Mta-interface: amavisd-new-2.3.3 (2005-08-22) + Maia Mailguard 1.1.0 at daleenterprise.com
Well, the love/hate relationship has fueled the fires, the release of
and public availability of the apple mysql binaries that should have
come with the OS along with complaints from many developers has
motivated apple into posting the missing binaries but they still
don't acknowledge anything publicly and make no public notification
of correcting the mistake.
Operating with their tails between their legs apple offers the
missing binaries publicly but notifies no one and makes no public
announcements so that developers can take advantage of files they
need and should have received but didn't get.
Two additional projects header files and one additional projects
library files are also missing which I am now in possession of,
without posting these files anywhere, this time around myself and a
handful of other developers have submitted complaints about the
missing files in the hopes that apple makes them available in a
timely manner and can make some kind of public announcement of their
availability which would be the right thing to do.
Hell, they could have offered the files as a developer update but
instead have taken the "silence is golden" approach to the problem.
I can understand that they made an error for whatever reason but
their current tactics in this issue isn't helping them with a
favorable reputation of good consciousness and as discussed amongst
the developer community, apple is getting progressively worse with
their mistakes and their business ethics regarding resolution seem to
be dwindling to what is being refereed to as non-existant.
Since I've already acquired the files and shared them with this group
of developers, it's more of an exercise in examining apple's business
ethics and whether they will do the right thing to prevent public
posts that smear their questionable practices and prevent them from
quietly sweeping it under the rug as if it never occurred.
Let's be serious here, wouldn't it have helped their image by public
acknowledgment and speedy resolution of the issue rather than the
image that is being concluded by the current path taken?
Am I surprised at this tactic of non-notification or awareness of
public availability, no, I expected about as much but (unfortunately)
hoped for something different.
On Nov 8, 2007, at 15:09:41, webmaster wrote:
Well if you're a developer you'll be disappointed, it seems apple
screwed up (probably more than once) but wouldn't commit or even
comment on availability or an acceptable compliant solution.
It all started when I installed Leopard and XCode, tried to build a
project that has a mysql library dependancy but it failed to build
citing missing mysql header files.
I check the drive and the header files are nowhere to be found, I
determine the version of the installed mysql and manually install
the header files and go back to building my project but it fails
again, this time citing missing mysql library files.
A once over on the drive concludes the libraries are in fact
missing so at this point I decide to call apple and find out what's
going on, I'm told that the library and header files should be
installed so I check the drive again and also scan all of the
installer packages and the files are not found and confirm this
with tech support who also performed the same scan of all the
installer packages.
An apology is offered for the missing files but no commitment or
even a guess when or if apple will be making them available.
Not to worry, I now have the missing files.
After dinner I called up a buddy at apple (they're 4 hours behind),
explained the situation and voiced my complaint at the sheer
stupidity of it all and later last night some generous soul uploads
a tarball of the mysql (complete) installation and a quick call
back to my friend results in the realization that he didn't upload
it and doesn't know who did so I don't know who to thank for the gift.
Based on the file dates I have concluded that to the best of my
knowledge these files are the original (missing) apple files with
the correct architectures.
I'm not sure what they think they are preventing by precluding
these files, but this omission makes development annoying if the
basic dependancies are missing for any reason.
As suggested by my friend, it was probably due to the rush to
release Leopard by the already postponed release date, now it makes
me wonder what other files are missing due to their last minute
rush to release.
One other file that might be important is "/sbin/mount_volfs", for
those who know what it is and how to use it, be sad, it's not
available so full custom FS mounting isn't possible because you
can't register the FS for root-level access and after I discussed
it with a couple of other apple employees who were also
disappointed in it's loss, they tried building and adding it but it
didn't work due to the System/Kernel API changes, their looking
into a solution because they use it as well so their might be
something released as substitute whenever it can be resolved.
Don't misunderstand me, you can still work around it to some degree
but the results obtained are not acceptable from a developer
standpoint, I'm not talking about mounting and using it at the
client/user level where full FS manipulation doesn't occur.
I guess I can expect similar surprises as more omitted dependancies
pop up and it makes me think, "a disappointing vendor" that hurts
development if they forget to include dependancies and can't even
comment if they'll ever be made available let alone when they would
be if they did decide to make them available.
