| Earlier this week we put out an Observer Call for input on Apple's new effort on making parts of OS X Server Open Source. We also spoke to Stu Green, a pioneer in the Unix world and founder of the Austin Linux Group, about what he thought this may mean to Apple.
Much of the feedback we got centered around the idea of being able to fix problems and incorporate some of Apple's technologies into other OSs.
"Apple has chosen a fantastic moment to make this move," said Stu Green. "This places them ahead of all the other mainstream OS developers, even Sun. The online community is so fast in its response times to problems and issues, making OS X Server an Open Source project means that developers with difficulties can get the answers they need faster than from companies like Microsoft and even Apple.
An Observer named Andrew agrees.
There are certainly some things we'd like to fix that we may be able to. And I'm hoping that someone will move NetInfo to linux, for instance. Plus the GNUstep folks might be real interested in this...
Larry Rosenstein writes:
I think what's more likely to happen is that developers working on Linux, ... will look at things like Apple's AppleTalk stack and HFS code and incorporate some of those ideas into other OSs. This is still beneficial to Apple, since having a good AppleTalk stack or HFS support in Linux helps make it possible to integrate Mac clients with a Linux server and make Linux more viable on Mac hardware.
Mr. Green also feels that this move will help Apple move into new markets.
Apple is being very smart here. Going Open Source will let them go places where Microsoft can't. Apple will have more leverage in many Enterprise markets because developers will be able change what they don't like.
Mr. Rosenstein did offer a very important caveat concerning the very nature of Mac developers:
The power of Open Source stems from having a large community of contributors. For Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, etc. the community is fairly large since there are a lot of people interested in running that software.
It's not clear to me that the community of people interested in contributing to Mac OS X Server is all that large. Developers working on platforms other than the Mac are more likely to stick with Linux or another BSD variant. Those OSs are already running on Intel, etc. while Darwin is not.
So that leaves developers with an interest in the Power PC. I think most Mac developers are not kernel hackers, but are application developers. And most of those are really interested in Mac OS 8 and Carbon. Maybe there are companies looking to produce a specialized version of Mac OS X Server for some specific product. Or maybe there are university research groups that are using Macs and would be interested in hacking on the source. I tend to think those groups are relatively small.
Certainly, Apple will gain a lot of PR value from this announcement, with very little cost.
We also got some feedback on the actual Open Source license that Apple is using for its release.
BJ Snider writes:
I have just finished perusing the APSL. One thing that I note is that there is no reference to the hardware platform that this code *must* be used with.
Purely speculation on my part, but that may imply that those with the inclination to experiment may soon have at least the core components of OS X Server running on processors other than Power PC!
According to Mr. Rosenstein:
I'm not lawyer, but the license seems pretty straightforward. It is closer to the GPL than to the so-called BSD-style license in that if one changes the code and distributes it, then one is obligated to give the changes back to Apple. It seems to differ from the GPL in that one can combine Apple's code with proprietary code without having to release the source to the proprietary code.
The Mac Observer Spin: The prognosis is great so far. Apple will get support from new developers and will have greater leverage to penetrate new markets. Combined with Apple's aggressive pricing policies on MacOS X Server and liberal user-licensing, Open Source licensing looks like it will give Apple yet another big boost.
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