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My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .
Darwin Source Less Than Open
- 2001.05.30
In Just for Fun, Linus Torvalds' recent memoir of the early days of Linux, Torvalds recounts meeting Steve Jobs and Apple technical chief Avie Tevanian.
"Basically, Jobs started off by telling me that on the desktop there were just two players, Microsoft and Apple, and that he thought the best thing I could do for Linux was to get in bed with Apple and try to get the open source people behind Mac OS X," Torvalds writes.
"Jobs made a big point of the fact that Mach's low-level kernel is open source. He sort of played down the flaw in the setup: Who cares if the basic operating system . . . is open source if you then have the Mac layer on top, which is not open source?"
Well, no one says the Mac layer has to be open, but on the other hand - if OS X is built on a free Unix, does Apple have an obligation to return something substantial to the open source community?
Legally, no, and let's face it - the goals of Apple and the Linux folks are mutually exclusive. Apple says "We have the neat stuff. Come buy it from us." Linux says "You can build the neat stuff yourself. Let us help."
However, you can argue that there's a moral obligation on Apple's part. Mach and Unix are why OS X is so stable, so Apple is profiting from open source software.
That's okay: after all, there are a number of companies profiting (or attempting to profit) from the sale of Linux. However, they don't keep big chunks of their code under lock and key.
And Apple? Apple provides the plumbing for OS X in the form of "Darwin," which is released under the company's own version of an open source license.
However, Darwin is flawed as open source. A recent posting on penguinppc.org points out, "Apple does not fully release the Darwin source into the public source. Key drivers are left out, and some workarounds for chip bugs are pulled before the public versions are made available."
The point? Penguinppc.org concludes "This keeps Linux developers from using the Darwin source as a reference."
If true, this strikes me as a shot directly at the open source folks. You can make a pretty good case for keeping the "Mac part" of OS X private: what case can you make for taking from open source and then not providing the bare minimum needed to get open source running on your hardware?
Apple is not likely to listen to such arguments, anymore than it is likely to see the foolishness of suppressing the user groups that distributed older versions of its software, but it makes the company's continuing claim to somehow being hipper, better than the rest (read: Wintel) nothing more than advertising.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
Recent My Turn articles
- Using Low End Macs for Internet Radio, 08.18. When the local public radio station moved classical music to HD radio, it was time to find another way to listen. An old iMac with iTunes solved the problem.
- 'That's Not a Computer', 07.30. Salvaging a broken PowerBook by turning it into a desktop computer.
- Upgrading a Digital Audio G4 to work better in Leopard, 06.02. In its original configuration, the dual 533 MHz Power Mac G4 was slow with Mac OS X 10.5, but add the right upgrades, and it runs Leopard quite nicely.
- My 4 favorite PowerBooks, 05.28. The PowerBook 150 has a big screen for a vintage PowerBook, the 165c has color, the 100 is diminutive, and Lombard has USB and a great keyboard.
- More in the My Turn index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
- Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
- November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard
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Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Quad-Core CPU Makes Sense in MacBook Pro, OS X 10.6 Causing Overheating, Overseas Power, and More, The 'Book Review, 11.06. Also Late 2009 MacBook reviewed, how to add RAM to new MacBook, 18.4in Acer notebook used Intel i7, and SanDisk SSD chosen for Sony VAIO X.
- Dumping Macs for Google Apps, SSD in iMac, Late 2009 iMac Performance Problems, and More, Mac News Review, 11.06. /newsrev/09mnr/1106.html
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- QuickTime X in Snow Leopard Imports, Trims, and Publishes Video Quickly and Easily, Alan Zisman, Zis Mac, 11.04. The long, slow process of importing video into iMovie to edit it, then render it to another format, is history as QuickTime X does that much more quickly.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
- Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
- Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
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- Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
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- Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
- More deals in our archive.
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