Source software on XP are horrible. Heck, most closed source apps are also quite horrible too. When I got rid of my iBook, I was confronted with another reality: Windows software aren’t very good (intuitive) compared to Mac equivalents.
When I establish a free software project, I am not founding a charity network, I’m building a community; a community of contributors if you will. OS X users fail to grasp this concept. So much so that they can’t differentiate between free sotware and freeware. Tell me why I should care about OS X users when they do not care about free software? Many of them even openly admit to be leechers and free riders.
* project maintainers get plenty of mails form mac users asking to port the newest version/complaining about integration, even tough the Mac port is often a completly separate fork.
* There are *few* OSS coders on OSX. The people i know with PowerPC rigs run linux on it.
(Maybe Apples switch to intel would help things, but if they prevent it form running compatible non-Apple hardware i doubt it)
They can use al the help they can get from non-coders like you writing docs & howtos, translating, etc.
* Should the bulk of OSS coders (on Linux, BSD and yes: windows) abolish the excelent tools like pyQT of pyGTK because even tough it runs on the Mac, it doesn’t integrate nicely? I think not.
I didn’t the article because the title is misleading. It says “The need for GPL Free Apps …”. GPL free apps? In my ears that sounds like apps without any GPL! Please take greater care when posting. I also keep commenting that there should be a better distinction between what has been cut’n’pasted from the article and what is not (I realize that it is not relevant for this particular post). Another thought is that perhaps cut’n’pasting from articles is a little bit lazy. Taking critical look before posting.
I for one can quite understand Eug’s viewpoint. I’m a programmer for a small company so my work overlaps quite a bit. As such, sadly enough for me, I get to be involved with users quite a bit.
Users, the average ones, only care about how easy the software is to use followed by how much it costs. And ‘ease of use’ includes installion, help, documentation and everything. The entire experience.
Linux users/developers and the advocates of free software often seem to forget that to many people only care about the computer as the means to an end. That means, a user doesn’t care about X, consoles, terminals configurations or whatsoever, no matter if we’re talking about windows, linux or OSX.
The -only- thing that the user wants is to spend is little time behind the computer to accomplish as much as possible at the smallest cost. And that’s the viewpoint demonstrated in the article.
If there are more apps written for Openstep, we may see more graphical apps ported to OS X. But, this is not gonna happening any time soon as we have more OSS developers focusing on Gnome or KDE.
Sorry, I meant to say “GNUstep”.
I just installed tiger the other day, and X11 is NOT installed by default, I had to do a custom install to get it. (it may come installed on new machines from apple, but not a default install from the tiger DVD.
And if you can’t stand using the CLI to install/uninstall, try finkcommander, it is a cocoa gui for “dselect” makes it as easy as a mouce click to install or remove software. (included with fink)
Some more badly ported X11 software is not what OS X needs (gimp.app looks ok, but try to use it. OpenOffice, is hardly usable on the mac, NeoOffice, despite being ugly, actually is usable, and does not use X11).
Now some nice cocoa gui wrappers for opensource “backends” would both allow “Free Software” to work on the mac, like a mac app should (Like Chess.app, just a gui for GNU Chess, installed by default on OS X) and not like a X11 program. Do not get me wrong, I like linux, and free software (and use both), but if the work is to be done to port an app, lets do it right.
Also as I belive the mantra goes, if you want that feature, start coding…
btw, before anyone asks, I have donated money/time/code to several smaller OpenSource projects, and have always released my own code as GPL’d
-Rich
Defining myself as a compromise between a Linux weenie (and reading some of the reactions, one can understand the usage of this word) and a Mac-Joe-User, I can only support the writer’s point of view. We do lack some basic applications that are free (as in beer) on Mac OS X. All free (dom) softwares are not free (beer) but GPL naturally implies free (beer), most of the time.
Those who think Mac-users should just install Linux to enjoy these programs should really consider spending a bit of time thinking about what freedom is and why they defend it. All I hear is “You’re free, but only if you install Linux”. No thanks. Mac OS X is my choice of OS and I don’t wan’t to have to install anything more than a bundle to use an app. Is that too much for OSS developers ? Maybe but they’re not concerned in any way. Eugenia’s request is directed to Mac developers.
When I establish a free software project, I am not founding a charity network, I’m building a community; a community of contributors if you will. OS X users fail to grasp this concept. So much so that they can’t differentiate between free sotware and freeware.
If your project only targets Linux, you’ll be fine, although I really doubt all Linux users can recite the GPL by heart. Some I know only know Linux “is free” but have no idea about what this really means and what it implies. If you intend to port it or let it port to Windows or -crazy- Mac OS X, I bet you’re going to have to get familiar with all kinds of people who don’t have a clue about software freedom.
Eugenia,
Thank you for making me laugh. ‘Linux weenies’ is simply wonderful. Weenies tend to be to damned pedantic and the negative reaction you got here amply illustrates such pedantism. But then again I have been reading your posts for the last 2 1/2 years- so I couldn’t be bothered to get worked up about your choice of phrasing.
At the risk of more clearly obfuscating the issues around
…
The GPL and GPL software is *not* free. ‘free’ in the sense of a free ride, or being a freeloader, the feeling of getting away with something, or ‘stealin’ something, and most certainly not in the sense of being worthless or something one can simply take for granted. The GPL and GPL software is *not* a ‘free handout’, it not something synonomous with cheap and is not particularly ‘free’ in the sense of being air-headed, giddy and ‘carefree’ and unfortunately it is often not ‘trouble-free’.
Additionally such software is also not fat-free, sodium-free or cholestoral-free- GPL software belongs to a healthy spiritual diet.
The GPL and GPL software is also not ‘free’ in the sense of laissez-faire, or in the sense of anything-goes, or in the sense of Vogel-frei. The principal behind the GPL is not something for nothing, it is not a cheap-shot and it is not cheap in the moral sense(ie. loose, easy etc.).
How big is the difference between priceless and worthless ? Can this difference be measured in terms of money ? For it is the distinction between priceless and worthless which grounds the principals of the GPL.
It is said that everything has it’s price and everything and everyone can be bought. The GPL disproves such a notion and in so doing contributes to the self-worth of all of those involved in developing and using GPL software.
Some people are dumb enough to believe that the definitions found in dictionaries define how people use the words they use. Then they get in arguments about how talking Free Software is some perversive move to undermine the *real* meaning of free. The word ‘free’ is one of the most abused and misused and meaningless words which exist in the modern world if for no other reason than all of the references to things like ‘free lunch’. This is why I prefer to use the word ‘Free’-the perjorative and other negative uses of the word ‘free’ magically evaporare with this tiny orthographical change. In fact I could not even take offense at the use of the word freeware in reference to the GPL or GPL’ed software because there is only one point of common meaning between ‘free’, as used in freeware, and Free Software-being free of charge, and GPL’ed software is *not* necessarily ‘free’ in that sense.
OS X users fail to grasp this concept
Maybe the idea behind this article was to warn software developers that OS X users will treat any software they don’t have to pay for as freeware without spending a single thought on the legal stuff.
OS X comes preinstall -> freeware
shareware is free for download -> freeware
pirated commercial software is gratis -> freeware
free software is usually free for download -> freeware
… I don’t think that they will port much stuff to the mac.
As long as the application which is beeing ported to the mac does not look 100% mac native, the most user will not use them. For most mac users it is not important if the application solves a problem or helps them to get things done. They care the most about the look and feel of the application then about functionality. And they expect everyone to deliver them the application they need, instead of porting anything to the mac.
It does not suprice me at all, that there are not that much free applications available for the mac. Porting an application to the mac is not easy as 1-2-3 and most important: it takes time.
And I don’t think that any mac user will understand that this is a long process and as soon as they would spot a small inconsitency in the look and feel, they jump up and down and keep telling you that your application/port is bad. You can’t expect much help from the most mac users.
Anyway… I wish mac users would be more cooperative and work together with the open source community to get things ported to the mac. But I don’t think this will happen.
None of them comes with an autopackage or similar on linux.
What for?
They are available in your package pool.
Can’t get any easier than that and includes automatic updating as well.
[i]If your project only targets Linux, you’ll be fine, although I really doubt all Linux users can recite the GPL by heart. Some I know only know Linux “is free” but have no idea about what this really means and what it implies. If you intend to port it or let it port to Windows or -crazy- Mac OS X, I bet you’re going to have to get familiar with all kinds of people who don’t have a clue about software freedom.[i]
And that’s why I don’t write applications for multiple environments, nor do I encourage free software developers to do so, with the exception of libraries and lower level stuff. I prefer to design applications to fit specific desktop environments.
I’m also willing to go to great lengths to support free software platforms, but there is zero incentive for me to support proprietary ones, since most of their users aren’t technically inclined, don’t understand what the concept of a software community is, are least likely to contribute back to the project, etc.
Of course, Mac developers are welcome to port my project, but do not expect any motivation from me to do so. Who here likes to squander money on a beneficiary who doesn’t appreciate your gifts?
If your project only targets Linux, you’ll be fine, although I really doubt all Linux users can recite the GPL by heart. Some I know only know Linux “is free” but have no idea about what this really means and what it implies. If you intend to port it or let it port to Windows or -crazy- Mac OS X, I bet you’re going to have to get familiar with all kinds of people who don’t have a clue about software freedom.
And that’s why I don’t write applications for multiple environments, nor do I encourage free software developers to do so, with the exception of libraries and lower level stuff. I prefer to design applications to fit specific desktop environments.
I’m also willing to go to great lengths to support free software platforms, but there is zero incentive for me to support proprietary ones, since most of their users aren’t technically inclined, don’t understand what the concept of a software community is, are least likely to contribute back to the project, etc.
Of course, Mac developers are welcome to port my project, but do not expect any motivation from me to do so. Who here likes to squander money on a beneficiary who doesn’t appreciate your gifts?
Why provide free apps for an OS which is not?
You should think of it before buying a proprietary platform.
– Oh you did and you had a plan: “Don’t I run this .com site? Just write an article and let Linux people know they can start porting apps to Mac now so I can have stuff for free on my beloved Mac!
Hm my userbase is mostly dumb but some might conclude that I don’t love my Gnome desktop anymore after having written mad editorials when developers didn’t jump my hoops. People might think I stubbornly went to Apple and Gnome people shall throw their apps after me.
They might not be amused when finding out.. err, tell these weenies it’s for the sake of free software! And you can port GTK apps! GTK good! And it will be on Mac! Mac great!”
We know the difference between ‘Free’ and ‘free’ just fine, thank you.
Reading your comments, it looks like you are intentionally trying to make things more confusing, not less so. If you know better, why do it?
The only answer I can think of is that you want to promote responses that are combative.
If this is not the case…what is your reasoning for using freeware instead of either open source (a common term even in news papers like USA Today and the WSJ) or Free Software (a term less common in popular media, though still accurate)?
As a writer myself, I would hope that you would take the choice of the words you use seriously so as to raise the level of discussion and not degrade it into an us-vs-them battle that wasn’t there in the first place.
Best Example for OpenSource on Mac OS X is AbiWord. It is 100% native Aqua. It hast the Menubar Menus, the Apple Open/Save Dialogs, etc. It looks almost 100% like Word for Mac.
I wished Gimp would be the same. Actually I don’t understand why it is not. Both build upon gtk, etc. so shouldn’t be so difficult?
OpenOffice is huge Codemonster, Lucky there is NeoOffice. It already blends quite nicely into Mac OS X. Just the Open/Save Dialogs are still from OO and this sucks, because you browse the native Directory Tree.
The problem is not a technical problem. The mac users need to get their hands “dirty” and start developing.
Linux weenies, yes that is a quite humorous.:-)
Some people are dumb enough to believe that the definitions found in dictionaries define how people use the words they use
Not a problem if you think evaporare,synonomous, perversive,should be in the English dictionary.:-)
Ironically according to the English dictionary ortographical means [ spelled correctly]:-)
That’s what i distil from your humorous usage of words.Maybe that’s the wrong interpretation because i’m moreoften led by facts then emotion and standards we commonly have agreed on to be syntactically right.Someone once said you code the way you write.
As i’m not representing the GPL i think personally the GPL is good for governing the rights of all that use source under the GPL regardless of race,psysical condition,intellectual capabillities,finacial status etc while stimulating innovation.
I’m sorry, Seo, but GRAMPS __is__ a GNOME application
I’m also willing to go to great lengths to support free software platforms, but there is zero incentive for me to support proprietary ones, since most of their users aren’t technically inclined, don’t understand what the concept of a software community is, are least likely to contribute back to the project, etc.
If you expect your users to be in a certain state of mind in order to use software, we’re not talking about license or technical issues, we’re talking about philosophy, or something approaching. Except in very specific cases, I don’t see any reason for asking users to be inclined to anything (except the license) when it comes to using a computer program.
I, in fact, agree with you about the “porting librairies” idea. That’s what has been done for the greatest IM app on OS X (aka Adium) that uses gaimlib. I do try to use librairies in my Cocoa apps instead of simply recompiling and run the original app in X11. Yet, if it is possible to port a certain kind of Linux apps without much trouble and integrating them with OS X’s user interface, I don’t see why that should not be done. And the original developers should be happy to see their user base growing, instead of wondering if the end-user is concerned enough about freedom or anything. Using their software is only the proof they write great pieces of code.
Have a look at <a href=”http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25311&vid=197148“…. It’s a native OS X application, doesn’t have the horrible X11 dependency and it is based on Gimp. It doesn’t have all the features that Gimp has, but then again it does look and feel a lot better than Gimp does on OS X.
Open source developers are a different breed. They form communities around their projects. Most OS X developers work independently. Communities aren’t part of their development culture. They still tend to write shareware apps or freeware apps without giving out the source. I’m a long time Linux user and I’ve been using Macs for over 3 years now. I’ve been waiting for the open source apps to come to OS X but it hasn’t happened. And I’m starting to think it won’t happen. There’s some really cool apps written for OS X that are shareware but I have a problem paying for them. I worry that the developer will stop development of it. Or that Apple will like it and create a similar app of their own. And there are some that I think are lacking some features that would eventually show up if the app had been open sourced.
I really think that it will be hard to blend the cultures of two different types of developers. I’ve come to realize that if you run OS X, you will need to spend a lot of money to be as productive as you can be with an open source platform. For a home user, the open source direction may be the better choice. For a professional, OS X is probably the better choice as the high end apps are definitely better for OS X than what you can find in open source.
But thats why I keep both a Mac and a PC around. My Mac is used primarily for video editing. But I use a lot of apps that Eugenia mentioned on my Linux box. OpenOffice, Pan, GRAMPS, gLabels, etc. Yes, I would love to see them on OS X in a native version. But I’m not expecting it. Although I do think Apple is making a huge mistake in not getting behind OpenOffice. I think it will seriously do harm to Microsoft’s domination in the next five years.
@Yurgen
Of course! Why would I want to give anything back when something is already freely available? I am not a loser you know.
Yes, you are and this sentence is a proof. But I would use pathetic instead of loser for your description
@Eugenia
No, it is not pathetic. I simply wrote my article with a DIFFERENT standpoint. The problem here is that most of our readers ARE Linux weenies, and so they only care about their GPL. My standpoint was from the Mac-Joe-User, not from a perspective of an editor. Here is the reasoning of a Mac-Joe-User:
1. GPL apps are free of charge (most of the time).
2. Someone port them so I can use them on my OSX.
Yes, it is pathetic, but the only thing pathetic here is your comment.
1. Most of your readers ARE Linux weenies, and you insult them
2. Most of the apps you like so much were written by these Linux weenies
3. Now let the world starts spinning in the other direction just because Eugenia would like to use OSX???
Now my advice for both of you.
If you want something, then start doing it. Not screaming how world is not fair just because nobody wans to port applications you need. And don’t insult people who made applications you want (it is not that my app would be listed, but as free developer I feel insulted by your comment).
By the way, I think you already gained enough comments like that on gnome-devel list. Don’t you think enough is enough.
p.s. I know you can’t stand someone bashing you, no matter how realistic he is. I bet you’ll be pressing report abuse in about a minute after you start reading this comment
Freeware Mac programs? Rare as hen’s teeth… not in the culture.
How many program pre OS-X for fun? Not me.
It will take time!
Keep on stirring the pot Eugenia!
What a lame excuse.. WHY can’t mac users learn about open source??? They probably WILL if they use a few OSS programs enough.
What are you afraid of, why are you trying to hide the idea of open source from them in the first place?
ALSO, the title of this article is VERY poorly worded.
“GPL Free Apps” could mean…free apps that are GPL’ed, or apps which are free of the GPL (eg not GPLed).
Sheesh.. leave the article writing to others and just provide links on this site for us.
@ Eugenia
I’d like to assure you that gnustep people’ve started building serious
applications with their framework. Cenon (cenon.info) may be one of
application that is worth mentioning for now but you may disagree (I haven’t
tried it myself) and also GNUMail that does nifty thread arch representation.
In a long run, it would be nice if people start contributing more effort to
gnustep. In the mean while, may be it’s better to port some good QT/KDE
based free softwares? BTW, for a spreadsheet, I found flexisheet is an
interesting project (http://www.materialarts.com/FlexiSheet/) though it
seems the development is kinda frozen. It’s idea is a clone of quantrix
spreadsheet (see quantrix.com and check the free tour if you didn’t know it)
to all the Linux users that were flocking in droves to the Mac OSX platform? Surely that migration should more than enough programmers to port these applications.
There is absolutely no point in current Linux users doing the port, it has to be done by users of Mac OSX, otherwise they’ll just bitrot over time. Just like Linux versions are maintained by Linux users.
The license these programs are under give the freedom to do it, its up to the users to take that extra step if they want the software.
To all of the ‘no freeware available for Mac’ or ‘most of Mac software is shareware’ people…why don’t you do some investigation before making comments like that:
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/lt/freeware
I see almost 6000 apps.
Eugenia,
This was an interesting, but somewhat oversimplified, article. Porting X11 applications to OS X is not a trivial operation, and configuring them to run in an Aqua-native application bundle is even more complicated.
Let me address your points in both the article and the threads:
1. Fink and DarwinPorts aren’t perfect, but they are both excellent venues for bringing *Nix software to the Mac. If you use a GUI to install/uninstall stuff, that’s the simplest way to go. (Full disclosure: I’m the developer of DPGUI, which tries to provide for DarwinPorts what Fink Commander provides for Fink.)
2. Gimp.app, Inkscape.app, and a few other applications are indeed good examples of integrating X11 apps into OS X in a better way than Fink & DP. You’re right. However, these aren’t easy examples to follow, nor are they without drawbacks. First, because of the way OS X loads libraries, moving libraries out of their installation directory causes stuff to break. OS X provides tools to solve this problem, but with an application as big as Gimp, that’s not necessarily feasible. (Gimp.app uses some extremely ugly hacks to work around this. I’ve tried to package another application, Ethereal, using Gimp’s example, but so far without luck.) Even if you get stuff configured correctly, the resulting application is huge. Inkscape.app, with essentially the entire GTK runtime stuffed into the app bundle, is 250 megabytes when installed. My point here is that this isn’t as easy or painless as you make it seem. This is also why Fink & DP don’t create application bundles.
3. One compromise is to install the binaries and libraries in /opt/local (DP) or /sw/bin (Fink), as usual, then create an application launcher as an app bundle and place it in /Applications. I’ve done this for Scribus and Ethereal (using AppleScript and Python). It seems to work pretty well, and is much easier to do. This is how Benjamin Reed organized applications under KDE-Darwin (the Aqua-native version of KDE).
4. Another, more general point to make is that I agree with those who argue for making *native* ports of OSS apps whenever possible. I’m part of the duo that develops Aquamacs, a verison of Emacs that maps to OS X interface conventions. I’m also the maintainer of PyQt on the Mac, as well as various wxPython applications that have their origins in Linux. Qt and wxWidgets have nice Mac implementations, and this is prefereable to using X11 toolkits.
5. Finally, I probably don’t need to point this out, but maintaining OSS is time-consuming and not rewarding from a financial standpoint. For me it’s truly (and only) a labor of love: I haven’t earned a dime from any of my open-source projects. This partially explains the relative lack of OSS on the Mac: a lot of Mac deveopers are solo developers or part of tiny companies that actually earn their living writing software.
Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion. I hope my reply has shed a light on a few points.
Kevin
>I see almost 6000 apps.
Yes, but no good spreadsheet is there (ie, not a very basic one and not one that takes 400 MBs for nothing).
Allow me to make use of the so called freedom of speech (most of you probably know what that means given your apparent fondness of the subject) and yell STOP IT, FOR ****’S SAKE!!! Whatever your feelings regarding Eugenia’s choice of wording in her comments, she *is* right in that Joe Average (that’s the people with a single non-Linux operating system on their hard drives btw) does not (quoting Eugenia) “give a rat’s ass” about your spiritual interpretation of the word “free”. Heck, I’m developing an open source (GPL) alternative shell for Windows that gets downloaded 5000+ times each month, and I can assure you most of them don’t give a shit about the open source part of the picture; they download it because it’s free (of charge, as regular people use the word) and because it potentially gives them a much cooler and more lightweight desktop experience. If one of them will eventually look at my code (which happens) and learn something from it (I wish!), the better. But PUHLEASE spare me the philosophical/ideological/religious crap/rants/barfing!
*SIGH*
Your article neglected to mention all of the hard work done by the MacGIMP project that made the gimp-app project possible prior to Aaron Voisine’s release. See http://source.macgimp.org for details.
First off; there is no need to defend Eugenia from me. That said, I would hope that you do not feel this is an attack on you either as it is just an opinion that I do want you to consider.
But PUHLEASE spare me the philosophical/ideological/religious crap/rants/barfing!
It’s not. It’s both legal and practical.
With any licence, there are responsibilities. Freeware isn’t open source, so the licences are substantially different.
From a practical level, if the source is available it is more trust worthy. Anyone can investigate open source software. True, most people can not as they are not specialists in software development — yet, having the source available shows a level of trust and openness that freeware does not share. Additonally, freeware has a history of being bundled with spyware, viruses, and trojans — often intentionally. Open source, being open, does not have this spotted past.
The main complaint about using freeware to disribe open source is this; it needlessly mudies the water when it is just as simple to say “open source” for software that has source available. If major news publications that do not have a tech focus can use the right terms, why not use the right terms here where there are supposed to be more tech savy visitors?
(Note: The term ‘free/Free software’ is needlessly confusing. That’s why I didn’t use it in my examples. Open source covers Free/free software with source available, so it is a better generic term. Plus, it’s less ideological.)
Free software is important and even Apple know this. The thing I hate more in OSNews is Eugenia’s opinion about free software. She puts Linux and defunct OSes like BeOS, AmigaOS, OS/2, etc in the same level and she always put MacOS and even Windows trash above the others, believing that proprietary software is always better thar free (as freedom) software.
Joe and Jane users who buy Macs and Windows don’t read OSNews and don’t know nothing about free software philosophy. Therefore, they cannot choose between Windows, MacOS X or any other OS.
Eugenia, you should respect more linux users and all who like free software philosophy. We are not “zelots”, “weenies” or other pejorative expressions.
of course i prefer them!
Yes, for me, closed and open software is the same AS LONG as they work as I expect them to. I don’t CARE if something is open source or closed source. ALL I CARE is a piece of software to WORK, because for me, computers are just TOOLS, and I like using the best tool for the job. In this case, for a Mac spreadsheet, I rather have Gnumeric, which HAPPENS to be open source. But if it wasn’t, that would be ok too.
You can go raving about the GPL, I don’t care. All I care is to do my work using a computer. Now, HOW the computer is going to do this (by using closed or open software or by sacrificing a goat), I DON’T CARE.
And yes, this is why I run OSNews.com and not GPLLinux.org. Because I place Windows and OSX and BeOS on the SAME boat as Linux or BSD. They are all OSes, powering a given computer. I don’t split hairs, I would be biased if I was to give an extra token to Linux for being open source. You can argue that this is a meta-feature, yes, but for most people on this earth, its free price is more important than its openess. Most people care to not spend money on software, not hack on code. Get a clue and get off your “political/philosophical/ideological/religious crap/rants/barfing” as Qwilk very nicely said above.
You are free to have your own opinion about software and its significance, but also accept mine too, because I represent ~95% of the planet’s population with this opinion. Are these 95% of people “right” dissing open source? Maybe not. But they exist. Deal with it.
A “little” directory of OSX FOSS (binary pkg) can be found here:
http://www.freesmug.org/review/
About 60 are listed.
Our mission is to spread FOSS usage among Mac users.
You can find tutorial, info, news, video, forums and help on end-users Free and OpenSource Mac software.
News&Release takes tracks only about OSX FOSS, your contribution is welcome.
Like TheOpenCD, you can download with one click FSuiteCD, a .dmg with the most useful Free Software applications packaged for Mac OSX. A new release is coming soon.
My FOSS experience
I’m 15 years mac user old. My first Mac was IIfx with MacOS 7.2. I pass through OS8, 9 till X. I think to be an advanced user of traditional mac graphic application like QuarkXpress, AdobePhotshop, Macromedia Flash and Dreamweawer. Till now I thougth that Mac was the best computer I can ever use despite 90% world user pc.
Recently, due to my ethical point of view, I’ve decided to use and promote FOSS over Mac, but when I get a glance to it I catch an headache and I feel little depressed. All Mac usability is lost!
Using Terminal seems to go back to DOS prompt, all these .hidden file/folder seems to make system control lost and, last but not least, mac versions are often one step behind other one.
So, this little site is to make Mac FOSS easier to use to all not developer/programmer user.
Please contribute and share your knowledge.
Happy MhACking.
P.S. Eugenia take again a look at NeoOffice/J, a lot of improvements were done in the last few weeks. NeoOffice/J 1.1 final will be released to half of next week.
If its X11 stuff just forget it on OS X. Gimp.app does a very poor job on mimicking the OS X interface, partly because X11 isn’t good at it either.
Then there’s the issue that all the Cocoa goodness which really makes OS X shine (Services, Unicode throughout, drag & drop everywhere etc.) is gone with X11 apps. Hell I can’t even input Japanese, because getting a second Japanese input server (besides the OS X native Kotoeri) to work in X11 seems to be rocket science.
OO on OS X is the same, most people ran away from it in horror. Even the ugly Windows-like looking NeoOffice/J does a far better job integrating into OS X, because it’s a Java port and behaves a little more “native” than it’s X11 brethren.
So my big request is, if you port apps to OS X, please do so in Xcode or some environment that let’s the app behave at least remotely like a native Cocoa app in OS X (QT and gtk are ported to OS X, and AbiWord e.g. feels quite native on OS X–althought it’s still missing all the Cocoa goodness).