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MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

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Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#111

Post by dorianm »

raimue wrote: post #108
filereaper wrote: post #80

Heh, I went spelunking through the bsd/mach layers of the code, was quite a bit of fun. Looks like they've only released the x86_64 and x86 versions of the code? I don't see any ARM in there. Anyways, found gems like this [1]: /* * File: sched_prim.c * Author: Avadis Tevanian, Jr. * Date: 1986 * * Scheduling primitives * */ I hope to leave a legacy like this someday, hopefully someone will appreciate the author's com…

They are never releasing the full source code. Apple strips the ARM architecture, blocks of code for features they do not want to be open source, and the internal documentation before throwing these dumps over the wall. Here are some hints of what they are doing to process the original sources: https://opensource.apple.com/source/hfs/hfs-366.1.1/make_ope...

Thanks, quite interesting:

    # Check for remaining bad file names
    BADFILES=`find . \( -name "*.arm*" -o -name "arm*" \) | xargs echo`;
    ...
    # Check for remaining bad file contents
    if grep -iEr '([^UD_]_?_OPEN_SOURCE_|XNU_HIDE_SEED|XNU_HIDE_HARDWARE|CONFIG_EMBEDDED)' .; then

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#112

Post by arm »

edko wrote: post #67
jaxn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little nervous about this switch, but it is definitely a high quality machine with solid attention to detail. Also, Windows 10 seems pretty solid. I have a long way to go, but I am hoping that I can use the Thanksgiving break to get over the hump and be relatively productive when I get back to the office on Monday. I am pretty committed to making the switch though. I am taking notes in case the transition is w…

I am reluctantly thinking of jumping ship too. What is keeping me back is that, I remember, a little while after Windows 10 was released, there was a scandal because it sent users' data back to Microsoft, disregarding privacy settings. I haven't followed the story too much since, and could not find anything saying the issue was "fixed". Does anybody know how the story ended?

Unfortunately, the issue was never "fixed". Microsoft is still doing it. Some recent discussion here¹.

――――――

¹ — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957745

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#113

Post by pksadiq »

bad_user wrote: post #104
minxomat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the Windows Server 2003 x86 and the Windows XP amd64 kernel source code have been available for academic purposes. They are governed under the WRT License, which forbids re-distribution outside of the academic use. But yes, MS provided that source code with full documentation on how to build and debug each kernel. I've built the WinXP kernel a few months ago just for nostalgic purposes, here's a VM running the c…

You're talking about cool things, no doubt about it, but code made available for academic purposes only is still not open source. This isn't just pedantry, we are scientists from different countries, with many of us having learned English as a second or third language (I'm from Romania, hi), so it's better to be precise in language. And in this instance "open source" is a good term to be precise about, because the OS…

> So when I hear "open source", I don't have to go and read the license and validate that these requirements are true...... This saves me time, headaches and money.

Most of us have some vague understanding about Licenses.

Eg: MIT/X11 specifically says "...FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT..." but it is "open source"

That is, if you earn too much money from some MIT License software, the author itself is free to sue you the way he/she can (eg, patents). One example could be dotNet from M$.

So better stick to software pieces that are licensed under GNU [A]GPLv3 or Apache v2 (If you care patent issues). Also, note that you can trust "free software" guys more than "open source" ones.

edit: Also note that this can also be a reason why Apple didn't update any GNU packages once they were relicensed to GPLv3+. (The main reason could be the GPLv3 requirement that the user should be able to replace the software if [s]he wish to. Apache doesn't have this requirement, and Apple used that for swift)

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#114

Post by pYQAJ6Zm »

gaxun wrote: post #27

I have been drafting an 'Ideas' post about the following idea, but it's not done yet and this looks like as good a place as any to look for some early feedback. This might not have as much clarity as I'd like. The general idea is to have a site that can track various projects that release their own copy of GPL (especially, but other licenses as well) software. So Apple ships their version of {bash, etc.}, and so does…

I really like the idea. Where free licenses are concerned, I believe this would help “cross-pollination” among projects and facilitate the progress of open source.

It could also work as a (perhaps curated) reference. Sort of like Rosetta Code, but for more high-level features ­– “how have projects X and Y chosen to implement this feature?”

Besides, it could serve an archival function. A quick search on the web reveals a couple of projects on this vein, but they tend to rely on storing official releases. The way I see your idea, it could be made to work in a way closer to what archive.org does for the web, archiving everything it’s permissible to, with the addition of meta information about the projects, their relationships, etc.

Not a small undertaking, but a very inspiring one!

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#115

Post by toyg »

throwaway4891a wrote: post #17
sashav wrote: post #5

no USBAudio? Again? So much for open source

Either they don't want to release it or they can't (a third-party contract/NDA), at least right now. Open sourcing is often seen by big-businesses as potentially "helping" competitors undermine, replicate, sue, make interoperable wares which may threaten the "Golden Goose." It sucks, but that's the situation... lawyers can't force them to release other code unless they're caught TiVoizing some GPL 3 code or something…

> You'd think Apple would want to invent the next cool kids bandwagon

They don't care. Objective #1 is selling more iDevices. Objective #2 is selling more iDevices. Objective #3 is selling more iDevices. Everything else is a mean to that end. Take Swift: it only exists to make it easier to build iOS apps, so that they can sell more iDevices. APFS is being introduced so that flash-based systems can work better, so that they can sell more iDevices. And so on and so forth.

That's an admirable level of focus, mind; just don't expect they do anything because it sounds cool to geeks - Apple just doesn't work like that.

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#117

Post by userbinator »

minxomat wrote: post #81
bad_user wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaked source code is not open source dude. Open source is software licensed under terms compatible with these rules: https://opensource.org/osd

Both the Windows Server 2003 x86 and the Windows XP amd64 kernel source code have been available for academic purposes. They are governed under the WRT License, which forbids re-distribution outside of the academic use. But yes, MS provided that source code with full documentation on how to build and debug each kernel. I've built the WinXP kernel a few months ago just for nostalgic purposes, here's a VM running the c…

The complete disregard for any legalities has certainly resulted in some very interesting and even useful software. It reminds me of the (largely Asian) community that formed around modding/hacking/cracking Windows in various ways, and the products that resulted: CDs and DVDs with a dozen different versions of Windows on them, liveCD/USB/DVDs, and chimeric combinations of OSes. If I remember correctly, Vista and later had significantly increased the number of integrity checks in the OS, arguably for security reasons, which made this sort of experimentation more difficult; but in the 2K/XP/2K3 days, it was pretty open.

Those in the scene may recognise the names Roy and Wengier, 911cd, and the China DOS Union.

Here is an interesting article from those days: http://pasotech.altervista.org/mirrors/michael_kh_au-yeung/n... (file links are mostly dead though)

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#118

Post by Gruselbauer »

minxomat wrote: post #89
filereaper wrote: post #80

Heh, I went spelunking through the bsd/mach layers of the code, was quite a bit of fun. Looks like they've only released the x86_64 and x86 versions of the code? I don't see any ARM in there. Anyways, found gems like this [1]: /* * File: sched_prim.c * Author: Avadis Tevanian, Jr. * Date: 1986 * * Scheduling primitives * */ I hope to leave a legacy like this someday, hopefully someone will appreciate the author's com…

For giggles, here are some comments I grepped from the WinNT kernel: https://gist.github.com/turbo/75f0905275c29a3049f983cfe273ea...

These are hilarious, thanks.

> to the HAL by the NT god. Hail Caesar!

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#119

Post by mcintyre1994 »

pksadiq wrote: post #113
bad_user wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about cool things, no doubt about it, but code made available for academic purposes only is still not open source. This isn't just pedantry, we are scientists from different countries, with many of us having learned English as a second or third language (I'm from Romania, hi), so it's better to be precise in language. And in this instance "open source" is a good term to be precise about, because the OS…

> So when I hear "open source", I don't have to go and read the license and validate that these requirements are true...... This saves me time, headaches and money. Most of us have some vague understanding about Licenses. Eg: MIT/X11 specifically says "...FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT..." but it is "open source" That is, if you earn too much money from some MIT License software, the author itse…

> One example could be dotNet from M$.

If you ignore the patent grant, sure.

Re: MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

#120

Post by Corrado »

gaxun wrote: post #27

I have been drafting an 'Ideas' post about the following idea, but it's not done yet and this looks like as good a place as any to look for some early feedback. This might not have as much clarity as I'd like. The general idea is to have a site that can track various projects that release their own copy of GPL (especially, but other licenses as well) software. So Apple ships their version of {bash, etc.}, and so does…

That sounds like a pretty good idea. What about using this as a central place to track GPL violations? I have a feeling that there are quite a few products out there in the wild that use GPL software but don't confess to it. Maybe a site like this could persuade them to become compliant with the license.
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