On Oct 4, 2012, at 9:14 AM, objectwerks inc wrote: >> >> Or you only have examples of contributions under licenses that don't require >> that they share anything, letting them pick and choose which modifications >> they share? > > Apple puts a ton of stuff back into open source projects. They just avoid > the GPL since it is not really about freedom, but control, and Apple would > like to retain control of their work.
Yet Microsoft is a top contributor of the linux kernel, and have contributed code to SAMBA. Both under the GPL. Webkit is not about freedom either I guess: LGPL and BSD licenses. A license that is regarded as having been designed to proscribe a code base being used in closed source software available to the public, is not about freedom, according to you. Closed source is about freedom? For whom? Apple puts in so many tons for open source projects, yet we have quite old bits in brand new Mountain Lion, even setting aside the GPL utilities. But you have nothing to say about this XServe-ization of Mac OS X. There's a pretty clear eventuality in Apple's track record when the milk starts to get sour. >> I'm well aware that they contribute some things to open source, under >> licenses that let them sleep at night. It is entirely within their right to >> make vertical contributions to particular open source projects, and yet reap >> broad benefit from open source projects. > > Which is how EVERYONE does it. Most people USE a lot more open source stuff > than they contribute back to even if they are prolific committers. That is > usually constrained to a limited number of projects. Finally, you make one reasonable point. Sadly, it doesn't last long. > The world has benefitted more from Apple's contributions to open source than > probably ANYONE else's if you look at pure numbers. I accept your proposal to provide me with the the pure numbers so I may look at them. This is quite the grandiose statement, I look forward to seeing your metrics and data. And the pure numbers. > Based on the numbers for Webkit use alone, that dwarfs Linux use (or any > other project -- Linux is probably the most widespread with a few desktops, > relatively large number of servers, and Android). Why are you comparing WebKit and Linux in this way? The context is commits by committers. Not hardware counts. Why are you considering WebKit as synonymous with an Apple only contribution? WebKit is a fork of KHTML, and Apple open sourced their fork 7 years ago. Have you considered that Apple might not even be a majority contributor to WebKit? Google, KDE, Nokia, Samsung, all contribute. A total of 418 people have pushed commits to WebKit. Yet you equate WebKit to Apple. WebKit use dwarfs Linux use when you use flawed (and biased) logic to distort the client-server relationship. You're counting physical instances of clients vs servers, in a context where it's expected there'd be many more clients compared to servers. It isn't expected to be a 1:1 relationship. > Every Android phone using Linux also has Webkit on it, so that cancels out. > Then all the Chrome and other use of webkit more than cancels out the > limited number of Linux desktops and the server cadre out there. They cancel out even though WebKit is ~4 million lines of code, compared to linux which is ~11 million lines of code. And ~400 contributors vs ~9000+ contributors. That cancels out, according to you. Last 30 days there were 200964 lines of code added to WebKit by 168 people; and 3.2 million lines of coded added to linux by 524 people. But these contributions cancel out, only because more people have client hardware than server hardware, and you think that counting hardware is a valid, useful metric. How about I use a metric that's based on "PiB of data stored", instead of "number of desktops/servers"? Don't you suppose data bytes stored is a more valuable and neutral metric than counting physical hardware? You aren't even accounting for virtualization, the fact most servers have hundreds or thousands of server instances running on them, serving thousands to millions of users. For every WebKit client session, there is a server hosting that data. Yet you're saying WebKit instances dwarf everything else. It's like saying the sand on all the beaches of earth cancel out the sun because there are more grains of sand. > (And for Apple supported open source spread you technically you can add OS > X use in as well since it is based on the open source Darwin project but I > won't include that since you would just argue about it, fruitlessly btw) Right but you're going to credit Apple with Darwin, and not account at all for the non-Apple contributions. Do you even know what percentage of XNU did not come from Apple at all? OS X != Darwin. The vast majority of OS X by payload size is closed. OpenDarwin shut down six years ago. PureDarwin is a handful of people. There is no meaningful Darwin project, let alone as open source. It's hilarious to use this as an example of Apple's open source commitment, especially given the quotes from someone previously involved in the project. Darwin open source developer Rob Braun, from the time when OpenDarwin was shut down: "Apple has chosen to not release source to key components of the OS, such as the kernel and all drivers. This means Darwin/x86 is dead in the water" "One has to wonder why Apple even bothers to release non-GPL’d source at all, if it is unwilling to cooperate with external developers to increase their return on investment and accept external bug fixes and features." "Even worse, one has to wonder why people would want to donate their time to such a fruitless and pointless cause." http://www.applematters.com/article/opendarwin-dies-a-lonely-death/ > The GPL is not about freedom. It is about control. For control freaks like > Stallman and his FSF buddies. The GPL is not about freedom, but the iTunes monostore, closed hardware devices, closed software, and even an increasingly closed desktop platform are about freedom? Since by default Mountain Lion in effect advises users to not run unsigned code, developers need to have their code put into the App Store in order for Apple to sign it. Only Apple has the signing keys. Apple doesn't let developers go to VeriSign and sign their own code. If the app is sold in the App Store, it must also run in the sandbox, inhibiting much of its functionality. But if you don't run in the sandbox you also don't have full access to all available OS X frameworks. User freedom, developer freedom, are certainly not being enhanced on Mac OS. Apple's freedom from embarrassing malware tales is, however. BIOS bootkits have been around for some time. They can affect Macs via the EFI CSM. There are very recently UEFI bootkits that target both Windows 8 and Mac OS X. It's a reasonable certainty we'll see Apple employ UEFI Secure Boot or something like it. And as they do not allow developers to sign their own application code, there's every reason to wonder if Apple will make it possible to add signing keys to the firmware whitelist so we can run something other than Mac OS X on the hardware we own. Prepare for Mac hardware jailbreak articles in the future. Last and totally least, Google is full of the decade old stupid flame wars of "BSD is not about freedom" and "GPL is not about freedom" and which one was more or less free. Such binary logic thinking, and not recognizing at all that context matters, that licenses have their pros and cons, long ago deserved to be and had been placed in the refuse bin. No one can possibly say anything that hasn't already been argued before and long ago settled. Chris Murphy _______________________________________________ MacOSX-admin mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-admin
