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Another dependency on AppleAnother dependency on ApplePosted Apr 2, 2008 16:52 UTC (Wed) by leoc (subscriber, #39773)Parent article: WebKit rising
It is interesting how many people express outrage over Mono, which is a largely independent open source implementation of a Microsoft technology, but hardly anyone seems concerned about the increasing dependency on Apple for key Linux technologies (I can think of 3 off the top of my head: CUPS, WebKit and Rendezvous/Bonjour).
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Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:02 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Two of those were free software before they were Apple, and would plausibly continue independently of Apple if Apple were to vanish: we know that both could evolve independently if Apple were to take them in undesirable directions, because they already did.
Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 2, 2008 22:21 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Plus, Apple is playing ball with free software (at least with these packages). Your typical Linux desktop has even more dependencies with other big companies (think Sun or Red Hat) and few people are really concerned.Actually, I don't see the problem at all. Mono is a reimplementation of a patent-encumbered framework which could cause trouble. What is your concern about Apple and CUPS or WebKit?
Re: Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 3, 2008 1:26 UTC (Thu) by midg3t (subscriber, #30998) [Link] I'm not convinced that Rendezvous/Bonjour in Linux is dependent on Apple. Linux distros use Avahi for that, which is not owned by Apple in any way — Apple just published the protocol spec.
Re: Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 3, 2008 3:39 UTC (Thu) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] http://zeroconf.sourceforge.net/?selected=patents It's not clear to me that the problem has been resolved since then. I'd appreciate an update from anyone who knows more about it.
Patent expired Posted Apr 3, 2008 3:55 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] #1 That says the patent in question expired. Might there be other relevant patents? Yes, and the same is true for any modern software. However major corporations like Apple would be barred from even RAND licensing if they'd been involved in creation of the relevant standard at IETF, W3C (for most areas of competence) or certain other bodies. So there's no reason to be more worried about this than about say, GCC, or Linux itself, which are both complicated enough that they undoubtedly infringe on some outstanding bogus patent somewhere in the world. #2 That's about LLv4 and I think everyone else was discussing mDNS. LLv4 eventually became an RFC while mDNS stalled, but the Avahi code is an implementation of mDNS, not LLv4, and indeed Linux support for LLv4 remains rather poor though mostly usable.
Patent expired Posted Apr 3, 2008 10:34 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] Avahi also includes an IPv4LL implementation under the name 'avahi-autoipd'.
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