LinuxQuestions.org Podcast – 05.28.06
The latest LinuxQuestions.org Podcast. Topics include new hardware at LinuxQuestions.org, a follow up to the Novell Linux Driver process, Red Hat’s take on the Sun Java distro license, Microsoft considers taking away admin rights from employees, the Mac OS X kernel being closed sourced, Google releases Picasa for Linux and the 25 worst tech products of all time.
–jeremy
Podcast,Linux,Open Source,Novell,Red Hat,Sun,Java,Microsoft,Google,Picasa,Apple
O god. Letting Picaso go to find pictures on your harddrive reminds of installing Gentoo. Don’ do it, unless you absolutely need to have every picture of something at the click of your mouse. Somethings should never be found… or looked for.
First time listener, and you’re talking about Apple.
Correct, the complete package of Apple’s Mac OS X (Mac OS TEN, as in the successor to Mac OS 9) is not open source. Darwin, the FreeBSD based core of OS X, IS open source. See http://developer.apple.com/opensource/ – “With its open-source core based on FreeBSD 5.0 and the Mach 3.0 microkernel, Mac OS X is the best Macintosh operating system ever for UNIX users.”
I have not seen anything to verify that they’ve recently closed Darwin, that darwin “has been dead for some time”, or that they’ve closed the x86 version of Darwin – in fact, the x86 version of darwin has been freely availible the whole life of OS X, even before the OS X for x86 release. Certainly now would not be a wise time to close it. I guess I’m saying that I’d like to know your source.
As for the reason being piracy: IF Apple did indeed close darwin, it would be to halt the hacking of the kernel to enable OS X to run on non-sanctioned x86 hardware. You’re right, OS X/Open Source isn’t Apple’s bread and butter. They are a HARDWARE company. Since the x86 switch, the hardware does less to define the platform – anyone with a P4 or AMD64 can now hack OS X to run on it. My view is that they are trying to preserve their hardware market.
Side-note: Apple does very little to prevent OS piracy. There has never even been a serial number or license key for any Mac OS (excluding Server releases).
Indeed, it’s not Darwin that they closed, just the XNU OS X kernel for x86. This article has a good synopsis.
–jeremy
I’ve never used Picasa, but it’s disappointing that Google released a version for Linux that uses WINE. Hopefully if and when other developers decide to port their products to Linux, they’ll write native version because, as you say, it’s not a good thing to be tied to Windows.
You are dead on with your comment on admin rights. I got a new desktop at work. In order to install some software, the IT dept. gave me admin rights on the machine. I would have been happy to have the local machine’s “Administrator” password, just when I need to install software, and run it the rest of the time as a normal user.