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Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

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Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#241

Post by spacedcowboy »

nightski wrote: post #230
internet2000 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bootcamp isn't available as Microsoft doesn't have a version of Windows compatible with the new platform. The parent comment even says that. And Gatekeeper has been around for 8+ years, always with ways to run whatever you want, but I'm sure the "locking down" is coming any day now. It's just business: Apple won't intentionally remove features that makes their hardware more attractive. It's where they make most of th…

I didn't mean to imply it was Apple's fault Windows did not run on M1 (in fact it has been shown that Windows ARM64 does run natively on M1 albeit through a patched QEMU due to lack of driver support), but by designing a custom SoC they have abandoned the approach which would afford them the most compatibility (staying with x86). This may have been the right direction for them, but it's not the same approach as befor…

Nah, gatekeeper has been doing the remote check thing for years (just, 2 of them, I think).

It only became noticeable because there was an oversight in the "fail-fast" algorithm. If Apple was available, it was assumed it would be fast, and it wasn't when there was an iCloud outage.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#242

Post by CountSessine »

mbreese wrote: post #175
CountSessine wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, I disagree with some of your points, but the one point I agree with is really important. There's no clear guarantee that there will be other performance-competitive arm64 CPUs in laptops anytime soon. I don't think anyone has as much incentive as Apple does. Who else is as incentivized to make a laptop/desktop-class arm64 chip? Maybe ARM themselves ... but without a mainstream OS to run it on (with ma…

You do know there is a version of Windows for ARM64 already, right? It was largely hampered by the speed of the available CPUs, but it does exist. What I’m really curious about is how the ISA for the M1 is different from the CPUs Windows for ARM already supports. And as others have mentioned — I think GPU support will be more difficult, but I don’t have any data to support that. But, it’s not like alternative (and ma…

You do know there is a version of Windows for ARM64 already, right?

You do know that there's no software available for it, right? Without software, arm64 Windows is not a viable operating system for an arm64 laptop. ARM Windows is as relevant as MIPS Windows or Itanium Windows without the huge ecosystem of software you get on x86.

And who goes bankrupt first to build this platform? Is it the laptops makers who lose millions investing in laptops that almost no one will buy because there's no software for them (actually, they already did that). Or is it the software devs who lose millions porting their software to laptops that no one owns? When Apple says the future is ARM, everyone knows the hardware will be coming and they'd better fire up their IDEs. There's no such confidence in ARM Windows.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#243

Post by dev_tty01 »

lathiat wrote: post #195
nightski wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bootcamp is dead on M1. In addition they have taken steps towards further locking down which apps can run on OSX. So he's probably talking about that Apple.

Though “BootCamp” is dead they 100% give you the option to boot unsigned software (unlike iPhone) and it will be possible to boot another OS. However obviously that OS will need drivers and they aren’t available and apple aren’t making them hence no “BootCamp” but it’s totally possible and people will almost certainly start to boot Linux to a certain degree although it seems unlikely we’ll get a proper accelerated GP…

Well, it remains to be seen if something like Boot Camp will return. Federighi's comment made me at least think that if MS allowed (and encouraged) Windows on ARM to run on Macs then Apple might do what it takes to make it happen. Time will tell.

Federighi quote: “We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in turn of course supports x86 user mode applications. But that’s a decision Microsoft has to make, to bring to license that technology for users to run on these Macs. But the Macs are certainly very capable of it.”

To be completely clear, this quote may have only been referring to virtualized operation, but given a change in the WinARM solution licensing model, Apple might support booting as they did on x86 Macs.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#244

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

freehunter wrote: post #165
squarefoot wrote: post #94

No, I wouldn't, not even if I could print billions in a snap. I'd rather help funding the port to a 10 times slower but open platform, rather to a technically superior but proprietary close one whose owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition from Linux in any of their core business fields. No thanks, I'll send my small quid to whomever appears to be really in favor of openness, n…

>owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition We're talking about Apple, right? The company that made an entire software platform called Bootcamp, specifically to enable a competitor's OS to run on their hardware? A company who custom-developed drivers specifically to be compatible with a competitor's OS on their own hardware? You're talking about that Apple? The one who said they w…

The company that forced me to buy a mac to develop for them?

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#245

Post by spacedcowboy »

toyg wrote: post #149
doctor_eval wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think it’s more often that FOSS that doesn’t play well with Apple. It’s understandable - Apple keeps a lot of desirable software for itself - but perhaps unfortunate. Federici has said in one of his interviews that Apple wants people to hack on the M1 machines so I’m hopeful that they will be more open than on IOS. All of that said, I won’t hold my breath.

> Apple wants people to hack on the M1 machines Of course they do. Like they wanted people to hack on OSX 20 years ago; and once they reached critical mass, they pulled up the drawbridges (dropping anything GNU, dropping Java, restricting access to the OS, pushing AppStore, etc etc). Chances they're going to do exactly the same with M1 and its follow-ups are 99.99%... if anything because their management is largely d…

They dropped anything GNU because of the GPLv3, which was specifically designed to stop what the authors saw as exploitation of others' work.

I can see both sides here - the viral nature of GPLv3 is anathema to a company like Apple, so simply walking away was inevitable; and people were exploiting loopholes in the GPLv2 (I have no idea whether Apple was, but there are documented cases of others doing it).

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#246

Post by spacedcowboy »

Someone wrote: post #134
doctor_eval wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is XNU not FOSS? Has something changed? Is Wikipedia wrong? It says that XNU is APSL which is approved by OSI and FSF. While I agree that much of the good stuff is proprietary (but certainly not all, eg WebKit), that doesn’t mean that the free stuff isn’t free. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Public_Source_License

Indeed. Git repo at https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu . Note that that is 2 years behind. You can get a newer source dump from https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-6153.141.1/ . So, open source, but development isn’t done in the open. You can’t really expect you’ll be able to see recent commit messages or even just regular source dumps.

The development methodology has nothing to do with whether something is FOSS or not.

If you're complaining that you want to see daily updates, that's a completely different thing than claiming it's not FOSS (as OP did).

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#247

Post by MegaDeKay »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #190
ddingus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As spiffy as Apple mobile devices are, I never found the locked down environment worth it. Nice hardware, too bad about the OS/App model... This new hardware is awesome! I could care less overall though. Frankly, open computing can be done fast enough to not be a worry. I will stick with all that and see where this new path leads. And my mind is open. Who knows? Maybe it all ends up in a good place. I am quite happy…

The Mac M1 platform is about as open as any other laptop platform. Your points are quite valid for the i-class devices, but there is nothing preventing anyone from installing linux on an M1 Mac once driver support arrives.

> once driver support arrives.

How will the GPU driver support arrive unless Apple opens up the specs to it? Either these open it up like AMD and the community writes a driver, or they keep it closed and people try to reverse engineer something that is a poor second best (hello Nouveau).

What do you realistically think will happen?

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#248

Post by ineedasername »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #169
freehunter wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition We're talking about Apple, right? The company that made an entire software platform called Bootcamp, specifically to enable a competitor's OS to run on their hardware? A company who custom-developed drivers specifically to be compatible with a competitor's OS on their own hardware? You're talking about that Apple? The one who said they w…

And they did all of that in response to community solutions that weren’t as solid as their first party support. They went out of their way to support and extend the viability of their users clear desire for dual booting, at that time of a much more formidable competitor than MS is today.

It wasn't altruism, they did it because it would help sell more hardware and bring more people into the Apple ecosystem.

If they see a similar use for Linux support, they'll do the same. If they think it will hurt them in some way, they won't.

But I think it's fair to at least consider the "undermine" possibility considering that on iPhones they've consistently blocked attempts to jailbreak or open that platform in the way an alternate OS does on their Macs. We've already seen incremental moves to make MacOS app distribution more centrally controlled. So I honestly don't know where Apple believes their long-term interested to be on the topic of facilitating, or at least not actively blocking Linux.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#249

Post by ineedasername »

dorfsmay wrote: post #210
squarefoot wrote: post #94

No, I wouldn't, not even if I could print billions in a snap. I'd rather help funding the port to a 10 times slower but open platform, rather to a technically superior but proprietary close one whose owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition from Linux in any of their core business fields. No thanks, I'll send my small quid to whomever appears to be really in favor of openness, n…

Will Apple sell M1s to other laptop manufacturers? I already pay for closed source Intel and AMD, I wouldn't mind being able to use M1s, but, I just don't like Apple laptop hardware.

Apple did not have a good experience the last time they rolled out licensing of that sort. Watered down the brand especially given some very crappy PowerPC clones.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#250

Post by endgame »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #232
waheoo wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously trust that not to change? When is driver support coming? When will audio on Mac's work on Linux? When will the touchbar drivers be made available? Apple doesn't give a shit about Linux, but they also don't make it easy to use their hardware. And to answer the question posed, no, I would never give this company money.

> Do you seriously trust that not to change? No, I don't. On the Mac platform, Apple has consistently elected to give users ultimate control. They could have a change of heart some day, but so could Intel, Microsoft, or any other vendor.

The same Apple that continually locks down / harder and harder with each OS release, and makes developers jump through more and more hoops?
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