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With a blog for Machine Learning where Apple shares some of its practices and now open-sourcing its iOS kernel for the first time, Apple is entering a new era o

by amrrs 9y ago

With a blog for Machine Learning where Apple shares some of its practices and now open-sourcing its iOS kernel for the first time, Apple is entering a new era of Post-Jobs where every company has started to believe the only way to attract quality resources is to contribute back to the society - Remember how this community scared FB to rewrite React License. It's a great way forward for FOSS and hopefully one that can set up the right way for Post-Cook Apple.

new299 9y ago
It's a start. It would be nice to see more of iOS open sourced. Not everything, but enough to run the GUI and maybe Safari. I think that could be a huge win for Apple. Lower end, open source iOS compatible phone could attack Android offering, particularly at the lower end. They'd gain control over the market (as it would be derived from their source, and compatible with their ecosystem) without having to do much work. Honestly, if Apple don't do it, someone should come up with an open source iOS compatible offering, which developers could easily re-target their apps to. VCs reading this, I'm offering 15% for 3MUSD for the above idea. ;)
- flachsechs 9y ago
  > They'd gain control over the market what you described is a loss of control. business is hard.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  I think Apple (and everyone else) is doing pretty well with their closed source software. Apple doesn't need others to make lower and cheaper devices. They're more than capable of doing it themselves, they just don't want to.
  - comstock 9y ago
    No, they don’t want to. But I think it would be advantageous to them to not have Android around. Potentially they could convert many Android users to open source iOS. It wouldn’t come with the branding, I think it could be to their advantage. It’s not likely to happen, but I think an open source iOS clone/fork would be nice and could also have potential benefits for Apple.
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      > No, they don’t want to. But I think it would be advantageous to them to not have Android around. In 2016 Apple got 104% of the entire mobile industry's profit. Not revenue. Profit [1] I hardly see how disappearance of Android would bring Apple any more advantages. This year Samsung looks like they might beat Apple on profits ... due to large sales of components "to a major smartphone customer" [2] [1] http://fortune.com/2016/11/04/apple-smartphone-profits/ http://fortune.com/2016/11/04/apple-smartphone-profits/ [2] http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/27/technology/samsung-profit-apple/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/27/technology/samsung-profit-ap...
      - comstock 9y ago
        Thanks, the 104% profit number doesn’t make sense to me and I couldn’t see it explained the the article. How do you get >100% of the profits available in a given industry?
        AlphaSite 9y ago
        The rest of the industry operates at a loss.
        jacobush 9y ago
        On average.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- new299 9y ago
  Apparently this is such a bad idea, that it's possibly my most downvoted comment ever. :) I should definitely try and get this funded. :) I'm still somewhat curious why a iOS compatible open source clone might be a such a bad idea. Even if it was from a different vendor perhaps.
tambourine_man 9y ago
>Remember how this community scared FB to rewrite React License HN helped, but I'd credit WordPress.
- dr_zoidberg 9y ago
  I understood "this community" as in "the FOSS community", not "HN community".
tedivm 9y ago
From the AI perspective the fact that Apple hasn't been publishing has really been a problem for them attracting talent.
gigatexal 9y ago
I disagree. I think that Apple being as big and as popular as they are will continue to attract top talent for both the salary that they pay and the ability to work on projects that a big company like Apple affords. Open source need not apply here but it is still a good thing.
- VeejayRampay 9y ago
  And what are those projects exactly? They haven't achieved anything technically groundbreaking or even game-impacting for developers for a while now. Swift maybe, but even that...
  - glhaynes 9y ago
    Come on. They produce multiple entire platforms including hardware (including CPUs and GPUs), OSes (kernel to APIs), apps, a browser, developer tools, services, etc. There are literally thousands of interesting things to work on at Apple.
    - VeejayRampay 9y ago
      It was not really my point though. It was originally addressing the fact that to attract top quality engineers with tech, the tech needs to be exciting. And Apple hasn't exactly shined in that regard in the past few years. Now of course, they're a behemoth company and I'm sure they're tackling complex problems, but they're not rewriting entire operating systems or browsers, they're not strong in the Cloud, they don't have a massive distributed systems offering, they're not creating whole new languages, which I would think is what gets the star engineers going on the middle to long term. The reason for that is that their current pace is more about refining things and not messing with a formula that's been making billions year in and year out for the past, what, 10 years? You do raise a great point about the hardware part of their business though, I would agree, it is something that sets them apart from companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon or Microsoft and that is a game-defining aspect as far as attracting talent goes, though in a specific niche.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
revelation 9y ago
This is a mere source code dump that they slapped their Apple Public whatever license on (despite the explicit acknowledgement that vast parts of it are based on other, more freely licensed projects). If anything it's a net negative.
- duskwuff 9y ago
  The APSL is a perfectly fine license -- its terms are generally similar to the GPL, and it has been explicitly approved by both the FSF and OSI as a free software license.

by amrrs 9y ago

new299 9y ago

It's a start. It would be nice to see more of iOS open sourced. Not everything, but enough to run the GUI and maybe Safari. I think that could be a huge win for Apple. Lower end, open source iOS compatible phone could attack Android offering, particularly at the lower end. They'd gain control over the market (as it would be derived from their source, and compatible with their ecosystem) without having to do much work. Honestly, if Apple don't do it, someone should come up with an open source iOS compatible offering, which developers could easily re-target their apps to. VCs reading this, I'm offering 15% for 3MUSD for the above idea. ;)

flachsechs 9y ago
> They'd gain control over the market what you described is a loss of control. business is hard.
madeofpalk 9y ago
I think Apple (and everyone else) is doing pretty well with their closed source software. Apple doesn't need others to make lower and cheaper devices. They're more than capable of doing it themselves, they just don't want to.
- comstock 9y ago
  No, they don’t want to. But I think it would be advantageous to them to not have Android around. Potentially they could convert many Android users to open source iOS. It wouldn’t come with the branding, I think it could be to their advantage. It’s not likely to happen, but I think an open source iOS clone/fork would be nice and could also have potential benefits for Apple.
  - dmitriid 9y ago
    > No, they don’t want to. But I think it would be advantageous to them to not have Android around. In 2016 Apple got 104% of the entire mobile industry's profit. Not revenue. Profit [1] I hardly see how disappearance of Android would bring Apple any more advantages. This year Samsung looks like they might beat Apple on profits ... due to large sales of components "to a major smartphone customer" [2] [1] http://fortune.com/2016/11/04/apple-smartphone-profits/ http://fortune.com/2016/11/04/apple-smartphone-profits/ [2] http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/27/technology/samsung-profit-apple/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/27/technology/samsung-profit-ap...
    - comstock 9y ago
      Thanks, the 104% profit number doesn’t make sense to me and I couldn’t see it explained the the article. How do you get >100% of the profits available in a given industry?
      - AlphaSite 9y ago
        The rest of the industry operates at a loss.
        jacobush 9y ago
        On average.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
new299 9y ago
Apparently this is such a bad idea, that it's possibly my most downvoted comment ever. :) I should definitely try and get this funded. :) I'm still somewhat curious why a iOS compatible open source clone might be a such a bad idea. Even if it was from a different vendor perhaps.

tambourine_man 9y ago

>Remember how this community scared FB to rewrite React License HN helped, but I'd credit WordPress.

dr_zoidberg 9y ago
I understood "this community" as in "the FOSS community", not "HN community".

tedivm 9y ago

From the AI perspective the fact that Apple hasn't been publishing has really been a problem for them attracting talent.

gigatexal 9y ago

I disagree. I think that Apple being as big and as popular as they are will continue to attract top talent for both the salary that they pay and the ability to work on projects that a big company like Apple affords. Open source need not apply here but it is still a good thing.

VeejayRampay 9y ago
And what are those projects exactly? They haven't achieved anything technically groundbreaking or even game-impacting for developers for a while now. Swift maybe, but even that...
- glhaynes 9y ago
  Come on. They produce multiple entire platforms including hardware (including CPUs and GPUs), OSes (kernel to APIs), apps, a browser, developer tools, services, etc. There are literally thousands of interesting things to work on at Apple.
  - VeejayRampay 9y ago
    It was not really my point though. It was originally addressing the fact that to attract top quality engineers with tech, the tech needs to be exciting. And Apple hasn't exactly shined in that regard in the past few years. Now of course, they're a behemoth company and I'm sure they're tackling complex problems, but they're not rewriting entire operating systems or browsers, they're not strong in the Cloud, they don't have a massive distributed systems offering, they're not creating whole new languages, which I would think is what gets the star engineers going on the middle to long term. The reason for that is that their current pace is more about refining things and not messing with a formula that's been making billions year in and year out for the past, what, 10 years? You do raise a great point about the hardware part of their business though, I would agree, it is something that sets them apart from companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon or Microsoft and that is a game-defining aspect as far as attracting talent goes, though in a specific niche.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

revelation 9y ago

This is a mere source code dump that they slapped their Apple Public whatever license on (despite the explicit acknowledgement that vast parts of it are based on other, more freely licensed projects). If anything it's a net negative.

duskwuff 9y ago
The APSL is a perfectly fine license -- its terms are generally similar to the GPL, and it has been explicitly approved by both the FSF and OSI as a free software license.