Apple Rolls Out WebKit2, But No Linux Love Yet

[Arch]

I much rather see native tools like GIMP, gnash and pdf workflow improve on linux than adobes tools being ported.

Of course, so would I.

Also I'm not suggesting it would be a practical thing for Adobe to do. The choices which distribution(s) to support, which DE to integrate with or even how to distribute the software would be way to cumbersome. I'd just like to see how much of a boost Linux (and the various components the Creative Suite would depend on) would get from this. I can imagine it could be quite significant. And as I said I'd like to see where that leaves Apple. Unfortunately, such a thing is not going to happen any time soon.

Plus i don't think Adobe even has to react to the ban of Flash on the iPad, that was just a dumb move by Apple. They sacrifice almost any functionality in favor of "user friendliness", but then they go and cripple web browsing. Just imagine Your Mother(TM) running into non-displayable Flash-content all the time. Kinda ruins the experience if you ask me ...

[perpetualrabbit]

Oh really?

Just imagine where the "Mac platform" would be without Adobe. Taking away Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign would mostly reduce OSX to an overpriced BSD with no real advantage over any given Linux distribution ? apart maybe from the polished interface. Of course there are alternatives to Adobe's products ? but using Aperture and Quark Xpress is not something you'd want to suggest to a group of graphic artists used to a (de facto industry-)standard osx+adobe-workflow. They tend to be quite sensitive creatures

I'd really like to see what would happen to market shares if Adobe decided to release their Creative Suite 5 for Win and Linux only.

I wonder how much market there is for Photoshop and the rest for Linux. If they sell it through Canonical, Redhat and SuSE, it may well stop some people from buying a mac, or a new mac. It seems that professional color profiling tools for linux do exist, but they need an easier user interface. Printing support is good in linux. It would certainly be good for Linux but not so good for Apple.
So if Adobe wants to strike back at Apple banning flash, it will consider it as a tactic. If they do it depends on the pros and cons.
But I also wonder what problems Adobe has with their development process, considering that most of their code is still 32 bit, does not support cocoa, flash is so buggy, security problems in acrobat, and the list goes on. It paints a picture of a development department in decline to me. I have to wonder if they are actually ABLE to make a good linux version of photoshop (and the rest).

I much rather see native tools like GIMP, gnash and pdf workflow improve on linux than adobes tools being ported.

[Arch]

Lets face it Apple had to do something with ADOBE as they where doing more harm to the Mac platform than good.

Oh really?

Just imagine where the "Mac platform" would be without Adobe. Taking away Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign would mostly reduce OSX to an overpriced BSD with no real advantage over any given Linux distribution ? apart maybe from the polished interface. Of course there are alternatives to Adobe's products ? but using Aperture and Quark Xpress is not something you'd want to suggest to a group of graphic artists used to a (de facto industry-)standard osx+adobe-workflow. They tend to be quite sensitive creatures

I'd really like to see what would happen to market shares if Adobe decided to release their Creative Suite 5 for Win and Linux only.

[perpetualrabbit]

If they aren't, why don't you do something useful and get the Free software foundation to chase after them?

Now that is absolute garbage. Get off your dead ass and look around at what Apple does support, in some case extensively.

Sorry but that is exactly what patents are for. They give you exclusive use of your inventions. It is an entirely different argument about the value of software patents but Apple really has little choice here if they want to compete commercially.

As to HTC I really think Apple has no choice here. Google basically had a spy on the board which directly impacted the design of Android, why do you think Steve is so damn hot abotu this subject?

First you are wrong, dreadfully wrong about Apple as an open source citizen they are involved in many projects some of which wouldn't be where they are today without Apples interest.

As to Apple patents they really have no choice here, they have to defend them or end up with nothing. Unfortunately you are a prime example of a person that doesn't understand the patent system.

Might that software be the result of technology that they developed or shepherd? You seem to see the gloss but not the underlying technology.


The single biggest thing that drove me to a MBP is that churn that Linux has. YOu basically had to reinstall every six months or slow watch your system become unusable as various piece of software became unsupported on you system. Well that and the attraction of commercial software that just isn't right on Linux.

What is especially handy is that I don't end up missing much on Mac OS/X as it is UNIX underneath. As such it will run anything I can get to build on it.

Dave

I hate how phoronix removes the context, it makes it harder to reply in between quotes.

@1 I said it _CANNOT_ be said Apple is _NOT_ staying within bounds of GPL/BSD. So they stay within bounds. Two negatives make one positive.

@2 I looked at the open source pages at apple.com. I am not impressed. Sun, IBM, Intel contributed way more. Apple's open source additions first and foremost help Apple.

@3 No, patents are NOT meant for trivial high school stuff like quadratic/cubic curves. They are not meant for math or applications of math at all. They are meant for real tangible objects like a new type of diesel motor. That Apple has a patent for their use in fonts, scaring Linux distro's in not using that tech is a travesty. Apple can and does compete with making fonts look good by designing good fonts.

@4 A spy. That is just ridiculous. The man was on the Apple board officially. Also there is nothing in Android that was not already in some form or other in Linux distro's for years. It looks like a specialized linux desktop with java apps on top to me.
Show me one thing that Apple put in the iPhone that is really a new invention and did not exist in some form already. Also how is it that you are on a first name base with mr. Jobs?

@5 Well as a sysadmin I'm not happy then how they `rescued? CUPS. Its configuration is a nightmare, apart from absolute basics, and Mac cups clients are not even compatible with cups classes. Maybe now with snow leopard they finally are, but I already had to give the mac their own separate printer, there were so many problems.
Now there is a lot of open source software in OS X, so much that in fact it looks like a linux distro, with another kernel, display server and packaging system. But their own contributions are only a handful projects, and almost none are directly usable in Linux. Sun gave us openoffice, Java, opensolaris and lots of other stuff. IBM gave eclipse and numerous other softwares.
As a linux user and an iPod owner, it is a nightmare to copy music to my iPod, because Apple keeps changing the format only to _NOT_ be compatible with linux. And windows has iTunes, so why is linux singled out exactly? That is not good open source citizenship in my opinion.

@6 Exactly the other way around. I don't care a rats ass about their glossy, lickable exterior. I find it ugly and working on a mac, which I sometimes have to do, feels like being locked into an soft cell. What I admire about OS X is their application infrastructure: corevideo, coreaudio etc. Linux has a analogous thing for any of those part, but it is all unintegrated. And for every single part like coreaudio that Apple has, Linux has three or four competing projects. There needs to be a big get-together of Linux developers to design a single application framework for linux out of the best of the existing parts, and to fill in the missing links.

@7 If you mess around with your system the whole time, that is what you get. But if you just set it up once and only install the updates, it will keep running for months at a time. I only ever have problems with compiz crapping out from time to time. But them I simply restart it: compiz --replace, problem solved. I also have a mac book pro, but I installed karmic on it. I really cannot stand OS X. Also the GNU versions of the unix tools are way better than the BSD ones you have in OS X. The commercial software on Linux I never missed. I don't photoshop, but since Apple now is at war with Adobe, I would not be surprised if it is finally ported to Linux. I would hate it, but it would be a logical act of war for Adobe against Apple. Apart from games, I'm not sure what commercial software you could possibly miss on Linux.

[smitty3268]

They have never payed me yet I have to agree with him 100%. Frankly you are totally out of line here as you won't address what Apple has and is doing in the open source world.

Dude, stop drinking the Apple koolaid here. Go back and read my posts, not even once did I bring up the subject of open source or Apple's part in it. I was talking 100% about whether apple was friendly to developers, so stop trying to stick words in my mouth that I never said.

You are attempting here to defend Adobe against Apples effort to harm them, after all the disinterest Adobe has shown the Linux world. Way to go man. Frankly I support Apple 100% in the quest to marginalize and hopefully reduce Adobe to ashes. Yes I hate flash that much and even more hate Adobe for promoting it while doing little development and stabilization of the product.

Hey, if you hate Flash more than you hate Apple, I can't really hold that against you. Like I said, I hate Adobe too. I just think that the writing is already on the wall, and that flash is dying, soon to be dead. They aren't even important anymore - but Apple is dangerous, they're very powerful and becoming more so. So I'm frightened of Apple, and only disgusted by Adobe. Fear beats disgust, in this case.

As to Apple being open to developers I'm not sure how some of the opinions being expressed here are even possible. Apples development tools are open source, you can build your own compiler chain right now using to different code bases, can't do that with MS at all.

Please, as a developer myself, tell me why i should care about this at all. Who cares if I can recompile the compiler they use? What's not friendly is the way they treat developers, not their software or APIs. Which I'll admit, tends to be pretty good.

In the case of LLVM and associate tools, they are getting deployed in a number of projects outside of Apple. Apples contributions here are very significant and constantly dismissed with no good reason that I can see.

Dave

Like i said, I never made this argument so stop acting like i did.

[wizard69]

Again why are we defending ADOBE here?

But at least they were up front about it. The difference is that Apple waited until after Adobe spent millions to get their product running on the iPhone, and only then took away the rug right at the last moment. The issue is the capriciousness and the lack of hard rules. The fact that you might be selling something on the iPhone right now, only to suddenly have it taken away because some app reviewer changes their mind. With MS, you always know where you stand.

Lets face it Apple had to do something with ADOBE as they where doing more harm to the Mac platform than good. Yes this is a big club but sometimes you need a big club to drive home the fact that bad behavior won't be tolerated. Frankly I support Apple 100% here as they are doing what we as individuals couldn't accomplish, that is to get ADOBE to sit up and take notice that their product is crap.

The unfortunate side effect from the carpet bombing approach, that Apple is taking, is that some good technologies do get side tracked here. To be honest I don't think ADOBE was Apples only target, I'm just happy that ADOBE is being publicly roasted here and that the mentality of the management staff is shining through. I do think Apple wants to make sure its developer base is filled with professional programmers rather than crap flashware producers and frankly I support them again.



Dave

[wizard69]

Apple is hihgly justified in their handling of the Iphone SDK.

Wow. Just..... wow. Do you really believe the stuff you're spewing out right now? You mentioned apple used to pay you, is that actually still the case?

They have never payed me yet I have to agree with him 100%. Frankly you are totally out of line here as you won't address what Apple has and is doing in the open source world.

MS may try to keep people from copying their own products (yes, apple does this as well, and much more vigorously). But they have never once - please, try to give me an example here - declared that a company that has spent millions of dollars developing a product that they can't allow their users to run it on top of windows. Not once.

You are attempting here to defend Adobe against Apples effort to harm them, after all the disinterest Adobe has shown the Linux world. Way to go man. Frankly I support Apple 100% in the quest to marginalize and hopefully reduce Adobe to ashes. Yes I hate flash that much and even more hate Adobe for promoting it while doing little development and stabilization of the product.

I actually see this as Apple sticking up for the many users that have had to endure flash on the web for years now. You may not see it that way but Apple can have a far greater impact on Adobe than we as individuals can.

Heck, for my taste MS is even a little too developer friendly - i think the platform would be better if they didn't put such a priority on maintaining binary compatibility with decades old code, but I can see why a 3rd party developer might like it.

As to Apple being open to developers I'm not sure how some of the opinions being expressed here are even possible. Apples development tools are open source, you can build your own compiler chain right now using to different code bases, can't do that with MS at all. In the case of LLVM and associate tools, they are getting deployed in a number of projects outside of Apple. Apples contributions here are very significant and constantly dismissed with no good reason that I can see.

Dave

[wizard69]

You have no idea what you are talking about!

No, indeed it cannot be said that Apple is not staying within the bounds of the GPL or BSD licenses of software that they used as much of a base for OS X.

If they aren't, why don't you do something useful and get the Free software foundation to chase after them?

But they only give back what they absolutely must, not one iota more.

Now that is absolute garbage. Get off your dead ass and look around at what Apple does support, in some case extensively.

They do hurt open source software by overzealously defending their software patents, in my opinion. For instance the font hinting patents they have hinder the linux font engine to present good looking fonts, although I forgot what the issue exactly was.

Sorry but that is exactly what patents are for. They give you exclusive use of your inventions. It is an entirely different argument about the value of software patents but Apple really has little choice here if they want to compete commercially.

Something with cubic curves in fonts and also some patent having to do with font hinting. Also their legal steps against HTC are about trivial (non-)inventions that should not have be possible to patent in the first place. That lawsuit is seen by many as directed against google's android. Therefore it is a threat to linux and open source in general.

As to HTC I really think Apple has no choice here. Google basically had a spy on the board which directly impacted the design of Android, why do you think Steve is so damn hot abotu this subject?

So in short I think Apple is a bad open source 'citizen'. They take a lot, give little back, and have the bad form to not share their patents with the open source community they take so much code and talent from, and who ported so much software rooted in linux to OS X. Instead they sue (HTC) or threatened to sue (font issues).

First you are wrong, dreadfully wrong about Apple as an open source citizen they are involved in many projects some of which wouldn't be where they are today without Apples interest.

As to Apple patents they really have no choice here, they have to defend them or end up with nothing. Unfortunately you are a prime example of a person that doesn't understand the patent system.

On the other hand, they do make very good software, not particularly fast or complete, but so very well integrated.

Might that software be the result of technology that they developed or shepherd? You seem to see the gloss but not the underlying technology.

I have been watching the whole linux development, from kernel to the desktop environments and most of the major software packages. It is all so disorganized and duplicated efforts. Only look to the situation with sound to understand what I mean.
There is a clear advantage to having a person like Steve Jobs in charge. The anarchy in the linux world that is our strength is also our biggest weakness.

The single biggest thing that drove me to a MBP is that churn that Linux has. YOu basically had to reinstall every six months or slow watch your system become unusable as various piece of software became unsupported on you system. Well that and the attraction of commercial software that just isn't right on Linux.

What is especially handy is that I don't end up missing much on Mac OS/X as it is UNIX underneath. As such it will run anything I can get to build on it.

Dave

[wizard69]

I think you are missing a few points that would change your opinion.

In the past i simply didn't care about Apple. It wasn't my choice, i prefered Linux for my work and Windows for some games and i never considered Apple products because i couldn't work effectively on them, since i am no designer, and i couldn't play on them except specific titles.

I was a long time Linux user on the desktop. However I've seen the light in Mac OS/X. that mostly due to the fact that some things jut need a more commercial bent to work well.

But i have began to hate this company and actively trying to harm it recently. My reasons are not about fanboism, my reasons are purely logical.

Actually your reasons are full of emotion and a lack of facts.

1) Apple is a purely marketing company. They have created a cult of followers who will not only buy anything on day 1 just because they have an apple logo, but will spam forums, blogs, IRC, IM web sites promoting these products to others.

Actually I agree with you here there are a lot of idiots that will do as you describe above. I don't think I fall into that category, rather I got a MBP after a lot of knocks in the open source / Linux world.

These people overlook Apple's disadvantages, rationalize lack of features, and justify paying premium price for lesser products. This hurts us as consumers. In many ways, which i will not explain now.

Disadvantages? What platform doesn't have a few? Seriously; besides the only features that matter are the ones you use. What is worst than having features you don't need or are half bakes for the marketing department.

As to consumers Apple doesn't hurt anybody at all, they are the ONLY practical commercial choice versus a Microsoft based product. It isn't like I don't want Linux to succeed but they aren't getting the adoption rate by the average consumer to be considered an even remote player on the desktop. So what is it that you want zero choice for the consumer?

2) It is clear to me that Apple bribes certain "journalists" and certain people to post in forums/sites/blogs as "users". Of course this practice is not specific to Apple, many big companies do PR in this way. But Apple has crossed the line.

Where is your evidence? Apple innovates and people go gaga, is this a surprise? Does Apple put a lot of effort into marketing and hype, they certainly do and frankly have little choice considering the size of MicroSoft. In any event before you put into print allegations such as these you really need sound proof.

3) Apple is a closed ecosystem, unfriendly to developers like myself. And bad for the industry in general.

Now you sound like a MicroSoft employee. Considering the effort Apple has put into tools like GCC, LLVM, CLang, Ruby and others they could hardly be considered a closed ecosystem. That is just development tools, ask your self who supports CUPS and other things your Linux distro depends upon. I don't expect Apple to give away the keys to the castle but they support far more open source software than you seem to want to give them credit for.

In the context of WebKit they have done an excellent job of moving a stagnate project forward in a dramatic manner. Not only have they moved it forward they increased adoption across a wide number of platforms to the point that it is now being reincorporated into Linux distros. Of course they didn't write the patches for Linux as it isn't their OS, but fortunately there is enough Linux side interest that WebKit is tracking very well there.

Besides what could be better for Linux than a web browser kit that is highly compliant with standards and deployed on a wide variety of platforms? WebKit on Linux greatly increases the likely hood that linux browsers and other tools will be compatible with the wide variety of platforms that have adopted WebKit.

4)Apple only cares about flash and no substance.

Actually Apple hates flash

OK so Apple is aggressive and verbose with its marketing, this is no big deal as you need that noise when your nearest competitor has 92% of the market. But to say they have no substance is simply ignorant and discounts the continual innovation coming out of Apple.

It may drive the design barrier but makes people ask for less tech. Sites like Arstechnica reviewed recently the iPad and they had the nerve to say that lack of multitasking is a relief and it makes their lives easier, only to celebrate a few days later for the upcoming addition of multitasking as a great evolution of Apple software...

Funny but you seem to mis the number one issue with iPad that almost all the tech sites have also glossed over, that is the lack of RAM on the damn thing. The fact is iPad isn't a platform for multitasking at all. It might work in some contexts but it is not going to be pleasant on a machine that has far less that 130 MB available for user programs. When it comes to the iPad multitasking is the least of my worries.

5) I am a tech guy, and tech is all i care.

I actually kind of doubt the above, because if it where true your opinion would be drastically different.

I am no fanboi of a company, but i want the best product to win every time, in order to create competition and improve the tech overall. Apple's efforts hinder that.

You really need to explain that one as everybody is in hot pursuit of Apples iPad right now. HP emulated many of their laptops down to the last millimeter. Further MS copies key elements of their OS. Lastly Google had a spy on the board and launched Android to compete with what Apple was building. so what has Apple hindered here, indeed they have done just the opposite and created an environment that encourages innovation to compete with them.

In the context of iPad it is the first product to the market place but Apple has done some things there that will leave them open to aggressive competition. It would be easy now for the likes of HP or Google to come out with a more featured balanced products. Well hardware wise it would be but Android is still a long ways from competing with the Iphone user interface.

In any event I really would like ot know what twisted bit of logic lead to those last couple of sentences?

Dave

[perpetualrabbit]

There are three issues I have with your reasoning. The first is that you are talking about patents in general terms without making any distinction between fields. The second is your point about the fact that knowledge builds up upon past concepts. The third is that I don't quite understand your concept of "ideas".

Let's see. Imagine that somebody gets a patent for some chemical process of some sort, let's say to produce some product in an innovative way which offers better yields, avoids the use of some nasty reagents or whatever. The amount of work to do this is huge--certainly worth several years and usually involving at least one PhD or post-doc to do the actual hands-on stuff. The costs in tems of equipment, materials, lab space and grants/salaries are quite big. With this in mind, I don't think it would be fair to let the guys from the company next door implement this work without the original authors being rewarded for their effort. I'm all for University-business links, but not for the siphoning of public money into private hands, but I digress. Perhaps if you imagine an example where the authors of the patent belong to a start-up company you are more likely to agree with me. As I see it, the key point is that patents covering physical things are granted to extremely complex inventions that were only achieved by putting an enourmous amount of work and resources on them. A temporal monopoly for the exploitation of these inventions can actually be an incentive for their production. This is not the case of patenting "touchpad gestures", "one-click pay" or some other nonsense like that.

Next, it's true, although irrelevant, that in order to get to the point where you can patent something, you are using massive amounts of accumulated knowledge. Of course, we all give for granted that we are "resting on the shoulders of giants". This doesn't make new inventions or discoveries any less valuable, ingenious or respect worthy, and again, depending on what they consist and the amount of work needed to produce them it may be on the general interest to grant some temporal protection to their authors. Sure, in the example above, the authors would be using anything from basic chemistry to quantum mechanics to produce their new process. I don't see why this obvious fact changes anything.

Lastly, I don't get your notion of new "ideas" as something somebody can have while having a shower or cooking, as simple concepts that can be readily encapsulated in a couple of sentences and be shown to the world. While there may be something remotely resembling this, I can't think of any example. I believe, instead, that any new "idea" worth a patent is going to be fairly complex, and probably involving not just one "idea" or step, but several of them combined together to generate something valuable. The exception again, of course, being certain software patents, which are simply ridiculous. Perhaps this is just a question of language, I just don't see what is gained by making any distinction between the "original spark" or "idea" and the whole process involved in developing something new that can be commercially exploitable.

Now, irrespective of how much work, time and money was needed to produce, say, a patentable biotech discovery, I do think that the profits of the likes of Monsanto are not above the general well-being of millions of people. If the absence or deliverate infringement of patents in this field means that a lot of private research will be never carried out, then the public is to fund it for the common good. This kind of objection is completely different to the ones against software patents, and putting them on the same level doesn't sound right to me.

@first: I don't like patents in general, but yes patents are less nonsensical in your example than in the software world. There certainly is a scale. Also I agree that NOT having patent brings a lot of problems too. But I think they are smaller. People have lived and invented thing for thousands of years before patents existed. At the very least, because of the much quicker turnaround of technologies, patents should be much shorter. Also, once India, China and other emerging countries get more powerful, do you think they will bound themselves to largely American patents? China does not even respect copyright, I certainly don't think they will respect patents. In that respect I think interesting times are ahead for the WTO. So patents are also not very sensible in a global perpective, because you can only really enforce them by blocking products from countries that don't respect them, and that leads to trade wars.
So if patents were abolished (not going to happen of course) things would be shaken up considerably but in the end I think inventions (also big complex ones) will still happen and people and companies will find ways to make money from them. Also, in retort to your example, I wonder how much public money going to university pharmaceutical departments and university hospitals ends up in private companies holding patents? How much of the research those companies claim is so expensive is actually done by universities? I suspect a lot. The whole patent business is a Gordian knot and I am very much for the simplest and radical solution: cut the knot, abolish patents. In the end, I think it will be for the best.

Anyway, we seem to agree that trivial things should never be patentable and I would classify all of the things in Apples recent lawsuits as such. If you don't agree with that last point, do you think that if Apple looses this patent suit, will they still be able to make lots of money making i{Phones,Pods,Pads,Otherstuff}?

@second: The fact that all ideas are based upon others does not invalidate a new idea, I completely agree. I mentioned it in this thread because the Apple apologists tend to attribute the whole mountain to Apple, not just the final rocks on top. So I think it needs saying regularly, to curb the boundless arrogance of the Apple followers. Although it may not be entirely relevant.

But more generally, as someone who regularly reads texts on quantum mechanics and other advanced stuff, and tries to reads papers from time to time I think that the level of complexity and effort what is freely published in scientific papers and books greatly exceeds most patents. The world of science and technology is so advanced in general, and there are such mountains of free knowledge that I just don't see how you can really prove that a given patent is not prior art. Or why you are allowed to fence off a part of idea space while such large expanses of it are free. In practice, given the poor quality of patents granted by USPTO, it turns out that a big portion of them are in fact not valid, or would be if challenged. Which again
prompts me to think that just abolishing them is the best way to solve the whole problem.

@last: Anyone can learn to paint, or play music to some extent. It is not that difficult, and practice and hard work is all you need, and of course talented people will learn it much quicker. That however does not mean that anyone can be a good painter or an original musician.
The creative spark is what makes a difference between a great song (say: Hello Earth by Kate Bush) and a collection of notes executed by a capable musician.
I think inventions are like that, without the hard work and many false turns you have nothing, but you absolutely need that first idea. A lot of discoveries are also done by accident of course, but you still need to recognize it as such. Like the Bresenham algorithm for circles was found by accidently swapping two variables in the original algorithm.

As a vaguely religiously inclined person I think that all ideas originate in the soul, or with God or whatever. They are not property at all. They may have a purpose, I like to think for the betterment of the world or mankind. But we invented nerve gas an bio weapons too, so before you say that conflicts with my idea of the "sparks of ideas" coming from God: I said that I'm only _vaguely_ religiously inclined and I belief in a God (or First Cause or whatever) who is neither good nor bad. It just Is, and evolution in nature and ideas that pop up in humans are both expressions of its ongoing creation. We have free will to do anything and in the current world I think that patents, like borders around countries, have outlived their usefulness.