>>>>> "il" == Isaac Levy <ike@xxx> writes: il> I can't believe I'm going to come to their rescue in this il> thread- but here goes: yeah I guess if I argue it as ``apple is bad'' I am just starting a discussion that will get silly quickly. It's hard, though, because the press releases and almost everyone's reactions are shot up and dripping with this ``apple is good'' sentiment. Maybe it's better to ask questions like: Q. does Darwin source availability mean I will have more software freedom if I buy a Mac rather than a wintel laptop, and thus make me more hip to the free software scene? A. No. In fact, well-chosen generic PeeCee crap hardware is more free-software-friendly than Apple hardware. in particular the wireless chip, but other chips, too. Q. is it worth investing my time and attention in the Darwin source? A. you might use it in a read-only way for working on NetBSD/macppc, or to help develop new exploits into functioning Mac OS X worms for a script kiddie botnet. But you won't build it, modify it, or observe it running in a debugger. Q. is Darwin the fifth BSD, another free as in freedom platform like the other four BSD's, as is implied by most people's reading of their press releases, by most casual /. discussion, and even by its on-topicness for a BSD user's group list? A. Emphatically NOT. As for Sun, I think Darwin is the free software world's version of Vietnam. When Sun makes press releases then stalls on delivering source, fails to sell any hardware where all the drivers are open-source, makes it difficult to determine what's open-source and what isn't, and plays name-games with to what chunk does ``OpenSolaris'' actually refer?, people can accuse them of ``pulling a Darwin'' or ``tossing source over the wall.'' At least Apple gave us a word for this type of time-sucking disinformaiton disaster. I remain skeptical, but Sun has done a few things differently than Apple, which is why I invest time in Solaris but not in Mac OS X: * they've made a public commitment that every _new_ piece of Solaris they write will be open-source. They have not _kept_ this commitment w.r.t. drivers, and I don't know a good way to audit them on it so I would suspect they're slipping in general, but at least they've made themselves vulnerable to mockery for a while when they deviate from this. Apple just talks (deceptively) about what they've done, and doesn't make or keep concrete commitments about what they plan to do. The latter is what I need when deciding if I want to commit to a platform or not: some accurate idea about it's future. * over the last two years, pieces of Solaris that used to be closed have been released open, and we haven't had chunks mysteriously disappear from the release. We are moving in the right direction, however I can't yet imagine a future of Linux/BSD-like freedom. I predict we will never see the promised SunStudio source. I also bet there will be important chunks of Solaris that are encumbered but are too old, critical, and painfully thrashed into bug-freeness for them to risk the massive QA and regression pain of a rewrite. And I bet they will hire anyone who knows how to work on these chunks, so the pressure to rewrite them will always remain minimal. but opening more subdirectories rather than taking them back inside the wall is still a big deal, and better than Mac OS. * there's a publicly readable Mercurial repository that's just a bit behind what Sun uses internally (though of course many things are missing from it). That's a hell of a lot better than tossing slapdash collections of source files over a wall years after the corresponding binary stable release. * the source they release _does_ build. consistently, I think. You can complete a development cycle with it. you have to link in huge binary chunks. You have to install a binary-only DVD, a DVD which you can't build yourself, and then overwrite parts of your system with the results of an OpenSolaris build. But at least what source they do release can be changed, rebuilt, used, and attached with a debugger. * the familiar names from mailing lists that Sun has hired seem to continue speaking relatively frankly after they sign Sun's papers. this is just an impression, but at least it's worlds apart from the impression apple gives. * Sun developers will actually post on their internal PSARC mail folders, ``why is this case marked closed? There's no reason for that.'' and get an answer, and open it. so I can only presume they are recruiting people with the promise, ``work on a mostly-open operating system.'' This makes it even harder for them to pull a Darwin, because they become infiltrated with these guys who they can't afford to lose in large numbers all at once. I guess Sun could limit their exposure by avoiding hiring any developer who has no financial reason to work. but still, I can imagine this change to their culture being one that actually sticks. I probably trust Sun marketing less than Apple. Those guys seem like a bunch of land sharks on acid, with their constantly renaming things, announcing features a year before they're released spreading disinformation with stunning flagrancy, and enforcing this weird newspeak on their employees. But Sun's track record over the last two years is so SO much better than the Apple disaster, and Sun has sort of posted some embarassment-bonds by saying all new features will be open-source, and made themselves vulnerable through the infiltration of people who might quit if Sun pulls a Darwin. more-or-less supporting you: http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/darwin_lessons.html 1) No one does anything with Apple's Mac OS X source. As we can see from the "usefulness of source" thread on Apple's darwin-dev list (http://lists.apple.com/archives/Darwin-dev/2006/Feb/index.html), no one on the darwin-dev list actually does any development on Darwin. Almost all of the responses to how people use the source Apple posts is 'documentation'. This is indicative of so many problems, I don't know where to begin. Well, actually, I do: Darwin is dead! Next: Apple's documentation sucks! Maybe darwin-dev should be renamed to macosx-documentation. http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html Much of OpenDarwin's initial content came from a site called darwinfo.org, which I ran until I became employed by Apple and was asked to remove much of the functionality. [...] Marketing thought that by throwing some source files over the wall, they could increase their market share and revenue. And they were right. You go to almost any technical conference these days, and there is an astonishing number of Mac laptops in the crowd. Prior to Mac OS X, people would have been laughed out of the building for having a Mac, but now, with Mac OS X and the magic of open source, it was suddenly OK or even cool. Managerially and culturally, Apple had no intention of becoming involved with any community outside its own walls. There were some well intentioned engineers and even a few low level managers that were duped by their own marketing department, and that was all. These people had given substantial amounts of their free time under the illusion they were doing something Right, something Good, but in the end were simply used by their own company's marketing department. il> + Audit any of the listed systems/subsystems (to see how il> something you like or dislike is put together) meaning for use ``as documentation''. il> + Independently Fix obscure or specific bugs, (publicly or il> privately), for use within purchased copies of the MacOS. no, clearly you can't fix bugs if you can't build the source and complete a development cycle. Also, they don't accept back fixes. (Sun does.) il> + Use as A rough snapshot for developers. I don't know what this means. But a snapshot in {Net,Free,Open}BSD is in the same format as a release. It can be built, installed, run, debugged. It's just less stable. Darwin obviously isn't that kind of snapshot! il> (Unless Solaris shops have now gone to deploying OpenSolaris il> on X86 in massive production environments that I don't see? This is a good question for Sun: how do I check out the sources used to build, say, Solaris 10 Update 4? if I want to fix a bug on a production machine myself? I don't know the answer. I don't know if that branch is public or not---it might be. The binary version of the S10U4 stable release is free as in free beer, but as you say the instructions posted are for building the development release only. il> Or UNIX hackers even running their personal mail server with il> OpenSolaris?) not mail server yet, but planned. I'm using Nevada b71 as an NFS server and on two boxes as firefox/xterm/openoffice/xpdf/azureus/java desktop. I believe it works better for this than FreeBSD and OpenBSD. On SPARC, it definitely does. Anyway, for now, the actual complete installable OS is called Solaris Express Community Edition, and is free as in free beer. OpenSolaris is the chunk you can build from source + blobs with 'nightly' and use to overwrite part of your installed system. il> So with that, I don't see a reason to dogg Apple on their il> source code releases IMHO a loudly self-congradulatory release of unbuildable source always warrants some kvetching. The fact that you can use it for ``something'' (documentation) doesn't mean no kvetching. And arguing that Apple didn't intend for me to be able to actually use it, only for massive numbers of people to _believe_ I could use it, so my frustration isn't a surprise to them but rather part of their plan, doesn't make me feel better at all! I think they should be given the boot. out of the BSD club. thanks for taking our source, have a nice day, bye-bye! -- READ CAREFULLY. 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