12 ms·

MacOS 10.12 Open Source Components

349 points by Lwrless 10y ago

hanniabu 10y ago
Any thoughts on why they wouldn't have released this under a Github repo?
- milcron 10y ago
  Inertia, probably. You can find older releases at that URL too: https://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1010.html https://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1010.html
  - duskwuff 10y ago
    All the way back to 10.0, which was released in 2001 -- long before Git was even a thing, let alone Github.
- wahern 10y ago
  They've been publishing their source code using their own portal since before GitHub existed.
- userbinator 10y ago
  Personally, I'm not a fan of centralising all open-source software on GitHub and think it's good that Apple host it themselves. Of course, being open-source, you're more than welcome to put a copy there.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- peterkelly 10y ago
  Because not all open source software has to be distributed via GitHub. Think about what happened to SourceForge, and be glad that the Internet hasn't become totally centralised around a few major websites yet.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Seriously the over reliance on Github is a systemic risk to the industry.
    - flukus 10y ago
      Is it? Every repo contains the complete history, github crashing tomorrow would be more of an inconvenience than a disaster.
      - yarrel 10y ago
        It doesn't contain the bug tracking, the wiki or the project sites. It doesn't include the team organization and access control. It doesn't include the bot integration. And it doesn't include the merging workflow that people are really starting to rely on. GitHub going down would be a major inconvenience.
        flukus 10y ago
        Project sites are already github repos. Bug tracking etc should be backed up (https://backhub.co/ https://backhub.co/), or did we forget how to make backups?
        simonh 10y ago
        I get really annoyed by comments like this. The comments was that there may be a systemic risk. Pointing out that there are mitigating controls available is simply not sufficient to refute the concern. To refute it you'd need to show that enough repos do have sufficient backups and are capable of recovering adequately from the loss of github. If I asked a colleague at work if a project was properly backed up and they said 'well there's an enterprise backup solution that is appropriate for it', I'd metaphorically kick their but into next week. I'd want to know that they are actually backing it up and that the backups have been verified, not that they could be backing it up. If you'd said something like 'there are options available to mitigate the loss of github and projects should be taking advantage of them, and here they are' that would be a good and useful comment, but I don't think a practical concern can be reasonably dismissed with a theoretical counter. I find it dismissive and lazy.
- temp2016 10y ago
  Someone made an unoffical github repo, but it's not been kept up-to-date: https://github.com/unofficial-opensource-apple https://github.com/unofficial-opensource-apple The tool they used to create it is here: https://github.com/n-b/tatin https://github.com/n-b/tatin Not sure if it still works, but it's was pretty handy for doing diffs, etc...
sashav 10y ago
no USBAudio? Again? So much for open source
- userbinator 10y ago
  No IO80211Controller (the bane of all Hackintosh developers...) either, but not surprising since Apple are probably only open-sourcing code that they are legally obligated to by license, or for which they feel the release of "doesn't negatively affect their core philosophy and business model", to use a vague yet suitable phrase that I've heard of as justification for other source releases.
- throwaway4891a 10y ago
  Either they don't want to release it or they can't (a third-party contract/NDA), at least right now. Open sourcing is often seen by big-businesses as potentially "helping" competitors undermine, replicate, sue, make interoperable wares which may threaten the "Golden Goose." It sucks, but that's the situation... lawyers can't force them to release other code unless they're caught TiVoizing some GPL 3 code or something similar. You'd think Apple would want to invent the next cool kids bandwagon, maybe invite some community goodwill and crowdsource maybe some new features like fixing time synchronization to have a high-precision ability or working on another actual replacement for HFS+, or adding Windows compatibility. Maybe developer pressure could sway them, and wouldn't it be a good PR move to eventually relent after a long, drawn-out public debate which buys some time for the Apple Car or whatever else is cooking next to be readied? Ive and Cook have massive shoes to fill, which they and the Apple team helped fill, but many people don't think that right now, at least not yet.
  - 0x0 10y ago
    They are working on APFS to replace HFS+ and sierra ships a beta already, at least :)
  - ta12345 10y ago
    I can't believe this is a serious comment. The majority of open source is crap, like 80% of it. People build what they need and forget about it. Often the code has no cohesion to the rest of the project and often it is of poor quality. Not to mention the ego's and lack of sociability of most projects. Apple didn't become the most valuable company by following that principle. Instead it took the approach of an egotistical maniac who demanded perfection and required that all the pieces fit together as part of an elegant puzzle. No small feat and not really replicated today -- except for Tesla and SpaceX. If I'm missing something, please name one other company today has has a "hit" product that unanimously loved (aka has insane sales and really high ratings) to the extent of the iPod, iPhone, Model S, etc.. Furthermore, I'd challenge you to name one open source project that can be shipped AS-IS as a product. Don't even say the Linux kernel, that has like what 2% market share? No doubt the majority of HN folks are sharp but there is a huge lack of emotional intelligence. I've found this at many tech companies except Apple. Even when talking with Apple engineers I find myself talking to another HUMAN who happens to appreciate technology and understands it isn't the be all end all. Its sad to see such a company lose it soul but it was inevitable. Disclaimer: I'm a kernel developer and contributor.
Elv13 10y ago
Long time ago, they used to also publish a bootable ISO of Darwin + all of those OSS packages. They did publish an updated Darwin core / kernel a few releases back, but it seems to be closed again. Too bad, I think someone with some determination could have gotten am hypervisor based container tech running on this. Of course the test would not run, but APIs shims could have made whole software compile (but not link). This in itself would have been very useful for a lot of people. Being able to compile in a container then link in the "real" macOS could also have been implemented, making this much more useful.
- huilee 10y ago
  If Apple open sourced all of macOS maybe that would put more pressure on Microsoft to intentionally[1] open source Windows. [1]: It has been open sourced in the past: https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-takes-pirated-windows-nt-4-0-source-code-offline-150415/ https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-takes-pirated-windows-nt-... http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1030335/leaked-windows-2000-source-code-analysed http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1030335/leaked-wind...
  - bad_user 10y ago
    Leaked source code is not open source dude. Open source is software licensed under terms compatible with these rules: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
    - minxomat 10y ago
      Both the Windows Server 2003 x86 and the Windows XP amd64 kernel source code have been available for academic purposes. They are governed under the WRT License, which forbids re-distribution outside of the academic use. But yes, MS provided that source code with full documentation on how to build and debug each kernel. I've built the WinXP kernel a few months ago just for nostalgic purposes, here's a VM running the custom kernel with a KDBG hook on NTQSysInfo [1]. The neat thing is that you can debug on the system itself, or via a serial port. I also know that some people had success merging the /base/ code from the above licensed kernel (but the x86 version) and the leaked WinNT4 code. One even got so far as to manage a recompile of the NT setup, building a custom NT OS from scratch. Though that's violating the WRK and NT license left and right. [1] http://i.imgur.com/BeiME5X.png http://i.imgur.com/BeiME5X.png
muterad_murilax 10y ago
I wonder why they still write "OS X". Intentional or just due to somebody's lack of attention to detail?
- doomlaser 10y ago
  'macOS' is just too much of an affectation to ask for in styling capitalization. You'll notice a lot of people resisting it, defiantly writing 'MacOS'.
  - draw_down 10y ago
    OK, but this page is made by Apple.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - terinjokes 10y ago
      When you have a name for over a decade, you tend to have it hard coded in a bunch of places...
      - Ultra_64 10y ago
        On the other hand, the official name was 'Mac OS X' until 2012.
        eridius 10y ago
        Sure, but it was nearly always just referred to as "OS X", so the official renaming in 2012 was just moving it in line with how people already referred to it.
      - draw_down 10y ago
        Yeah, my company moved offices a few months back and we had the old location in a surprising number of places around the codebase.
shmerl 10y ago
Someone should implement Vulkan for it.
rdtsc 10y ago
Heh emacs-22.1. Wonder where that's used. Scripting in elisp?
- Elv13 10y ago
  It was the default editor of the Apple (NeXT) Darwin UNIX distribution. Given how much effort they have put in this list in the last 15 years, I guess it just wasn't curated much unless legal said to do so.
- duskwuff 10y ago
  emacs is distributed with the OS, so the GPL requires Apple to make the emacs source available. (Even if they haven't changed it.)
  - brandelune 10y ago
    Only if you make such a request. Read the GPL.
    - fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
      Publishing the source like this is risk management for a company. By doing this they don't risk having to receive, vet and process 100's of requests for source at a random time - which could use up their legal department's resources at the wrong moment.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - flukus 10y ago
    Can't the just point to the gnu repo?
    - yarrel 10y ago
      No. They're distributing the binaries, so they have to provide the source code to users of the binaries on request. Publishing it like this satisfies that requirement.
jaxn 10y ago
Reading this from the new Surface Book I bought today to replace my MacBook Pro...
- wtetzner 10y ago
  How do you like the Surface Book? I'm very tempted to buy one.
  - azhenley 10y ago
    Microsoft gave me one at the end of my internship. It is ok. It feels really clunky when compared to a MacBook but overall I would give it a thumbs up. My biggest complaint is that it is really back-heavy, so it wants to fall over whenever I sit it on my lap. Also, the docking station has a lot of weird issues (e.g., it will just stop working sometimes if it goes to sleep until I unplug it from the wall).
    - jaxn 10y ago
      Is that the first gen or the new one? It is still a little back-heavy, but I suspect the bigger battery in the new base balances it out a little more.
  - jaxn 10y ago
    I am a little nervous about this switch, but it is definitely a high quality machine with solid attention to detail. Also, Windows 10 seems pretty solid. I have a long way to go, but I am hoping that I can use the Thanksgiving break to get over the hump and be relatively productive when I get back to the office on Monday. I am pretty committed to making the switch though. I am taking notes in case the transition is worth sharing later.
    - edko 10y ago
      I am reluctantly thinking of jumping ship too. What is keeping me back is that, I remember, a little while after Windows 10 was released, there was a scandal because it sent users' data back to Microsoft, disregarding privacy settings. I haven't followed the story too much since, and could not find anything saying the issue was "fixed". Does anybody know how the story ended?
lukecowell 10y ago
That title is clickbaity.
- Yuioup 10y ago
  Yeah, a page with a list of downloadable tarballs can hardly be called Open Source. BTW, how useful is this code? Obviously you can't build anything with this. It's useful for auditing, maybe?
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    I would agree that there are obviously ways in which Apple could participate more in many of the open-source projects they use, but I don't really buy your point - it's literally source code which is open! The idea is for Apple to release the source for components that are included in macOS, and the license requires publication. There is no obligation (or, I would argue, expectation) to do anything more.
    - Yuioup 10y ago
      Well. Okay. What I really meant to say is that Open Source - to me at least - can really call itself Open Source if there is a collaborative effort to maintain the code, ideally through a version control mechanism. For example, Android is not Open Source to me because the code is dropped after the fact. But fair enough. I'll take the downvotes.
  - Matthias247 10y ago
    That code is not there in order to be useful to someone. It's there to meet the liabilities that they have through the licenses for the used open source software. These licenses often say that if you use the software you also need to allow the public to retrieve it. Even more so if you make modifications to it.
    - vvhn 10y ago
      That's only true of GPL'ed components shipped as part of Mac OS X/ OS X / macOS. A vast majority isn't - some are BSD and most are Apple originated software under an Apple Open Source License (APSL)
gaxun 10y ago
I have been drafting an 'Ideas' post about the following idea, but it's not done yet and this looks like as good a place as any to look for some early feedback. This might not have as much clarity as I'd like. The general idea is to have a site that can track various projects that release their own copy of GPL (especially, but other licenses as well) software. So Apple ships their version of {bash, etc.}, and so does your router, and someone else's refrigerator. And this site ("GPL Hub?") just links to all the places that are hosting their own version of {bash, etc.}. Maybe it could even show how they've diverged, although that might not be so easy. Recently it has become very trendy to host all code in one centralized location like GitHub. But GitHub isn't really that great at showing you the "forks graph" anyway. Many companies that ship GPL code have archives like this available on their own websites. This could help increase visibility and give users an easier time finding the source code. I'd love to know how many copies of different GPL projects are out in the wild. Maybe for the companies that don't publicly host their GPL code, someone who makes a successful GPL request could share the code on this same site. Those are some of the ideas, I'd still love to finish the post sometime but it's a bit too vague for me to say anything concrete yet. Any direction to related works or explanations of why this is a bad (or good) idea would be much appreciated!
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  This could be very very useful for embedded devices. You'd be better off linking to repos where possible - some vendor dumps are gigabytes in size. Happy to chat more. Details are in profile.
  - philippnagel 10y ago
    Dito. My email address can be found in my profile.
- pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
  I really like the idea. Where free licenses are concerned, I believe this would help “cross-pollination” among projects and facilitate the progress of open source. It could also work as a (perhaps curated) reference. Sort of like Rosetta Code, but for more high-level features – “how have projects X and Y chosen to implement this feature?” Besides, it could serve an archival function. A quick search on the web reveals a couple of projects on this vein, but they tend to rely on storing official releases. The way I see your idea, it could be made to work in a way closer to what archive.org does for the web, archiving everything it’s permissible to, with the addition of meta information about the projects, their relationships, etc. Not a small undertaking, but a very inspiring one!
filereaper 10y ago
Heh, I went spelunking through the bsd/mach layers of the code, was quite a bit of fun. Looks like they've only released the x86_64 and x86 versions of the code? I don't see any ARM in there. Anyways, found gems like this [1]: /* * File: sched_prim.c * Author: Avadis Tevanian, Jr. * Date: 1986 * * Scheduling primitives * */ I hope to leave a legacy like this someday, hopefully someone will appreciate the author's comments 30 years later! [1] https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-3789.1.32/osfmk/kern/sched_prim.c.auto.html https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-3789.1.32/osfmk/...
- minxomat 10y ago
  For giggles, here are some comments I grepped from the WinNT kernel: https://gist.github.com/turbo/75f0905275c29a3049f983cfe273eae2 https://gist.github.com/turbo/75f0905275c29a3049f983cfe273ea...
  - SSLy 10y ago
    where did you get the source to grep through?
    - minxomat 10y ago
      Just look a few comments below.
  - Gruselbauer 10y ago
    These are hilarious, thanks. > to the HAL by the NT god. Hail Caesar!
  - hashin 10y ago
    Oh man, this is hilarious! ../tdi/tcpip/tcp/tcpsend.c:// STUPID FUCKING COMPILER generates incorrect code for this. ../fastfat/allocsup.c:// God knows what state we left the disk allocation in. ../dd/histgram/cmd/perfhist/perfhist.c:// the heck? we are gods anyways! ../nthals/halntp/mips/xxinitnt.c:// to the HAL by the NT god. Hail Caesar! ../w32/ntgdi/client/dcquery.c:// if cjotma == 0, this is HONEST to God unicode font, can not convert ../w32/ntgdi/fondrv/tt/ttfd/fontfile.h:// honest to God msft unicode font ../w32/ntgdi/fondrv/tt/ttfd/tt.h:// uint16 reservedPad; // only God knows why ../se/ctlpcqos.c:// Appease the compiler Gods. ../cntfs/create.c:// Here is the "M A R K [REDACTED]" hack from hell. ../afd/disconn.c:// Hack-O-Rama. TDI has a fundamental flaw in that it is often impossible ../afd/disconn.c:// Yet another hack to keep it from crashing ../fastfat/read.c:// Deal with stupid people who open the volume DASD with ../afd/recvdg.c:// Bomb off if the user is trying to do something stupid, like
JDevlieghere 10y ago
Great news, this should also mean that Valgrind will soon be working again on Sierra!
koko775 10y ago
Except for launchd, which remains re-closed-source.
- hoistbypetard 10y ago
  I didn't realized they'd closed that back up. Lame. When/why did they do that?
  - koko775 10y ago
    subsumed it into XPC which has never been open.
synthecypher 10y ago
Was macOS always open source I thought it was just Darwin.
raimue 10y ago
Interestingly this is not yet linked from the top-level page of the open source site: https://opensource.apple.com/ https://opensource.apple.com/
Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
Oh, how I miss having a working USB stack... https://opensource.apple.com/source/IOUSBFamily/IOUSBFamily-560.4.2/ https://opensource.apple.com/source/IOUSBFamily/IOUSBFamily-... They re-wrote IOUSBFamily (or at least they said they did) and it's buggy as all heck whenever you try use a USB 3 hub (since the 10.9 rewrite). I'd fix it myself, but it's no longer open source. Plus, to really rub salt in the wound, there's no longer a USB debugging kext. Yay, Apple...
- justsid 10y ago
  I’m similarly displeased with the disappearance of the pthread subsystem in 10.9! I had to debug quite a nasty kernel bug, and was absolutely surprised when I discovered that all pthread syscalls are now stubs into a private kext.
- sdfjkl 10y ago
  I have some short USB 2.0 extension cables that I use to plug between the Macbook and USB 3 devices - to reduce them to USB 2.0. Because if I for example try to copy more than a few MB to a USB 3 external HD, the Mac freezes. Every single time. So that's working well then.
  - contingencies 10y ago
    Try different powered hubs. Last week I discovered a USB key that eats so much power it won't run without a powered hub! Numerous external hard drives and optical drives are in this camp, too.
    - sdfjkl 10y ago
      Does the power requirement change between USB 2.0 and USB 3? If not, I don't see why more power would change anything. I also don't think a power problem on an attached USB device should give my computer a kernel panic.
tannhaeuser 10y ago
Is there a functional, recent way to build this on VirtualBox and use it for cross-compiling command line and server apps for Mac OS (macOS/X whatever)?
satyajeet23 10y ago
You can hook exceptions in MACF now.
sandstrom 10y ago
I think Apple is missing out on both a lot of goodwill but also overall progress of their Unix core by being so closed. Instead they should actively contribute source-code to the BSD-ecosystem. Apple has a lot to gain long-term from the BSD-ecosystem being healthy. Also, the whole Hackintosh thing is completely overblown. So what if some intrepid coder gets it running on a non-apple machine. It won't affect their sales the tiniest bit.
guomanmin 10y ago
Participate in Atlassian Research My name is Angela and I do research for Bitbucket. I’m kicking off a round of discussions with people who use Git tools. Ideally, I’d like to talk to people that sit on a team of 3 or more. If this is you, I would love to talk to you about your experience with <using> Git tools, or just some of the pain points that are keeping you up at night when doing your jobs.   We’ll just need 30 mins of your time, and as a token of my thanks to those that participate, I’d like to offer a US$50 Amazon gift voucher.    If you’re interested, just shoot me an email with your availability over the next few weeks and we can set up a time to chat for 30 minutes. Please also include your timezone so we can schedule a suitable time (as I’m located in San Francisco). Hope to talk to you soon! Cheers,   Angela Guo aguo@atlassian.com

349 points by Lwrless 10y ago

hanniabu 10y ago

Any thoughts on why they wouldn't have released this under a Github repo?

milcron 10y ago
Inertia, probably. You can find older releases at that URL too: https://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1010.html https://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1010.html
- duskwuff 10y ago
  All the way back to 10.0, which was released in 2001 -- long before Git was even a thing, let alone Github.
wahern 10y ago
They've been publishing their source code using their own portal since before GitHub existed.
userbinator 10y ago
Personally, I'm not a fan of centralising all open-source software on GitHub and think it's good that Apple host it themselves. Of course, being open-source, you're more than welcome to put a copy there.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
peterkelly 10y ago
Because not all open source software has to be distributed via GitHub. Think about what happened to SourceForge, and be glad that the Internet hasn't become totally centralised around a few major websites yet.
- threeseed 10y ago
  Seriously the over reliance on Github is a systemic risk to the industry.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Is it? Every repo contains the complete history, github crashing tomorrow would be more of an inconvenience than a disaster.
    - yarrel 10y ago
      It doesn't contain the bug tracking, the wiki or the project sites. It doesn't include the team organization and access control. It doesn't include the bot integration. And it doesn't include the merging workflow that people are really starting to rely on. GitHub going down would be a major inconvenience.
      - flukus 10y ago
        Project sites are already github repos. Bug tracking etc should be backed up (https://backhub.co/ https://backhub.co/), or did we forget how to make backups?
        simonh 10y ago
        I get really annoyed by comments like this. The comments was that there may be a systemic risk. Pointing out that there are mitigating controls available is simply not sufficient to refute the concern. To refute it you'd need to show that enough repos do have sufficient backups and are capable of recovering adequately from the loss of github. If I asked a colleague at work if a project was properly backed up and they said 'well there's an enterprise backup solution that is appropriate for it', I'd metaphorically kick their but into next week. I'd want to know that they are actually backing it up and that the backups have been verified, not that they could be backing it up. If you'd said something like 'there are options available to mitigate the loss of github and projects should be taking advantage of them, and here they are' that would be a good and useful comment, but I don't think a practical concern can be reasonably dismissed with a theoretical counter. I find it dismissive and lazy.
temp2016 10y ago
Someone made an unoffical github repo, but it's not been kept up-to-date: https://github.com/unofficial-opensource-apple https://github.com/unofficial-opensource-apple The tool they used to create it is here: https://github.com/n-b/tatin https://github.com/n-b/tatin Not sure if it still works, but it's was pretty handy for doing diffs, etc...

sashav 10y ago

no USBAudio? Again? So much for open source

userbinator 10y ago
No IO80211Controller (the bane of all Hackintosh developers...) either, but not surprising since Apple are probably only open-sourcing code that they are legally obligated to by license, or for which they feel the release of "doesn't negatively affect their core philosophy and business model", to use a vague yet suitable phrase that I've heard of as justification for other source releases.
throwaway4891a 10y ago
Either they don't want to release it or they can't (a third-party contract/NDA), at least right now. Open sourcing is often seen by big-businesses as potentially "helping" competitors undermine, replicate, sue, make interoperable wares which may threaten the "Golden Goose." It sucks, but that's the situation... lawyers can't force them to release other code unless they're caught TiVoizing some GPL 3 code or something similar. You'd think Apple would want to invent the next cool kids bandwagon, maybe invite some community goodwill and crowdsource maybe some new features like fixing time synchronization to have a high-precision ability or working on another actual replacement for HFS+, or adding Windows compatibility. Maybe developer pressure could sway them, and wouldn't it be a good PR move to eventually relent after a long, drawn-out public debate which buys some time for the Apple Car or whatever else is cooking next to be readied? Ive and Cook have massive shoes to fill, which they and the Apple team helped fill, but many people don't think that right now, at least not yet.
- 0x0 10y ago
  They are working on APFS to replace HFS+ and sierra ships a beta already, at least :)
- ta12345 10y ago
  I can't believe this is a serious comment. The majority of open source is crap, like 80% of it. People build what they need and forget about it. Often the code has no cohesion to the rest of the project and often it is of poor quality. Not to mention the ego's and lack of sociability of most projects. Apple didn't become the most valuable company by following that principle. Instead it took the approach of an egotistical maniac who demanded perfection and required that all the pieces fit together as part of an elegant puzzle. No small feat and not really replicated today -- except for Tesla and SpaceX. If I'm missing something, please name one other company today has has a "hit" product that unanimously loved (aka has insane sales and really high ratings) to the extent of the iPod, iPhone, Model S, etc.. Furthermore, I'd challenge you to name one open source project that can be shipped AS-IS as a product. Don't even say the Linux kernel, that has like what 2% market share? No doubt the majority of HN folks are sharp but there is a huge lack of emotional intelligence. I've found this at many tech companies except Apple. Even when talking with Apple engineers I find myself talking to another HUMAN who happens to appreciate technology and understands it isn't the be all end all. Its sad to see such a company lose it soul but it was inevitable. Disclaimer: I'm a kernel developer and contributor.

Elv13 10y ago

Long time ago, they used to also publish a bootable ISO of Darwin + all of those OSS packages. They did publish an updated Darwin core / kernel a few releases back, but it seems to be closed again. Too bad, I think someone with some determination could have gotten am hypervisor based container tech running on this. Of course the test would not run, but APIs shims could have made whole software compile (but not link). This in itself would have been very useful for a lot of people. Being able to compile in a container then link in the "real" macOS could also have been implemented, making this much more useful.

huilee 10y ago
If Apple open sourced all of macOS maybe that would put more pressure on Microsoft to intentionally[1] open source Windows. [1]: It has been open sourced in the past: https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-takes-pirated-windows-nt-4-0-source-code-offline-150415/ https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-takes-pirated-windows-nt-... http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1030335/leaked-windows-2000-source-code-analysed http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1030335/leaked-wind...
- bad_user 10y ago
  Leaked source code is not open source dude. Open source is software licensed under terms compatible with these rules: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - minxomat 10y ago
    Both the Windows Server 2003 x86 and the Windows XP amd64 kernel source code have been available for academic purposes. They are governed under the WRT License, which forbids re-distribution outside of the academic use. But yes, MS provided that source code with full documentation on how to build and debug each kernel. I've built the WinXP kernel a few months ago just for nostalgic purposes, here's a VM running the custom kernel with a KDBG hook on NTQSysInfo [1]. The neat thing is that you can debug on the system itself, or via a serial port. I also know that some people had success merging the /base/ code from the above licensed kernel (but the x86 version) and the leaked WinNT4 code. One even got so far as to manage a recompile of the NT setup, building a custom NT OS from scratch. Though that's violating the WRK and NT license left and right. [1] http://i.imgur.com/BeiME5X.png http://i.imgur.com/BeiME5X.png

muterad_murilax 10y ago

I wonder why they still write "OS X". Intentional or just due to somebody's lack of attention to detail?

doomlaser 10y ago
'macOS' is just too much of an affectation to ask for in styling capitalization. You'll notice a lot of people resisting it, defiantly writing 'MacOS'.
- draw_down 10y ago
  OK, but this page is made by Apple.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - terinjokes 10y ago
    When you have a name for over a decade, you tend to have it hard coded in a bunch of places...
    - Ultra_64 10y ago
      On the other hand, the official name was 'Mac OS X' until 2012.
      - eridius 10y ago
        Sure, but it was nearly always just referred to as "OS X", so the official renaming in 2012 was just moving it in line with how people already referred to it.
    - draw_down 10y ago
      Yeah, my company moved offices a few months back and we had the old location in a surprising number of places around the codebase.

shmerl 10y ago

Someone should implement Vulkan for it.

rdtsc 10y ago

Heh emacs-22.1. Wonder where that's used. Scripting in elisp?

Elv13 10y ago
It was the default editor of the Apple (NeXT) Darwin UNIX distribution. Given how much effort they have put in this list in the last 15 years, I guess it just wasn't curated much unless legal said to do so.
duskwuff 10y ago
emacs is distributed with the OS, so the GPL requires Apple to make the emacs source available. (Even if they haven't changed it.)
- brandelune 10y ago
  Only if you make such a request. Read the GPL.
  - fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
    Publishing the source like this is risk management for a company. By doing this they don't risk having to receive, vet and process 100's of requests for source at a random time - which could use up their legal department's resources at the wrong moment.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- flukus 10y ago
  Can't the just point to the gnu repo?
  - yarrel 10y ago
    No. They're distributing the binaries, so they have to provide the source code to users of the binaries on request. Publishing it like this satisfies that requirement.

jaxn 10y ago

Reading this from the new Surface Book I bought today to replace my MacBook Pro...

wtetzner 10y ago
How do you like the Surface Book? I'm very tempted to buy one.
- azhenley 10y ago
  Microsoft gave me one at the end of my internship. It is ok. It feels really clunky when compared to a MacBook but overall I would give it a thumbs up. My biggest complaint is that it is really back-heavy, so it wants to fall over whenever I sit it on my lap. Also, the docking station has a lot of weird issues (e.g., it will just stop working sometimes if it goes to sleep until I unplug it from the wall).
  - jaxn 10y ago
    Is that the first gen or the new one? It is still a little back-heavy, but I suspect the bigger battery in the new base balances it out a little more.
- jaxn 10y ago
  I am a little nervous about this switch, but it is definitely a high quality machine with solid attention to detail. Also, Windows 10 seems pretty solid. I have a long way to go, but I am hoping that I can use the Thanksgiving break to get over the hump and be relatively productive when I get back to the office on Monday. I am pretty committed to making the switch though. I am taking notes in case the transition is worth sharing later.
  - edko 10y ago
    I am reluctantly thinking of jumping ship too. What is keeping me back is that, I remember, a little while after Windows 10 was released, there was a scandal because it sent users' data back to Microsoft, disregarding privacy settings. I haven't followed the story too much since, and could not find anything saying the issue was "fixed". Does anybody know how the story ended?

lukecowell 10y ago

That title is clickbaity.

Yuioup 10y ago
Yeah, a page with a list of downloadable tarballs can hardly be called Open Source. BTW, how useful is this code? Obviously you can't build anything with this. It's useful for auditing, maybe?
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  I would agree that there are obviously ways in which Apple could participate more in many of the open-source projects they use, but I don't really buy your point - it's literally source code which is open! The idea is for Apple to release the source for components that are included in macOS, and the license requires publication. There is no obligation (or, I would argue, expectation) to do anything more.
  - Yuioup 10y ago
    Well. Okay. What I really meant to say is that Open Source - to me at least - can really call itself Open Source if there is a collaborative effort to maintain the code, ideally through a version control mechanism. For example, Android is not Open Source to me because the code is dropped after the fact. But fair enough. I'll take the downvotes.
- Matthias247 10y ago
  That code is not there in order to be useful to someone. It's there to meet the liabilities that they have through the licenses for the used open source software. These licenses often say that if you use the software you also need to allow the public to retrieve it. Even more so if you make modifications to it.
  - vvhn 10y ago
    That's only true of GPL'ed components shipped as part of Mac OS X/ OS X / macOS. A vast majority isn't - some are BSD and most are Apple originated software under an Apple Open Source License (APSL)

gaxun 10y ago

I have been drafting an 'Ideas' post about the following idea, but it's not done yet and this looks like as good a place as any to look for some early feedback. This might not have as much clarity as I'd like. The general idea is to have a site that can track various projects that release their own copy of GPL (especially, but other licenses as well) software. So Apple ships their version of {bash, etc.}, and so does your router, and someone else's refrigerator. And this site ("GPL Hub?") just links to all the places that are hosting their own version of {bash, etc.}. Maybe it could even show how they've diverged, although that might not be so easy. Recently it has become very trendy to host all code in one centralized location like GitHub. But GitHub isn't really that great at showing you the "forks graph" anyway. Many companies that ship GPL code have archives like this available on their own websites. This could help increase visibility and give users an easier time finding the source code. I'd love to know how many copies of different GPL projects are out in the wild. Maybe for the companies that don't publicly host their GPL code, someone who makes a successful GPL request could share the code on this same site. Those are some of the ideas, I'd still love to finish the post sometime but it's a bit too vague for me to say anything concrete yet. Any direction to related works or explanations of why this is a bad (or good) idea would be much appreciated!

voltagex_ 10y ago
This could be very very useful for embedded devices. You'd be better off linking to repos where possible - some vendor dumps are gigabytes in size. Happy to chat more. Details are in profile.
- philippnagel 10y ago
  Dito. My email address can be found in my profile.
pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
I really like the idea. Where free licenses are concerned, I believe this would help “cross-pollination” among projects and facilitate the progress of open source. It could also work as a (perhaps curated) reference. Sort of like Rosetta Code, but for more high-level features – “how have projects X and Y chosen to implement this feature?” Besides, it could serve an archival function. A quick search on the web reveals a couple of projects on this vein, but they tend to rely on storing official releases. The way I see your idea, it could be made to work in a way closer to what archive.org does for the web, archiving everything it’s permissible to, with the addition of meta information about the projects, their relationships, etc. Not a small undertaking, but a very inspiring one!

filereaper 10y ago

Heh, I went spelunking through the bsd/mach layers of the code, was quite a bit of fun. Looks like they've only released the x86_64 and x86 versions of the code? I don't see any ARM in there. Anyways, found gems like this [1]: /* * File: sched_prim.c * Author: Avadis Tevanian, Jr. * Date: 1986 * * Scheduling primitives * */ I hope to leave a legacy like this someday, hopefully someone will appreciate the author's comments 30 years later! [1] https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-3789.1.32/osfmk/kern/sched_prim.c.auto.html https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-3789.1.32/osfmk/...

minxomat 10y ago
For giggles, here are some comments I grepped from the WinNT kernel: https://gist.github.com/turbo/75f0905275c29a3049f983cfe273eae2 https://gist.github.com/turbo/75f0905275c29a3049f983cfe273ea...
- SSLy 10y ago
  where did you get the source to grep through?
  - minxomat 10y ago
    Just look a few comments below.
- Gruselbauer 10y ago
  These are hilarious, thanks. > to the HAL by the NT god. Hail Caesar!
- hashin 10y ago
  Oh man, this is hilarious! ../tdi/tcpip/tcp/tcpsend.c:// STUPID FUCKING COMPILER generates incorrect code for this. ../fastfat/allocsup.c:// God knows what state we left the disk allocation in. ../dd/histgram/cmd/perfhist/perfhist.c:// the heck? we are gods anyways! ../nthals/halntp/mips/xxinitnt.c:// to the HAL by the NT god. Hail Caesar! ../w32/ntgdi/client/dcquery.c:// if cjotma == 0, this is HONEST to God unicode font, can not convert ../w32/ntgdi/fondrv/tt/ttfd/fontfile.h:// honest to God msft unicode font ../w32/ntgdi/fondrv/tt/ttfd/tt.h:// uint16 reservedPad; // only God knows why ../se/ctlpcqos.c:// Appease the compiler Gods. ../cntfs/create.c:// Here is the "M A R K [REDACTED]" hack from hell. ../afd/disconn.c:// Hack-O-Rama. TDI has a fundamental flaw in that it is often impossible ../afd/disconn.c:// Yet another hack to keep it from crashing ../fastfat/read.c:// Deal with stupid people who open the volume DASD with ../afd/recvdg.c:// Bomb off if the user is trying to do something stupid, like

JDevlieghere 10y ago

Great news, this should also mean that Valgrind will soon be working again on Sierra!

koko775 10y ago

Except for launchd, which remains re-closed-source.

hoistbypetard 10y ago
I didn't realized they'd closed that back up. Lame. When/why did they do that?
- koko775 10y ago
  subsumed it into XPC which has never been open.

synthecypher 10y ago

Was macOS always open source I thought it was just Darwin.

raimue 10y ago

Interestingly this is not yet linked from the top-level page of the open source site: https://opensource.apple.com/ https://opensource.apple.com/

Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago

Oh, how I miss having a working USB stack... https://opensource.apple.com/source/IOUSBFamily/IOUSBFamily-560.4.2/ https://opensource.apple.com/source/IOUSBFamily/IOUSBFamily-... They re-wrote IOUSBFamily (or at least they said they did) and it's buggy as all heck whenever you try use a USB 3 hub (since the 10.9 rewrite). I'd fix it myself, but it's no longer open source. Plus, to really rub salt in the wound, there's no longer a USB debugging kext. Yay, Apple...

justsid 10y ago
I’m similarly displeased with the disappearance of the pthread subsystem in 10.9! I had to debug quite a nasty kernel bug, and was absolutely surprised when I discovered that all pthread syscalls are now stubs into a private kext.
sdfjkl 10y ago
I have some short USB 2.0 extension cables that I use to plug between the Macbook and USB 3 devices - to reduce them to USB 2.0. Because if I for example try to copy more than a few MB to a USB 3 external HD, the Mac freezes. Every single time. So that's working well then.
- contingencies 10y ago
  Try different powered hubs. Last week I discovered a USB key that eats so much power it won't run without a powered hub! Numerous external hard drives and optical drives are in this camp, too.
  - sdfjkl 10y ago
    Does the power requirement change between USB 2.0 and USB 3? If not, I don't see why more power would change anything. I also don't think a power problem on an attached USB device should give my computer a kernel panic.

tannhaeuser 10y ago

Is there a functional, recent way to build this on VirtualBox and use it for cross-compiling command line and server apps for Mac OS (macOS/X whatever)?

satyajeet23 10y ago

You can hook exceptions in MACF now.

sandstrom 10y ago

I think Apple is missing out on both a lot of goodwill but also overall progress of their Unix core by being so closed. Instead they should actively contribute source-code to the BSD-ecosystem. Apple has a lot to gain long-term from the BSD-ecosystem being healthy. Also, the whole Hackintosh thing is completely overblown. So what if some intrepid coder gets it running on a non-apple machine. It won't affect their sales the tiniest bit.

guomanmin 10y ago

Participate in Atlassian Research My name is Angela and I do research for Bitbucket. I’m kicking off a round of discussions with people who use Git tools. Ideally, I’d like to talk to people that sit on a team of 3 or more. If this is you, I would love to talk to you about your experience with <using> Git tools, or just some of the pain points that are keeping you up at night when doing your jobs.   We’ll just need 30 mins of your time, and as a token of my thanks to those that participate, I’d like to offer a US$50 Amazon gift voucher.    If you’re interested, just shoot me an email with your availability over the next few weeks and we can set up a time to chat for 30 minutes. Please also include your timezone so we can schedule a suitable time (as I’m located in San Francisco). Hope to talk to you soon! Cheers,   Angela Guo aguo@atlassian.com