3 ms·
The nearest thing I can think of in the modern world is game consoles and smartphones. Except they are locked down much much more than an M1 Mac.
by quux 4y ago
The nearest thing I can think of in the modern world is game consoles and smartphones. Except they are locked down much much more than an M1 Mac.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- _kbh_ 4y agoThose are mostly AMD SoCs with relatively mainstream x86 cores and AMD discrete graphics cards with some changes on the same die. The most exotic thing about them is usually the unified memory controller.
- palata 4y agoNon-Apple smartphones mostly run Android, with a GPLv2 Linux kernel. I guess this already is more open than Apple, because OEMs need to open source their downstream kernel.
- dagmx 4y agoI don’t think it really makes that big a difference. Apple already open sources their kernel. The issue is mostly device drivers, which even on Android tend to be external binary blobs. It kind of leaves you in the same place in my opinion
- palata 4y agoI think it does make a difference: there are tons of Android ROMs (or even Linux distros like PostmarketOS) that run on many different Android smartphones. But I don't see the equivalent for iPhones. Isn't that because iPhones are more closed somehow? Maybe there is another reason, I don't know to be honest.
- dagmx 4y agoThat’s down to different reasons: 1. You can still reuse the binary blobs that make up the drivers. 2. Android has unlockable bootloaders whereas iPhones do not. However the binary blobs are not always legally redistributable or even reusable. They don’t also help if you need to support any version of the kernel other than what shipped in case there’s any ABI differences
- palata 4y agoThanks for the insights!