Likelihood of 'Linux Mac OS X'?
Since this is a rumor site, does anyone have any idea as to how likely it is that Apple will implement Linux code into 10.4? If they did, it could (and probably would) be huge in the computer industry. I'd expect many, many people coming to OS X to run their Linux apps.
Comments
Apple has made noises about the fact that this OS X will become more compatible with Linux over time, so it's a safe bet that if Tiger doesn't get us the rest of the way there, it'll get us a lot closer.
Apple is clearly trying to make OS X something of an OS Rosetta Stone.
Originally posted by iKenny
I'd expect many, many people coming to OS X to run their Linux apps.
Not sure Linux users would be keen on that idea. For people that love and embrace an open philosophy to have to buy proprietary hardware is foreboding. Some just call it cheap
Either way I'd invite more Linux. There are many useful offerings from Linux (and other open-source) software, Fink users know all too well.
Originally posted by wmf
Apple's never going to use Linux code in OS X, but OS X gets a little more Linux-compatible in every release.
Possibly not linux code, if you're talking about code in the kernel, but they are using a lot of GNU code, and code developed for linux (pppd springs to mind, there is innumerable other stuff). A lot turns on how you define "linux code" I suppose.
As others have hinted, it is very dangerous for Apple to do anything but include projects that run on linux. Anything that they make dependent on a GPL project gets sucked into being GPL. Thus it is a move that has to be very carefully made.
Apple does a lot more with *BSD code, and I would like to see them adopt more of FreeBSD's linux compatibility layer. That being said... there are only a few linux-centered projects that I have had trouble compiling/running in MacOS X. And the few places where I would really like to see improvement are mostly in porting windowing toolkits (KDE, Gnome, etc) so that I don't have to have X11 running.
Originally posted by Karl Kuehn
staphbaby: Apple's pppd is not "from" linux. It is used in a number of projects (many linux ditros among them), but from my quick survey comes from the *BSD's.
I'll call you on this argumentum ad exemplum. It may have originally been based on code for Sun and 386BSD (written by Paul), but Paul MacKerras is currently linux pppd maintainer and hangs out at linux development mailing lists for pppd, and is the 32bit PowerPC Linux kernel maintainer. He has also worked for a firm which used to be called linuxcare, and is now called levanta, and currently works for IBM on PowerPC development.
At any rate, I think you missed the point I was making. It was pedantic, I know, so I suppose I got my comeuppance.
Originally posted by dfryer
What we *are* seeing is that that libraries & APIs on Linux are sometimes being brought over to MacOS X, including GTK and other GUI toolkits. Still, any apps that get brought over (usually open source) have a very "unixy" feel to them- they are still a long way from native, even if though they run fine.
On that subject, Trolltech recently released the Qt toolkit under GPL for Mac... with obvious potential for the native porting of the KDE applications (Rick from Fink has most of them more-or-less running, as his blog attests.