Re: MacCentral Post
Re: MacCentral Post
- Subject: Re: MacCentral Post
- From: Lance Westerhoff <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 11:18:08 -0400
Scratch that. I just took a look at http://www.opensource.apple.com/
darwinsource/10.4.6.x86/ and it looks like it was everything except
xnu. I would wonder if this is a long-term problem or a short-term
delay due to the kernel being under extremely active development.
The general consensus seems to be that the reason is so that a hacker
wouldn't be able to port OS X to a non-Apple Intel Box, but if this
is the case, I would think there would be better ways to protect
Apple's control. Specifically, Apple already ships a very important
and always closed source aspect of OS X: "the GUI" (ie: the Window
manager etc). Wouldn't it make more sense to tie this already-closed
code to Apple-specific hardware through various hardware checks, and
then allow the kernel to be open? This way, the most this "hacker"
would be able to get running on any x86 box would be Darwin
(something it has done for some time), but this same hacker wouldn't
be able to get the GUI to run. I know the purists would say that
this goes against general practice that all hardware-specific code
should live in the kernel (and I agree in principle), but there must
be some way to preserve Apple's control over their OS while also
allowing developers to build new kernels.
So I guess the question is whether or not this general consensus is
correct or that is is simply that there is a short-term delay as
Apple gets its collective act together.
-Lance
On May 17, 2006, at 10:37 AM, Lance Westerhoff wrote:
Hello All-
I'm sure for the most part, people on this list aren't much into
the "popular press", but it seems there was a post on MacCentral
this morning that may be of interest to folks on this list.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/17/closesdown/index.php
Example Statement: "Thanks to pirates, or rather the fear of them,
the Intel edition of Apple’s OS X is now a proprietary operating
system. Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom
to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code.
Stripped of openness, it no longer possesses the quality that
elevated Linux to its status as the second most popular commercial
OS."
Perhaps people here may want to comment. Admittedly, I'm a lurker
more then a kernel hacker, but I thought this was addressed weeks/
months ago with the recent release of the source of the kernel for
Intel.
-Lance
____________________
Lance M. Westerhoff, Ph.D.
General Manager/Chief Software Engineer
QuantumBio Inc.
WWW: http://www.quantumbioinc.com
Email: email@hidden
"Safety is not the most important thing. I know this sounds like
heresy,
but it is a truth that must be embraced in order to do exploration.
The most important thing is to actually go."
~ James Cameron concerning Human Space Exploration
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