MacOS not really opensource

[ced89]

Reading the following websites, I undertand that despite much is opensource, much more is actually cloud-source.

Apple Open Source

Is macOS open source or closed source, and why?

Answer (1 of 9): Yes. Darwin, the kernel and BSD subsystems, are open source. The rendering engine for Safari, called WebKit, is open source. Swift, Bonjour, and the command line toolkit are open source. The user interface and UI APIs (including Quartz and Metal) are closed source. The Carbon a...

www.quora.com

As a conclusion, I define MacOS cloud-source, am I wrong?
Also, the MacOS versions that are released as opensource on the Apple websites are stopped at 5 years ago probably... It's pointless considerint the speed the technology moves.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

The Macintosh operating system itself is NOT open source. It is a closed, highly protected legally, commercial product. In recent years you have been able to download free copies of the Macintosh OS, to use ONLY on hardware that you have purchased from Apple. You are not allowed to otherwise use or modify the Macintosh OS legally.

Apple considers versions of the Mac OS older than five years to be legacy software, and so they discontinue most updates for it, and all support for it. However, many older versions of the Mac OS are still available for download from Apple, for free, going back many years. However, these may be hard to locate.

Every version of the Mac OS, from OS X 10.7 "Lion" (from 2010) to the very latest version, macOS 11 "Big Sur", is available for free download, with the exception of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which for some reason is completely unavailable.

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

If you are looking for a particular version of the Mac OS that you want to download, and you can't find a workable link, let me know and I will likely be able to point you to a functional download link.

Now, your confusion may lie in the fact that the Macintosh operating system is based on open source Unix code, called FreeBSD "Berkeley Software Distribution":

FreeBSD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

FreeBSD exists deep within the Macintosh OS, and can be accessed directly via the command line (Terminal in the Mac OS). You can download FreeBSD separately, install it, and use it to your hearts content for free on any hardware that you like. However, it is wholly unlike the Macintosh operating system that we all know and love.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

There's no such thing as cloud-source, it's called closed source or more appropriately proprietary. OS X (and Darwin specifically) was originally based on BSD, but it's Apple's own variation and has never been released into the public space and never will be.

The Apple system, software and hardware are all proprietary is entirely owned by them. Only they are the creator of the software and they control who creates the hardware.

 

[ced89]

There's no such thing as cloud-source, it's called closed source or more appropriately proprietary. OS X (and Darwin specifically) was originally based on BSD, but it's Apple's own variation and has never been released into the public space and never will be.

The Apple system, software and hardware are all proprietary is entirely owned by them. Only they are the creator of the software and they control who creates the hardware.

I wanted to say closed

 

[ced89]

The Macintosh operating system itself is NOT open source. It is a closed, highly protected legally, commercial product. In recent years you have been able to download free copies of the Macintosh OS, to use ONLY on hardware that you have purchased from Apple. You are not allowed to otherwise use or modify the Macintosh OS legally.

Apple considers versions of the Mac OS older than five years to be legacy software, and so they discontinue most updates for it, and all support for it. However, many older versions of the Mac OS are still available for download from Apple, for free, going back many years. However, these may be hard to locate.

Every version of the Mac OS, from OS X 10.7 "Lion" (from 2010) to the very latest version, macOS 11 "Big Sur", is available for free download, with the exception of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which for some reason is completely unavailable.

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

If you are looking for a particular version of the Mac OS that you want to download, and you can't find a workable link, let me know and I will likely be able to point you to a functional download link.

Now, your confusion may lie in the fact that the Macintosh operating system is based on open source Unix code, called FreeBSD "Berkeley Software Distribution":

FreeBSD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

FreeBSD exists deep within the Macintosh OS, and can be accessed directly via the command line (Terminal in the Mac OS). You can download FreeBSD separately, install it, and use it to your hearts content for free on any hardware that you like. However, it is wholly unlike the Macintosh operating system that we all know and love.

Thanks for the precise answer.

My question came from the point that I see many people adversiting that MacOS is opensource.
Even if a big part it is, it's not released as such, you may try to recompile some of the parts from BSD, but that's it, and as you said, the majority of it it's closed-source.
I don't really get why the people keep saying that.

They also released many opensource tools, as well as many libraries and frameworks for Developers, but the second, as opensource version, it's always outdated, so I wonder what's the point of it.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

They also released many opensource tools, as well as many libraries and frameworks for Developers, but the second, as opensource version, it's always outdated, so I wonder what's the point of it.

Open source code can be used in commercial products (as Apple does) under the terms of the open source license, which legally requires that any improvements to the open source code itself also be released as free open source code.

Open-source license - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As you can imagine, Apple has extensively developed and improved FreeBSD for its own use. All of those improvements have been released as open source, as required by the license. You can freely download them, install them and use them.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Open source code can be used in commercial products (as Apple does) under the terms of the open source license, which legally requires that any improvements to the open source code itself also be released as free open source code.

Depends on the license. Open source is a very generic term that encompasses a large variety of licenses. What you are speaking about (contributing back to the source code) is a key part of GPL. There are at least 3 versions of GPL and each have different requirements. For business use, GPL is very harsh, thus LGPL (Lesser GPL) which is more permissive.

Ideally, most businesses will use either BSD or Apache licensed software.

The Linux Kernel for example is licensed purely under GPL and yes requires you to expose any changes you make to the Kernel in a publicly available space, not doing so will lead to legal trouble.

To that end, there are specific solutions (Black duck comes to mind) that will scan your code base to see if any of it is depending on open source software and then will check the licenses to ensure that you are compliant with them.

All that being said, Apple being a business is totally going to not release their software, so if use anything open source, it will be those that are licensed as BSD, Apache or Public Domain.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

All that being said, Apple being a business is totally going to not release their software

So what is this?:

Apple Open Source

 

[Raz0rEdge]

So what is this?:

Apple Open Source

That is the list of open source software that Apple uses in their software. Most companies, if not all, will list the software that they use within their solutions.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

That is the list of open source software that Apple uses in their software. Most companies, if not all, will list the software that they use within their solutions.

That Apple "uses"? It's theirs. They release it as open-source. So yeah, they use their own open-source components. Who'd have thunk it?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Correct. Many companies will create software for their own use and eventually release it as open-source while continuing to use it as well.

A lot of times that's done to encourage community development which makes things go faster than if the company was using internal resources only.

For example, Swift was a language that Apple created and was proprietary for a little while until Apple determined that there was a good amount of adoption of it from the community of developers. If Apple continued to develop it, it would do it, potentially, at a slower pace with what fits its business needs.

However, Apple released Swift as open-source was specifically to push it in the direction that made sense to the community.

This pattern has repeated across many companies. Google with Android and Angular. Facebook with ReactJS, etc.