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Why Does macOS Catalina Use Zsh Instead of Bash? Licensing

19 points by sahin-boydas 7y ago

hexadec 7y ago
I feel like a useful comparison of shells would be good fodder. I always liked seeing different nix distros running unusual shells. It felt like a mirror of the nix desktop world with different features taking precedence. Someone should create a VM or distro that picks a random shell for every new terminal window/tab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_command_shells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_command_shells
- bjoli 7y ago
  Why a VM? That seems like the ultimate bandwidth abuse. I could whip up a /bin/sh script that selects one at random from/etc/shells for you that is only a couple of bytes.
  - NikkiA 7y ago
    I presume by 'a VM', OP means something like a pre-built install/appliance so that there's no need to hunt down and install every esoteric shell that's out there just to use them for 30s and decide they don't suite their usage.
    - hexadec 7y ago
      Yes, it takes some of the excitement away if I have to do it manually. I also don't want it to be a daily driver, more for hacking about.
kevin_b_er 7y ago
Apple has made several moves toward tivoization of the desktop line to bring it in line with the mobile devices. You can't have a walled garden where all apps must be signed by Apple to run if the GPLv3 program says you must be able to replace it if you so desire. Once Apple finishes locking down the desktop against unapproved uses, GPLv3 can't be on it. It is why GPLv3 is already very very banned on their mobile devices' Apps.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  I'd say it's not just Apple that has issues with this particular license. Back in the day when I was in Nokia and Nokia was still a large Linux contributor, the legal department was pretty up to speed on licensing because they were facing real legal threats from their frenemies across the industry. Gplv2 was seen as a necessary evil (you can't really engage with the Linux community without it) but it was pretty well understood and there are workarounds where it matters that are actively used by a lot of companies. Linux with GPLv3 instead of v2 would have been a showstopper for the likes of e.g. Google or the many others that continue to ship interesting mixes of proprietary stuff bundled with a Linux kernel; something that gplv3 is explicitly designed to make hard/impossible. Even the classpath exception to gplv2, which gets you a free pass for dynamically linking proprietary code against the standard library for java and the lack thereof for mobile implementations was pretty significant. Sun was being stupid and pretty much sealed the faith of J2ME with that. They added the exception because otherwise they would be forcing the server industry into using alternate implementations (like Harmony, a project that IBM created to be less dependent on Sun). They should have done the same for mobile. J2ME never shipped for meego/maemo and it wasn't for technical reasons (i.e. trivially easy to install yourself, been there done that). Google went with IBM's Harmony implementation of the java libraries for the same reason instead of just using the mainline Java distribution. And once that launched that was pretty much it for J2ME. Sun stopped developing it; the mobile phone makers stopped caring about it. The legal implications of that choice are still relevant nearly 15 years later (i.e. the dispute with Oracle). Poor choice in licensing is how Sun lost control over mobile Java even before they sold it to Oracle. And given how important Java has been for the Android ecosystem, that probably was quite misguided: they invented a great technology and then just gave away their control and influence over it with a license designed to achieve the opposite. As far as I know, most large companies with functioning legal departments would have similar reservations about licenses like the GPLv3 and sensible policies about making sure nobody accidentally exposes them to expensive lawsuits by pulling in some software that comes with a few nasty strings attached (imagined or real, it doesn't really matter). Whatever your opinion on this, legal or moral or otherwise, going for licenses like this just cuts off certain uses and may mean your project gets ignored instead of becoming widely popular. If that's intentional, fine, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater if you don't have to.
k__ 7y ago
I tried to get Zsh running on macOS when I got my first Mac 2 years ago. Had the impression the OS was mostly like Linux with a few quirks, but couldn't get it running smoothly everywhere. Good to hear that it's becoming the standard now :)

19 points by sahin-boydas 7y ago

I feel like a useful comparison of shells would be good fodder. I always liked seeing different nix distros running unusual shells. It felt like a mirror of the nix desktop world with different features taking precedence. Someone should create a VM or distro that picks a random shell for every new terminal window/tab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_command_shells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_command_shells

bjoli 7y ago
Why a VM? That seems like the ultimate bandwidth abuse. I could whip up a /bin/sh script that selects one at random from/etc/shells for you that is only a couple of bytes.
- NikkiA 7y ago
  I presume by 'a VM', OP means something like a pre-built install/appliance so that there's no need to hunt down and install every esoteric shell that's out there just to use them for 30s and decide they don't suite their usage.
  - hexadec 7y ago
    Yes, it takes some of the excitement away if I have to do it manually. I also don't want it to be a daily driver, more for hacking about.

kevin_b_er 7y ago

Apple has made several moves toward tivoization of the desktop line to bring it in line with the mobile devices. You can't have a walled garden where all apps must be signed by Apple to run if the GPLv3 program says you must be able to replace it if you so desire. Once Apple finishes locking down the desktop against unapproved uses, GPLv3 can't be on it. It is why GPLv3 is already very very banned on their mobile devices' Apps.

jillesvangurp 7y ago
I'd say it's not just Apple that has issues with this particular license. Back in the day when I was in Nokia and Nokia was still a large Linux contributor, the legal department was pretty up to speed on licensing because they were facing real legal threats from their frenemies across the industry. Gplv2 was seen as a necessary evil (you can't really engage with the Linux community without it) but it was pretty well understood and there are workarounds where it matters that are actively used by a lot of companies. Linux with GPLv3 instead of v2 would have been a showstopper for the likes of e.g. Google or the many others that continue to ship interesting mixes of proprietary stuff bundled with a Linux kernel; something that gplv3 is explicitly designed to make hard/impossible. Even the classpath exception to gplv2, which gets you a free pass for dynamically linking proprietary code against the standard library for java and the lack thereof for mobile implementations was pretty significant. Sun was being stupid and pretty much sealed the faith of J2ME with that. They added the exception because otherwise they would be forcing the server industry into using alternate implementations (like Harmony, a project that IBM created to be less dependent on Sun). They should have done the same for mobile. J2ME never shipped for meego/maemo and it wasn't for technical reasons (i.e. trivially easy to install yourself, been there done that). Google went with IBM's Harmony implementation of the java libraries for the same reason instead of just using the mainline Java distribution. And once that launched that was pretty much it for J2ME. Sun stopped developing it; the mobile phone makers stopped caring about it. The legal implications of that choice are still relevant nearly 15 years later (i.e. the dispute with Oracle). Poor choice in licensing is how Sun lost control over mobile Java even before they sold it to Oracle. And given how important Java has been for the Android ecosystem, that probably was quite misguided: they invented a great technology and then just gave away their control and influence over it with a license designed to achieve the opposite. As far as I know, most large companies with functioning legal departments would have similar reservations about licenses like the GPLv3 and sensible policies about making sure nobody accidentally exposes them to expensive lawsuits by pulling in some software that comes with a few nasty strings attached (imagined or real, it doesn't really matter). Whatever your opinion on this, legal or moral or otherwise, going for licenses like this just cuts off certain uses and may mean your project gets ignored instead of becoming widely popular. If that's intentional, fine, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater if you don't have to.

k__ 7y ago

I tried to get Zsh running on macOS when I got my first Mac 2 years ago. Had the impression the OS was mostly like Linux with a few quirks, but couldn't get it running smoothly everywhere. Good to hear that it's becoming the standard now :)