Apple Losing Touch With the OS Community? 410
InfoWorldMike writes to tell us that InfoWorld's Tom Yager recently had the chance to sit down and chat with Apple about their closing the OS X Kernel. From the article: "The Mac platform is an overflowing basket of raw materials for innovators and creators of all stripes. It's what Steve Jobs would fantasize about if he still worked out of his garage, and you can bet that he'd be livid to find that the vendor locked some portion of his chosen platform behind a gate without a word of notice or explanation."
Part Deux (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and nice headline. I'd even go so far as to call it a sensational headline. You get a slow clap.
Re:Part Deux (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, Tom Yager, you claim Apple promised to make future kernels' source open? Care to point us to any supporting evidence for your spurious claim?
Re:Part Deux (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm....
FTFA
Did you need specific examples? I suppose you could ask him what he rattled off but it is very clear that he did give apple names of people that had contacted him.
Tom Yager goes on to accuse Apple of suggesting people who recompile kernels are an "underclass". Way to create a straw man, Tom Yager. How easy it is to knock that down.
He didn't say that. He was talking about his readers who may or may not recompile kernels.
FTFA
He is preaching to the choir, but sensationalism it is not.
He actually has a desire to recompile the kernel and not get ad hits as far as this article appears.
Re:Part Deux (Score:5, Insightful)
Look closer at the passage you quoted. Here it is again:
"Has anybody ever written to you about this? How many people actually recompile their OS X kernels?" I do, for one. I rattled off some of those groups that value open source in its fullest sense. I included academia, high-performance and high-throughput computing experts, and shops that want to roll in system-level enhancements before Apple gets around to packaging them. He never says that these groups contacted him, which I sincerely doubt they did. Instead, he says that these groups value open source in its fullest sense. This may be true, but whether they are complaining about this is another matter entirely.
Taft
Re:Part Deux (Score:5, Insightful)
The one thing that Yager does fail to address is the reason WHY Apple closed the kernel. I think everyone knows that answer, but for the sake of discussion I'll inject the prominent theory. The kernel was closed so Apple could protect the code used to lock the Mac OS to Apple Intel-based hardware. Until Apple can find, or invent, a better way to secure that Mac OS X will not get into the wild, i.e., installed on non-Apple hardware, or just gives up trying and declares that they will not support it running anywhere else, the kernel source will remain closed. I do believe that Apple will re-open the entire Mac OS X source in the future, but they are presently protecting their fragile sliver of market share in the mean time. Is it an affront to the OSS community? Yeah, but it's also business. They have a product to sell and shareholders to protect. Was it uncool? Yeah. Will the recent actions be nullified and a fully open Mc OS X re-released? I believe so.
Re:Part Deux (Score:3, Insightful)
He didn't give examples of people contacting him, he gave random examples (no specific names) of people he thought were recompiling the OS X kernel.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
A fair number of people choose to work for Apple rather than some other Silly Valley company because they're a "cool company" who did things like open source the guts of their OS. What should someone in their position think after this kind of stunt?
More alarming
No official word; delay != closed (Score:3, Informative)
I remain skeptical. How many Mac users are there who are recompiling xnu (not just to blog about it on Infoworld etc., but because they have actually studied it,
Personally (Score:3, Insightful)
I will stick with OSS thanks.
Rant on arm-chair-biz-o-nomics (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like the concept of take over and control is limited to software. This is fundamental human behavior. Anyone ever hear of the Roman Empire?
I don't understand why everyone bitches so much when a corporation makes a strategic decision that takes them one step closer to market dominance.. If it's really that bad. If it is that bad, you should go make your own OS/mega-corporation that
Re:Rant on arm-chair-biz-o-nomics (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe because as a former Apple supporter (a short-lived state of being as it turned out) I am frustrated to see them cavalierly drop the principles that got me to switch. It might be a different matter if they had already captured a 50 percent market share, or for that matter even a 20 percent market share, but their number are right where they always have been. I see all their recent moves as desperation, and quite possibly the results is that they will cease to matter at all. I just got done answering a request for advice on a non-technical forum and I couldn't honestly advise them to buy an Apple "laptop" even though my last two laptops were Apple machines. Their switch to Intel, coupled with more and more DRM orientation, legal action against well meaning users, and the dissing of the Open Source roots of their OS makes me wonder if the company hasn't suffered a stroke or something. The personality of the company has changed, and with no good reasons (roadmaps be damned), their quality control sucks and they spend more time on propagandizing than they do on actually supporting their users. I have little use for them any more. Unlike the author of the original article, I don't expect them to get better any time soon. Recent departures at the top ought to give some people a clue that something is wrong in Cupertino.
If the iPod market fails the company is history. That should give the fans nightmares.
Re:Rant on arm-chair-biz-o-nomics (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do you give a fuck about the market share of a computer company whose products you are no longer buying? Is your IRA tied up in APPL shares?
I use Macs all the time, and I don't give a rat's ass about their market share. As long as
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rant on arm-chair-biz-o-nomics (Score:5, Insightful)
Rome circa 100AD
Roman Slave: This sucks
Roman Centurian: *whips slave* Quit your bitchin! If it is that bad, why don't you go start your own empire.
Roman Centurian: Ow! Well... I would but you see... You've got this thing called a Roman Legion and I've got these chains on me... Oh and I did revolt you'd kill my family and then crucify me and feed me to the lions.
Roman Centurian: Good point! Get back to work anyways! *whips slave again*
Roman Slave: Ow!
Corporate Environment 2006AD
Cubicle slave: This sucks!
Supervisor: *delegates another deadline* Quit your bitching! If it is that bad, why don't you go start your own company.
Cubicle slave: Well... I would but you see... You've got this thing called millions of dollars of investment into entry barriers of the market and I've got this NDA and contract that owns all my ideas... Oh and I did revolt you'd sue family and then crucify my VC capital and then feed me to the Patent Lawyers.
Supervisor: Good point! Get back to work! *assigns another deadline*
Re:Personally (Score:2)
You DO realize that Apple is going to great effort and expense to use industry standards, unlike OTHER mass-market OS vendors that are famous for their proprietary formats?
Re:Personally (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Personally (Score:2, Informative)
Open your eyes. AAC isn't locked down, it's an industry standard. You can use AAC without using DRM, but even if you do use DRM, it runs equally well on Windows and Mac systems. On the other hand, WMA protected files run only on Windows.
Oh, I see, you meant the iPod and AAC. I don't have a single AAC file on my iPod. I guess that's not locked down either.
Or maybe you meant the iTunes Music Store. You do realize you can burn
Re:Personally (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Personally (Score:2)
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The most common reasons for trying Linux are going to be:
(1) It's something different.
(2) It's free (as in beer).
(3) It's not Microsoft.
(4) It's generally very stable & secure.
(5) There's a lot of stuff to customize (not talking about programming).
Yes OSS is nice (I actually advocate it whenever I can at work as we have onsite programmers so we can customize OSS apps however we want), but if you think that most Linux users care about it being OSS, you'd be mistaken. If you think they switched over to Linux just b/c it was OSS, you're crazy. And no, a quick response typed back stating "But I did switch b/c it was OSS." does not negate this point.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm arguably a programmer. (I say that because if you're not using some sort of compiler there are a lot of people around here who won't even call you a programmer.) I do not hack anything but scripts (and the occasional C CGI). I don't look at or mod any source code for major applications and idea didn't even strike me until after I began using Linux on the desktop and I considered all the little features I wanted to see in X app.
Eventually though, I became a Mac user because I had tasted the fruit of Unix and the command line, loved many of the tools there but didn't have a lot of the commercial apps I liked. (Games obviously aren't a factor.) And motivations were #1 and #3. Apple fits the bill. This is why a lot of geeks are going over to Apple.
When you're 16ish - 20ish (and perhaps a little older) it's cool to upgrade your computer every single paycheck, tweak this and that and spend hours fiddling with your computer. My computer used to triple boot: Win2k, Slackware Linux and BeOS 4.5. It was all fun. But when I actually started making money doing web dev and server related stuff, that kind of lost its luster. I wanted a computer that "just worked."
Macs fit the bill. I will say this though, if you use a little but of forethought when picking out hardware, Ubuntu installs and "just works" easier than WinXP or Win2k. I still keep an OSS desktop around and run FreeBSD on my servers, but I don't want to fiddle with my work machine and generally prefer Mac GUI apps to anything I had in Linux. (Safari, TextMate, Pages, iTunes, Photoshop, etc.) My computers are my tools and I go with preference.
OSS is not why most people/geeks play with Linux. The fact that they're geeks and routinely do technological crap like install NetBSD on their DreamCast is why. We like to play with stuff just because.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, before I get into this let me say that the, "If you make serious judgments about other people based on their platform, you're an idiot," was using "you" in general and it wasn't meant to be personal. I screwed up in the way I phrased that and I apologize. The whole last paragraph was more of a general rant than anything else. That being said...
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Underestimating the network effect of FOSS (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Embedded Linux has a huge growth rate in mobile handsets and other embedded applications, most of which are big commercial product development projects. These projects benefit from widely available experience with Linux kernel building. Anyone with a spare old PC and the time to read an O'Reilly book (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/belinuxsys/)can get into configuring and building embedd
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
(1) So was BeOS and it died.
(2) So was BeOS and it died. Beside, Windows if "free" if you get most new computers and you actually have to throw it away if you want to install Linux. It's also "free" if you "have a friend who knows stuff about computers" (i.e. most people) and you're okay with pirating.
BeOS makes for a very poor counterexample. For a very long time, BeOS was not free (and all during this time, Linux was indeed free). This
Jobs upset? (Score:5, Informative)
Jobs may be great at pushing the designers to do more, but he was NOT the one who did most of the hacking. He even exploded when Woz asked if he could help with the Apple's analog port.
Re:Jobs upset? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jobs upset? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only problem is that OSX is based off of NEXT OS. Steve Jobs started NEXT when he was forced to leave Apple. A more apt comparison would be when Steve Jobs hired John Sculley as the new CEO of Apple. Sculley and Jobs had a a power struggle. The board stood behind Sculley, and Jobs was stripped of most of his duties and banished to an office at the back of a distant building on the Apple campus unofficially known as "Siberia". After a few months of being ignored, he left.
So Steve Jobs would get ticked off and come up with something better.
Re:Jobs upset? (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, I believe that both Steves were necessary for the creation of Apple as a world-changing phenomena. Steve W. was (and still is) the prototypical alpha geek, who views a technical challenge as a personal quest, and who doesn't "work" on a problem, he plays with it. Steve J. had the vision of a world where technology was put in the hands of regular people, and knew enough to make seemingly impossible demands from the people who worked with him, and for him. The kinds of demands that once they were met, resulted in a revolution. I've briefly met both men (at different times), and I have deep respect for what each brought to the table in that fateful partnership.
Vision without ability is neutered. Ability without vision is sterile. The one thing both Steves have in common is the refusal to accept the idea that something's impossible.
m-
Re:Jobs upset? (Score:4, Insightful)
When Jobs returned, it was a conscious decision to position the line as a premium product. Even so, the pricing has almost always been near-equivalent, considering what you're buying.
The reason PCs got cheap had nothing to do with Gates. It was a side effect of the brutal race-to-the-bottom that happened in the late-'80s clone market.
m-
Jobs *UNDERSTANDS* (was:Jobs upset?) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jobs *UNDERSTANDS* (was:Jobs upset?) (Score:2)
Actually it comes from solutions which is the sum of software, hardware, packaging, etc.
Consistent with the past (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesnt matter how stubborn it may seem at the time and goes against potential profits or their customer base, its just classic Apple thinking.
While people may remark that Jobs should be thrilled at their level of success and want things opened up or looking towards Mac's as a game machine, or whatever else it may be. This was more Woz's thinking not so much Job's. Job's has always been the suit side of it all, that happens to be in jeans and loafers.
Consistent with the BSD license too (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I don't quite get it, but this move of Apples clearly should NOT offend BSD license advocates since that is exactly what they stand for.
I think this is a perfect example of some of the tensions within the open source community too, and a key differtiator between the positions of the FSF (Stallman's group who advocates GPL-like philosophies) and the OSI (who has people like ESR who often advocate BSD over GPL tend to like it when companies like Apple do this).
To summarize, I'd say that Free Software advocates will criticize Apple's move, but Open Software Initiative advocates will hold it up as a prime example of business and open source playing nicel togehter.
Re:Consistent with the BSD license too (Score:3, Insightful)
Not exactly. BSD license advocates just don't stand against it. They stand against the additional restrictions of the GPL license.
You're right that it should not offend. It shouldn't offend anyone and it should have been expected.
The real mistake is thinking that Apple is a friend of open source to begin with. They sometimes contribute voluntarily, sometime
Re:Consistent with the BSD license too (Score:2)
Personally, I'm in business to make money off my friends. $12.87 and a 10 yen piece and counting!
Untrue (to a point) (Score:2)
Proprietary != OSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Proprietary != OSS (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Proprietary != OSS (Score:2)
I'm writing this on a MBP. It's already failed and required a new motherboard (which resulted in having my HD wiped my Apple, why's that?) and it crashes often enough. Perhaps not as often as my XP notebook but hardly "rock solid". My mac early-life failure rate is still 100% and i've owned 3 macs now. Pitiful.
Hardware lockin for OS X has nothing to do with "smoothness". It has to do with protecting the MacOS monopoly and minimizing ongoing
Re:Proprietary != OSS (Score:2)
why not put the DRM in something that is proprietary like Aqua?
Re:Proprietary != OSS (Score:2)
Re:Proprietary != OSS (Score:4, Informative)
OS-X is a closed OS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OS-X is a closed OS (Score:2)
Perhaps I Was Off-Planet And Missed It... (Score:4, Insightful)
At one point it was cool to have a PowerBook to do unix dev on, but the quality of Mac hardware has plummeted now that they have been forced to turn to Intel for chips and I don't see many people rushing to trade in their existing non-Mac hardware.
With how fast Ubuntu with the new accelerated desktop is coming up to speed, I don't think I even care about OS X anymore outside of the more ascetically pleasing UI elements.
Re:Perhaps I Was Off-Planet And Missed It... (Score:2, Insightful)
When they shipped the Apple ][+ with a commented assembly-language listing of its firmware.
Not so much since then.
Re:Perhaps I Was Off-Planet And Missed It... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sorry, what? I fail to see even the slightest logical connection in the switch to Intel chips being due to the low quality of Apple hardware.
What exactly are you comparing the quality to? Certainly not your average PC...
If I may add... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's also about money. Yager states that he believes Apple will open the OS back up again (eventually), and I'd have to agree. A running theme in economics is that investment (in technology) leads to increased capital. I believe the main reason that the Linux community enjoys so much capital right now is because of the years of investment. That investment was at the cost of human labor and hard work by the OSS community!
When Apple realizes that free (as in beer) investment into their business (by the OSS community) actually has a bottom dollar impact on capital, the lock on the kernel will fly open pretty quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
OS X (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Fork? (Score:2, Insightful)
No quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
darwin? (Score:2)
Rule #1 For Understanding Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is a hardware company.
Apple happens to have an incredibly great OS and great consumer and pro apps, but when it comes to what butters Apple's bread it's all about the hardware. Apple is not, nor will it ever likely be, a software company.
Does opening the source for OS X sell more Apple hardware? Obviously not, since it allows people to use OS X on non-Apple machines. That's not in Apple's interest, and that's why they're making that more difficult to do. Apple is first and foremost a business, and no smart business would cannibalize itself to pick up a market that they don't need.
People who are dogmatic about OSS have plenty of choices in the market. Apple just isn't one of them. Somehow, I doubt Steve Jobs really loses sleep over such a small part of the market.
Re:Rule #1 For Understanding Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
I disagree. I think Apple is a computer company. Apple is interested in selling you the complete package, software and hardware. Having seen the company from the inside, I don't believe that the infrastructure and effort that's behind their applications is merely some kind of slick adjunct or value-add to sell hardware. The strategy is synergy.
Apple is about selling (and having as much control as possible over) the whole enchilada.
Re:Rule #1 For Understanding Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rule #1 For Understanding Apple (Score:2)
Again supporting my mantra that human rationality goes to zero when a computer is involved.
Apple is a computer company. In fact, the name of the company is "Apple Computer, Inc."
So, what is next? Verizon being a phone company? Oh, they have proprietary software, they sell phones, but their bread and butter is ripping people off via locked in contracts.
Oh, and Ford is a car company. Yeah, they have proprietary software, and sell auto parts, but their bread and butter is sellin
Re:Rule #1 For Understanding Apple (Score:2)
That reminds me: Apple is a computer company they should not get involved in music.
Re:Why are they experimenting with Intel then? (Score:3, Insightful)
PowerPC wasn't cutting the mustard, otherwise Apple would still be using them. We were still stuck with bloody G4s in the laptops. Thanks to heat, they were one generation behind. With x86 Apple doesn't have to focus on hardware development and they don't have to play magic numbers to try and convince people a crappy G4 is somehow more powerful than what Intel is offering. With Intel, there is no concern as to whether they'll be around tomorrow and with the hard competition from AMD, it's
Excuse me, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
BSDs asked for this (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion, this is why the BSD license is bad. However in many other people's opinion this is why the BSD license is good - because it gives you the freedom to fork and close source it.
Whether it's better to have the 'freedom for the code' (GPL, LGPL somewhat, etc) or the 'freedom for the person' (BSD) is of course a personal opinion.
Re:BSDs asked for this (Score:2)
Wake up. That's what the BSDL is *created for*! If you don't agree with it, go use something else. Don't pretend you know the reasons behind people's actions better than they do.
Re:BSDs asked for this (Score:3, Insightful)
Protect Yourself At All Times (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft has taken advantage of Apple's innovation before and thrived in doing so. I think it's prudent for Apple to keep its guard up and its kernel safely locked away until it has enough momentum and market share to make it a smart move.
I imagine that Microsoft's first look at a MacBook made them feel like Apple felt when it got its first look at Windows 98; "Holy shit!"
Re:Protect Yourself At All Times (Score:2)
Get things straight... (Score:5, Informative)
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Fed-talk/2006/May
In my opinion if I had to put companies on a list, Apple would stil be high on my openess with developer list. At least Apple has all of the developer tools (Xcode and others) free for the taking. You still have to pay Microsoft to write programs for windows unless it's a batch file.
Free VC++ 2005 (Score:2)
You still have to pay Microsoft to write programs for windows unless it's a batch file.
Here [microsoft.com]
You can stop talking rubbish now.
Re:Get things straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
What? 5 seconds of research would have kept you from looking ignorant. You can download all the needed SDK's from MS without cost. You can even get the free (as in cost, not Freedom) versions of Visual Studio 2005 along with the free (cost) version of Sql Express.
The Visual Studio Express [microsoft.com] editions allow you to do development with C#, J#, C++ and unfortunately VB.Net.
I am not an MS fanboy, however if you are g
Re:Get things straight... (Score:2, Funny)
Whoa there cowboy, slow down... If you read the Slashdot rules and regs you will see that you are way offbase with your comment.
Re:Get things straight... (Score:2)
Why hasn't anybody mentioned DRM yet? (Score:2)
BSD license encourages opportunism (Score:3, Insightful)
Proprietary OSX should be expected now that Apple has gotten all it can out of the BSD code base. Let it be a lesson to the Free Software Community about the dangers of BSD style licenses. It encourages opportunism. Theo's rant earlier today is a further example.
And this means. . . (Score:2)
Fewer technical folks will switch to OS X, but on the other hand the typical Mac user could not care less either way. Open source, closed source, or even lose the shell prompt again, they'll be totally unaffected.
As an aside: I still want OS X, but I do not want Apple hardware. Open up the licensing, Jobs!
Only official Apple response (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
To date, the only official response [apple.com] has been:
Just to be clear, Tom Yager was *speculating* about why we have -- so far -- not released the source code of the kernel for Intel-based Macintoshes. We continue to release *all* the Darwin sources for our PowerPC systems, and so far has released all the non-kernel Darwin sources for Intel.
Nothing has been announced, so he (and everyone else) certainly has the right to speculate. But please don't confuse "speculation" with "fact."
Thanks,
-- Ernie P.
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D. (408) 974-3075
Product Manager, Open Source & Open Standards; Mac OS X Product Marketing
Apple Computer; 303-4SW 3 Infinite Loop; Cupertino, CA 95014
and a response to a private message I sent:
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 12:08:45 -0700
From: Ernest Prabhakar
To: Dave Schroeder
Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Apple [may not open] OS X Kernel for Intel
Hi Dave,
On May 21, 2006, at 11:41 AM, Dave Schroeder wrote:
When *will* something regarding a xnu source release on x86 be announced?
I know you probably can't answer this, so it's somewhat of a rhetorical question, but seriously: the lack of release of source for xnu on x86 represents a significant change in strategy to some customers with no corresponding announcement or roadmap. When will concerned customers be informed as to what is happening?
Generally speaking, when a final, irreversible decision has been made, we will find
_some_ way to let affected customers know about it.
If nothing else, the very fact I am telling you to *not* assume that something is true,
means *I* don't believe it is true.
-- Ernie P.
Seriously, might there be kind of a, you know, huge developer conference coming up in a month and a half or so here where some of these questions might be answered? Especially since Tom Yager's speculation is just that - speculation - and extremely old news [slashdot.org] at that? Is it any wonder that both of Yager's articles are under "Opinion" headlines?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Only official Apple response (Score:3, Informative)
To date, yes. I will 100% agree that the Intel xnu source is currently closed. However:
- Intel xnu source hasn't always been closed
- PowerPC snu source is still open
- The change happened with Intel-based Macs began shipping
- He is speculating as to the *reason* xnu on Intel isn't currently open source
- The implication in Yager's articles is that because it's closed now, it must/might be closed permanently
Re:Only official Apple response (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I bet it is a mix of several issues (including time and resources) and that come WWDC 2006 more will be made clear (one
Apple is just waiting Vista (Score:2, Funny)
I know, it may take some time...
---
Donde Ser Geek No Duele [blogspot.com]
Who was his source (at Apple)? (Score:3, Insightful)
These seem like questions marketing would ask. People that are actually in charge of OS X's development wouldn't need to ask these questions because they would understand the reasons why people would want the kernel's source code.
At any rate, we still don't know why Apple hasn't released the source yet (or if they will at some point). There are some hints that there might be Intellectual Property issues involved. This post [apple.com] on one of Apple's Darwin mailing lists indicates that there are IP issues that precluded the release of one of their Intel ethernet drivers. If the Intel Kernel contains licensed code from Intel (for TPM or EFI or something else) or licensed code for Rosetta then they might have problems releasing the code.
This is a simpler issue than Tom admits. (Score:5, Insightful)
Darwin is still open source, except for the x86 kernel (XNU).
This is meant to slow down / stop wholesale use of OSX on generic x86 hardware.
Everything else, including the PPC source for XNU is right there, open and available to developers. I browsed it mere minutes ago.
Apple still hasn't said that this is the final disposition of the x86 kernel, but it's what they have for now.
The Part Tom's Making Complicated
Tom's invoking everything short of motherhood and apple pie (sorry) over this.
He imagines and carries the standard for legions of people who want to compile custom x86 Darwin kernels.
(Isn't this the very definition of astroturfing - "a few people discreetly posing as mass numbers of activists advocating a specific cause"?)
He seems to claim customizing the kernel is Very Important, Real Soon, for those who simply want to, and for those who want to optimize some custom servers and thin clients / workstations that he imagines Apple will be releasing in the future.
Maybe they will. If so, they'll figure it out.
But so far, no pitchforks or torches have been spotted on Mariani Ave.
Take his argument to the logical extreme and Apple lets everyone run OSX on anything they want.
That would be Bad for the future of Apple.
He does seem to say there's some magical way for Apple to have it both ways, but doesn't say how.
not much of a loss (Score:2)
The BSD camp keeps boasting that the BSD license is more free than GPL because it allows modified distribution without the source code, and now they're complaining Apple is no longer opening Darwin ?
And even Apple did open Darwin, the OSS crowds keeps claiming it's semi-proprietary, and continued praising Linux/BSD instead of Darwin. Apple has to spend the time and resource to keep
the explanation that didn't come (Score:4, Interesting)
Try: too many people hacking OS X to run on PCs.
Fraction of a Fraction sounds about right (Score:2, Informative)
Target market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple and Jobs don't care that they're losing touch with 'the OS community'. I doubt they ever cared much in the first place. Just enough to get Slashdot to make an Apple section.
Security now! (Score:3, Funny)
And by "at-bay" I mean several hundred feet below the Golden Gate Bridge...
how can they "lose touch"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prior to OS X, Apple for years was shipping a clunky, single-tasking OS when other systems were already robust and multitasking, and at some point, Apple tried (and fortunately failed) at their attempts to shut out all other GUIs from the market.
I don't think Apple has ever been "in touch" with the tech community.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
One question: Are you going to PAY (as in money) for Apple's O.S. or are you just going to copy it from a friend?
The bottom line, it's about profit. Apple has no incentive to open up their O.S. for free. If Apple can't make a profit off it, what's the point? Nothing stops you from purchasing a new Mac. That's Apple's bread and butter, computer sales. You want to switch, buy a Mac. You could probably buy a new Mac cheaper than switchi
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not hard to switch. Apple is a hardware company first and foremost. Buy a MacBook or a Mac Mini and get the best of both worlds.
If you want to stay with your Dell or Gateway box, load SuSe or Ubuntu. Much of the advantages to OS X is the tight integration between hardware and software. You just won't get the same benefit by loading it on to some crappy WallMart box. Contrary to some people's beliefs, you don't have a right to load OS X on any computer you like. It is a proprietary piece of software and buying Apple's hardware is part of the deal. If you don't like it, use OSS on your beige-box.
BTW, this was written on a Dell running SuSe 10.1 -- sitting next to my MacBook Pro dual-booting WinXP and Tiger.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. This post seems so on-topic, yet strangley makes no specific statement about Apple's actions. Almost as if Mr kronnek had this in a clipboard buffer and pastes it into every "Apple did something bad" story.
Look, I've been a window user for years... I just don't understand Apple
The second, hence the first. Many people do not understand Apple, particularly her fans.
They have vision, ideas and a damn good OS. Why do they keep shooting themselves in the foot? Mac users must be frusterated because of
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's natural (Score:2)
Re:Surprising if true. (Score:2)
I started liking Mac OS when it became a unix, and bought my first Mac (an iBook) a few years ago (I switched from Linux). I also own an Intel iMac because Best Buy couldn't repair my PPC one.
However, between Apple closing the kernel to prop up their Treacherous Computing stuff (even though it hasn't stopped people from running OS X on normal PCs), using DRM in iTMS, and continuing to refuse to make a tablet, I'm seriously considering switching back to Linux with my next computer.
Closing the kernel isn't
Re:Surprising if true. (Score:5, Informative)
What about people who want to hack up an OS using a Mac? (raises hand) Believe it or not, cross compiling to the x86 platform using a PPC Mac and QEMU actually works. It's actually a better development environment than Windows, because you don't have to work around Windows' lack of Unix tools.
If you're weird like me, check out the OS FAQ [mega-tokyo.com] for information on creating your own operating system, including the building of a cross-compiler. Bonefide [osdever.net] also has some great tutorials on getting going with your operating system construction project.
Re:shouldn't the headline read... (Score:2)
Re:Why people love Apple so much ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, am I the only one to perceive Apple as just a facade?
Probably not, there are lots of people without a clue.
I feel it's just a brand name for a target market, absolutely nothing more.
And all of the innovative technology they have created and or popularized was an illusion of some sort?
I still remember the KHTML fiasco (and the lengthy posts about it in Slashdot) when the white knight turned black.
Why don't you bother to go read some informed post about said, issue, you know like what the KHTML people had to say about it? Apple followed their license, used the code, made it better and gave it back. They diverged in purpose quite a bit from what Konquerer wanted, so many of the changes were hard to pull back in or were not wanted. Further, some of the developers did not like the way the code was posted (as a lump) and asked for more granularity and documentation, which the Safari team worked hard to give them. If you had any sort of a clue, you would not pick this example to complain about Apple's behavior.
In every action, every decision I see Jobs as a Gates-wanna-be. It's the same kind of company. I'm not trolling, I'm just trying to understand why Apple is loved so much. Can anyone give reasons, real reasons, for this...
I can give a lot of reasons. They listen to their customers and make products many of us geeks want and make a profit at the same time. They save a lot of us from having to use the abysmal Windows or functionality lacking Linux. They make our lives easier. The most devout Apple fanatic is usually someone who bought their first Apple machine a month ago and is still amazed by how much easier everything is. They can't understand why everyone isn't using it and just want to let everyone know. I've seen it many times.
The enthusiasm of a newbie aside, Apple consistently delivers innovations. I would be very sad to use a primary workstation without system services after Apple supplied them to me. I use them every day and when I use a Linux or Windows machine I feel like I took a step back to a more primitive era. They supply a top notch GUI with real innovations, like expose. They supply a fully functional command line environment that integrates with the graphical UI. They integrate application with one another and they run mainstream software. I can actually invoke photoshop from a usable command line. I can use one program's functionality in another. For example, I can highlight a URL in Safari and use a third party program's ability to automatically generate a bibliography citation from that HTML page and insert it into a book I'm laying out in InDesign. No other OS lets me do that without a bunch of copying and pasting. I have one dictionary. When I teach it that "SNMP" is not misspelled, all my applications know from then on. I could continue, but there is no real point.
If you use OS X for a few months as your primary workstation you will understand why so few people switch back. Naturally, a lot of people like Apple, because Apple gives them this. Now they don't do everything better than others. They are behind MS and Linux in certain areas. They do a lot of things I'm not to fond of and they do a lot of things to try to get a little more money out of people. What they don't do except in one or two very necessary areas is lock customers in and they do a good job of interoperating using standards. For this, a lot of us are appreciative.
Re:article down (Score:3, Insightful)