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0 pointsasveikau5y ago0 comments

I don't think you get that I'm citing specifically the culture of free software activism. A device that is hardwired to only load Linux kernels crytopgraphically signed by corporate entities doesn't fit the bill, nor is it great to have a bunch of proprietary stuff on top.

> It's not likely that closed components could have existed without a foundation of linux/bsd.

This is false and I think pretty naive.

On the Apple side, I'll cite that NeXT's equivalent of Cocoa used to run on Windows NT in the 1990s. They didn't need Mach/BSD or any form of Unix to run AppKit. I will also note that today many Apple features depend heavily on the Mach kernel interfaces and less upon the BSD layer.

On the Android side, note that many people are saying Fuschia will replace Linux in that environment.

0 comments

j455y ago

I completely understand you're referring to FSF culture. I'm not referring to that. I've followed Richard Stallman for over 20 years.

Linux/BSD source code were part of a lineage that many of today's operating systems, whether you want to package that up as Mach, UMX, whatever.

1. Mac OS X includes oss code in it's foundation.

"Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs once tried to hire Linus Torvalds, the irrepressible Finnish coder who created Linux and gave the thing its name.

But Torvalds said "No," and not long after that, Apple hired Jordan Hubbard, the creator of FreeBSD, a lesser known, but still thriving, open source operating system based on UNIX. It was a better fit: Mac OS X shares conceptual roots with Linux, but it shares honest-to-goodness code with FreeBSD." [1]

"The code at the heart of Mac OS X was born in the mid-1980s at NeXt Computer, the company Steve Jobs founded after his first stint at Apple. NeXt built a operating system based on two existing UNIX projects: Mach, from Carnegie Melon University, and BSD, created at the University of California at Berkeley. But on this base, they added their own, private code – such as the Cocoa programming framework and a graphical user interface – hoping to provide the sort of slick software environment pioneered by the Apple Macintosh." [1]

"Darwin, the core of Mac OS X, was open source and included quite a bit of code from FreeBSD." [1]

2. Android

"The Linux kernel is an extremely important part of the software on nearly every Android device. This section describes Linux kernel development and release models (below), stable and long-term supported (LTS) kernels (including why all Android devices should use stable releases instead of cherry picking patches), kernel configuration and hardening, requirements for interfaces and the modular kernels (introduced in Android O), kernel debugging and network testing, and SquashFS." [2]

"Android's history dates to 2003, when a team of California entrepreneurs launched Android, Inc. Their initial goal was to develop software for digital cameras. In 2005 Google acquired the company and put the team of Android, Inc. developers to work building an operating system for phones that was based on the Linux kernel and adaptations of some other open source utilities." [3]

I appreciate you feel the need to feel better about yourself at the expense of others by calling others names, but there's really no need, nor does it add to advancing any kind of understanding about the topic, except perhaps shining a light on jumping to myopic reactions and judgements of others.

I will not be replying to further messages from you on this thread for the above reason.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2013/08/jordan-hubbard/

[2] https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel

[3] https://www.channelfutures.com/open-source/open-source-and-a...

asveikauOP5y ago

> I appreciate you feel the need to feel better about yourself at the expense of others by calling others names,

You have misread me. I do not feel better than anybody else nor do I feel I need to. I also do not feel that I am calling you or anybody names. I have not met you, I am confident you are a wonderful human being. It is, independent of the thinker, naive to think Mac, iOS, or Android needs Linux or BSD and couldn't be ported to or based upon something else in the start.

I mean, apart from the fact that NeXT's key pieces were also ported to NT as they struggled to find a market for NeXTstep, in Apple's search for a kernel, they also considered BeOS, and they had a short lived project MkLinux which had Linux in the same co-position with Mach as BSD has with XNU ... This reflects the attitude that any modern kernel will do, that they can swap them in and out with little consequence. A similar attitude that people advocate when saying they ought to port Android to Fuschia.

But many people also exaggerate the role of BSD in XNU. In many places there is little resemblance. They continue to diverge over time.

You have also evidently misread me on some other matters in the thread and this brings me to read your reply as a bit of a non sequitur, but it's not worth debating them and you say you're cutting me off. So I do hope you have a good day, fine sir or madam. Best regards, friend.

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