Apple "OpenSource" and some thoughts

[morm]

I am really a fan of Apple hardware and i have been a fan of OS X 2.
I really thougt that the "OpenSource" approuch of Darwin would improve things since i really think that Free Software is the only way to be for Operating Systems.

But in the last month i made some really bad experiences:

I thought that Darwin is "OpenSource" so when i a have a problem there are people to contact and to coummunicate with and fix things. But the actual problems i have are not always with the Darwin/BSD part. Right now my problem is with the Finder ... which is not OpenSource.
Now I am at the point where I always was when i was using a non free Operating System ... I am helpless ... I can wait until Apple releases some further upgrade ... No People to talk to ... No chance for myself to fix the problem ...

This really sucks ... I mean, The only reason why i use OS X is the Open Source part and the kewl Hardware. I am really thinking about installing OpenBSD or Linux on my Powerbook ... Since there i could change things ... be part of the development ... and if something does not work it is also my fault ... and i can do something about it ...
But on the other hand i know the problems of this Ports oft OS's ... the problem is as always lack of knowledge about the hardware ... and so on ...
since apple hw is very "special" this seams to be a even bigger problem
but actual i would feel better putting efforts in a project like OpenBSD or linux to make things better than into apple software that has all this patents pending **** .....
so what do you think ...
is there a way not get bad karma and use kewl hardware ... what do you think are the alternatives?

c.u.

m.

[fryke]

You seem to have already accepted that your problem with the Finder is _there_ without even the slightest possibility of a fix. Well... There _ARE_ people out there who will try to help you _ANY_time - here on macosx.com. Just open a thread describing your problem in the System & Software forum here on macosx.com, and you just might find a fix, workaround or altogether different solution.

What _is_ your problem with the Finder? Can PathFinder (a Finder alternative you can find on versiontracker.com or macupdate.com) solve your problems?

If, however, your problem is rather the _thought_ that Apple's UI, apps and the Finder aren't Open Source, then you might want to try several things:

- Darwin with X
- Linux on PPC (YellowDog, Fedora Core et al.)

... and there are possibly other completely open source alternatives - or you could also just use X11 on top of Mac OS X (it comes with Panther, anyway) and use fink and KDE etc.

I think it's a pity you don't even _state_ your actual problem with the Finder, because then you might get the right tip directly instead of all of what I've written now. ;-)

[morm]

it is posted at

NFS with Finder very slow!

i just did not write it down here since its not the rite place i guess

[morm]

Originally Posted by fryke

If, however, your problem is rather the _thought_ that Apple's UI, apps and the Finder aren't Open Source, then you might want to try several things:

- Darwin with X
- Linux on PPC (YellowDog, Fedora Core et al.)

... and there are possibly other completely open source alternatives - or you could also just use X11 on top of Mac OS X (it comes with Panther, anyway) and use fink and KDE etc.

yes i am just thinking about this alteratives

Darwin with X is the "nearest" possibility actually
but to me darwin is something very strange actually
because it lacks documentation ... i am actually using the ports tree
and other OpenSource addons and of course XFree
but somehow it is a pitty ...

you get a "Free" OS ... with the drawbacks of a Free OS like
No Games, No kewl Video things, No kewl iTunes and so on ...
you actually lose some kewl features and you do not really get
the benifits of a Free OS ... because i mean maybe i am wrong
but i have the feeling that the Darwin is weak documented
lots of manpages missing ... very hard to find out how things work
in comparison to Linux or OpenBSD
maybe i have this feeling because i am used to OpenBSD & Linux for quite a long time
and the other hand is ... it is much easier to compile things and so on on Linux or OpenBSD ... the Mach3 platform and BSD port for OS X is rather different to Linux OpenBSD and it is somehow always a challange to port things ... i did this in some cases already ... and there is even some documentation from apple about porting to OS X but it is really not easy
the only benifit i can see is the hardware support
this is nice with a Darwin kernel the hardware at least works
i maen still it is not easy i tried for example to log in with
>console on OS X and the start xdm ... to get the XFree feeling
but for example xdm does not accept my password
i don`t even have a idea why ... and where to find this info
so still i am trying to find ways to have both the benefits of OS X and the
benefits of the Gnu stuff ...
maybe i should do more postings in this forum *harhar*
to fix my "problems"


maybe i am too much influenced by some "geeks" who always tend to mention:

the darwin and bsd stuff is actually ok of OS X but the GUI is bloatware
it is actually slow and not very improved



c.u.

m.

[Captain Code]

The reason that Apple doesn't opensource their GUI is because it's their GUI that helps sell more Macs. If they released the GUI then everyone's grandma could copy it and install it on whatever they want. This isn't going to help Apple one bit.

The GUI runs pretty good with half decent hardware. Sure it'll be a bit slow if you try and run it on 4 year old hardware, but you can't expect it to be as fast as OS 9 was on the same computer.

MS has said that Longhorn, which will have a vector based GUI like OS X has had for years, will require a 3GHz CPU. That's a lot more than OS X will ever need to run smoothly.

[monktus]

Instances of "kewl": 5
Mod -1 "unkewl"

You have some points there but OSX is not a free OS. You can complain all you like about closed source etc. but Apple needs control of it's OS to develop it the way it wants to and sell its hardware. I think the fact that such a large portion of OSX (namely Darwin) is OSS is quite an acheivement for such a company; it's maybe not a direct comparision but would you see microsoft releasing code for NT? No. As has been mentioned, if you don't like Aqua then there are alternatives. I agree that OSS is a Good Thing but remember that things haven't always been this way, it wasn't so long ago that licences for UNIX cost a lot of money. I think that $99 for an OS like Apple's isn't really that much, especially considering it comes preinstalled on Apple hardware anyway. OK, it's not free (as in beer) but why should it be?