Apple Open Sources Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch

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  • Reply 21 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tauron View Post


    Gusty move by the smartest software developer on Earth. Lets hope this paves the way for total Windows PC humiliation.



    Smartest software developer on Earth?



    You DO know they ripped their entire OS off of BSD don't you?



    Their expertise is at picking source code from the community that comes with just the right license so they don't have to give back to the community any more than the absolute minimum.



    This project is NOT a significant gift. At most it might prove useful once compilers manage to incorporate parallel processing techniques so that multi-cores can be utilized easily.



    This project requires that the programmer build all of the parallel processing constructs, built his own processing queues, and feed those queues appropriate blocks of code. Those programmers working on projects that need this level of micromanagement already have other tool sets for this. But the important thing is very few projects need this, and there is significant debate as to whether this belongs in the hands of application developers at all.
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  • Reply 22 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icebike View Post


    You DO know they ripped their entire OS off of BSD don't you?



    That's simply not true. First of all, you cannot rip off BSD licensed code being as it's open source and has a very liberal license. Second, booting the mach kernel and using only BSD derived tools like ls or mv certainly isn't the same thing as booting full blown OSX which is heavily based on Apple's own first party closed source code. Third, and perhaps most importantly, NeXT and Apple have done most of the work maintaing the mach kernel over the last 2 decades or so. Parts of FreeBSD are based on mach but it's an entirely different codebase. The common ancestry of the two is far in the past. Apple certainly builds on a number of OSS projects such as samba, CUPS, gcc, etc. Apple uses custom builds of many of these projects and publishes their source changes. In some cases they do submit code directly to the main branch.



    From a more technical standpoint OSX implements its own file system, device drivers (IOKit) windowing system, UI toolkit (Cocoa, Carbon), development platform IDE, boot loader, and is built on first party closed source Apple code for virtually all of the end user GUI apps such as Finder, Dock, iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, etc. Apple has used code from the Solaris code base in the form of DTrace. They have mostly avoided GPL licensed code due to the viral nature of the license that would make it difficult for Apple to mesh OSS software with their own first party closed source software



    So uh yeah, other than that... total BSD rip off OMG!
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  • Reply 23 of 43
    I think SinisterJoe needs a reminder trip thru the well hidden credits in Mac OSX. If you think the only thing they ripped off was the BSD Kernel you sir are sadly misinformed.



    Its not just cups and samba.



    This company routinely takes open-source private. The BSD kernel was chosen so that they would not have to give back.



    NeXt was also pilfered, much to the chagrin of minority interest holders. Hell, Jobs even ripped off Woz.
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  • Reply 24 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bourgoises Pig View Post


    Please correct me if I am wrong, but state and federal government institutions require that email reside on servers owned by them. Apple should at least cut universities some slack...........



    Not to mention the major Gmail outage last week. Cloud computing is not a viable solution for mission critical applications.
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  • Reply 25 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icebike View Post


    I think SinisterJoe needs a reminder trip thru the well hidden credits in Mac OSX. If you think the only thing they ripped off was the BSD Kernel you sir are sadly misinformed.



    Its not just cups and samba.



    This company routinely takes open-source private. The BSD kernel was chosen so that they would not have to give back.



    NeXt was also pilfered, much to the chagrin of minority interest holders. Hell, Jobs even ripped off Woz.



    You are obviously a troll.



    Grand Central lives at three levels. All three are open source. It is at the compiler level in gcc, llvm, and clang (all open source BSD and GPL). It is in the libdispatch library (apache open source). It is in the kernel (APSL i think). The kernel is the least open source but that would obviously have to be reimplemented for another platform anyway.



    Just look at all the work Apple puts in to Webkit just to have it ripped off by competitors (both commercial and open source). They are definitely giving back. LLVM, clang, cups, webkit, and calendar server are all huge projects given under very liberal open source licenses.
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  • Reply 26 of 43
    Apple also open sourced XGrid and Darwin. Who uses those? GCD has some good potential, but it will take some effort by the linux community to integrate it into their distribution and the hooks required (block support in C, switch to a new compiler technology) aren't trivial to say the least.
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  • Reply 27 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icebike View Post


    I think SinisterJoe needs a reminder trip thru the well hidden credits in Mac OSX. If you think the only thing they ripped off was the BSD Kernel you sir are sadly misinformed.



    Its not just cups and samba.



    This company routinely takes open-source private. The BSD kernel was chosen so that they would not have to give back.



    NeXt was also pilfered, much to the chagrin of minority interest holders. Hell, Jobs even ripped off Woz.



    "Ripped off", a term you seem to enjoy using, suggests stealing, an illegal activity. Where are the court cases that support your claim that any stealing went on? Or do you just mean that they used something they were fully entitled to use?



    This is just trolling of the worst sort ? a small-minded, curmudgeonly pretence at an "alternate viewpoint" designed to inflame and incence.



    Apple have done a pretty generous thing here, so it is just annoying to have to read your post.
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  • Reply 28 of 43
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,764member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eluard View Post


    "Ripped off", a term you seem to enjoy using, suggests stealing, an illegal activity. Where are the court cases that support your claim that any stealing went on? Or do you just mean that they used something they were fully entitled to use?



    I love radical open source people. Extremists, much like vegans.



    The code is put out there, the license is clear and when someone uses it exactly as specified they get miffed that someone doesn't use it exactly as they think it should be.



    Is it open or not? Free (as in beer) or not?



    As you point out, how is using code exactly as the terms of the license it's released under ripping someone off?
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  • Reply 29 of 43
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icebike View Post


    This company routinely takes open-source private. The BSD kernel was chosen so that they would not have to give back.



    You do know that Linux is "Like Unix"? That it's a reverse engineering of Unix so they wouldn't have to compensate the original Unix rightsholders?



    Kinda takes the sting out of your accusations, doesn't it?



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  • Reply 30 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icebike View Post


    Smartest software developer on Earth?



    You DO know they ripped their entire OS off of BSD don't you?



    Their expertise is at picking source code from the community that comes with just the right license so they don't have to give back to the community any more than the absolute minimum.



    This project is NOT a significant gift. At most it might prove useful once compilers manage to incorporate parallel processing techniques so that multi-cores can be utilized easily.



    This project requires that the programmer build all of the parallel processing constructs, built his own processing queues, and feed those queues appropriate blocks of code. Those programmers working on projects that need this level of micromanagement already have other tool sets for this. But the important thing is very few projects need this, and there is significant debate as to whether this belongs in the hands of application developers at all.



    First statement is entirely off the mark. Note you are being definitive by stating "entire" to preface your commentary. Aqua UI, Quartz rendering and a plethora of other tools did not come from BSD.



    Webkit is a prime example of open source "give backs" as well as GCC



    OpenMP already allows you target Multi procs within a compiler. Nothing new here as GCD works with pre-existing MP frameworks.



    You obviously haven't read the GCD paper on Apple page. To leverage GCD developers must look for opportunities within their app for parallel processing and dependencies. Queue management is handled by GCD. The ease of use with GCD is precisely NOT having to manage queues.



    Developers have been managing (some better than others) multithreaded code for decades.



    That is all
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  • Reply 31 of 43
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    It's a step forward in the world of multi-core but not the be all and end all. Looking at the API, it still feels like we (computer scientists) are groping about in the dark. But trying things like this is the only way to move forward, so good on them.
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  • Reply 32 of 43
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nitewing98 View Post


    So much for the critics that have charged Apple only takes from the FOSS community and doesn't give back. Glad to see that a legitimate company can make money while still benefitting the FOSS community. Not all companies have to be Microsoft to get ahead.



    Freetards will still complain for not releasing under GPL.



    Amusingly, GC is NOT available for linux since it's under Apache 2.0 and GPL 2.0 are claimed to be incompatible by the FSF. Whether this means that Linus will move the kernel to GPL 3.0 or not depends on how much he thinks GC is worth the effort.



    http://www.apache.org/foundation/licence-FAQ.html



    http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html



    MS has a large body of open source software under MS-PL and MS-RL. Yes, these are OSI approved licenses.
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  • Reply 33 of 43
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icebike View Post


    I think SinisterJoe needs a reminder trip thru the well hidden credits in Mac OSX. If you think the only thing they ripped off was the BSD Kernel you sir are sadly misinformed.



    Its not just cups and samba.



    This company routinely takes open-source private. The BSD kernel was chosen so that they would not have to give back.



    NeXt was also pilfered, much to the chagrin of minority interest holders. Hell, Jobs even ripped off Woz.



    See the freetards are still pissed.



    1) They did not use the BSD kernel. They used the MACH kernel.

    2) Much of what Apple has used from the Open Source world has been improved and given back. They simply don't give away the crown jewels like Sun did. You know Sun...now Oracle?

    3) You cannot rip off BSD/permissive license Open Source because you cannot steal what is freely given away. As opposed to not-so-freely given away.

    4) You do not "pilfer" a company if you paid $400M for it.
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  • Reply 34 of 43
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bobrik View Post


    how could it, if someone would port GCD to Windows?



    Amusingly you can. Apache 2.0 has a patent grant clause so MS can take the code, refactor it for the windows kernel and enhance their GCD-like capability. They just can't call it GCD without Apple's permission.



    Alas, Linux cannot. I love the irony that a license that claims to be "free" is hoist by it's own petard.
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  • Reply 35 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Despite being a unique, key marketing feature of Snow Leopard, Apple ...



    Apple is not a unique, key marketing feature of Snow Leopard. GCD is.
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  • Reply 36 of 43
    amoryaamorya Posts: 1,103member
    I'm an idiot. Post was wrong.
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  • Reply 37 of 43
    Good strategy by Apple. Honestly, GCD is going be best used in segments where Apple has chosen not to compete very strongly. If programers learn to incorporate the APIs on the Linux/Unix side it will get better adoption on the Mac.
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  • Reply 38 of 43
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BenRoethig View Post


    Good strategy by Apple. Honestly, GCD is going be best used in segments where Apple has chosen not to compete very strongly. If programers learn to incorporate the APIs on the Linux/Unix side it will get better adoption on the Mac.



    Oracle might put some things into Solaris. It would take Linus to move to GPL 3.0 or some other license (not bleeding likely) or simply declaring that he thinks GPL 2.0 is compatible with Apache 2.0 and the FSF can go hang.



    None of these feel particularly likely just because of GC.
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  • Reply 39 of 43
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Looking at it a little more it seems the kernel portion is released under ASPL while the userland portion is Apache.



    Also MS already has GCD like functionality in .NET 4.0 in PLINQ and TPL.



    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163340.aspx
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  • Reply 40 of 43
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Webkit is a prime example of open source "give backs" as well as GCC



    While the person to who you responded to was obviously an anti-Apple troll you seem like a pro-Apple troll. I might suggest that you would check exactly from where Webkit came from. Apple doesn't keep Webkit as free software just because they feel generous, but because KHTML was GPLed in the first place, so they didn't have any other choice. In that case they might as well play along and look good in the process.
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