Unix/FreeBSD vs. Apple/Mac

....to make this short and a bit sweet, I have been using Unix/freeBSD for about 10 years now. I don't agree with ALL decisions ( as well as it should be) BSD and unix in their previous and current forms ( love ghostBSD), but I have a question.

I do not work in an environment where computing/OS environment is really a topic of discussion -- working on my M.A in Applied Philosophy. But my signifacant other has a ''app'' on her Apple MAC Air that is almost identical to a program that I used several years ago that is rather identical to the counterpart that I used over ten years ago that is FOSS in BSD -- the Apple version is USD 200$, yet the FOSS is free and is exactly the same. Does Apple just use FOSS and give it a "skin"/"facelift" and sell it to MAC users as creative software?

This is incredulous and close to what I would consider as immoral business practice on Apple's part.

* I am a new user of Apple products but to me this feels like taking code from FOSS and selling it, re-skinned, on proprietary software without an inkling of recognition to those that created the software, with no creative credit given -- all-the-while making a huge profit from said software.

This is a rant of sorts, but there is a question here that I am interested in with an answer I just don't have.

 

It's a pretty common thing that companies take FLOSS software for free, make some minor changes (from the developer's viewpoint) and sell the result as something new and spectacular.
Or they take a FLOSS base system and put their proprietary software on top of that to sell the result as a whole under their trademark.

One might find that immoral. This is why most Free licenses require at least to give credit for the original author. So if you find some Apple software that is based on BSDL software (which is pretty likely) you should find a hint to the original software somewhere (in the about window, in the manpage or whatever would be the standard way to find out who wrote this software). If that isn't stated where one would usually expect it it's a clear violation of the BSDL.
If you find the whole practice of copying other people's software without returning anything to the Community immoral your way to go for your own software are licenses like the GPL or CDDL.

 

Apple does contribute to the flossing community, and they are transparant to the degree in which they use open source components: Apple - Open Source

What's the particular app in question?

 

I'm interested in this too, as I can't think of any example of this except for perhaps dtrace. Then again, I haven't used OS X seriously since early 2009, so perhaps something's come along in the interim.

That aside, I think that the BSD license is one of the most free for precisely this reason. When I've contributed BSD-licensed code, I've not only done so with the understanding that it might make its way into commercial products, but with the hope that it does. Obviously YMMV, and I get that some people don't like that idea too much.

 

Grab that source and compile me a working System then I will say it is opensource. Otherwise it is opensource when it is convenient, close source true intentions.

 

isnt OSX VERY roughly based off BSD?

 

xnu uses a fair bit of FreeBSD in its kernel, and most of the *nix userland is adapted from FreeBSD.

Virtually none of the graphical stuff is from FreeBSD though. Nearly all of that is Apple's.

 

Yea and all of that is closed source. So much for OpenSource.
All of mine is mine and all of yours is mine.

 

Apple isn't obligated to make all of their software open source. I'm a bit confused by the sarcasm. Do you have some sort of expectation in that regard?

Being open source means that the source is public. It doesn't mean they are going to hand hold you or provide with support for compiling those tools to build a working unix system. They are just components. There's no obligation to provide a complete working unix system at all. They've simply open sourced some components. Those components can be compiled, or derived works could be implemented for similar systems or systems which are not similar, or those components could merely be studied. It's not up to them what you do with it. It's just open source.

You could take the same idea as far as you want until it's preposterous.

- Unless they guarantee wide compatibility with all systems, it isn't really open source
- Unless they comment every line of of source code, it's not really open source.
- Unless they provide free classes which demonstrate the meaning behind the source code, it isn't really open source

 

Seriously you are misguided

1. 90% of what listed are ALREADY well-known opensource components It is like grabbing a bunch of grass off the public field handing it over to you and saying "Hey here is a bunch of grass compliments from us"
2. What is the point of giving you a bunch of non-usable code and claim it is opensource? I could give you patches of code (with lots of lines missing in btw) and claim I am opensource? "Here is a plan of our car it is missing the engine, and transmission and some gears but hey we shared didn't we?"
3. Ask Red Hat what they mean by OpenSource.

 

Again, it sounds like you have some expectation of this company which is far above and beyond their actual obligation.

The primary purpose of open sourcing the code is precisely as I stated before. It's primarily for academic study, peer review, suggestions.

Apple has no obligation to give you their complete car plan.

I don't need to ask Red Hat what THEY meant by open source. I already know what open source actually means.

All in all, the big disconnect with you seems to be what with what open source means. You seem to take that like some sort of banner of obligation of every entity to commit all software efforts towards open source. Where did you get that idea?

 

Yea right...
Continuing insisting that "you are expecting it wrong" isn't going to convince anyone about the opensource nature.
It is like saying Democratic Republic of Congo is Democratic.

 

are you actually a programmer? cause you sound like you expect everything to be 'copypasta.'

I'll say this much about opensource vs closedsource in terms of what actually matters: products [that are used by actual people].

closed-source tends to produce better consumer products(photoshop vs GIMP*); whereas open-source tends to produce more secure applications(think servers...).

*please don't ever bother claiming this is a contest; GIMP is alright, but it keeps its namesake when placed against photoshop

ps, open-source itself has NOTHING to do with money(or even working products for that matter). It just means that I should be able to copy-paste your source code. Licenses...now THOSE have to do money.

 

Of course I do! They don't just use OS software, they also make marketing with that. So they should mean it when they say they support OS.
But actually supporting OS is more than just sticking to the licenses. It means to give back as much to the comunity as you can. And that doesn't even mean you'll have to do a lot of work. Just save all your source code on a publicly accessible FTP server (or better: hire some student to set up a git repository).

Apple does no such thing. Therefore I must assume that they're not really interested in OS. They just want to take the advantages of it without letting others take advantage of the work they are doing. Honestly, Apple's politics is one of the reasons why I favour the GPL over the BSDL.
If you want an example of how Apple would deal with that topic if they actually meant it, have a look at Red Hat and CentOS/Scientific, just like weinter suggested.

 

what are we arguing about? how much interest apple has in open source? who cares? the OP was asking whether apple reskins open source software and sells it. The answer is that they are transparent about which open source components they use in their operating system. That's it. Period. Done.

 

The two of us (and I guess weinter too) are arguing about whether following the licenses to the letters is enough to actually honor the idea of FOSS. You say it is, I disagree.

Apparently the OP cares. And quite frankly I care too, because if they had true interest that would support OS a great deal.

No, it's not done. naticus asked if that practice of Apple was immoral, he even admitted his post was some sort of a rant. So obviously we're talking about the ethics of the FOSS concept which goes beyond license texts. Call it a spirit, a religion or whatever you like, but it's more than plain license texts. These texts are merely a legal expression of that spirit as far as that's possible.
If the question would have been "Does Apple honor the license text?" I'd say, yes they do but I believe the question was "Does Apple honor the FOSS spirit?" and I say no, they don't.

 

I also agree that Apple does indeed honor the licenses for all the software it uses, including free and open source software.

I guess that's it, then.

You might as well blame them for not doing enough for supporting genetic therapy research, or cancer research, or space exploration. They don't have any unmet obligations in any of those areas either.

 

Really?

How about employing full time developers to work on the WebKit engine and providing sponsorship for the project as a whole? How about releasing the parts of WebKit that weren't forked from KHTML (and thus that they were under no legal obligation to release?)

How about developing, releasing, and supporting ZeroConf, complete with buildable, usable open source implementations?

How about releasing ALAC as open source despite being under no obligation to do so?

How about releasing Grand Central Dispatch (aka. libdispatch) under an Apache license, again voluntarily?

How about employing Clang/LLVM developers full-time?

How about sponsoring CUPS development, and employing (again, full-time) the CUPS author? They purchased the entire source base, yet have kept it under the original open source license. They could have closed it -- source ownership would make that totally legal -- yet they haven't.

(Those aren't the only examples, but they are some of the higher-profile ones.)

Now I personally dislike Apple. A lot. I think they are often an aggressive, bellicose force within the tech. industry and that they have acted with malice and prejudice towards their peers in a way that often is to the detriment of users. I think that they have become far, far more of a toxic influence on the personal computing industry than Microsoft ever was, and have done a phenomenal amount to stifle the development of competing technologies and to hinder improvement in a number of market segments. They have worsened the user experience of their customers, harmed the general public's understanding of a number of key computing concepts, and have abused the patent and trademark systems to a phenomenal extent.

But that doesn't change the fact that they contribute a lot to the open source world, even when not legally obligated to do so. In many, many cases they've gone above and beyond what is required of them, and have done so in a way that directly benefits a large number of Free Software users -- including those that don't own any Apple products.

And that's commendable.

 

How about releasing the whole OSX code under a free license just like Red Hat does with their OS so that others can decide which of it is useful for their projects instead of being limited by Apple's filter in what to release and what not?

What is their reason for keeping things back? Please don't even start to mention business secrets! If you go truly open source there's no reason for that anymore since you'll get as much back from the community as you invest if you have a good product (which Apple apparently has).

 

do you release your personal finance records? because if you did, any random financial consultant could come along in their free time and provide free advice for you. Do you have something against free advice?

please send a list of all accounts and personal passwords/identity data. I'll be waiting .

EDIT: more seriously, where is your github/svn repo? you sound like a genius and I might be able make use of your code contributions.

 

(I don't know if that is directed at me, but my ego tells me to respond anyways... ) I don't do much public open source stuff really. Most of my work is spent working on a closed-source product, albeit one that's not commercially distributed. And yes, it does use open source libraries of various sorts. Naturally, that makes me a *highly* biased participant in this discussion.

Because then people will go and do what Oracle's done with Oracle Linux.

RedHat's model works because for businesses, support is both a necessity and the norm. In a business where minutes can mean millions, having professional support available for an OS is of utmost importance.

In the consumer OS space, support is of minimal importance. The most popular OS in the world comes with pretty much zero end-user support and does just fine.

Since RedHat makes their money on support, Oracle's RedHat clone isn't as devastating as it might otherwise be. With OS vendor/ISV support removed from the equation, Oracle Linux absolutely could destroy RHEL. Oracle could use the product as a loss leader, or even give it away. They'd wipe out RedHat overnight.

Competitive advantage. Right now Apple's got a tremendous advantage in terms of controlling the user experience. They can produce a more streamlined experience for users that are willing to pay the premiums, and they can control what those premiums are. Once users are locked in via data formats and workflow, they can keep them upgrading at a nice steady pace, thereby assuring a constant revenue stream.

If Apple releases OS X as Free Software (or even free software), that advantage goes away. They can't control the user experience, so they'd end up with the problems that Microsoft faces trying to handle all the crazy hardware combinations out there. They couldn't keep people upgrading to the latest and greatest, since they'd no longer be able to control what boxen their OS runs on. And format lock-in? That doesn't work so well when you're talking about an open source product.

 

It's all their work, and their prerogative to decide under what license and condition to release their software, not yours. Free open source software is not always the right business model for a business. That should be plain as day, I'm not sure how that idea is failing to get through. Apple is a business. By definition, it is designed to generate profit for the owners (shareholders). They don't have any duty or obligation to provide you with free stuff.

Try walking into McDonalds and start making demands for free burgers for the good of the community.

 

No I don't, because this is my private stuff. It helps nobody if I release my private finance records.
But please don't detract from the topic! This thread is about technologic advancement in the widest sense. It has nothing to do with single individuals.

I don't need a git/svn repo because I'm no genius and therefore have no own world-changing projects going on. But you'll find my small contributions in in the repos of Debian, Slax, PureOS or Maemo.
All the work I did in my spare time is released under free licenses ([censored]PL* if I have the choice). I'd like to release my professional work under free licenses too but unfortunately the contract with my employer doesn't allow that.

*) @admins: The forum's censoring system is ridiculous! One can't even name Free Software licenses nor link to the corresponding wikipedia articles.

 

That's totally ok, I won't argue with that. But if you decide not to release your work under free licenses don't pretend to do so!

Name one!

You miss the point of Free Software! It's not about giving your work away for free, it's about publishing the foundation your work is based on. To stick with your McDonalds example, the spirit of free software would require them to publish the way they work, not to give away their burgers for free. The same goes for Apple. Nobody asks them to give their OS away for free, they are just asked to release ALL of their source code, just like Red Hat does.
Please inform yourself about the very basics of Free Software at least before coming back for further discussion. It doesn't make sense to discuss with someone who doesn't understand the topic.

 

Apple does not pretend to release OS X under a free and open source license. They are extraordinarily explicit and transparent concerning the software(s) they release, and the licenses under which they are released, for both proprietary software and FLOSS.

Apple. You're free to argue that, in your opinion, it would be a better decision for them to be doing whatever it is you think they should be doing. The volume of evidence suggests that the choices they are making are working well for them. Again, since it's their prerogative, you have absolutely no say in the matter. If I have a successful business doing A, and you think I would be more successful doing B, you're free to give me your opinion on the comment cards I leave on the front desk.

I knew the analogy wasn't perfect. I understand what free software is to an extreme degree of minutiae. I'll say this yet again! Apple does not answer to the spirit of free software. Free software is a movement to which many people subscribe. Not everyone subscribes to that movement, and Apple is certainly not bound to it in any way. That's all there is to it. You are talking about a philosophical movement, and Apple as a hardware and software business. Apple is just as bound to the free software movement as it is to Occupy Wall Street, as it is to the Eco-feminism movement. That is to say: not at all.

If you and I do business, and we make an agreement, and fulfill our obligations to each other (let's say each sold each other a patent) - and then I decide you aren't living up to the spirit of the Slow Food movement, where should we stand? Should I start pestering you about how you aren't living up to the spirit of the slow food movement? You would probably give me a blank stare and look at me like I'm crazy. I'm giving you that look, right now, through the internet.

 

That is commendable. Yet they keep vital parts of their work closed and as a consequence nobody can really comprehend what they are doing because even if you try (and have the skills) you'll encounter borders which will prevent you from proceeding.
You're right that's their prerogative. But some people who see Apple from the viewpoint of proprietary systems being the standard think that what they do to support Free Software is enough. I come from the opposite direction, where free (as in freedom) systems should be the standard and from my point of view what they do is a good starting point but it's by far not enough.
I know this is an extreme position but in my opinion there is no such thing like "being a little free" just like there isn't "being a little pregnant". One is either the one or the other.

When I said "name one" I was asking for a business model where FLOSS is not a suitable business model. If your answer is "Apple" I have to ask: Why is FLOSS no business model for them? Why wouldn't it work for them?

I don't get your point. What do patents and slow food have to do with each other? If you're referring to patents on food like genetically altered grain then I'll assure you that we'd never make a business like the one you suggested. I wouldn't sell my patents to you. I'd keep them and give you a license use my patents. This license would look pretty much like the GPL (I'd have to think about it if it should look more like v2 or v3).

 

Since you didn't pick up on it, let's do a slightly simpler example. Instead of trading patents: I sell you a house, and you pay me in cash. That's a more common transaction that you could hopefully imagine for the sake of a thought experiment. The same situation applies from that point on. I decide after you sign the contract that you aren't living up to the spirit of the Slow Food movement.

"Where should we stand? Should I start pestering you about how you aren't living up to the spirit of the slow food movement? You would probably give me a blank stare and look at me like I'm crazy. I'm giving you that look, right now, through the internet."

Any day now, the realization should set in on you that you have no obligation to uphold the spirit of the Slow Food movement, regardless of the fact that the sale the house was done through me, and that I am a member of the Slow Food Movement. That still gives you no direct connection to the Slow Food Movement, and certainly no obligations therein.

Are you successful or unsuccessful in abstracting this relationship and realizing the equivalency to the topic at hand?

 

Ooh, ohh, pick me!

Bink Video!

They hate software patents, and they don't prevent people from reverse-engineering their formats (Smacker has been figured out for a while now, and IIRC some progress has been made on Bink), but they still keep their core products as non-Free.

If they offered Bink as FLOSS, say under the LGPL, what exactly would they sell? Support? Yeah, there's some money in that (that's why they still sell Smacker licenses and why some very few people still buy them), but not nearly as much. Do you really think that every one of their users would pay for support if Bink was under the LGPL or BSD license or some-such? Support is a necessity for business app. platforms, but for middleware it's not. There's plenty of open-source libraries used in the game dev. world that come with absolutely zero support, yet still see widespread use.

 

But ThinkRob- Bink Video obviously doesn't support the spirit of free software. Don't you see? Isn't it obvious that they should be publishing their work under free and open licenses for the benefit of the free software movement?

 

What? Be more specific and maybe I can help...

 

I still don't get your point. Please have in mind that I'm not a native English speaker, so if this slow food thing is some play on words it's likely I'll never get it.
As for your house example there is a significant difference compared to "intellectual property": If you sell me your house you don't have a house anymore but if you sell me a patent you still have the knowledge about whatever this patent is about. Therefore comparing intellectual and material goods never works.
What does selling a house (or a patent) have to do with one of us being a member of the slow food movement?

Never heard of them (I stopped being a "gamer" nearly 15 years ago), so I can't judge their business model.
But it seems to me like their business model would already have broken down if they'd rely on selling their en/decoder since ffmpeg supports bink. So as you pointed out they obviously make their money elsewhere and could just as well release their code under a free licence and nothing would change.

Well, there is this certain three-letter license called [beep][beep][beep] that could be be called the most free license of all from a certain point of view?

 

Honestly, you are about a millimetre away from figuring this out on your own.

This is the question you posed:

"What does the selling of a house (or a patent) have to do with one of us being a member of the Slow Food Movement?"

When you come to an answer, this whole thread should suddenly make sense to you.

You can read about the Slow Food Movement here, for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Food

 

A vast portion of the major releases in the last decade or so have used either Bink or Miles Sound System. The latter's been around in some form for a little over two decades now.

ffmpeg's support for Bink Video is primitive compared to what RAD's libraries offer -- hell, even a quick glance at the feature list could have told you that. Yeah, in the desktop world, "it plays well enough on my box" is good enough support. When you're shipping a commercial title across a couple platforms "it worked for the dude who wrote it with a couple test files" isn't good enough. Take a look here and tell me how ffmpeg compares, particularly when it comes to size, memory requirements, and console optimization.

And no, I didn't say that they make their money elsewhere. That was kinda my point: RAD makes their money by licensing their middleware/libraries. For much of their tech, the selling point is literally the quality of the implementation.

The development tools RAD offers are also an example: part of the reason to license, say, the Miles Sound System is the tools that come with the libraries. Take a look here and tell me which open source solution offers both comparable features and a similarly-capable development toolset.

My point isn't that Free Software groups can't produce quality tools, but rather that not every business model is compatible with a fully Open approach. In the case of RAD Game Tools, they'd have virtually nothing left to sell if they released everything as OSS.

You mean the WT FPL? (Oh, hey, magic!)

I guess we differ in that I see Free Software as one of many approaches to software licensing and product development instead of a cultural faction or an ideology to which to convert people. I like Free Software. I use Free Software. I've benefited tremendously from it. And when I can, I'll release some of what I write as Free Software. But I don't think that Free Software is inherently superior to non-Free software, nor do I feel slighted when I discover someone who doesn't fully embrace the GNU world order.

 

@debguy I can type GPL just fine...

P.S.
Frost pist from muh new nokia n9!

 

Problem is, there are several interpretations of "free" and what it implies.

The BSD licence is FSF approved. The GPL is FSF approved. But they are both free in very different ways. The BSD licence's freeness is essentially the way in which the licence may be modified, whereas the GPL gives the freedom to modify the work freely, but no freedom to change the licence.

Red hat distributes their source because they are obliged to, they contribute to GPL licenced works (perhaps not with utilities like up2date, but I don't know if they do or don't distribute the source, and if that is a fork of a GPL work or not). Apple is not obliged to release source for any BSD-licenced and derived works. Note however, that the OSX kernel, Darwin, is BSD derived, AND released free to the public. Not only is it released free, but under the Apple Puclic Source Licence, which is also FSF approved! They could easily have close-sourced it.

Given the above, I think you've some rather unrealistic expectations of Apple. In particular, the system UI is quite likely to be substantially the work of Apple, and for that reason, I see no reason Apple should release it to the public.

 

debguy's point was that the free software movement's philosophical principles have more bearing on the matter of Apple's software release habits than do Apple's intellectual property rights. It's not a seriously defensible position, but I think he was actually made aware of this at some point, and possibly no longer holds that position.