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ScreenCaptureKit seems to Apple only, so this only helps Mac users. While nice it seems to be a trend where Apple seems to contribute to open source projects n

ScreenCaptureKit seems to Apple only, so this only helps Mac users. While nice it seems to be a trend where Apple seems to contribute to open source projects now to improve its own performance only on their own devices (blender comes to mind). Maybe Im being a bit cynical. Still a positive I guess.

outsidetheparty 5y ago
While I see what you're saying, to be honest it seems pretty reasonable to me for Apple to contribute work that helps Apple. Many OSS contributions are "scratching your own itch", no?
ninkendo 5y ago
I mean, it's not a bad engineering philosophy for things as low-level as this to be provided by the OS as a framework. Capturing screen output at a high refresh rate without introducing lag may be better implemented with lower-level access to certain system components, in a way that may require certain privileges in order to make it work. You can provide a nice higher-level API (like ScreenCaptureKit) to access such "privileged" capabilities from normal apps, so that arbitrary open-source software (like OBS) can hook into it. It seems like Apple already made ScreenCaptureKit for their platforms, and wanted to help OBS by hooking it up to ScreenCaptureKit to take advantage of that work. The alternative, which is to do all the private/privileged stuff directly in OBS, means that Apple would have to give the general ability for arbitrary software to do what ScreenCaptureKit is doing, which may be a security issue (spyware that snoops on what's being displayed on screen comes to mind.) Making something like ScreenCaptureKit as the supported interface to do this kind of thing, can ensure the app triggers the proper permissions dialog/etc so that screen recording doesn't happen without user knowledge.
maxwell86 5y ago
> Maybe Im being a bit cynical. If Apple, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Arm, Qualcomm, etc. would all contribute to open source to make everything work on all their devices with good perf, then that would be very good for all users. Expecting AMD to make open source contributions to improve software on Apple's hardware or Arm GPUs is "naive", not cynical. It would be like expecting Tesla to go to VW and help them improve their combustion engines for free.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gumby 5y ago
You are indeed being too cynical. The point of open source (not just a free binary blob) is that you can fix the parts that matter to you. In the case of companies, they typically work on the parts that matter to them. This has been true since the free software movement started to reach into businesses, with companies like Cygnus (of course) but also Sun, SGI, IBM etc all working just on their own platforms.
- acomjean 5y ago
  That’s a fair point. I haven’t looked at their contributions, but it would be nice if they’d help out the project as a whole as well. I also got a Linux preinstalled conputer, so I’m hoping (selfishly perhaps) that open source projects have great first rate open source OS support. It seems like open source is always resource strapped. But you are right it’s not like IBM, SGI, Sun weren’t proprietary..
  - gumby 5y ago
    NeXT funded and performed quite a bit of open source software, quite a bit of which continued in the Apple transition. Make no mistake: for all of these companies, this funding was in support of their commercial activities. They have no desire, say, to write a shell so if one is popular they'll go that way. One thing we taught then in the 90s was that stepping off the mainline simply added to your support cost; this lesson is why so many proprietary companies do contribute back. Apple's case is interesting: they think more deeply than many about this. Thus they are enthusiastic about standards when they are weak in the domain: e.g. Apple was explicit up to the Jobs level that they embraced open standards like JPEG and MP3 when trying to dig the Mac out of a deep hole; once they had a solid foothold they felt comfortable trying out proprietary formats. They went USB-C (and handed over a majority of the work on its design to the USB consortium, or so a couple of friends who worked on the standard claimed to me) because it helps adoption of the Mac and iPad; but aren't afraid to make a MagSafe connector. It's all about strength and weakness to Apple, an approach which frankly more companies should adopt (looking at you MediaTek, AllWinner and your competitors).
pigbearpig 5y ago
Having Apple contribute in the area of their expertise makes sense. Are they supposed to contribute the Windows 11 screen cap?

outsidetheparty 5y ago

While I see what you're saying, to be honest it seems pretty reasonable to me for Apple to contribute work that helps Apple. Many OSS contributions are "scratching your own itch", no?

ninkendo 5y ago

I mean, it's not a bad engineering philosophy for things as low-level as this to be provided by the OS as a framework. Capturing screen output at a high refresh rate without introducing lag may be better implemented with lower-level access to certain system components, in a way that may require certain privileges in order to make it work. You can provide a nice higher-level API (like ScreenCaptureKit) to access such "privileged" capabilities from normal apps, so that arbitrary open-source software (like OBS) can hook into it. It seems like Apple already made ScreenCaptureKit for their platforms, and wanted to help OBS by hooking it up to ScreenCaptureKit to take advantage of that work. The alternative, which is to do all the private/privileged stuff directly in OBS, means that Apple would have to give the general ability for arbitrary software to do what ScreenCaptureKit is doing, which may be a security issue (spyware that snoops on what's being displayed on screen comes to mind.) Making something like ScreenCaptureKit as the supported interface to do this kind of thing, can ensure the app triggers the proper permissions dialog/etc so that screen recording doesn't happen without user knowledge.

maxwell86 5y ago

> Maybe Im being a bit cynical. If Apple, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Arm, Qualcomm, etc. would all contribute to open source to make everything work on all their devices with good perf, then that would be very good for all users. Expecting AMD to make open source contributions to improve software on Apple's hardware or Arm GPUs is "naive", not cynical. It would be like expecting Tesla to go to VW and help them improve their combustion engines for free.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

gumby 5y ago

You are indeed being too cynical. The point of open source (not just a free binary blob) is that you can fix the parts that matter to you. In the case of companies, they typically work on the parts that matter to them. This has been true since the free software movement started to reach into businesses, with companies like Cygnus (of course) but also Sun, SGI, IBM etc all working just on their own platforms.

acomjean 5y ago
That’s a fair point. I haven’t looked at their contributions, but it would be nice if they’d help out the project as a whole as well. I also got a Linux preinstalled conputer, so I’m hoping (selfishly perhaps) that open source projects have great first rate open source OS support. It seems like open source is always resource strapped. But you are right it’s not like IBM, SGI, Sun weren’t proprietary..
- gumby 5y ago
  NeXT funded and performed quite a bit of open source software, quite a bit of which continued in the Apple transition. Make no mistake: for all of these companies, this funding was in support of their commercial activities. They have no desire, say, to write a shell so if one is popular they'll go that way. One thing we taught then in the 90s was that stepping off the mainline simply added to your support cost; this lesson is why so many proprietary companies do contribute back. Apple's case is interesting: they think more deeply than many about this. Thus they are enthusiastic about standards when they are weak in the domain: e.g. Apple was explicit up to the Jobs level that they embraced open standards like JPEG and MP3 when trying to dig the Mac out of a deep hole; once they had a solid foothold they felt comfortable trying out proprietary formats. They went USB-C (and handed over a majority of the work on its design to the USB consortium, or so a couple of friends who worked on the standard claimed to me) because it helps adoption of the Mac and iPad; but aren't afraid to make a MagSafe connector. It's all about strength and weakness to Apple, an approach which frankly more companies should adopt (looking at you MediaTek, AllWinner and your competitors).

pigbearpig 5y ago

Having Apple contribute in the area of their expertise makes sense. Are they supposed to contribute the Windows 11 screen cap?