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Apple Pulls Public Mac OS 10.4.8 Source? [Updated]

Apple appears to have pulled the publicly accessible Mac OS 10.4.8 Source Code (Darwin, the open-source foundation of OS X, and XNU, Darwin's open-source kernel), leaving only developers with ADC log-ins with access to the code (public link, ADC link)

Earlier this week, the OSx86 project released a version of the 10.4.8 kernel that was hailed to be 100% legal according to the APSL and run on any x86 machine.
Prior to this release, Apple's code would only run on Apple's hardware due to various dependencies (such as EFI).

While the released code from OSx86 can run under single-user mode on any x86 machine, it will not boot up into Apple's familiar OS X Aqua interface without Apple's TPM keys which are illegal to distribute (but are reportedly floating around the internet).

The circumstances are reminiscent of when Apple previously stopped releasing the Intel version of the Mac OS X kernel, which some had concluded was due to piracy concerns. Apple finally released the source at WWDC along with an apology for the delay, but did not give an explanation.

Update (moved to page 2): Certain aspects of the story, i.e. the points regarding the history and what exactly happened with the Darwin/XNU source, have been called into doubt.

Kernel coder Semthex made the above claims on his blog, but MacRumors forum member shawnce has called the claims into doubt in this story's thread.

The end-fact that Apple's source does not appear to be publicly accessible does not appear to be in dispute, but rather questions have arisen as to whether it was ever publicly accessible (publicly accessible as defined by not requiring registration with Apple. The source is still free).

Top Rated Comments

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69 months ago
That's hardly surprising. I'm more interested in the 100% legal bit - it's interesting that Apple hasn't yet moved to explicitly ban running OS X on non-Apple hardware.
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69 months ago
The thin veneer is off the vast majority of people that clamor for OSS.

Whenever I hear the OSS crowd scream "Software should be FREE!" I translate that to mean "I refuse to pay someone for their work, thus I will STEAL it"!

I don't blame Apple. The OSS community abused what they had and turned to piracy by stealing the GUI. Kudos Apple.
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69 months ago
well i really don't blame Apple on this. with the piracy around and all
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69 months ago
They might just end up releasing the source a version later so hackers intent on spreading the latest and greatest simply can't - whilst still providing the code for legitimate uses.

Just out of interest - What do people actually do with this source? I mean, are there other operating systems based on it? Or is it useful for OS X developers so they can refine their code to integrate with OS X? Forgive my ignorance, just wondering.
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69 months ago
Logic Pro 7 has yet to be cracked, so Apple has people who know how to do copyright protection. I suspect Leopard will employ very strong TPM integration compared to Tiger.
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69 months ago

That's hardly surprising. I'm more interested in the 100% legal bit - it's interesting that Apple hasn't yet moved to explicitly ban running OS X on non-Apple hardware.


It's not necessarily illegal to run Darwin on non-Apple hardware, which is much of the goals of the OSx86 project. The source as it comes from Apple will only run on Apple hardware mainly due to EFI and some other stuff. The GUI is what seems to be so tied to the TPM circuitry, which is what OSx86 is NOT touching and why they say it's still legal.
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69 months ago
Well, I only have the free online ADC account, but I can still access the source of the kernel. How can it be called as 'pulling' the code ?
In the end, anyone interested can still see the code, without paying even a dime.
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69 months ago
Actually, Apple has never gotten around to posting the 10.4.8 sources on their Darwin web page. The involved found it on an intermediate page that has all recent stuff and allows html directory list (normally disabled).

Nothing has changed for 3 weeks.
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69 months ago

I don't blame Apple. The OSS community abused what they had and turned to piracy by stealing the GUI. Kudos Apple.


Now that's a stupid thing to say. The OSS community doesnt steal the GUI, the warez community does. And those two really don't overlap much.

It is true, though, that everyone might use the work of the OSS community, even for illegal purposes.
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69 months ago

Whenever I hear the OSS crowd scream "Software should be FREE!" I translate that to mean "I refuse to pay someone for their work, thus I will STEAL it"!


You have no idea what "free" means, do you? Free software has absolutely nothing to do with the money you pay to obtain it. Commercial software that you would pay thousands of dollars for can be a perfectly good example of "free" software.
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