On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Boyd Waters <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Has there ever been any discussion or promotion of open-source software > at > > WWDC? > > Two years ago, I attended WWDC. One of the lunch talks was for > "Science and Mac Developers" -- they wanted to talk about > (proprietary) HPC for biotech, but I wanted to talk about the huge > role that open-source software plays in science. > > The talk organizers said that they would get back to us on that. Yea, right! > There was a great deal of confusion amongst the attendees regarding > the terms of Apple WWDC and ADC non-disclosure: most thought that we > couldn't even talk amongst ourselves! No kidding. In this very email, I'm always having to cross-check my impulse to speak freely. I spoke to a few guys and even heard some complaints about the ADC. Even if your a paid-up member of the iPhone enrollment program (for app releases), you can't ask or say anything about iPhone SDK 3.0, even on the ADC mailing list. A few guys found that VERY frustrating - they felt left in the lurch about resolving some simple programming dilemmas. The WWDC is the first meeting of my life where nearly all the presentations were given by a company and nobody could say anything about it outside the meeting - that's no secret. So much for liberty and fraternity in the great US of A. If you want to make a buck on the back of Apple's stuff, just sit down, shut up, and listen. Then pay Apple a pretty price for the privilege to distribute your work and always remember that Apple will take a little cream off your cake. Moreover, they can take the entire cake if they want to - your work is Apple's work. Basically, iPhone development can turn you into a little grease monkey for the Apple media empire. Now that Apple has forums on its ADC site -- where everyone on the > forum is covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) -- that would be > a great place to push for more recognition of open-source software at > WWDC. I expect this will be a failure, but one can only hope. I expect Apple to exploit open-source software as much as possible, even at the expense of an open-source philosophy (I interpret this in the context of the philosophy behind the FSF). As much as I appreciate and admire the way that Apple adopts and pushes open-source platforms and open standards (I do like having darwin at my fingertips), I retain and profess a healthy scepticism, maybe even cynicism, about any large commercial software corporation. I ask myself a couple of questions. Why does OSX leverage BSD? Why does Apple push LLVM? They are open-source, without restrictive licenses. I expect in years to come that Apple may try to drop GCC and GDB, if possible. > Another thing we should do is email the appropriate Software > Evangelist for science or open-source. Yea, but who is that? Take care, Darren
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