Ask HN:Any idea on list of open source software used in Apple ecosystem?

#1

Post by nutanc » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 5:20 AM UTC

For a closed eco system, Apple seems to be using a lot of open source software.Just wanted to know if they are giving back as much as they are taking. Also, are they giving back just because of the copyleft licenses created by Stallman.

Re: Ask HN:Any idea on list of open source software used in Apple ecosystem?

#2

Post by adamrmcd » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 8:23 AM UTC

Way back in 1998 Apple contributed several patches to KHTML (KDE's browser). I think in 2001 Apple forked KHTML to become WebKit. WebKit is LGPLv2.1[1] and Apple dedicates the second-most[2] number of developers to its development, second only to Google.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webkit#Open-sourcing

[2] http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit%20Team

Re: Ask HN:Any idea on list of open source software used in Apple ecosystem?

#3

Post by turingbook » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 10:51 AM UTC

LLVM is another important open source project from Apple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Level_Virtual_Machine

And they also developed an open standard: OpenCL.

Re: Ask HN:Any idea on list of open source software used in Apple ecosystem?

#4

Post by rbnio » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 10:28 PM UTC

There's lots of information about this on apple.com:

http://www.apple.com/opensource/ http://opensource.apple.com/ https://developer.apple.com/opensource/