5 ms·

Open Source, wow that was unexpected from Apple

by mhomde 12y ago

duaneb 12y ago
It's calculated. Reception would be distinctly negative if something as crucial as health research were closed source—here, the utility is in the transparency as well as apple's traditional offers of usability and reliability.
- mbreese 12y ago
  Plus, these are all academic partners - that code usually needs to be open source to publish.
  - streptomycin 12y ago
    It's not "usually". More like "rarely". Papers without code are very common.
- Osmium 12y ago
  > Reception would be distinctly negative if something as crucial as health research were closed source I don't know about that. HealthKit is essentially closed and no one seems to mind, and it's all about the data ultimately anyway. Maybe it's a regulatory thing? Regardless, it's nice to see.
  - duaneb 12y ago
    HealthKit is a glorified database. Would definitely like to see it open sourced, though.
    - antris 12y ago
      Can you name an app that is not "a glorified database"? Seems to apply for almost anything. Hacker News, Facebook, Twitter and so on... It's all about putting in and getting data from a database
      - duaneb 12y ago
        > Can you name an app that is not "a glorified database"? Apps, sure. Tools? Hell no. File processors, browsers, libraries.... But HealthKit adds virtually no value aside from the schema of health data. There's not much to be gained from opening it. Honestly, I'd argue the same about hacker news and reddit: it's great that reddit is open source, but it's hardly necessary for me to perform research on it because the semantics of loading/storing/existing are so well defined.
      - __david__ 12y ago
        HealthKit is not an app.
- a_c_s 12y ago
  What's the point about speculating about motivation? Whether motivated by altruism or calculated strategy, who cares? These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather than substantive commentary.
  - duaneb 12y ago
    > These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather than substantive commentary. True. However, occasionally (I at least) learn something new from these conversations.
- dataker 12y ago
  Related paper: http://www2.druid.dk/conferences/viewpaper.php?id=502415&cf=47 http://www2.druid.dk/conferences/viewpaper.php?id=502415&cf=...
epistasis 12y ago
Why would that be unexpected? Apple does plenty of things open source, just not GPL.
- pionar 12y ago
  Apple usually only does things open source when it's required of them. I can't think of one piece of useful Apple open source software that's open.
  - adamcw 12y ago
    I'd consider Webkit pretty useful.
    - tonyarkles 12y ago
      clang too...
    - teamhappy 12y ago
      WebKit has been open sourced 10 years ago. CUPS is even older than that. What has Apple been up to recently? --- You know, you could name projects instead of clicking the upside-down arrow. Clang comes to mind (not LLVM). Google and others contribute heavily to clang, but Apple started it. They deserve credit for that. Anything else?
      - bwindels 12y ago
        Vikram Adve and Chris Lattner started LLVM at the University of Illinois in 2000. Only 5 years later, Apple got involved and hired Lattner.
    - nkuttler 12y ago
      Webkit was derived from KHTML, which is LGPL.
      - rsynnott 12y ago
return0 12y ago
Kind of a no-brainer if universities are going to be involved in building apps for it. Wonder if they announced anything about external addon biosensors?
mrsteveman1 12y ago
We'll see how this stuff actually works in practice pretty soon, but as this is more than just a chunk of code to run on a device, what exactly is going to be "open" here? A formal standard that can be implemented and used by other platforms, both on the device and server side, would be great. But Apple's last promise to make something they developed "open" (iMessage as a standard) evaporated and has since been completely proprietary.
- cududa 12y ago
  No, it was facetime they were going to make an open standard. And patent trolls killed that. So..
taozhuo 12y ago
iOS and Mac OS are closed systems with lots of open source components.
dguaraglia 12y ago
Open Source in this case might not make much of a difference. If this is written in Swift and only runs under iOS, or if it ties with a certain Apple service that requires certificates issued by Apple it won't make much of a difference if you can read the full source code, even if it's released under an MIT or similarly open license. As long as the data this gathers can't be used (or contributed to) by a third party, it's still a 100% Apple property, regardless of code availability.

Open Source, wow that was unexpected from Apple

by mhomde 12y ago

Open Source, wow that was unexpected from Apple

It's calculated. Reception would be distinctly negative if something as crucial as health research were closed source—here, the utility is in the transparency as well as apple's traditional offers of usability and reliability.

mbreese 12y ago
Plus, these are all academic partners - that code usually needs to be open source to publish.
- streptomycin 12y ago
  It's not "usually". More like "rarely". Papers without code are very common.
Osmium 12y ago
> Reception would be distinctly negative if something as crucial as health research were closed source I don't know about that. HealthKit is essentially closed and no one seems to mind, and it's all about the data ultimately anyway. Maybe it's a regulatory thing? Regardless, it's nice to see.
- duaneb 12y ago
  HealthKit is a glorified database. Would definitely like to see it open sourced, though.
  - antris 12y ago
    Can you name an app that is not "a glorified database"? Seems to apply for almost anything. Hacker News, Facebook, Twitter and so on... It's all about putting in and getting data from a database
    - duaneb 12y ago
      > Can you name an app that is not "a glorified database"? Apps, sure. Tools? Hell no. File processors, browsers, libraries.... But HealthKit adds virtually no value aside from the schema of health data. There's not much to be gained from opening it. Honestly, I'd argue the same about hacker news and reddit: it's great that reddit is open source, but it's hardly necessary for me to perform research on it because the semantics of loading/storing/existing are so well defined.
    - __david__ 12y ago
      HealthKit is not an app.
a_c_s 12y ago
What's the point about speculating about motivation? Whether motivated by altruism or calculated strategy, who cares? These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather than substantive commentary.
- duaneb 12y ago
  > These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather than substantive commentary. True. However, occasionally (I at least) learn something new from these conversations.
dataker 12y ago
Related paper: http://www2.druid.dk/conferences/viewpaper.php?id=502415&cf=47 http://www2.druid.dk/conferences/viewpaper.php?id=502415&cf=...

epistasis 12y ago

Why would that be unexpected? Apple does plenty of things open source, just not GPL.

pionar 12y ago
Apple usually only does things open source when it's required of them. I can't think of one piece of useful Apple open source software that's open.
- adamcw 12y ago
  I'd consider Webkit pretty useful.
  - tonyarkles 12y ago
    clang too...
  - teamhappy 12y ago
    WebKit has been open sourced 10 years ago. CUPS is even older than that. What has Apple been up to recently? --- You know, you could name projects instead of clicking the upside-down arrow. Clang comes to mind (not LLVM). Google and others contribute heavily to clang, but Apple started it. They deserve credit for that. Anything else?
    - bwindels 12y ago
      Vikram Adve and Chris Lattner started LLVM at the University of Illinois in 2000. Only 5 years later, Apple got involved and hired Lattner.
  - nkuttler 12y ago
    Webkit was derived from KHTML, which is LGPL.
    - rsynnott 12y ago

return0 12y ago

Kind of a no-brainer if universities are going to be involved in building apps for it. Wonder if they announced anything about external addon biosensors?

mrsteveman1 12y ago

We'll see how this stuff actually works in practice pretty soon, but as this is more than just a chunk of code to run on a device, what exactly is going to be "open" here? A formal standard that can be implemented and used by other platforms, both on the device and server side, would be great. But Apple's last promise to make something they developed "open" (iMessage as a standard) evaporated and has since been completely proprietary.

cududa 12y ago
No, it was facetime they were going to make an open standard. And patent trolls killed that. So..

taozhuo 12y ago

iOS and Mac OS are closed systems with lots of open source components.

dguaraglia 12y ago

Open Source in this case might not make much of a difference. If this is written in Swift and only runs under iOS, or if it ties with a certain Apple service that requires certificates issued by Apple it won't make much of a difference if you can read the full source code, even if it's released under an MIT or similarly open license. As long as the data this gathers can't be used (or contributed to) by a third party, it's still a 100% Apple property, regardless of code availability.