Apple Rolls Out WebKit2, But No Linux Love Yet

[thefirstm]

The lack of multitasking is actually an awesome usability decision by Apple for the iPad (ofcourse it has multitasking on the tech level, otherwise you couldn't not operate it with touchscreen while you listened to music and see the app respond to what you do);

The iPad is not made to be a full blown computer, allthough listening to music while doing anything might be nice while reading a book.

Apple isn't that bad. Actually I wished it would get a monopoly on operating systems for a while and then collapse after a while (and it will)

$0,02

Is Webkit2 GPL'ed, btw? It is build from the ground up...

Perhaps you are not aware that the iPhone OS 4.x was recently announced, which will enable multitasking?

[deanjo]

Apple hates linux a lot more than Microsoft does. And I'm not joking.

That is probably the most in accurate, uninformed, pull-it-out-of-my-ass comment ever posted in these forums. Apple is indifferent to linux. They simply don't care about it. Big difference between "hate" and indifference. As someone that collected their checks from 1 Infinite Loop for a while I can reassure you that you're dead wrong.

[V!NCENT]

Perhaps you are not aware that the iPhone OS 4.x was recently announced, which will enable multitasking?

I wasn't aware of that and it is fscked up... Unless Apple has a realy nice and working example of usefull multitasking on a phone.

Idiots... (Apple)

[deanjo]

I agree with you, but isn't this ironic, considering that Apple stole an entire open source software stack as the base for MacOSX?

Bullshit. They have followed the license to every thing they use to the letter. Don't like what they did, then tough shit find alternatives as they do what the licenses allow them to do.

[deanjo]

1) Apple is a purely marketing company. They have created a cult of followers who will not only buy anything on day 1 just because they have an apple logo, but will spam forums, blogs, IRC, IM web sites promoting these products to others. These people overlook Apple's disadvantages, rationalize lack of features, and justify paying premium price for lesser products. This hurts us as consumers. In many ways, which i will not explain now.

That could be said about any OS including linux with the exception to the reverence about paying.

2) It is clear to me that Apple bribes certain "journalists" and certain people to post in forums/sites/blogs as "users". Of course this practice is not specific to Apple, many big companies do PR in this way. But Apple has crossed the line.

Bullshit. Anything those site that those journalists publish they do on their own accord.

3) Apple is a closed ecosystem, unfriendly to developers like myself. And bad for the industry in general.

Got any proof of that? developer.apple.com is full of developer friendly documentation, sample code and is kept up to date which is more then many opensource projects where "RTFM" ends giving you vastly outdated documentation if there is any.

4)Apple only cares about flash and no substance. It may drive the design barrier but makes people ask for less tech. Sites like Arstechnica reviewed recently the iPad and they had the nerve to say that lack of multitasking is a relief and it makes their lives easier, only to celebrate a few days later for the upcoming addition of multitasking as a great evolution of Apple software...

No the only thing that they care about ultimately is profit. That is no secret. How they achieve it is governed by the publics current wants and what is the most efficient way of providing that. If it means sacrificing a feature for the small percentage "power user" group then so be it.

5) I am a tech guy, and tech is all i care. I am no fanboi of a company, but i want the best product to win every time, in order to create competition and improve the tech overall. Apple's efforts hinder that.

How does Apples efforts "hinder" that? You are free to come up with a competing product that bests their effort.

[perpetualrabbit]

That could be said about any OS including linux with the exception to the reverence about paying.


Bullshit. Anything those site that those journalists publish they do on their own accord.



Got any proof of that? developer.apple.com is full of developer friendly documentation, sample code and is kept up to date which is more then many opensource projects where "RTFM" ends giving you vastly outdated documentation if there is any.



No the only thing that they care about ultimately is profit. That is no secret. How they achieve it is governed by the publics current wants and what is the most efficient way of providing that. If it means sacrificing a feature for the small percentage "power user" group then so be it.


How does Apples efforts "hinder" that? You are free to come up with a competing product that bests their effort.

No, indeed it cannot be said that Apple is not staying within the bounds of the GPL or BSD licenses of software that they used as much of a base for OS X. But they only give back what they absolutely must, not one iota more. They do hurt open source software by overzealously defending their software patents, in my opinion. For instance the font hinting patents they have hinder the linux font engine to present good looking fonts, although I forgot what the issue exactly was. Something with cubic curves in fonts and also some patent having to do with font hinting. Also their legal steps against HTC are about trivial (non-)inventions that should not have be possible to patent in the first place. That lawsuit is seen by many as directed against google's android. Therefore it is a threat to linux and open source in general.

So in short I think Apple is a bad open source 'citizen'. They take a lot, give little back, and have the bad form to not share their patents with the open source community they take so much code and talent from, and who ported so much software rooted in linux to OS X. Instead they sue (HTC) or threatened to sue (font issues).

On the other hand, they do make very good software, not particularly fast or complete, but so very well integrated.

I have been watching the whole linux development, from kernel to the desktop environments and most of the major software packages. It is all so disorganized and duplicated efforts. Only look to the situation with sound to understand what I mean.
There is a clear advantage to having a person like Steve Jobs in charge. The anarchy in the linux world that is our strength is also our biggest weakness.

[monraaf]

So Apple doesn't care about Linux and open source, what else is new? As Steve Jobs once said in an interview "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas". So that's what they do, and make a lot of money of. If you don't want Apple or any other company 'stealing' open source code, use GPL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

[smitty3268]

3) Apple is a closed ecosystem, unfriendly to developers like myself. And bad for the industry in general.

Got any proof of that? developer.apple.com is full of developer friendly documentation, sample code and is kept up to date which is more then many opensource projects where "RTFM" ends giving you vastly outdated documentation if there is any.

Sure. Here you go, direct from Apple's license agreement:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

If that's not "unfriendly to developers" then I don't know what is.

[mendieta]

So Apple doesn't care about Linux and open source, what else is new? As Steve Jobs once said in an interview "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas". So that's what they do, and make a lot of money of. If you don't want Apple or any other company 'stealing' open source code, use GPL.

Exactly. Which is why I dislike BSD's license. It's been used abused by both MS and Apple, not precisely friends of computing freedom.

Also, I agree with perpetualrabbit, they stick to the letter, but they don't give back one little more than legally needed.

I think their biggest asset is being "cool". iPod, iTouch, iPad, you name it, it's all about "cool", and part of it is being overpriced, and then again, a lot of people like that. Whatever. I just find their "all your hardware and data belongs to us" unacceptable.

[deanjo]

Sure. Here you go, direct from Apple's license agreement:



If that's not "unfriendly to developers" then I don't know what is.

Here is a newsflash for ya, the same can be said for even for GPL licensed projects. If the leads don't like what you are contributing they are free to reject it. If you want to see a perfect example of how this happens in opensource Google Con Kolivas, Rieser, Aaron Plattner etc and see how even in the GPL world when someone tries to improve the eco system of linux innovations are rejected on a pure discrimination of "I don't like it", not because of legal or technical merits just because of conflicting views.