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Qualcomm goes where Apple won't, readies official Linux support for Snapdragon X Elite | Tom's Hardware
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Ugh, that's because MacOS is built on top of Unix, but Apple doesn't provide official support for Linux or any drivers. Asahi Linux to my knowledge is a community led project which is trying to reverse engineer the hardware blobs to make it compatible with Linux.
Plus Apple with their consistent policy of gatekeeping is everything but open source champion.
EDIT: I’m not here to defend Apples shitbag practices. How could anyone? But, like it or not, they DO contribute to FOSS a lot, and have a solid record of doing so for decades. So, hate them honestly, but they do deserve some very real credit in some important places.
[Original comment]
i deleted that comment 12 seconds after I posted it. How are you seeing it?
UGH
And it’s not “built on top of” anything (unless you consider OS X being built on top of NeXTSEP - although it was really a port/evolution, but they’re both BSD derivatives, like BSD was based on System V). It’s certified UNIX and has been since 2001. A BSD variant, specifically, using a Mach microkernel descendant called Darwin. And a BSD microkernel! in the 1980s! Still not seeing that in linux! It would be revolutionary!
So? Why should they? It’s a major competitor. Should they provide windows support too? Lol. (They don’t anymore, btw)
“Oh, boo hoo! They protect copyrights! Certainly they can’t also contribute to FOSS!”
WRONG!
Their current FOSS projects, including their brand new on-device ML/LLM (what the idiots call “AI”) models which aren’t even in iOS yet…
https://opensource.apple.com/
Their GitHub archive, including some older stuff:
https://github.com/apple
A bunch of older repos:
https://www.macosforge.org/
And this is just a taste. Let’s not forget that they, basically, single-handedly ran OpenGL for 12 years and totally invented OpenCL and immediately open-sourced that. and a lot more (oh, you like multicore processors? Thank Apple for the fact you can effectively use them without paying intel or Microsoft for licensing rights!) For over three decades, Apple has been, very quietly, one of the biggest corporate contributors to the open-source communities in history.
Before you keep taking a shit on them, I suggest you do a little bit of educating yourself.
Edit 2: hate apple, fine. But they are HUGE FOSS contributors for over 30 years to landmark projects and have even been historic takers-over over some projects (like OpenGL) when they would, otherwise, have died. And, again OpenCL was 100% Apple. The multicore processing world would be nowhere today without that without it. Thanks Apple!
So hate Apple all you like for the shitty things they do, but give the, credit for the great things they have given us all - and how the Linux world - has benefitted for free.
If Apple really care Asahi wouldn't be reversed engineered, and instead would be implementing from docs.
No. Apple cares as much about FOSS as they care about privacy. They only care when it suits them.
They don’t and they shouldn’t. I clearly explained why. Did you even read my comment? Lmao (I wish they did, but it’s perfectly understandable why they don’t)
Edit: and when it comes to being hostile, they’re not even being hostile to the quasi-FOSS OCLP which enables outdated versions of macOS to run on older Mac hardware— a valiant project!
As over 30 years of their multi-billion-dollar contributions prove they do. Ignore the facts, but that doesn’t change the truth.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Like I said: you don’t have to like Apple in order to acknowledge the facts of their massive (and critical) contributions to FOSS
I really don't get which critical contributions they do. On their own website https://opensource.apple.com/projects/ they seem to list basically tools and frameworks for building apps, which is on their interest first and foremost that developers have. I don't know what "Community projects" mean, and how big contributions they do there.
Also I don't really like your argument "why they should provide Linux support, they are a competitor". Well, this is what happens when a single company does both the hardware and the software AND doesn't care about the "freedom" part of Foss.
To be fair though most companies can't care less, open source is just a practice that some companies do to pursue their own interest. Microsoft does huge contributions to OSS (including the Linux kernel), same for Google, and yet I would not really say that those companies care about FOSS. Apple is even worse than them considering how they want to have the complete monopoly of what can run on their hardware, which is completely antithetical to the core idea of FOSS. Despite you paid already the 2.5k for your hardware and their OS, they can't just let you run whatever you want on it.
I really understand that. Because you went to a great deal of effort to explain how you also went to a great deal of effort, not to understand what I went through a great deal of effort to explain. You also went to a great deal of effort to explain how you have ignored multiple sources of information, explaining what you don’t understand.
I really understand that. Because you went to a great deal of effort to explain how you also went to a great deal of effort, not to understand what I went through a great deal of effort to explain. You also went to a great deal of effort to explain how you have ignored multiple sources of information, explaining what you don’t understand.
You’ve gone to a great deal of effort to explain that you don’t understand what I said, because you ignored everything I said, and the services I provided to explain it. I can only recommend at this point that you revisit the comment you replied to two, because it provides everything to explain everything you claim to not understand.
I just hope that this time, you do it in good faith, rather than an intentional effort to sabotage further intelligent discussion.
You cited a couple of mid-2000 projects (e.g. OpenCL), that Apple opensourced and that anyway hardly apply to the current Apple, since 15+ years passed and the company is under new leadership etc. Then you listed a bunch of links, which I have looked at, and I saw that the vast majority of the OSS projects are related to Swift-ui and other tools that are useful to build app (mostly) in their ecosystem (webKit, careKit, etc.).
So to understand better, your argument fully relies on contributions that happened 15 years ago, to claim that the current company "cares" about FOSS?
Also, you disregard the second part of the argument in order to write your arrogant reply:
Which is an answer to your statement:
Which begs the question: what caring about FOSS means to you? For me caring about FOSS means caring about the freedom of the customers who already paid for their hardware to run whatever they want on it. This freedom Apple opposes in whatever way they can, in basically whatever hardware they make.
I cited a couple of examples, that doesn’t mean I had to cite the entire pantheon in order to be correct.
Your lack of understanding and your narrowmindedness is not my fault.
Your hate and your personal anger against Apple is something you have to reconcile on your own.
Yes, you cited examples from early 2000 and then you add current references that have the characteristics I have observed. Maybe you should develop your argument better at this point? Or are you keeping the best examples that show meaningful, present, contributions secrets just to make your argument weaker on purpose?
I pointed out flaws in your arguments which you keep not addressing by making arrogant comments, which makes me thing you don't have any more arguments to use.
Also, I don't hate Apple, I don't care for it. I even mentioned in my very first comment that what Apple does is no different from what other organizations do, even if those make currently bigger contributions to FOSS (Microsoft contributions to the Linux kernel, google project zero reports etc.).
You also continue to avoid the argument that forbidding people to run what they want on generic purpose hardware is completely against the principles of FOSS, and yet all your argument is "why would they". This fact alone would put any OSS contribution to shame, because it's a clear as day demonstration that they don't believe (let alone care) about the Freedom of users, and that opensourcing is a mere way to pursue business interests, which has no moral value on its own.
You really are incapable of having an argument without offending your opponent. You should definitely seek some professional help and not vent your frustration online.
So what was the point again? You are contradicting yourself. First you said Asahi is one of the big Apple things and now you are saying it makes sense that they don't support Linux.
Your argument might be flawed.
You clearly are either having difficulty reading what I said, or did not bother to read what I said. Nothing of what you said reflect accurately my comment. Read my comment again, and perhaps you’ll have a better understanding.