Is Apple serious about open source? (Linux-Watch)

[Posted August 8, 2006 by ris]

Linux-Watch looks at the Darwin kernel. "When Apple announced that it was moving Mac OS X to the Intel platform, one thing that didn't get much attention was that Apple would not be open-sourcing the Intel Darwin kernel. Now, Apple has reversed its course and has quietly announced that it will open-source the kernel after all."

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Is Apple serious about open source? (Linux-Watch)

Posted Aug 8, 2006 19:11 UTC (Tue) by joey (guest, #328) [Link] (3 responses)

This article seems to be using the term "open source" in a way that does not have anything to do with the copyright and licensing of the code in question.

Is Apple serious about open source? (Linux-Watch)

Posted Aug 8, 2006 22:08 UTC (Tue) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link] (2 responses)

The license information indeed seems to be absent from even the original blog.

Is Apple serious about open source? (Linux-Watch)

Posted Aug 8, 2006 22:42 UTC (Tue) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (1 responses)

The URL of the tarball has "apsl" in it, which may imply that the sources are under Apple Public Source License (APSL), an OSI approved license: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/tarballs/apsl/xnu-792.10.96.tar.gz.

The link leads to a login page with "Apple Open Source" on top.

The message from Ernest Prabhakar starts with:

In conjunction with this week's Developer Conference, we have four great pieces of news for Open Source developers

I won't register just to look inside the tarball, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that it's under an OSI approved license.

Is Apple serious about open source? (Linux-Watch)

Posted Aug 10, 2006 16:01 UTC (Thu) by stock (guest, #5849) [Link]

Is Apple serious about open source? (Linux-Watch) Sure thing:

"Intel Kernel Sources Available!"
http://kernel.macosforge.org
Posted by kvv on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 12:00 pm

  
  "Source code for the kernel of Mac OS X 10.4.7 for Intel are now          
   available. Several changes were made in order to publish the kernel          
   (xnu) sources. As a result, the kernel built from these sources          
   differs from the one found in the 10.4.7 software update. In order          
   to accommodate these changes, several kernel extensions were also          
   modified and must be downloaded and installed in order to run a          
   kernel built from these sources on Mac OS X 10.4.7 for Intel.          
         
   Kernel sources are available as xnu-792.10.96. Stay tuned for          
   detailed instructions for building and installing the kernel for          
   Intel.          
         
   Note: these sources do not apply to Mac OS X for PowerPC."

This x86 kernel gear will see frequent downloads from Redmond Campus to get their Mac OS clone,
code name Vista, jacked up into reasonable speed and performance.
Bill to Jobs: "hey Steve together we will beat this Linux virus, you hang in there"

Robert

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 8, 2006 23:19 UTC (Tue) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link] (10 responses)

I've gotten better battery life out of my MacOS X laptop than either of the Linux laptops that I've set up, but I don't trust Apple enough to run their closed-source kernels.

So if this holds up, it's good news.

(BTW, what's the best way to get a top-quality, zero-headache Linux laptop with good battery life and excellent sleep support? I'm totally unwilling to spend more than 10 hours messing with drivers or hardware, but I'm willing to pay a decent premium.)

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 1:28 UTC (Wed) by astrophoenix (guest, #13528) [Link] (8 responses)

you almost already have one. there's no reason why you can't dual-boot your mac laptop with linux.

ok, 1 reason: airport extreme is not working yet. but there is a clean-room reverse engineering project which is close to having a working driver. and on ppc macs, avoid nvidia video.

I'm lucky; I have a 4-year old ibook g3, with airport. this machine works great in ubuntu, no fiddling required. it sleeps and resumes in ubuntu just as fast as in OS X. I did have to deal with the notorious bad motherboard, but thanks to some web insight, was able to repair it myself.

apple hardware is so nice that I find myself reaching for my tired old ibook (booted in linux or OS X) before my spiffy new thinkpad running ubuntu. the ibook is just so much nicer, even factoring in the performance difference, the resolution, etc. a new macbook or macbook pro must be heavenly.

another way to go, is do your research before buying. there are lots of thinkpad models which all the hardware will work on install (in ubuntu at least). and if you are willing to pay a premium, emporer linux offers half a dozen dells(?), viaos, and thinkpads with linux pre-installed. even with a choice of distros.

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 2:14 UTC (Wed) by dberkholz (guest, #23346) [Link] (3 responses)

I use the bcm43xx driver on my iBook. Right now it's at a point that I would call barely sufficient for full-time use. I ended up writing a script to unload and reload the bcm43xx and softmac kernel modules and restart the network interface 100 times or so until it gets a valid IP. It seems that the more APs in the area, the poorer it works -- it has a little trouble with my home router, but lots more on campus.

However, it's still a million times better than no wireless at all, and I'm grateful to the developers for all the work they've put into it.

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 2:19 UTC (Wed) by astrophoenix (guest, #13528) [Link]

cool, sounds like they're farther along than I thought!

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 9:09 UTC (Wed) by ayeomans (guest, #1848) [Link] (1 responses)

Can't say I've experienced those problems on a PowerBook. See the help info at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx...
Worked for me with a WEP link, I used the native drivers, with a pre-Dapper release which has since been upgraded. Maybe I'll try a clean install one day, I suspect some of the described steps are redundant.

Now suspend/resume and battery power saving is another matter. Maybe just a case of RTFM, but not immediately obvious how to get it working as well as in OS/X.

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 15:14 UTC (Wed) by dberkholz (guest, #23346) [Link]

Perhaps you have a different chip than I do, I've got the 4318. I guarantee whatever driver I'm using is newer than anything in any other distribution, so that's not it. =P

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 4:12 UTC (Wed) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] (3 responses)

You will also lack 3d acceleration, neither nvidia nor ati have released ppc builds of their drivers.

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 4:12 UTC (Wed) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link]

Oops, just as I clicked "post", I realized that you were discussing the intel iBooks.

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 4:23 UTC (Wed) by astrophoenix (guest, #13528) [Link]

I'm not sure where the cutoff is, but the g3 ati ibooks have gpl hardware acceleration (mine does at
least). not that it's that fast, but still :)

Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.

Posted Aug 9, 2006 6:53 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

There are reverse-engineered open-source drivers for ATI cards (9500-X800) that include 3D support. They're not complete, but getting better.

Also there's hope for NVIDIA, too: http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/ - though of course needs people knowledgeable about how to do 3D graphics card drivers without specifications...

how to get a zero-headache Linux laptop? (was: Cool! I may buy an Intel Mac after all.)

Posted Aug 10, 2006 17:54 UTC (Thu) by jbw (guest, #5689) [Link]

> (BTW, what's the best way to get a top-quality, zero-headache Linux
> laptop with good battery life and excellent sleep support?  I'm
> totally unwilling to spend more than 10 hours messing with drivers
> or hardware, but I'm willing to pay a decent premium.)

I recently got a Sony Vaio VGN-TX770P with Ubuntu preinstalled by EmperorLinux (they call this the "Kiwi" model). Positive side:

Software suspend to disk works. Hurray! (One time it failed to resume. I don't know why as I was not watching the screen at the time and when I turned to look all I saw was the GDM login screen.)
The X server is configured correctly for the strange screen size.
The Linux kernel is compiled for the exact CPU (rather than for generic i386) and available hardware devices.
EmperorLinux did a custom partitioning for me (which I wanted to make space for installing Gentoo in addition to Ubuntu).
Battery life is excellent, even with the puny battery that comes with it. I assume therefore that a high-capacity battery will last all day.
Sound works, wireless Ethernet works, etc. This is because EmperorLinux made sure to use the correct patches and correctly configured various modules.
Most things just work. This was by far the least painful switch to a new Linux portable computer for me. I would do it again with no hesitation.

Negative side:

I'm in the UK. The warranty from Sony only covers service in North America. The Sony extended on-site warranty also has the same problem. (Sony's sales force is bizarrely split into regions that do not cooperate with each other on these issues.) Unfortunately, EmperorLinux seems to be pretty much the only company in the world that offers this level of service, so I can't easily get warranty coverage in the UK. I would have to buy the computer in the UK and ship it to EmperorLinux (this is indeed an option). EmperorLinux helped me find this information out in advance (so I could avoid paying $350 for the useless extended on-site warranty), but I had to push them on it.
Software suspend to RAM does not work and is unlikely to work soon. Apparently there are still issues in getting this to work reliably on machines with SATA disk controllers. This is not EmperorLinux's fault, but more a problem with Linux in general.
EmperorLinux left the trackpad setup messed up. The kernel wasn't recognizing the hardware correctly and the hardware was only available in a old-style compatibility mode. As a result, every time my fingers bumped the trackpad I would get a left mouse button click (which would periodically do something disastrous, depending on where the mouse cursor happened to be). Fixing this correctly took me probably about 16 hours.
Hardware that doesn't work at all under Linux: the combined memory-stick/SD slot controller, the GSM (mobile telephone) interface, the telephone modem. Some of the external buttons (eject, mute) do now show up in X while several (AV MODE, volume up, volume down) get the same X keycode and hence can't be distinguished in X. (On the positive side the mute button really mutes the sound in hardware.) EmperorLinux claimed that the screen brightness control keys would be working but they don't work and I haven't had time to find out why.
The wireless Ethernet coverage is poor in comparison with a previous system of mine that also has a Intel Pro Wireless chip. I'm not sure if this is the Linux driver as I have not yet tested the coverage in Windows XP for comparison. I'm considering upgrading the driver to more recent versions to see if that helps.
EmperorLinux has their own program called constantconnect that automatically sets up wired/wireless Ethernet networking. I found it quite unreliable and had to disable it and learn native Debian networking setup instead.
EmperorLinux put two of their stickers on it. I don't mind the one next to the keyboard on the inside, but the one on the outside spoils the nice appearance of the Vaio. If you buy from them, be sure to specify that you want them not to put their sticker on the outside.
EmperorLinux seems to be slow at responding to e-mail. Don't waste your time writing e-mail messages and just telephone them instead, because they always answer the telephone and have someone available to talk to you.

I hope this information is helpful.

Joe Wells