25 ms·

The Apple II, the first mass market personal computer, predates the "Free" software movement by several years, and came with Basic-- the most popular language a

by nirvana 15y ago

The Apple II, the first mass market personal computer, predates the "Free" software movement by several years, and came with Basic-- the most popular language at the time for hobbyists-- installed, by default, for free. For the most part, Apple has given away development tools for free, or at very low cost, primarily to cover the overhead of offering them. Since Mac OS X has been out, development tools have been free, and in the box. (Though now you download them rather than get them in the box, of course.)

nosequel 15y ago
XCode is just recently free, it always cost something before now. Without GCC being out there, would it have been free this whole time? I don't know either way, no one does, but I cheap != free. GCC has always been free.
- 0x09 15y ago
  > XCode is just recently free, it always cost something before now. This is plainly false and easily checked by simply looking at archive.org's record for developer.apple.com.
julian37 15y ago
Don't you think Basic was the most popular language at the time because it came for free with many home computers? C and other compilers were hideously expensive at the time, no wonder these languages weren't particularly popular. And have you considered that one reason for OS X development tools being available free of charge these days might be because Free software changed the development tools landscape dramatically in the last two decades?
hugh3 15y ago
For the most part, Apple has given away development tools for free, or at very low cost, primarily to cover the overhead of offering them There was no freely available compiler for the mac between System 1 and OSX. My fifteen-year-old self had to make an at-the-time pretty significant investment to buy Metrowerks Codewarrior. That was the anti-golden-age of programming.
- sitkack 15y ago
  Stallman and GNU effectively ended the market for high priced proprietary dev tools. As a tool builder and user this is good and bad. That whole market segment has been removed for consideration and now the tool builder/user can sell their creations (the part that solves non-builder's problems while now giving away the tools they create while solving the user's problems). This transition has been very liberating. Now anyone with a modest hardware investment can have some of the best tools in the world to solve problems with. Amazing times. My first C/C++ compiler cost nearly as much as the machine it ran on. This will never happen again and we can thank the GNU ecoSystem for jump starting the new ground rules. I dumbfounded by all the awesome software I can use to build larger systems with everyday, literally millions of dollars worth of assets. Anyone anywhere could do this, with only food, water, hardware, electricity and internet.
  - ghaff 15y ago
    RMS/GNU played a role. However, they had very little impact on the non-*nix space until prices of development tools had already dropped pretty sharply on DOS and then Windows. (Borland had a lot to do with it.) Tools, especially the pro editions and a lot of add-on libraries, were still a long way from free but the price points were coming down markedly. Ultimately though, I agree it was open source that drove the final nail into dev tools as a standalone business for most purposes.
    - sitkack 15y ago
      GNU tools have profoundly changed the Microsoft platform, I remember when http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ came out, everyone could get a legit C compiler for DOS/Windows. This was a huge deal. Microsoft did its damnedest to kill Borland and its inexpensive tools. Proprietary dev tools still exist, true, but the landscape is so vastly different. Even my favorite IDE IntelliJ has the source released under a BSD license, I actually reupped my license when they did this.
- robterrell 15y ago
  Did you forget about Apple's MPW? I don't know when you turned 15 but there was a very long span of time during which MPW was a good free option.
bad_user 15y ago
I'm not from the US and my first computer bought in year '94 was 5 times cheaper than an Apple. It came with MS-DOS 6.22 and had QBasic. But it was useless. You see, I wanted to create games. And not shitty games using ASCII-art, but the kind of games I played daily. I then got a pirated Turbo Pascal and I learned the ins and outs of it. But it was also useless -- I had to develop my own graphics primitives, but the environment was extremely limited. What I really needed was a C++ compiler that could compile executables for 32-bits protected mode and a library that already had graphics primitives optimized for something better than 320x240 Mode X in 80286 assembly. Then I got to DJGPP, a GCC port for MS-DOS and Allegro. It was heaven-like from initial testing, but reading on DJGPP I began reading about Linux and for the first time I got the feeling that I was using an obviously crippled environment, because it was. And for Windows 95, since it was getting deployed everywhere, Visual C++ and Borland Delphi were expensive, too freaking expensive. You may feel nostalgic about Apple II and that lovely Basic you loved so much. But it was also useless. And the "free development tools" from OS X? The compiler itself is GCC and the command-line environment is composed of lots of tools proudly wearing the GNU mark. Only in recent years has Apple started to consider other options, like LLVM, but that's because GCC has some technical issues, but otherwise it is the most mature and widely deployed compiler on this planet and has served Apple well. You see, OS X wouldn't be OS X without the GNU tools and I really don't get how OS X can be used as an argument.
lukeschlather 15y ago
Mac OS X development tools are no more free in than Mac OS X. It's also worth noting that Mac OS X's "free" development tools include the GNU suite.
- eropple 15y ago
  They're completely free. The total cost of the Mac developer tools is zero; I bought a Mac and Apple packed them in. I didn't buy XCode, I bought a Mac. (Though, to be fair, there was a time when they were like $5 for an upgrade. Then they weren't.) Now, they don't fit the FSF's definition of "free software", but I have little use for the redefinition of words to attempt to push a political viewpoint, so, y'know.
  - freshhawk 15y ago
    Redefinition? I think english has used "free" to mean either the state of having freedom or no cost for quite a while. I only see one person here trying to redefine words to push their political viewpoint.
    - eropple 15y ago
      I'll cop to playing their game in jest, but more seriously: my definition does not exclude freedom. Nginx, for example, is free of charge. It is also permissively (one might say 'freely'!) licensed. Stallman's, on the other hand, rather sadly attempts to pervert the discussion with such headscratchers as (say) "Visual Studio Express is nonfree." Well, no, it's quite free, I just downloaded it and they said the corporatey equivalent of "use in good health" (though this was, as is their sort of thing, buried in a EULA that was many many pages long). If they said "VS Express is not freely licensed," well, yeah, sure. Instead the FSF and similar unfortunates attempt to reverse the overload (underload?) of the word 'free' to mean only the meaning of 'free' that is politically appealing to them. So, you're right, there's only one party committing etymological warfare in anger--though I'll cop to doing it in jest to get my point across. :)
      - 15y ago
flabbergasted 15y ago
The development tools might be free, but OSX certainly isn't, especially when you factor in the overpriced hardware. This is the number one reason I picked Android development over iOS.
gillianseed 15y ago
No, it did not come 'for free'. It's included in the 'asking price' of Apple II. The money it cost Apple to bundle basic with the system was spent in order to make it more attractive and that cost is in turn part of the final price the customer pays when buying an Apple II.

by nirvana 15y ago

nosequel 15y ago

XCode is just recently free, it always cost something before now. Without GCC being out there, would it have been free this whole time? I don't know either way, no one does, but I cheap != free. GCC has always been free.

0x09 15y ago
> XCode is just recently free, it always cost something before now. This is plainly false and easily checked by simply looking at archive.org's record for developer.apple.com.

julian37 15y ago

Don't you think Basic was the most popular language at the time because it came for free with many home computers? C and other compilers were hideously expensive at the time, no wonder these languages weren't particularly popular. And have you considered that one reason for OS X development tools being available free of charge these days might be because Free software changed the development tools landscape dramatically in the last two decades?

hugh3 15y ago

For the most part, Apple has given away development tools for free, or at very low cost, primarily to cover the overhead of offering them There was no freely available compiler for the mac between System 1 and OSX. My fifteen-year-old self had to make an at-the-time pretty significant investment to buy Metrowerks Codewarrior. That was the anti-golden-age of programming.

sitkack 15y ago
Stallman and GNU effectively ended the market for high priced proprietary dev tools. As a tool builder and user this is good and bad. That whole market segment has been removed for consideration and now the tool builder/user can sell their creations (the part that solves non-builder's problems while now giving away the tools they create while solving the user's problems). This transition has been very liberating. Now anyone with a modest hardware investment can have some of the best tools in the world to solve problems with. Amazing times. My first C/C++ compiler cost nearly as much as the machine it ran on. This will never happen again and we can thank the GNU ecoSystem for jump starting the new ground rules. I dumbfounded by all the awesome software I can use to build larger systems with everyday, literally millions of dollars worth of assets. Anyone anywhere could do this, with only food, water, hardware, electricity and internet.
- ghaff 15y ago
  RMS/GNU played a role. However, they had very little impact on the non-*nix space until prices of development tools had already dropped pretty sharply on DOS and then Windows. (Borland had a lot to do with it.) Tools, especially the pro editions and a lot of add-on libraries, were still a long way from free but the price points were coming down markedly. Ultimately though, I agree it was open source that drove the final nail into dev tools as a standalone business for most purposes.
  - sitkack 15y ago
    GNU tools have profoundly changed the Microsoft platform, I remember when http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ came out, everyone could get a legit C compiler for DOS/Windows. This was a huge deal. Microsoft did its damnedest to kill Borland and its inexpensive tools. Proprietary dev tools still exist, true, but the landscape is so vastly different. Even my favorite IDE IntelliJ has the source released under a BSD license, I actually reupped my license when they did this.
robterrell 15y ago
Did you forget about Apple's MPW? I don't know when you turned 15 but there was a very long span of time during which MPW was a good free option.

bad_user 15y ago

I'm not from the US and my first computer bought in year '94 was 5 times cheaper than an Apple. It came with MS-DOS 6.22 and had QBasic. But it was useless. You see, I wanted to create games. And not shitty games using ASCII-art, but the kind of games I played daily. I then got a pirated Turbo Pascal and I learned the ins and outs of it. But it was also useless -- I had to develop my own graphics primitives, but the environment was extremely limited. What I really needed was a C++ compiler that could compile executables for 32-bits protected mode and a library that already had graphics primitives optimized for something better than 320x240 Mode X in 80286 assembly. Then I got to DJGPP, a GCC port for MS-DOS and Allegro. It was heaven-like from initial testing, but reading on DJGPP I began reading about Linux and for the first time I got the feeling that I was using an obviously crippled environment, because it was. And for Windows 95, since it was getting deployed everywhere, Visual C++ and Borland Delphi were expensive, too freaking expensive. You may feel nostalgic about Apple II and that lovely Basic you loved so much. But it was also useless. And the "free development tools" from OS X? The compiler itself is GCC and the command-line environment is composed of lots of tools proudly wearing the GNU mark. Only in recent years has Apple started to consider other options, like LLVM, but that's because GCC has some technical issues, but otherwise it is the most mature and widely deployed compiler on this planet and has served Apple well. You see, OS X wouldn't be OS X without the GNU tools and I really don't get how OS X can be used as an argument.

lukeschlather 15y ago

Mac OS X development tools are no more free in than Mac OS X. It's also worth noting that Mac OS X's "free" development tools include the GNU suite.

eropple 15y ago
They're completely free. The total cost of the Mac developer tools is zero; I bought a Mac and Apple packed them in. I didn't buy XCode, I bought a Mac. (Though, to be fair, there was a time when they were like $5 for an upgrade. Then they weren't.) Now, they don't fit the FSF's definition of "free software", but I have little use for the redefinition of words to attempt to push a political viewpoint, so, y'know.
- freshhawk 15y ago
  Redefinition? I think english has used "free" to mean either the state of having freedom or no cost for quite a while. I only see one person here trying to redefine words to push their political viewpoint.
  - eropple 15y ago
    I'll cop to playing their game in jest, but more seriously: my definition does not exclude freedom. Nginx, for example, is free of charge. It is also permissively (one might say 'freely'!) licensed. Stallman's, on the other hand, rather sadly attempts to pervert the discussion with such headscratchers as (say) "Visual Studio Express is nonfree." Well, no, it's quite free, I just downloaded it and they said the corporatey equivalent of "use in good health" (though this was, as is their sort of thing, buried in a EULA that was many many pages long). If they said "VS Express is not freely licensed," well, yeah, sure. Instead the FSF and similar unfortunates attempt to reverse the overload (underload?) of the word 'free' to mean only the meaning of 'free' that is politically appealing to them. So, you're right, there's only one party committing etymological warfare in anger--though I'll cop to doing it in jest to get my point across. :)
    - 15y ago

flabbergasted 15y ago

The development tools might be free, but OSX certainly isn't, especially when you factor in the overpriced hardware. This is the number one reason I picked Android development over iOS.

gillianseed 15y ago

No, it did not come 'for free'. It's included in the 'asking price' of Apple II. The money it cost Apple to bundle basic with the system was spent in order to make it more attractive and that cost is in turn part of the final price the customer pays when buying an Apple II.