[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Shawn Nock]

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Bowie J. Poag wrote:
| Hi Shawn,
|
| Well, we aren't exactly talking "HAY GUYS GO HERE AND DOWNLOAD THIS L33T
| ISO MAKE UR OWN HACKINTOSH DEHHHH"... OS X != Darwin. Darwin is a free,
| open-source, POSIX-compliant BSD hybrid.

Thanks for the wikipedia quote. You don't run "free, open source" Darwin.

FOSS Darwin can't practically be compiled or used because of the
proprietary bits Apple has neglected to release. So, Darwin is far from
free... you must purchase the "whole package" from the vendor to do
anything with it (like run a Desktop environment). The situation breaks
down like this:

~  1. Choose the free version, it is intentionally crippled
~  2. Buy the working version, get only binaries.

If we are comparing Linux to Darwin on the FOSS versions. Linux wins by
virtue of compiling and booting.

Someday some bright people may flesh out the corpse of Darwin into
something useful... but today Darwin is useless.

| It's as Unix as anything
| else..perhaps stronger, since most of it's code was developed in-house
| and only opened later.

I assume we are talking about the OS you are currently running on your
laptop. It is Unix... it is not Free Unix. Much of the kernel code on
your current OS, was *not* opened later.

The kernel Apple uses for OS X is different (XNU, I think)

It has a different name, but it's Darwin... with the ability to
successfully compile (Apple has the missing 'proprietary' bits).

| ..And I certainly plead guilty to the murky legal implications of
| running a Hackintosh. The only thing "murky" is whether or not I choose
| to buy an OS X license from Apple or not.

Even if you buy a license... you are are in violation of the license
agreement. You are infringing on your license by choosing a different
hardware vendor. Simplified, you are now (and for the foreseeable
future) infringing on Apple's "intellectual property" and legally liable
for this. That doesn't sound free or open.

You obviously think the trade off is worth it (preference is a great
thing). Kudos, but if we may be pragmatic for a moment, MacOS X (and
Darwin) are not free and barely open.

You run a Unix-like OS... that's great. Please stop calling it open or
free. It is okay that not everything is open and free, but some of us
take the *free* in "Tucson Free Unix Group" seriously and would
appreciate you not clouding the issue by invoking one of Apple's long
dead pet projects.

A challenge, in good fun, boot the current version of Darwin on your
laptop... then tell me how good a FOSS OS it is, eh? Better yet,
actually run Darwin day-to-day and make all of your previous points valid.

Shawn

- --
Shawn Nock (OpenPGP: 0x4E549994)
nock at fastmail dot fm
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