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It's a cute tech demo, but: * Will it run iPhone OS apps? * No, because I'm not aiming to have compatible high level frameworks. Just think about

It's a cute tech demo, but: * Will it run iPhone OS apps? * No, because I'm not aiming to have compatible high level frameworks. Just think about how much work is required to have a 100% compatible implementation of UIKit or Celestial. HOWEVER, the CoreOS part should be 100% (or 99%) compatible. Just not the higher level OS. If you're just interested in this because it will "run iOS apps" please go away. I think the submission title is deceptive -- by "fully binary compatible" the developer means that it runs executables compiled for iOS.

christina_b 14y ago
Aw.
- SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
  Sorry. Cool project, but the headline implied (to me) app compatibility. Your page was much more clear (he took the quote out of context); my beef was with the person who posted it on HN with a deceptive headline. If it had instead said "full binary compatibility with DARWIN", or iOS 5 Darwin, it would have been clear. And, by the way, if you hadn't said "go away" to people who wanted app compatibility, I might have been less annoyed by the deception. OF COURSE people want app compatibility. It's the core coolness of the project's potential! And maybe someday you'll get a crowd of people around you that can help achieve that. But telling them to go away isn't going to help.
  - nooop 14y ago
    If the headline meant app compability, it would probably have been written like: "It is fully app compatible with iPhone OS 5.0"
    - SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
      Looking at the headline, my first thought wasn't that I'd be able to run arbitrary iOS apps, but that it was a project with that goal. To me it was a bait-and-switch, where not only was it not a goal, but Christina is somewhat rude to people who thought it might be a goal (sorry Christina). "I have this cool tech that could be used to run iOS apps -- and I have no intention of ever making it run iOS apps, because that's a crazy idea, now go away for even thinking about it!" System emulators (ahem, WINE, but tons of others exist) that do the level of emulation Christina scoffs at have been around for a long time, and it's very much not a crazy idea to start one. By yourself, maybe it is, but given the amount of hype this generated quickly, there would obviously be other people willing to jump on board.
batista 14y ago
binary compatibillity is a standard and well defined term in programming, and this is it. It is not about having access to all iOS Cocoa Touch etc libraries, or running iOS apps.
- Camillo 14y ago
  "Binary compatibility" is routinely applied to libraries as well. The point of contention is not the meaning of "binary compatibility", but that of "iPhone OS 5.0". SomeCallMeTim's assumption that this would include the upper layers of the system is reasonable, especially given that the lower layer has its own name (Darwin) and it was not used. OTOH, given that there's no such thing as "iPhone OS 5" (it's been called iOS since version 4), I'd chalk it up to confusion rather than deception.
  - SimHacker 14y ago
    The fact that there aren't very many widely available useful programs other than iPhone apps that run on the iPhone goes a long way to implying that it runs iPhone apps. It's not like you can download grep from the app store.
  - batista 14y ago
    >"Binary compatibility" is routinely applied to libraries as well Wrongly. Only the lower lever is or is not "binary compatible", basically only how the code is loaded and how functions are called. All the other stuff (libraries, apps) just take advantage of that, and whether higher level libraries exist or not has no bearing on whether a system is binary compatible with another. Not only that, but a system can have all the libraries that another has, but still NOT be binary compatible with it. For example, a simple OS X QT app can be ported to Windows with just a recompile, but the two environments are not binary compatible. Availability of the same APIs and binary compatibillity are two things are what hackers (as in "Hacker News") call "orthogonal".
    - Camillo 14y ago
      What you're trying to describe in the first paragraph is "having the same ABI". But that's not the only context where "binary compatibility" is used. In fact, in the fourth paragraph you are referencing the difference between source compatibility and binary compatibility: but in this case, binary compatibility requires not only a compatible ABI, but also the right set of system calls, libraries and assorted machinery that allows the compiled program to run.

christina_b 14y ago

Aw.

SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
Sorry. Cool project, but the headline implied (to me) app compatibility. Your page was much more clear (he took the quote out of context); my beef was with the person who posted it on HN with a deceptive headline. If it had instead said "full binary compatibility with DARWIN", or iOS 5 Darwin, it would have been clear. And, by the way, if you hadn't said "go away" to people who wanted app compatibility, I might have been less annoyed by the deception. OF COURSE people want app compatibility. It's the core coolness of the project's potential! And maybe someday you'll get a crowd of people around you that can help achieve that. But telling them to go away isn't going to help.
- nooop 14y ago
  If the headline meant app compability, it would probably have been written like: "It is fully app compatible with iPhone OS 5.0"
  - SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
    Looking at the headline, my first thought wasn't that I'd be able to run arbitrary iOS apps, but that it was a project with that goal. To me it was a bait-and-switch, where not only was it not a goal, but Christina is somewhat rude to people who thought it might be a goal (sorry Christina). "I have this cool tech that could be used to run iOS apps -- and I have no intention of ever making it run iOS apps, because that's a crazy idea, now go away for even thinking about it!" System emulators (ahem, WINE, but tons of others exist) that do the level of emulation Christina scoffs at have been around for a long time, and it's very much not a crazy idea to start one. By yourself, maybe it is, but given the amount of hype this generated quickly, there would obviously be other people willing to jump on board.

batista 14y ago

binary compatibillity is a standard and well defined term in programming, and this is it. It is not about having access to all iOS Cocoa Touch etc libraries, or running iOS apps.

Camillo 14y ago
"Binary compatibility" is routinely applied to libraries as well. The point of contention is not the meaning of "binary compatibility", but that of "iPhone OS 5.0". SomeCallMeTim's assumption that this would include the upper layers of the system is reasonable, especially given that the lower layer has its own name (Darwin) and it was not used. OTOH, given that there's no such thing as "iPhone OS 5" (it's been called iOS since version 4), I'd chalk it up to confusion rather than deception.
- SimHacker 14y ago
  The fact that there aren't very many widely available useful programs other than iPhone apps that run on the iPhone goes a long way to implying that it runs iPhone apps. It's not like you can download grep from the app store.
- batista 14y ago
  >"Binary compatibility" is routinely applied to libraries as well Wrongly. Only the lower lever is or is not "binary compatible", basically only how the code is loaded and how functions are called. All the other stuff (libraries, apps) just take advantage of that, and whether higher level libraries exist or not has no bearing on whether a system is binary compatible with another. Not only that, but a system can have all the libraries that another has, but still NOT be binary compatible with it. For example, a simple OS X QT app can be ported to Windows with just a recompile, but the two environments are not binary compatible. Availability of the same APIs and binary compatibillity are two things are what hackers (as in "Hacker News") call "orthogonal".
  - Camillo 14y ago
    What you're trying to describe in the first paragraph is "having the same ABI". But that's not the only context where "binary compatibility" is used. In fact, in the fourth paragraph you are referencing the difference between source compatibility and binary compatibility: but in this case, binary compatibility requires not only a compatible ABI, but also the right set of system calls, libraries and assorted machinery that allows the compiled program to run.