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I'm not sure I understand what Apple contributed here. It's not supported, helped, or encouraged by Apple. And Apple does not document their H/W in ways that al

I'm not sure I understand what Apple contributed here. It's not supported, helped, or encouraged by Apple. And Apple does not document their H/W in ways that allow reuse. Hence these are all reverse engineering projects. Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious advantages, things just work, etc. Personally I happen to not like it, but it's a choice folks have to make by themselves. I buy my H/W from vendors that actually support running Linux (in my case) like Dell, Lenovo, and others.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
They explicitly built a mechanism for loading alternate OS's. I'm not going to sing Apple's praises over that or anything, but it means that Macs are still an order of magnitude less locked down than, say, an iPhone. You have the ability to do whatever you want with a Mac... provided you figure out how.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Infinitely, really, since on iOS it’s zero and on macOS it is nonzero ;) Of course, on macOS it’s still not a lot, but you can see why everyone is excited about what Apple is offering right now.
zepto 6y ago
> Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious advantages, things just work, etc. This is just false. iOS is a walled garden. The Mac is not by anyone’s definition.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > The Mac is not by anyone’s definition. Seems to me like a whole lot of arguments about Apple involve changing accepted definitions of things or using different standards for Apple versus others. Apple does enough things wrong and I'm perfectly willing to accept those things and understand when people are frustrated by those things. No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain about them.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain about them. Since I agree with you, I assume this is aimed at the comment I’m responding to it, and those like it, rather than me.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      Not you. Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some Apple-haters have. Seems like sometimes people are willing to go through great contortions to figure out how whatever Apple did is wrong. Totally understand why people might prefer Linux/ Windows/ Amiga/ whatever. People should just enjoy what they want.
      - webmobdev 6y ago
        > Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some Apple-haters have. It goes both ways. I'd add that atleast the "Apple-haters" have more of a standing in defending open computing standards and demanding Apple be open too.
        zepto 6y ago
        Dishonest redefinition doesn’t create standing. Also - why does hating Apple give anyone any right to demand anything from them? Why not demand more from people who are actually working on Open computing?
        ogre_codes 6y ago
        > more of a standing So you think ignoring facts and making nonsense gives you credibility so long as you hate the right people? Maybe in your own head.
      - zepto 6y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26212454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26212454
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It is in some aspects, so I am not surprised that there are people willing to claim that the walls are too high for them. Personally, they could be a bit lower but I can still see over them I’m not up in arms quite yet.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Configuration defaults do not a walled garden make.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Mac is a walled garden. What if I want to convert my OS to a VM and/or run it on a different hardware? AFAIK it’s prohibited by the license.
  - unilynx 6y ago
    By that definition, the OEM versions of Windows would be walled gardens too.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      In principle, yes. But at least you can switch to a differently licensed version of the OS if this is your concern.
      - zepto 6y ago
        Sure but the OEM version of Windows is not a walled garden. You are just trying to make a definition of walled garden that isn’t what people generally mean so you can include MacOS within it.
        fsflover 6y ago
        Yes, it is. See the other discussion.
        zepto 6y ago
        The other discussion links to a Wikipedia article which shows that it is not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26230338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26230338 Windows and MacOS have the same entries in the table which means it’s not a walled garden as defined in the piece.
  - zepto 6y ago
    That is nobody’s definition of a walled garden. You can run whatever you like on Mac Hardware. You can run whatever software you like on Mac OS. Installing MacOS on computers you haven’t licensed it for is just that. It’s not free software. It is commercial software. You are conflating the concept of commercial software with the concept of a walled garden.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. iOS is a walled garden. (as are it's cousins for Apple TV, & HomePod. MacOS is not. If MacOS was a walled garden, I wouldn't be able to do my job with it.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  > iOS is a walled garden ... MacOS is not. Technically, that is true. But it is getting there. Apple makes more money, and importantly recurring revenue, from its services now than selling its hardware. The move to ARM processors is one of their strategic moves to further "close" their desktop platforms too. The only reason they don't do it outright right now is because they know people like you and me will immediately abandon the platform if we are stuck with only macOS and can only install everything from the App store. But we would be fools to ignore that the noose is tightening and, with M1 you are now stuck with macOS (unlike the older macs). The next iterations will close it down further ...
  - amelius 6y ago
    Yes, Apple fans seem to be forgetting that the ones in power at Apple are business people, who care as much about customers as any other company. And being business people they don't have sympathy for developers either and in fact would rather see their power reduced. In their best scenario, all developers become low-wage employees but without the benefit of employees. A bit like Uber drivers.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      How on earth does this make "business sense"? You can't sell $10,000 Mac Pros and $6,000 displays with a neutered operating system. Nobody is buying the 16" MacBook Pro if they can only buy apps in the App Store. Overnight they would lose pretty much every (non-iOS) developer, most video editors, every podcaster and audio engineer, most photographers, every single scientist, most engineers, mathematicians, and many artists... That would be an absolutely fantastic pitch in a management meeting. Who is left, accountants... teachers? A few schools? Not only would this be a massive hit to the Mac... likely lethal, it would also be a massive blow to iOS. Because much like every other developer on the planet iOS developers lean heavily on tools which cannot ever be found in the App Store like git, Python, Ruby (required for CocoaPods), and a million other Unix tools. This has to be one of the most bone-headed, yet commonly repeated bits of anti-Mac nonsense out there.
BillinghamJ 6y ago
I guess we could fairly call it a undocumented or obscure garden? But there's no real designed wall there. Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us out either. Agree it would be nice for them to help out a little, but it's really not the same thing.
- p_l 6y ago
  IIRC, it turned out that ability to run non Apple OSes depends on one person who implemented it and is responsible for it. It wasn't part of any road map for M1
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    There's certainly more than one person involved.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  > Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us out either. It's the same thing. (And the only reason they aren't yet outright preventing it is because it would be bad PR - nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone or iPad. But it will happen.)
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone or iPad You'd be surprised. (Also, this exactly has been the proposition and allure of the Chromebooks - a computer that you can just wipe and restart again and it's like a phone or tablet device, and your data are synced in the cloud).
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Apple has a computer with a locked down OS, it's the iPad. Apple sells the iPad as a locked down system because some users prefer a less flexible, more predictable, and secure system. Apple has a computer which isn't locked down, it's the Mac. Apple maintains MacOS as a flexible/ pro platform because if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to sell $2000-8000 Macs to pro users who need that power and flexibility to do their jobs. For Apple there is zero profit in neutering the Mac. Whatever profits you think Apple could make by forcing people to use the Mac App Store, would be dwarfed by the sales lost due to pro & power users leaving the system en-masse.
mrweasel 6y ago
What would Apple even have to lose by proving the specification and documentation needed to boot alternative operating systems? People would still need to by the hardware from Apple and the number of people who even consider this option is so small that the PR it would bring easily outweight any potential cost. How many bought the Intel Macs initially because: If it doesn’t workout, I just install Windows. Linux users would buy M1, with the intention of running Linux, and if it doesn’t work, they can still run macOS. I don’t see the risk to Apple, if they at least provided documentation for the M1.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >What would Apple even have to lose by proving the specification and documentation needed to boot alternative operating systems? They already describe how to do so, and the specification to merely boot is trivial anyway. Linux, OpenBSD (as in TFA), and others have booted already. It's the details of the GPU and other such stuff that needs drivers (touchpad, etc) that are missing. And those are rarely well documented on the Intel side, by AMD and NVIDIA either, anyway.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  It's not about risk, it's about philosophy. They want to control the entire stack, and it's been in their DNA for decades. Most internal documentation also generally isn't public-level quality, so it's a non-zero amount of effort to release docs.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

They explicitly built a mechanism for loading alternate OS's. I'm not going to sing Apple's praises over that or anything, but it means that Macs are still an order of magnitude less locked down than, say, an iPhone. You have the ability to do whatever you want with a Mac... provided you figure out how.

saagarjha 6y ago
Infinitely, really, since on iOS it’s zero and on macOS it is nonzero ;) Of course, on macOS it’s still not a lot, but you can see why everyone is excited about what Apple is offering right now.

zepto 6y ago

> Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious advantages, things just work, etc. This is just false. iOS is a walled garden. The Mac is not by anyone’s definition.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> The Mac is not by anyone’s definition. Seems to me like a whole lot of arguments about Apple involve changing accepted definitions of things or using different standards for Apple versus others. Apple does enough things wrong and I'm perfectly willing to accept those things and understand when people are frustrated by those things. No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain about them.
- zepto 6y ago
  > No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain about them. Since I agree with you, I assume this is aimed at the comment I’m responding to it, and those like it, rather than me.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Not you. Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some Apple-haters have. Seems like sometimes people are willing to go through great contortions to figure out how whatever Apple did is wrong. Totally understand why people might prefer Linux/ Windows/ Amiga/ whatever. People should just enjoy what they want.
    - webmobdev 6y ago
      > Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some Apple-haters have. It goes both ways. I'd add that atleast the "Apple-haters" have more of a standing in defending open computing standards and demanding Apple be open too.
      - zepto 6y ago
        Dishonest redefinition doesn’t create standing. Also - why does hating Apple give anyone any right to demand anything from them? Why not demand more from people who are actually working on Open computing?
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        > more of a standing So you think ignoring facts and making nonsense gives you credibility so long as you hate the right people? Maybe in your own head.
    - zepto 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26212454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26212454
saagarjha 6y ago
It is in some aspects, so I am not surprised that there are people willing to claim that the walls are too high for them. Personally, they could be a bit lower but I can still see over them I’m not up in arms quite yet.
- zepto 6y ago
  Configuration defaults do not a walled garden make.
fsflover 6y ago
Mac is a walled garden. What if I want to convert my OS to a VM and/or run it on a different hardware? AFAIK it’s prohibited by the license.
- unilynx 6y ago
  By that definition, the OEM versions of Windows would be walled gardens too.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    In principle, yes. But at least you can switch to a differently licensed version of the OS if this is your concern.
    - zepto 6y ago
      Sure but the OEM version of Windows is not a walled garden. You are just trying to make a definition of walled garden that isn’t what people generally mean so you can include MacOS within it.
      - fsflover 6y ago
        Yes, it is. See the other discussion.
        zepto 6y ago
        The other discussion links to a Wikipedia article which shows that it is not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26230338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26230338 Windows and MacOS have the same entries in the table which means it’s not a walled garden as defined in the piece.
- zepto 6y ago
  That is nobody’s definition of a walled garden. You can run whatever you like on Mac Hardware. You can run whatever software you like on Mac OS. Installing MacOS on computers you haven’t licensed it for is just that. It’s not free software. It is commercial software. You are conflating the concept of commercial software with the concept of a walled garden.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. iOS is a walled garden. (as are it's cousins for Apple TV, & HomePod. MacOS is not. If MacOS was a walled garden, I wouldn't be able to do my job with it.

webmobdev 6y ago
> iOS is a walled garden ... MacOS is not. Technically, that is true. But it is getting there. Apple makes more money, and importantly recurring revenue, from its services now than selling its hardware. The move to ARM processors is one of their strategic moves to further "close" their desktop platforms too. The only reason they don't do it outright right now is because they know people like you and me will immediately abandon the platform if we are stuck with only macOS and can only install everything from the App store. But we would be fools to ignore that the noose is tightening and, with M1 you are now stuck with macOS (unlike the older macs). The next iterations will close it down further ...
- amelius 6y ago
  Yes, Apple fans seem to be forgetting that the ones in power at Apple are business people, who care as much about customers as any other company. And being business people they don't have sympathy for developers either and in fact would rather see their power reduced. In their best scenario, all developers become low-wage employees but without the benefit of employees. A bit like Uber drivers.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    How on earth does this make "business sense"? You can't sell $10,000 Mac Pros and $6,000 displays with a neutered operating system. Nobody is buying the 16" MacBook Pro if they can only buy apps in the App Store. Overnight they would lose pretty much every (non-iOS) developer, most video editors, every podcaster and audio engineer, most photographers, every single scientist, most engineers, mathematicians, and many artists... That would be an absolutely fantastic pitch in a management meeting. Who is left, accountants... teachers? A few schools? Not only would this be a massive hit to the Mac... likely lethal, it would also be a massive blow to iOS. Because much like every other developer on the planet iOS developers lean heavily on tools which cannot ever be found in the App Store like git, Python, Ruby (required for CocoaPods), and a million other Unix tools. This has to be one of the most bone-headed, yet commonly repeated bits of anti-Mac nonsense out there.

BillinghamJ 6y ago

I guess we could fairly call it a undocumented or obscure garden? But there's no real designed wall there. Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us out either. Agree it would be nice for them to help out a little, but it's really not the same thing.

p_l 6y ago
IIRC, it turned out that ability to run non Apple OSes depends on one person who implemented it and is responsible for it. It wasn't part of any road map for M1
- saagarjha 6y ago
  There's certainly more than one person involved.
webmobdev 6y ago
> Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us out either. It's the same thing. (And the only reason they aren't yet outright preventing it is because it would be bad PR - nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone or iPad. But it will happen.)
- coldtea 6y ago
  >nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone or iPad You'd be surprised. (Also, this exactly has been the proposition and allure of the Chromebooks - a computer that you can just wipe and restart again and it's like a phone or tablet device, and your data are synced in the cloud).
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Apple has a computer with a locked down OS, it's the iPad. Apple sells the iPad as a locked down system because some users prefer a less flexible, more predictable, and secure system. Apple has a computer which isn't locked down, it's the Mac. Apple maintains MacOS as a flexible/ pro platform because if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to sell $2000-8000 Macs to pro users who need that power and flexibility to do their jobs. For Apple there is zero profit in neutering the Mac. Whatever profits you think Apple could make by forcing people to use the Mac App Store, would be dwarfed by the sales lost due to pro & power users leaving the system en-masse.

mrweasel 6y ago

What would Apple even have to lose by proving the specification and documentation needed to boot alternative operating systems? People would still need to by the hardware from Apple and the number of people who even consider this option is so small that the PR it would bring easily outweight any potential cost. How many bought the Intel Macs initially because: If it doesn’t workout, I just install Windows. Linux users would buy M1, with the intention of running Linux, and if it doesn’t work, they can still run macOS. I don’t see the risk to Apple, if they at least provided documentation for the M1.

coldtea 6y ago
>What would Apple even have to lose by proving the specification and documentation needed to boot alternative operating systems? They already describe how to do so, and the specification to merely boot is trivial anyway. Linux, OpenBSD (as in TFA), and others have booted already. It's the details of the GPU and other such stuff that needs drivers (touchpad, etc) that are missing. And those are rarely well documented on the Intel side, by AMD and NVIDIA either, anyway.
adamcstephens 6y ago
It's not about risk, it's about philosophy. They want to control the entire stack, and it's been in their DNA for decades. Most internal documentation also generally isn't public-level quality, so it's a non-zero amount of effort to release docs.