X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X • Hacker News Board

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#111

Post by CrLf » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 5:33 PM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #84

acdha wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what do you have problems with? For me it's been smooth sailing since around 10.5 or so - and the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools.

Their reorganization of XCode into an app bundle was really, really annoying and, frankly, makes zero sense; making the command line tools an extra download makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers (as opposed to general purpose ones).

"makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers"

No surprise here. It is very clear that the Mac is becoming two things:

1. Just a bigger iPad that isn't too awkward to use where your average consumer can actually create stuff (videos, photos, etc.); 2. A development machine to create iOS apps.

Everything else is an afterthought.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#112

Post by justin66 » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

cicloid wrote: post #26

TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation. Apple didn't include X11 in order to not tie the releases to certification and QA. In the other hand, many engineers on apple still work on XQuartz. Releasing more fast via the XQuartz Everyone that really depended on…

> TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation.

What is the value in giving a synopsis like this which is completely wrong? The author discusses his feelings a couple of times in the article, impugns Apple's motives not once, doesn't discuss corporatism, and uses the word "bad" precisely once to describe his experience here. He's not hyperbolic enough to use the word "evil," that was you.

Users who depend on both X11 and Apple's RSS support (all ten of them) are going to find this upgrade a bit of a pain. That's not reflective of a narrow mindset, it's reflective of an unusual use case.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#113

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #97

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #39

I wonder if Apple risks losing its technical (i.e. programmer) users. If OS X stops feeling like a UNIX-like OS to technical users, and they move away, OS X may receive less attention from developers. And that won't be good for the platform.

The whole point of this move is so that technical users will get a fully up-to-date version of X11, rather than whatever old version was up-to-date when the OS went gold master. Technical users will have little trouble installing it (Apple makes it easy), and will appreciate being up to date. Meanwhile my parents won't miss it. Another example of this way of thinking is that Apple apparently removed the web server so…

Ah, fair enough. I'm not an OS X user, but I have heard about Apple's tendency to have out of date open-source (and therefore often insecure or buggy) libraries and software.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#114

Post by smashing » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #68

xutopia wrote: post #24

What I find disturbing here is the expectation that they would include it. I was speaking to a Microsoft evangelist two years ago and asked him why it took them so long to release a new version of Windows. He essentially told me that Microsoft does the best legacy support in the world and wanted to ensure that every single piece of important software could still be installed and work with the new version. He also exp…

The first time I tried to open Gimp after upgrading to Mountain Lion, OS X popped up a prompt telling me that X11 was now provided by the XQuartz project, and it had a link to go download it. Barely different from trying to run Java software and getting the "You need Java, click here to install it" dialog box. Apple may not be releasing X11 any more, but they made sure the experience was relatively simple. And give t…

Same thing happened to me. I looked for XQuartz after the ML upgrade on my hard drive and found that it had not been uninstalled. So I ran Gimp and it requested XQuartz be installed and opened the download page. I downloaded and installed it, then I attempted to open Gimp again. The program then requested the location of XQuartz and I identified it under Utilities and Gimp started running.

Go ahead and open a bug report. I don't that this is expected behavior.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#115

Post by mgurlitz » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #43

tomstuart wrote: post #4

Imagine if Apple removes [the floppy drive] itself in the next version of [the Mac], or decides [wi-fi] is the future and gets rid of [the Ethernet port]?

Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward benefits, though. Removing software, less so.

X11, Flash, and Java were all potential attack vectors whose security is provided for by a third party -- I can see why Apple would want to discourage this.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Apple's Radar bug tracker had a few dozen bugs in Safari RSS, maybe even a potential DOS threat, and they chose to move on rather than allocating more resources to an unpopular feature.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#116

Post by derleth » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 5:55 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #99

derleth wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to jwz: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/07/apple-dicks/ The fact it was eventually resolved changes nothing about how idiotic the process to that point was.

How is that in any way related to this conversation?

It's Apple proactively removing things from one of their products. They decided that XScreensaver was not something they wanted to allow and invented reasons to not allow it. Until they changed their minds.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#117

Post by redial » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 6:07 PM UTC

runjake wrote: post #59

This seems rather knee-jerk. XQuartz is X11.app. Percentage-wise, not many users needed X11 and the ones who do should be smart enough to follow the instructions they give to get XQuartz. Apple effectively removed engineering redundancy. It allows for a more aggressive release cycle. Apple engineers still oversee XQuartz. Many of the main committers are Apple employees working on Apple's time, for example, Jeremy Hud…

I think you mean 'Messages.app obsoleting iChat.app.'

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#118

Post by mikeash » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

derleth wrote: post #116

mikeash wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that in any way related to this conversation?

It's Apple proactively removing things from one of their products. They decided that XScreensaver was not something they wanted to allow and invented reasons to not allow it. Until they changed their minds.

The conversation was about Apple removing built-in hardware from their computers when making new models, not about Apple blocking third-party software.

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#119

Post by runjake » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 6:48 PM UTC

redial wrote: post #117

runjake wrote: post #59

This seems rather knee-jerk. XQuartz is X11.app. Percentage-wise, not many users needed X11 and the ones who do should be smart enough to follow the instructions they give to get XQuartz. Apple effectively removed engineering redundancy. It allows for a more aggressive release cycle. Apple engineers still oversee XQuartz. Many of the main committers are Apple employees working on Apple's time, for example, Jeremy Hud…

I think you mean 'Messages.app obsoleting iChat.app.'

I did not mean that. I was referring to the following from the article:

"Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?"

Re: X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

#120

Post by nicholassmith » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 6:51 PM UTC

gurkendoktor wrote: post #108

nicholassmith wrote: post #19

Whilst Apple removing an application without informing the user is bad, them not shipping things that are less used is a good thing. RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications. X11 on OS X has always been, well, not that great and I use it fairly regularly for remote session testing and a few other bits and bobs. Apple wants someone else to keep it up to date for the peopl…

> RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications. Exactly this is my issue (not the rest of your comment, but this sentiment which I see everywhere since a couple years or so). Every time Apple drops support for anything, people talk about cleaning up, or the inevitable march of progress, or about how Microsoft is doomed because you can still install their OS on unworthy 32-bi…

It probably doesn't impose any overhead specifically on users, but it's additional codebase that needs to be maintained and whilst that's a 'well that sucks for the devs' issue it becomes a user issue as they're not focusing on their core competencies, which in this case is making the email client as good as possible. I'll take a better email app over additional, underused features.