Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:24:03 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Paul Robinson <paul@iconoplex.co.uk> Cc: Robert Storey <y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> Subject: Re: Apple's contribution to FreeBSD Message-ID: <p06002016bd22bbcddda7@[10.0.1.3]> In-Reply-To: <20040720084849.GC5699@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <20040720115557.03462af4.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> <20040720084849.GC5699@iconoplex.co.uk>
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At 9:48 AM +0100 2004-07-20, Paul Robinson wrote:
> As I understand it, all of userland, plus they stole Jordan Hubbard. :-)
Not quite. ;)
From what I've been able to determine from my own experiences
with FreeBSD over the years and MacOS X since 10.1 (and some playing
around with NextSTEP years earlier), I think what has happened is
this:
1) Kernel is Mach.
No FreeBSD there.
2) Drivers are pretty deeply embedded into the Kernel, and
frequently use totally proprietary things like I/OKit.
Not much FreeBSD, but bits are being ripped out as it
makes sense to do, and being replaced with stuff from
more modern/generic *BSD implementations, FreeBSD
included.
3) Userland stuff is still largely inherited from NextSTEP,
which was Mach plus a BSD userland anyway. So, directly
or indirectly, it's pretty much all *BSD, although not
necessarily directly derived from FreeBSD.
Again, as it makes sense, NextSTEP-legacy bits are being
ripped out and replaced with more generic/modern *BSD
bits, usually coming from FreeBSD but not always.
For example, look at the work that's being done to throw
away NetInfo Manager, and instead go to something based on
OpenLDAP.
4) Where MacOS X diverges the most is in the UI and graphical
applications, anything that comes over from MacOS 9/Carbon,
etc....
Obviously, no FreeBSD here.
>> 2) What exactly has Apple contributed back to FreeBSD? (money?
>> equipment? source code?). Nowadays, does Apple still continue to give
>> anything back to the FreeBSD community?
>
> I know they sometimes help sponsor the odd event relevant to us, and they're
> the first OS vendor I know who will go to a Linux User Group and give a talk
> to a bunch of people who won't buy their product just to talk about the
> tech. Also Darwin is there for us to nick things off if we want it, just
> like the other BSDs.
Speaking only for myself, I believe that the long-term goal is to
merge more and more components of Darwin (the freely available bits
of MacOS X) and FreeBSD, until there effectively is little or no
difference.
Where it makes sense, NextSTEP legacy components will be ripped
out and replaced with generic/modern *BSD stuff, and Apple no longer
has to worry about paying the maintenance and support costs for that
part of the code.
They will focus their efforts on the Aqua and MacOS X specific
stuff which they wish to keep proprietary, and reduce their long-term
O&M costs by putting as much of the rest as possible out into the
*BSD community.
I believe that this is a very reasonable business plan.
Indeed, when it comes to building proprietary systems on top of
open source components, I believe that this is the only workable
business plan.
Trying to keep everything in-house and then deal with the
increasing divergence between your starting point and where you are
now, is a recipe for disaster. I believe that we've been there and
seen that.
>> 3) How much of OSX today is open source (or "shared source")? Can you
>> actually see the OSX source code? Can you use any of it?
>
> Darwin. As somebody else pointed out, Darwin is open source, but doesn't
> have the GUI or proprietary libs included.
You'd have to get some engineers at Apple to count the lines of
code in Darwin as compared to the non-Darwin stuff in MacOS X, but I
believe that Darwin is by far the largest chunk.
--
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755
SAGE member since 1995. See <http://www.sage.org/>; for more info.
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