Apple Open Source Update

[MacRumors]

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Missed by many yesterday due to the fervor of the WWDC Keynote address was an announcement by Apple's Open Source Project Manager, Ernest Prabhakar, concerning Apple and its Open Source initiative.

Mac OS Forge
With the recent announcement of the demise of OpenDarwin.org, Apple has stepped up to the plate and has created Mac OS Forge, a community site hosted by Apple to "support WebKit and other open source projects focused on Mac OS X, especially those looking to transition from OpenDarwin.org." Current projects include the Bonjour, Collaboration (iCal Server), Kernel (XNU), Launchd, and WebKit.

XNU x86 Source Released
Apple has released the source code for the Intel x86 version of the Darwin Kernel, beginning with Darwin 8.7 (Mac OS 10.4.7). While apologies were offered for the delay in releasing the source, no explanation was given. Speculation had begun earlier in the year that Apple was closing the XNU x86 source due to piracy concerns. MacGuides has an introduction to Darwin and XNU for readers unfamiliar with the technologies.

iCal Server Source
As many readers have noted, Apple has indeed released the source for iCal Server (slated to be released with Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard" Server) under the Apache License.

Other Licensing Changes
Bonjour and Launchd projects are now being distributed under the Apache License. The projects were previously relegated to Apple's Apple Public Source License.

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[Spanky Deluxe]

That's good that the source code has been released. I think the number of people out there that would install a hacked version of OS X and then later buy a mac greatly outweighs the number of people that would specifically build their own computers for installing a hacked version of OS X. I know a good few people that tried the hacked version and now have new macs of their own.
I think Apple are now also confident that their hardware is such good value for money that people won't bother building their own setups.

[spicyapple]

Opening up iCal server is needed to build a collaborative system on OSX. I can see opening up source code as a way for the development community to create killer apps under CalDAV.

[amac4me]

Nice

[Fabio_gsilva]

Things are pretty hot down in Cupertino...

Lots of announcements...

GO APPLE!

[dizastor]

it's good to see apple pick up this ball and run with it.

Apple : Open source at the core.

[Booga]

From Apple's new site:

"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."

So they haven't released the version of the kernel that is 10.4.7 as open source, they've just released something very closely resembling it, with no public comment about what's different, near as I can tell so far.

[stcanard]

Hmm there's some big news here.

Is this a sign that Apple is moving more to the Apache license? If so that would be big, and start to reduce the number of OSS licenses out there...

[twoodcc]

Originally Posted by Fabio_gsilva

Things are pretty hot down in Cupertino...

Lots of announcements...

GO APPLE!

couldn't say it better

[DrEasy]

Any idea as to what flavor of Wiki is being supported on Leopard Server? It looks home-grown to me, based on the features and the screen shots... Hope they will make it available separately.

[ham_man]

Originally Posted by Booga

From Apple's new site:

"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."

So they haven't released the version of the kernel that is 10.4.7 as open source, they've just released something very closely resembling it, with no public comment about what's different, near as I can tell so far.

It probably regards whatever DRM setup Apple has with its Intel CPUs...

[mdntcallr]

well this ought to keep the open source people very happy.

Seems like apple is trying to do what they can, but not do it in a way which will sacrifice security.

kudos to apple

[Lollypop]

Im glad apple is still supporting OS, im really pleased they are drawing a bit of attention to bonjour/Zero-config/whatever they call it this week, its a cool technology that is only really recieveing bigtime attention on the mac.

Im not surprised that the OS version of 10.4.7 is a bit different than the commercial version of 10.4.7, bound to happen that there are some stuff in the kernel that apple cant let out in the wild due to external licence agreements.

[NewSc2]

wow, 41 positives and 1 negative? never seen that before. it's always "mac prices are lowered! 41 positives and 10 negs (<-- dunno why)"

[aegisdesign]

It's both good and bad news.

MacOSForge looks thrown together at the last minute and it is. For a long time the place for open source projects was opendarwin.org but the guys that run that were increasingly frustrated at Apple not participating with the open source community.

A month or so back, they announced they were pulling opendarwin.org. The major project on opendarwin.org that had to find a new home of course was Apple's own Webkit.

If Apple had got behind opendarwin.org earlier, the need for macosforge wouldn't be there.

See http://ranger.befunk.com/blog/archives/000697.html for a less than glowing view of the situation from one of the Fink project guys.


It's very good news they've released more source and under a more liberal licence too. The collaboration server is particularly of interest to 3rd parties as we can now start up our own .Mac style services. It'll be interesting to see what Apple does with .Mac now that anyone can set up iCal sharing servers.

The other project to note on macosforge is that there's mention of a project called 'Apple Teams' which I guess could be their wiki software but may be something more entirely. The CalDAV open source project is compatible with it so obviously it links in with some kind of event sharing.

Watching the source commits to macosforge might be an indication of the release date of Leopard.

[Peel]

Originally Posted by NewSc2

wow, 41 positives and 1 negative? never seen that before. it's always "mac prices are lowered! 41 positives and 10 negs (<-- dunno why)"

It's because certain people are never satisfied, and dissapointed when Apple doesn't live up to their over-blown expectations of them. When they see "Mac prices lowered" they get excited, then reading the article see that they were lowered $100, and they thought they should have been lowered $200, so they vote it negative.

[CANEHDN]

That's great that Apple's realizing the potential of Open Source and is taking advantage of it. This will help these great apps and systems become even better.

[Compatiblepoker]

Good to hear. Alot of my friends will be happy to about the SC.

[slooksterPSV]

Should we/I be nervous about this? Do you think Apple would leave us stranded?

[Project]

Seems to be so much going on right now.... interesting times.

[macfan881]

so does this mean that some one can make it so osx will run on windows

[msavory]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

See http://ranger.befunk.com/blog/archives/000697.html for a less than glowing view of the situation from one of the Fink project guys.

A news release on Darwinports website says...

DarwinPorts project announces New Hosting and New Name

7 Aug 2006, 8:47 PM

DarwinPorts project announced today its intention to accept hosting for the DarwinPorts project through the new Mac OS Forge facility being set up by Apple Computer at www.macosforge.org. This follows news that opendarwin.org, the project's current hosting provider, will be shut down in the coming months.
James Berry, a member of the DarwinPorts steering committee says:
"We are pleased that by offering us hosting and administrative support services, Apple continues to demonstrate its strong commitment to the open source community. That support is vital to our project."

As part of the transition to Mac OS Forge, the DarwinPorts project will adopt the new name MacPorts, utilizing the macports.org domain, which it recently acquired. "We believe the new name MacPorts better reflects our mission, which is to provide a collection of open source ports for Mac OS X, with future supportfor binary packages", says Juan Manuel Palacios, another DarwinPorts member.

Members of the DarwinPorts/MacPorts project and portmgr team will work with opendarwin.org and Mac OS Forge to effect a smooth transition over the coming weeks.