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> It's really disappointing to see everyone bashing Apple when it's clear to anyone paying attention that they made a conscious decision to leave the door open

> It's really disappointing to see everyone bashing Apple when it's clear to anyone paying attention that they made a conscious decision to leave the door open for 3rd party development. Maybe I'm just a jaded grey-beard but I suspect that this is more of a "placate the anti-trust regulators" play and not a genuine olive branch offering. Apple gets to say "see, look! Not only are we not locking people out - there's a whole micro-niche community that's taken root. If that isn't proof we're not abusing our position, I don't know what is..." They left the door open, but just barely. The reverse engineering efforts will always be a step behind making sure that there's always going to be a "non-apple" experience that will be objectively inferior in one way or another.

klausa 3y ago
I can’t imagine any reasonable argument that would make Apple be a target for an anti-trust action for _Macs_. I understand skepticism and not always giving corporations the benefit of the doubt, but they _clearly_ spent a lot of time and resources to make third-party OSes viable on Apple Sillicon Macs.
- dlivingston 3y ago
  > _clearly_ spent a lot of time and resources to make third-party OSes viable on Apple Sillicon Macs. This actually isn't clear to me -- can you explain? Besides keeping an open bootloader [0], I'm not aware of any affirmative actions Apple has taken. [0]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Open-OS-Ecosystem-on-Apple-Silicon-Macs https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Open-OS-Ecosystem-on...
  - klausa 3y ago
    The open bootloader didn't magically appear one night in Apple's git repository. It boots in a notably different way than iOS machines do, and has some (AFAICT) pretty unique capabilities, including a fully-verified signed-boot of macOS partitions, while allowing third-party kernels at the same time. Asahi's "Introduction to Apple Silicon" [0], and specifically "Security modes, Boot Policies, and machine ownership" paragraph outlines some of that, Apple's "Platform Security" [1] whitepaper does too. Asahi's docs also explicitly state the same thing [2]. If you still don't think that shows significant amount of work and care were put into deliberately allowing third-party OS's to work on those machines, I don't think I can convince you otherwise. [0]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Apple-Silicon https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Appl... [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web [2]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Apple-Platform-Security-Crash-Course#apples-unspoken-agreement https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Apple-Platform-Secur...
- enos_feedler 3y ago
  There is also no precedent for Apple making any kind of pro-active design choices around future regulation. They clearly are the kind of company that does whats best for them and when asked to change, nudges in that direction, and then moves on. This is in the DNA from the top down. It would certainly be weird to make the decision about third-party OSes be about that.
- josephg 3y ago
  They did. Which is why it’s so baffling that they didn’t document any of this stuff. 5 minutes of documentation by apple engineers on the boot process or GPU would have saved 5 hours of reverse engineering work by the Asahi Linux team. Seems to me like they can’t decide whether they want Linux on their hardware or not. I bet different people in the org are pulling in different directions.
  - saagarjha 3y ago
    It’s not baffling at all. Opening the boot chain is work, but making presentable documentation is a lot more. It’s not 5 minutes of work: it’s years of checking the licensing on everything, designing stable APIs that are fit to publish, supporting them, having engineers working on this. You can’t just throw your internal “G13G scheduling pipeline” docs over the wall.
- baby_souffle 3y ago
  > I can’t imagine any reasonable argument that would make Apple be a target for an anti-trust action for _Macs_. Why can't the same "there is no OS except iOS allowed on iPhones" argument be applied here? If the only os that boots on a macbook is macOS, that's starting to smell like anti-competitive behavior the same way that only app store approved apps can run on iOS is anti-competitive.
  - klausa 3y ago
    Because the market share is order of magnitude smaller.
Klonoar 3y ago
This is one moment where I really hate what happened to Twitter, since I feel like I recall a tweet from Marcan ages ago pointing out that Apple has fixed some things regarding 3rd party OS support. That is to say, unless I am truly off my rocker and remembering a fever dream: it's not just a "placate the anti-trust regulators" play. I'm pretty sure I've also seen it mentioned on HN itself that Linux is still used within Apple for certain aspects of hardware development, so Apple themselves need it to work to a certain degree.
- klausa 3y ago
  I remember reading that too, but I think it was on mastodon — I don't feel like tracking down that particular thread now, but maybe that helps you on your search :)
  - baby_souffle 3y ago
    > I remember reading that too, but I think it was on mastodon — I don't feel like tracking down that particular thread now, but maybe that helps you on your search :) That would be strong evidence that there's at least _some_ support internally for them but doesn't explain why they bothered at all. The lack of explicit endorsements and documentation certainly has me thinking that at least _some_ of apple doesn't want this happening at all so they're at least going to make it hard. It may not be a "what's the bare minimum support we have to do to avoid being a poster-child for anti-competitive behavior" that's completely driving it after all.
    - Klonoar 3y ago
      > but doesn't explain why they bothered at all I mean, you're kind of glossing over my second point from my comment: > I'm pretty sure I've also seen it mentioned on HN itself that Linux is still used within Apple for certain aspects of hardware development, so Apple themselves need it to work to a certain degree. Anyway, I went and dug around and found the HN discussion of that Marcan tweet that's been deleted - you can browse it below if you missed it or are curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29591578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29591578 Notably, this comment from Saagarjha who I trust on Apple-related matters is what I was referring to regarding Apple using Linux internally for some of their work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29599889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29599889 All this to say, if the people who have some level of vested expert knowledge in this domain - like Marcan or Saagarjha - don't buy the conspiracy theory angle, then I'm inclined to side with them.
saagarjha 3y ago
If you really care about OpenGL drivers, it sounds like you want to be on Asahi, not macOS. Doesn’t seem like they’re always one step behind?

klausa 3y ago

I can’t imagine any reasonable argument that would make Apple be a target for an anti-trust action for _Macs_. I understand skepticism and not always giving corporations the benefit of the doubt, but they _clearly_ spent a lot of time and resources to make third-party OSes viable on Apple Sillicon Macs.

dlivingston 3y ago
> _clearly_ spent a lot of time and resources to make third-party OSes viable on Apple Sillicon Macs. This actually isn't clear to me -- can you explain? Besides keeping an open bootloader [0], I'm not aware of any affirmative actions Apple has taken. [0]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Open-OS-Ecosystem-on-Apple-Silicon-Macs https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Open-OS-Ecosystem-on...
- klausa 3y ago
  The open bootloader didn't magically appear one night in Apple's git repository. It boots in a notably different way than iOS machines do, and has some (AFAICT) pretty unique capabilities, including a fully-verified signed-boot of macOS partitions, while allowing third-party kernels at the same time. Asahi's "Introduction to Apple Silicon" [0], and specifically "Security modes, Boot Policies, and machine ownership" paragraph outlines some of that, Apple's "Platform Security" [1] whitepaper does too. Asahi's docs also explicitly state the same thing [2]. If you still don't think that shows significant amount of work and care were put into deliberately allowing third-party OS's to work on those machines, I don't think I can convince you otherwise. [0]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Apple-Silicon https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Appl... [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web [2]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Apple-Platform-Security-Crash-Course#apples-unspoken-agreement https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Apple-Platform-Secur...
enos_feedler 3y ago
There is also no precedent for Apple making any kind of pro-active design choices around future regulation. They clearly are the kind of company that does whats best for them and when asked to change, nudges in that direction, and then moves on. This is in the DNA from the top down. It would certainly be weird to make the decision about third-party OSes be about that.
josephg 3y ago
They did. Which is why it’s so baffling that they didn’t document any of this stuff. 5 minutes of documentation by apple engineers on the boot process or GPU would have saved 5 hours of reverse engineering work by the Asahi Linux team. Seems to me like they can’t decide whether they want Linux on their hardware or not. I bet different people in the org are pulling in different directions.
- saagarjha 3y ago
  It’s not baffling at all. Opening the boot chain is work, but making presentable documentation is a lot more. It’s not 5 minutes of work: it’s years of checking the licensing on everything, designing stable APIs that are fit to publish, supporting them, having engineers working on this. You can’t just throw your internal “G13G scheduling pipeline” docs over the wall.
baby_souffle 3y ago
> I can’t imagine any reasonable argument that would make Apple be a target for an anti-trust action for _Macs_. Why can't the same "there is no OS except iOS allowed on iPhones" argument be applied here? If the only os that boots on a macbook is macOS, that's starting to smell like anti-competitive behavior the same way that only app store approved apps can run on iOS is anti-competitive.
- klausa 3y ago
  Because the market share is order of magnitude smaller.

Klonoar 3y ago

This is one moment where I really hate what happened to Twitter, since I feel like I recall a tweet from Marcan ages ago pointing out that Apple has fixed some things regarding 3rd party OS support. That is to say, unless I am truly off my rocker and remembering a fever dream: it's not just a "placate the anti-trust regulators" play. I'm pretty sure I've also seen it mentioned on HN itself that Linux is still used within Apple for certain aspects of hardware development, so Apple themselves need it to work to a certain degree.

klausa 3y ago
I remember reading that too, but I think it was on mastodon — I don't feel like tracking down that particular thread now, but maybe that helps you on your search :)
- baby_souffle 3y ago
  > I remember reading that too, but I think it was on mastodon — I don't feel like tracking down that particular thread now, but maybe that helps you on your search :) That would be strong evidence that there's at least _some_ support internally for them but doesn't explain why they bothered at all. The lack of explicit endorsements and documentation certainly has me thinking that at least _some_ of apple doesn't want this happening at all so they're at least going to make it hard. It may not be a "what's the bare minimum support we have to do to avoid being a poster-child for anti-competitive behavior" that's completely driving it after all.
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    > but doesn't explain why they bothered at all I mean, you're kind of glossing over my second point from my comment: > I'm pretty sure I've also seen it mentioned on HN itself that Linux is still used within Apple for certain aspects of hardware development, so Apple themselves need it to work to a certain degree. Anyway, I went and dug around and found the HN discussion of that Marcan tweet that's been deleted - you can browse it below if you missed it or are curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29591578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29591578 Notably, this comment from Saagarjha who I trust on Apple-related matters is what I was referring to regarding Apple using Linux internally for some of their work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29599889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29599889 All this to say, if the people who have some level of vested expert knowledge in this domain - like Marcan or Saagarjha - don't buy the conspiracy theory angle, then I'm inclined to side with them.

saagarjha 3y ago

If you really care about OpenGL drivers, it sounds like you want to be on Asahi, not macOS. Doesn’t seem like they’re always one step behind?