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> the OS X kernel's closed source It's not, actually. http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/ http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/ > To put it anot
by ewillbefull 14y ago
> the OS X kernel's closed source
It's not, actually. http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/ http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/
> To put it another way, I think the BSD license can result in "tragedy of the commons" scenarios where maximizing individual freedom has worse total consequences than would have resulted by applying regulation to maximize societal freedom instead.
An ecosystem argument can be made as a rebuttal; GPL disincentivizes corporations and other large open source contributors from adopting a project, thus not allowing the code to perpetuate (through dependence) and be adopted by other businesses who have an interest in improving the software, and so on.
That is, the individual freedom ultimately results in more participation, not less, at the expense of more selfishness. BSD/MIT licenses dominate now, don't they? Does society ultimately benefit more from an open license than one with legal burdens attached, as noble as they are?
- cjbprime 14y ago> It's not, actually. http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/ http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/ Thanks for the correction, I thought it'd been closed. (I suppose I could modify my argument to start talking about iOS, which is based on FreeBSD but closed, in comparison to Android.) > Does society ultimately benefit more from an open license than one with legal burdens attached, as noble as they are? Yeah, it's a purely practical question -- and is why I brought up contributions back to FreeBSD vs. Linux, since I think that's one example where the GPL comes out on top regarding participation to the codebase.
- 4ad 14y ago> I suppose I could modify my argument to start talking about iOS, which is based on FreeBSD but closed, in comparison to Android. Sorry, iOS and OS X are the same operating system, so you really could not :-). iOS and OS X have slightly different but very similar closed source Cocoa layers.
- wmf 14y agoI don't want to split hairs about what "the same operating system" means so I'll just point out that the xnu source code doesn't include any iOS code AFAIK.
- malandrew 14y agoYup. Both use Foundation, but Cocoa (OS X) uses Application Kit and Cocoa Touch (iOS) uses UIKit. Foundation itself is based largely on OpenStep, of which there are several opensource variants you can check out.
- saurik 14y ago"Sorry", but a lot of the code that is specific to iOS is in the kernel, and almost none of it is open source; claiming that the iOS kernel is open source is simply preposterous. The situation is even worse if you start looking at drivers, none of which are open source on that platform; but even the core kernel is missing major pieces on ARM.
- ewillbefull 14y ago> Yeah, it's a purely practical question -- and is why I brought up contributions back to FreeBSD vs. Linux Well, in the war of anecdotes...