Who is Apple Computer?

Post #70,545 by tuberculosis 12/23/02 5:36:30 PM Reply	Who is Apple Computer? "OS X is very nice for a proprietary Unix. But Apple Computer, Inc. didn't write it, really. NeXT, Inc. did" Uh, they is them. Apple Computer is Next. So Apple Computer (the current one) wrote NextStep. Its a question of labels really. Anyhow, as you note, darwin is essentially chunks of FreeBSD on Avi's Mach kernel. The OS is open source. The application api implementation is not open. Although the api specification (and older one - OpenStep) is. The only bits of the thing not open are the cocoa apis - basically NextStep - an insanely portable UI layer. There has been an attempt to clone it - GnuStep. But those people are mentally ill and completely impractical. Their insistence on living on DisplayGhostscript is obsessive and crippling. Suggest that maybe they ought to rewrite the graphics prims using OpenGL (at least its pretty much everywhere) and they freak. Incidentally, the OpenStep apis have an implementation that runs on Windows. Its how they supply the WebObjects dev tools to Windows victims. Anyhow, everything is proprietary. Even Linux. And everything is hackable. Even Cocoa. So you pick your poison and live with it. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #70,576 by rickmoen 12/23/02 8:19:06 PM Reply	Pin terpsichory ToddBlanchard wrote: Uh, they is them. Apple Computer is* Next. So Apple Computer (the current one) wrote NextStep. Its a question of labels really.* Nice dance. Nice angels. Nice pin. I think my explanation was a good bit less tortured and misleading. But have fun, and spin merrily. Anyhow, as you note, darwin is essentially chunks of FreeBSD on Avi's Mach kernel. I did not "note" that, and that's one of the bits of not-entirely-accurate, fluffy marketing department factoids that many MacOS users are fond of hurling about, these days. xnu is converging somewhat on FreeBSD's kernel, thanks to recent borrowings and staff hires (Jordan et al.), and the userspace code more so. But this was not traditionally the case, Apple revisionism notwithstanding. Anyhow, everything is proprietary. Even Linux. Only for deliberately misleading values of the term "proprietary". In the software context, the term means unavailable under OSD-compliant terms, and thus not lawful to [link\|http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/essays/forking.html\|fork] under such terms. But you knew that. My late maternal grandfather had a rather rudely profane saying about how people shouldn't micturate down his leg and try to convince him it's raining. It seems somehow appropriate, here. Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
Post #70,619 by rickmoen 12/24/02 2:23:32 AM Reply	Legal matters, GNUStep ToddBlanchard wrote: The only bits of the thing not open are the cocoa apis - basically NextStep - an insanely portable UI layer. The word "open" is basically vague, vapid, and meaningless, in this context. Let's talk concepts of business law, as they concern software. copyrights: Any significant creative work, such as a software codebase, gives rise to a bundle of abstract legal rights called "copyright", inherent in the act of creation. A copyright is a limited monopoly over possession, use, redistribution, and creation of derivative works based on any instance of the covered creative work. Copyright may be transferred or sold to another person through a specific type of written conveyance. Lawful receipt of an instance of the creative work (e.g., purchase or download of a copy of a piece of software) doesn't give you ownership of the abstract property right (the copyright), but rather a licence to certain rights but not others. Absent an explicit licence grant (which by the Copyright Act may be oral, in writing, or by the conduct of the parties), a default licensing provison (per statute) applies. The default licence for software is of the sort software people term "proprietary", i.e., it includes no right to redistribute or create derivative works. Apple Computer, Inc. owns copyright over a number of codebases that implement its version (descended from NeXT's) of the OpenStep application interface. (I note with amusement that your term for this, "API", is a Microsoft-ism.) Unlike patents, discussed next, copyrights do not stand in the way of independent third-party implementations of a given technique. In theory, copyrights expire after a certain number of years (and might again, if Congress stops taking all of its orders from Hollywood). patents: A patent is another bundle of abstract legal rights, covering not a creative work but rather am invention/technique/algorithm. Thus, during its term it bars deployment or even development of artifacts that use the covered technique in any way, regardless of who created them or how independent they might be of prior implementations. Accordingly, patent terms are relatively short (since their effect is so broad). Apple Computer, Inc. is known to own quite a few patents over software techniques related to program interfaces and imaging algorithms used in OS X. I believe it is on record as granting royalty-free rights to its patents for any implementation of the OpenStep specification published late in the history of NeXT, Inc. trade secrets: Inventions kept confidential within a business may be privileged against disclosure by knowledgeable insiders if they meet certain criteria about its nature (exclusivity of knowledge, degree of caution against disclosure, effort/money spent developing it, ease by which outsiders might independently discover it). The information must also provably have either actual or potential commercial value. The (state only) law covering trade secrets covers misappropriation only, making it a serious tort. I mention trade secret law only for completeness: It's probably relevant only to Apple insiders of various sorts. trademarks: Trademarks are a different category, and are an abstract, limited legal monopoly over words, names, symbols, or devices used by manufacturers of goods and providers of services to identify their goods and services, and to distinguish their goods and services from goods manufactured and sold by others. The monopoly must be paid for (unlike copyrights, but like patents). It can be renewed. The trademark must be continually used integrally to a business, and the monopoly extends only within the same industry or class of goods. Unlike copyright or patents, it covers only the name or characteristic appearance of the covered product (being a monopoly over commercial product identity, only). Goods that for whatever reason can be readily distinguished from the covered goods are not encumbered. So, getting back to your intellectually sloppy bit about things being "open" or not: Quite a number of pieces of OS X (and NeXTStep before it) are implemented under copyright licences that make that particular software proprietary. (Please see my other post for the approximate meaning of the word "proprietary" in the software context.) Many of the algorithms thus implemented are also encumbered by Apple patents, which are as noted a more-significant obstacle: If, hypothetically, Apple were to issue an instance of those codebases under an open-source licence (say, the BSD licence), the end-result would still be proprietary as long as the patent restrictions prevented free exercise of the rights granted in that licence. There has been an attempt to clone it - GnuStep. But those people are mentally ill and completely impractical. Their insistence on living on DisplayGhostscript is obsessive and crippling. Suggest that maybe they ought to rewrite the graphics prims using OpenGL (at least its pretty much everywhere) and they freak. Not being completely ignorant in such matters, I'm acutely aware that OpenGL is heavily covered by patents registered by SGI, which were recently purchased from SGI by one Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington. Were you ignorant of this rather crucial fact, or were you merely choosing to not mention it for some reason? Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
Post #70,634 by tuberculosis 12/24/02 8:35:17 AM Reply	Did you take a pendantic pill this morning or what? Lets define what I meant when I said "open" - source available for inspection. Fair enough? Having license to said software and access to said source for said platform I have the ability to patch personal licensed copies of said platform. Should said platform evaporate from said marketplace, I can reasonably manage to continue personal copies of said platform and share work with others. IOW, I'm not too terribly worried about the evaporation from the marketplace - a common bit of the Linux fud machine. WRT to that, Darwin is pretty much the source for the entire OS minus the GUI and a few device drivers. It has a nice ecosystem about like the Linux/Free/OpenBSD world and has been ported to Intel by its enthusiasts without explicit permission by Apple as far as I know. From this standpoint - I consider Linux and Darwin to be more or less Coke and Pepsi. "I note with amusement that your term for this, "API", is a Microsoft-ism." You are easily amused. API apparently has crept into common use to mean any set of callable interfaces that make up a package. Your paintbrush is too wide. I've never actually written a line of code on any MS platform (I'm sort of a conscientious objector). "Quite a number of pieces of OS X (and NeXTStep before it) are implemented under copyright licences that make that particular software proprietary. " OK, lets just talk Darwin for a second - because thats the OS. The rest of it is application libraries. The OS source (minus as mentioned before certain device drivers and such) is completely available - even the once jealously guarded ObjectiveC runtime has been released in source code form. If you dig around in this code, you'll find large (really very large) chunks of it were lifed wholesale from FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and various other open source non-GPL projects. The compiler is gcc. The debugger is gdb. The MACH kernel is CMU with enhancements. This is no proprietary system - its a Frankenstein job out of the best bits available. Those bits are available under the BSD style licenses as well as the Apple license - pick one. In fact, Apple developers have been giving much of the changes back to the projects they lifted them from: [link\|http://www.advogato.org/person/wsanchez/\|http://www.advogato.org/person/wsanchez/] [link\|http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Stan+Shebs+gcc\|http://www.google.co...&q=Stan+Shebs+gcc] "Not being completely ignorant in such matters, I'm acutely aware that OpenGL is heavily covered by patents registered by SGI, which were recently purchased from SGI by one Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington. Were you ignorant of this rather crucial fact, or were you merely choosing to not mention it for some reason?" More fud. I'm not appreciating the shill treatment BTW. Your innuendos are both transparent and juvenile. This isn't politics. Wondering about the licensability of OpenGL? Why not read the acutal terms? [link\|http://www.sgi.com/software/opengl/license.html\|http://www.sgi.com/s...engl/license.html] Or from the FAQ page: "Applications developers DO NOT need to license OpenGL. Generally, hardware vendors that are creating binaries to ship with their hardware are the only developers that need to have a license. If an application developer wants to use the OpenGL API, the developer needs to obtain copies of a linkable OpenGL library for a particular hardware device or machine. Those OpenGL libraries may be bundled with the development and/or run-time options or may be purchased from a third-party software vendor without licensing the source code or use of the OpenGL trademark. " So tell me again why this is a liability for the GnuStep people. I don't see it. In fact, the reason Apple dumped DPS is because Adobe refused to give them decent licensing terms. Meanwhile, Ghostscript remains pretty much unusably buggy, DGS moreso. And they've only been working on it for what - 7 years or so? There's a lot more heat in the OGL world they could take advantage of. But they are utterly UN-pragmatic. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #70,650 by drewk 12/24/02 9:40:57 AM Reply	Rick get his pedantic in suppository form ;-) === Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #70,696 by tuberculosis 12/24/02 2:06:16 PM Reply	We have a suppository forum? :-P I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #70,701 by boxley 12/24/02 2:40:03 PM Reply	flame and politics, the suppositories post there :-) will work for cash and other incentives [link\|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html\|skill set] You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
Post #70,697 by rickmoen 12/24/02 2:29:42 PM Reply	But they're only application libraries! ToddBlanchard wrote: Did you take a pendantic pill this morning or what? Ad-hominem much? Well, so much for trying to put the discussion on a meaningful basis of business law. Lets define what I meant when I said "open" - source available for inspection. Fair enough? OK, so you mean both source-available software, including proprietary codebases. Wow, big fscking deal. Be still, my beating heart. We should care? Who are you, Dan Bernstein? Having license to said software and access to said source for said platform I have the ability to patch* personal licensed copies of said platform.* Yeah, that's what the Bernstein cult says, too. But dealing in patches is only a jokeshop substitute for the right to fork, and isn't over the long term a feasible way to maintain a project. Feel free to prove me wrong. Fork off your own copy of qmail 2.03, call your version something else, and maintain it solely via distribution of patches against the fixed qmail 2.03 codebase, so that DJB can't go mediaeval on you. Repeat 'til you urp, and then come back and try to tell me again with a straight face that this is a feasible substitute for the right to fork. And then you'll have to find someone who cares. We already have open source. Viewable-source proprietary licensing can go hang, in my view and that of pretty much everyone who's been down that road often enough to finally say "Thanks but not again." And finally, the relevance of your hypothetical is unclear, unless Apple Computer has suddenly started granting public source code access to its proprietary pieces -- a point we'll return to, below. Should said platform evaporate from said marketplace, I can reasonably manage to continue personal copies of said platform and share work with others. IOW, I'm not too terribly worried about the evaporation from the marketplace - a common bit of the Linux fud machine. Oh really? Pray do explain how you intend to apply your patches to the Quartz engine and Web Objects. Are you intending to do binary patching? Is the Stevester suddenly including viewable source code to his proprietary pieces on the developer CD? WRT to that, Darwin is pretty much the source for the entire OS minus the GUI and a few device drivers. It has a nice ecosystem about like the Linux/Free/OpenBSD world and has been ported to Intel by its enthusiasts without explicit permission by Apple as far as I know. Well, duh. I maintain copies of both ports in my installfest kit, and have installed it quite a few times. As I've said earlier in this thread, the experience is rather like a funky NetBSD, once you've retrofitted the XFree86 port as well. And that's OK -- even though on the whole I'd rather have NetBSD itself, in such circumstances. By the way, before I forget to mention it, Apple Computer not only has an excellent recent record as a good citizen in contributing back code contributions under the various upstream licences, but also is currently doing an excellent job participating in developing improvements to gcc. It's doing this because it wants faster compile times for its own reasons, but that's fine: The result is still benevolent. OK, lets just talk Darwin for a second - because thats the OS. The rest of it is application libraries. Angel. Pin. Dance. We get the open-source dance when it's convenient: Ignore the proprietary code behind the curtain! Kernelspace is where it's at, man! Yeah, Quartz is a mere application library. Right. [Table-pounding where you rather cheekily complain about "innuendos" snipped.] Wondering about the licensability of OpenGL? Subject to change at the option of the new owners. Obviously. Why do you think they bought the patents? [Display Ghostscript:] And they've only been working on it for what - 7 years or so? Yeah, they don't have much mindshare, and are horribly understaffed, but it's a shame. I hope it picks up momentum, as sometimes happens with open-source projects. But if it doesn't, we can limp along with X11, I guess. Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
Post #70,706 by tuberculosis 12/24/02 3:11:43 PM Reply	You're a loony. (new thread) Created as new thread #70705 titled [link\|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=70705\|You're a loony.] I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.

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