Submitted by The OpenDarwin project is shutting down. “Over the past few years, OpenDarwin has become a mere hosting facility for Mac OS X related projects. The original notions of developing the Mac OS X and Darwin sources has not panned out. Availability of sources, interaction with Apple representatives, difficulty building and tracking sources, and a lack of interest from the community have all contributed to this. Administering a system to host other people’s projects is not what the remaining OpenDarwin contributors had signed up for and have been doing this thankless task far longer than they expected. It is time for OpenDarwin to go dark.”
Looks like Darwine and WebKit (and Xpostfacto, among others) will need to find new homes. What a shame
Today should be a very sad day for the community.
It is the terrific example of how the enterprises and the economics can kill the ideology and the dreams of the people that can change the world with them.
Looks like a lot of people contributing within the Mac community find their work unappreciated.
Just can’t get no satisfaction. I see what you mean, resexcellence.com and now this, could be the start of a trend. People got to be paid something, be it respect, fame, appreciation, gold, love, elevated self worth, education, adventure, whatever, there’s got to be at least a little in it for the cook or nobody eats.
Right, the recent string of news is hard to interpret as anything other than Apple’s development and user communities beginning to crumble.
When OSX first came out, I thought that Apple really had a second (third? fourth?) chance to build a personal computing empire. As we’ve seen with Microsoft, the key to turning your platform into an institution is to foster an incredibly strong development community. The problem is that the bar for community building has been raised quite a few notches since Win32 came along.
These days it’s hard for a proprietary software vendor or even for some commercial OSS vendors to establish a community of active developers when the free software communities offer every opportunity a volunteer developer or tester could ever want. When it’s so easy to become an active contributor and eventually take on a leadership role in a project like Gentoo or FreeBSD, why waste your effort submitting patches through an inconvenient and unresponsible corporate filter?
Apple would have had to try much harder and open up more of its software in order to build the kind of community they need to get to the next level. Small ISVs are leaving the Mac platform at an alarming rate, possibly faster than Microsoft is alienating them.
Both platforms will keep their big ISVs, but they can have them. The big ISVs of the future are today’s small ones, and they’re gradually flocking to free software. You don’t think Adobe will dominate their markets forever, do you?
Now just let me zip up my flame-retardant suit…
Small ISV’s are leaving the Mac platform for…where? Linux? Can you give me any examples? What are the business opportunities there? Would it be possible for Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire) or Gus Mueller (VooDooPad) to have equivalent success on Linux as they did on the Mac?
Apple gets all the credit, as they probably should if they’re going to have any hope of breaking Microsoft’s death grip on the technological world. Linux just isn’t for everyone, there needs to be a commercial alternative to Windows and it needs to gain a lot of market share.
…it was interesting there for awhile. :/ I don’t like seeing projects that involved a lot of work having to shut down.
In response to “Apple Wins” by Cookie Monster… I don’t understand what you are saying. I mean, I understand what you are saying, but I don’t understand what that has to do with OpenDarwin shutting down?
I know it’s sad… Projects that aren’t dead yet will probably find a new home soon (Something like sourceforge)…
For the dead projects… well it’s sad…
I predict much better success for OpenSolaris. There are already sucessful projects based on OpenSolaris – Belenix, Schillix. They are already fairly useable distros. I wonder if OpenDarwin ever really had a chance?
You are right but people in GNU-Darwin and OpenDarwin are BSD Lovers. BSDs need a lot of people for maintaining ports. Take for example OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD and NetBSD. They need them!!!
And solaris and haiku and linux and there is Darbat, which can be evolved to a BSD over L4 (if they are wise enough and unite with other people out there, because darwin over L4->dead end, corporate decisions ensure that) . A competitor to MacOSX.
And there is syllable,aros,FreeDOS and some other attempts.
But Linux/BSD/Syllable/Solaris badly need them!!!
With the most important parts of OS X beeing closed source this is exactly what i expected. It is just surprising that they kept up for so very long.
I agree with you, furthermore, support for x86 was dropped, and if you didn’t have a Mac you were out of luck.
Who’s next? There are tons of Linux distros out there that are pretty lonely…
There is a difference between Darwin and OpenDarwin.
For more info look here:
http://opendarwin.org/en/faq/ch01.html#what_is_darwin
OpenDarwin is (was) independent from Apple, but Apple still has the Darwin open sourced (without i386 arch though).
Is it that Apple has no need for OpenDarwin, hence the x86 version be closed? I have no problem with non-open source software, keep stuff closed if you want. But, I say beware of BSD-licensed products, if you use them, always remember that the lead developer, or company that is developing it can decide to close it. I know, there can be a fork of the product and others can continue to develop it, but when Apple is involved…beware.
Apple has never been a fan of open standards. Look at their hardware, for years look at their hardware.
They arguably lost the huge marketshare that they had all those years ago because of the fact that PC/standards are alot more open.(though yes there are other reasons, this one stands out)
Look at how they’ve fought against the guys at the osX86(or whatever that website is called, it slips my mind at the moment) project.
Apple has made it incredibly hard over the years for mac lovers to adequately fawn over their apple/mac. I’ve sometimes looked at this similarly to a woman who is in a abusive relationship. If you are “a cut above the rest” and wish to develop for the mac platform you have to do it EXACTLY as apple wishes otherwise you are smacked down.
Honestly I say good riddens. I welcome these developers into the linux fold, or if they are of the BSD type I hope they help the BSDs to gain more userbase/marketshare as linux has already done. Help out solaris, they seem welcoming of the average joe too. Apple doesn’t.
This is more of the same.
QUOTING:”Look at how they’ve fought against the guys at the osX86(or whatever that website is called, it slips my mind at the moment) project.”
What would you expect?? To allow a copyrighted operating system to be freely hacked and distributed?? What does this have to do with OpenDarwin or opensource projects anyway??
Are you sure you want to be asking that question? The open-source brigade feels like they’re entitled to hack and distribute all closed-source, copyrighted software simply because it’s not open-source.
———-What would you expect?? To allow a copyrighted operating system to be freely hacked and distributed?? What does this have to do with OpenDarwin or opensource projects anyway??————-
By itself? It doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
But when you put it all together, it tells a story. A story about Apple’s history. As I started out with in the post you are replying to, look at apple’s hardware. Look at all those years they made nearly non-user upgradable computers.
I understand Apple’s goals. And I respect it from a business standpoint. They don’t want anything to get in the way of their 30+ percent margins. They have every right to charge that if people will pay it.
But for people to be surprised when you look at apple’s history is in itself laughable. This is what apple does. You may pay full price for that computer, but it’s never really yours. It’s apple’s computer.
Contrast that with a standard PC. While still being HP’s computer, gateway’s computer, so on and so forth, they are much more open. Macinteloshes may very well break this mold. Haven’t seen much of those yet.
Now contrast those two with a home built PC. Especially if it runs Linux or another OSS. That’s *MY* computer. 110%.
Now contrast those two with a home built PC. Especially if it runs Linux or another OSS. That’s *MY* computer. 110%.
The specs for all the chips you use are Open?
You may pay full price for that computer, but it’s never really yours. It’s apple’s computer.
The great majority of people are entirely uninterested in the kind of ownership you are talking about.
Ridiculous.
“If you … wish to develop for the mac platform you have to do it EXACTLY as apple wishes otherwise you are smacked down.”
Smacked down? How? By whom? Apple has been encouraging third-party development like never before. Free developer tools. Third-party listing on Apple’s site with less oversight than VersionTracker?
Oh what would I know … I’ve only developed software on this platform for a decade. Heh.
Just Start working on Haiku… It is, for me, the most promising Desktop OS out there.. And in fact resembles a lot of the features that made Apple OSes interesting..
Go help those coding-heroes, guys!
Sorry for bad english.
You are right, Haiku is very promising. And BeOS was an eventual successor of MacOS Classic before Apple bought NeXT & Jobs. Unfortunately when Haiku will provide the first public release it will be little-bit obsolete.
But obsolete but working is an firm ground to stand on if you want to move forward. Lets hope for more diversity, not less.
maybe I am wrong but from my understanding sources will still be available on apple’s open source web site: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html
Apple is not closing anything.
But I will underline that it is sad that OpenDarwin closes. I never really understood what OpenDarwin was however. It sort of looked like a mirror of Apple’s Open Source pages and a home for projects like WebKit or Darwine.
Anyways, we will regret OpenDarwin, but long life to Darwin! (still available on Apple’s web site)
maybe I am wrong but from my understanding sources will still be available on apple’s open source web site: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html
That article was posted on 2005-12-02. Apple closed Intel parts after that.
Apple is not closing anything.
Yes, Intel branch and now since OpenDarwin is closing complete branch will close (at least source usability wise). You might have Darwin, but you won’t be able to run it on new machines.
Edited 2006-07-27 01:01
From the XPostFacto page at OpenDarwin:
Welcome to the development site for XPostFacto, the software that permits you to install Mac OS X on certain unsupported systems.
I used XPF to get Jaguar running quite well on a 1995 G4-enhanced 7500 PowerMac. In a nutshell, it works by overriding parts of the installer that detect the platform, and then installing substitute kernel extensions to allow OS X to run on that older hardware. When it only ran on PPC platforms, Apple probably found it an amusing experiment.
Now that OS X runs on Intel platforms, the mechanisms in the installer which deny installation on unsupported platforms are a less trivial issue for Apple. Realistically, I can understand Apple’s lack of interest in helping third-party developers learn how that TCP implementation works. Had Apple made the Intel switch with the advent of OS X, I sorely doubt they would have been as free with Darwin as they were.
In the end it wasn’t that large a benefit to Apple outside of publicity.
In the end it wasn’t that large a benefit to Apple outside of publicity.
But the publicity benefit was HUGE. It meant that a lot(?) of skilled hackers looked at Apple, and said: “Hey, closed source doesn’t have to be evil.” and started coding for Apple’s platform, and took Apple seriously. I believe a lot of Linux-to-Mac switchers partially derive from Apple’s open-source efforts.
Sad news. I considered working with Darwin but realised that its just to risky to devote time to that platform with the fuit monster pulling the strings. I choose to develop on Linux instead. I bet Apple is happy. I can see Jobs doing a “Mr Burns” now – Eeeeexcellent!
Edited 2006-07-27 00:27
“The open-source brigade feels like they’re entitled to hack and distribute all closed-source, copyrighted software simply because it’s not open-source.”
Bullshit.
Can you give an example of an OSS project that “hack and redistribute” closed-source copyrighted software?
“Can you give an example of an OSS project that “hack and redistribute” closed-source copyrighted software?”
OSX86
What’s with all the people saying “Apple community is starting to crumble!!! Apple had a chance but now that OpenDarwin’s out and ResExcellence’s out it’s all OVER!!”? Seriously, that’s just stupid. OpenDarwin is NOT Darwin, it was a separate project!
There are other examples. Jamie Zawisnki, the author of XScreensaver switched from Linux to Mac last year, and nobody really cared. http://jwz.livejournal.com/494040.html
So why do people bother about ResExcellence or OpenDarwin? It doesn’t mean ANYTHING for Apple’s future.
Darwin’s biggest problem: The IA32 versions released prior to the Intel switch ran on a very limited set of hardware (sounds like NeXTstep!). Essentially you were limited to a PII/PIII on a board with an older Intel chipset, and just a few network cards. Because IOKit is quite a bit different than the driver frameworks in either Linux or BSD, many free software developers were probably scared off if they had the hardware to actually get it running in the first place.
On PPC, you’d have better luck, but most of the free software development these days doesn’t seem to be happening on PPC. OpenBSD and NetBSD have pretty good PPC support, but that stems from the portable design adopted so long ago. Linux’s PPC support, despite lots of work from IBM, still is probably a good six to eight months behind IA32/AMD64. FreeBSD’s PPC port has been real-soon-now for about four years now I guess. :-p
And I think people were scared off by the initial APSL. Even though Apple amended it so it’s a pretty good license now, that initial problem turned people off. If XFree86 changed their license back to something that’s GPL-and-BSD compatible, do you think people would flock back to it? Nope.
Now called: Closed Darwin
“OSX86”
Pray tell, how is that an OSS project when no source is available?
Can someone name somthing that openDarwin created independently of apple? As far as I know, few majors strides have been made because of the oss nature of darwin.
Will we honestly miss this project?