[ggm]

I want this. I dislike depending on rosetta. I want native, and I am saddened that Apple didn't reach out to homebrew or macports to pre-arrange something. It speaks badly of the future, they're so indifferent to the developer experience.

I downvoted your comment. I think this article is spot on for HN, and I think you showed a lack of critical self-awareness questioning its relevance.

[robertoandred]

I am saddened you didn’t watch wwdc: https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1275177255681982464?s=2...

[saagarjha]

What Apple claims to have done and what Apple actually does are two very different things. Apple has reached out to some projects with various levels of support, but it's not like they just dropped by all of those projects with patches on the day of WWDC.

[coldtea]

>but it's not like they just dropped by all of those projects with patches on the day of WWDC.

Apple had their own stuff to develop, including a new architecture, a new OS version for 2 architectures, ports of all their apps, and several other stuff besides, including the UNIX userland they ship.

The idea that a company should be responsible for all third party FOSS stuff on its platform, used by a small minority of users, is a little strange...

That said, a MacPorts guy below says that "Apple engineers had patches for basic support ready fairly quickly".

Not to mention:

https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1275177255681982464?s=2...

[saagarjha]

> a MacPorts guy below says that "Apple engineers had patches for basic support ready fairly quickly"

That would be me, who is not really a MacPorts guy…

> https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1275177255681982464

…and this is the link I replied to ;)

I'm not claiming they should have done anything. I was actually pleasantly surprised when they said they would. I'm just saying that they didn't show up with all the fixes as some may have believed from what Apple said during WWDC.

[coldtea]

>That would be me, who is not really a MacPorts guy…

Lol, missed that. Rarely pay attention to who I'm responding to, just what they wrote :-)

[saagarjha]

A rather unfortunate side effect of deemphasizing the author of the content ;)

[pjmlp]

If you want native, then just use the underlying UNIX provided by macOS, no need to add extra stuff.

I never bothered with these alternative eco-systems.

[simonh]

How on earth is distributing common Unix tools for MacOS that aren't included in the base OS not "using the underlying UNIX". This is exactly what Unix was designed to enable. Apple understand and values this, which is why they have submitted patches for these projects.

[pjmlp]

Most of the stuff happen to be GNU/Linux replacements for what macOS already provides.

[simonh]

I could quibble with the "Most of" part, most of it is stuff you don't get in MacOS at all, but that aside so what?

This isn't really about alternative ecosystems, it's about complementary ecosystems. There are a lot of people that use MacOS desktops alongside Linux or other Unix machines. For these people having a common set of tools that work the same, so you can use the same command lines and scripts across multiple platforms, is incredibly useful.

[coldtea]

That means you had time to spare to manually compile all kinds of stuff.

Other's don't.

[pjmlp]

Nope, I just use the UNIX provided in the macOS box.

[Ensorceled]

What do you think people use Homebrew for? brew list gives me mailhog, mysql, postgresql, newer python, newer ruby, macvim, node, redis, ... these aren't IN the "UNIX provided in the macOS box".

[coldtea]

I think he means that he uses Mac for Mac-y stuff (XCode, Apple and proprietary apps, etc) and Linux for the rest that you've mentioned.

But, to paraphrase Big Lebowski, "that's like, his preference, man".

[Ensorceled]

Yeah, I figured out he wasn't using Mac for general development ... too late.

[coldtea]

Well, that means you just use basic userland tools. Nice if that's all you need, others need more.

[pjmlp]

Nope that means I care about Apple platforms and UNIX, not pretty replacements for GNU/Linux.

[coldtea]

Not sure what you mean.

As if some self-imposed UNIX/POSIX austerity, making do with the basic (and old) UNIX userland that comes with macOS (or other platforms), is something to be lauded?

(As opposed to just an example of someone making do with the little they need, where others' mileage may vary?)

Or is needing some of the tons of programs that don't come with "Apple platforms and their UNIX" (e.g. some random stuff I use: gnuplot, ripgrep, redis, postgres, jq, graphviz, and tons of different things others might want) somehow problematic?

Not even sure where Apple platforms and UNIX come into play as something to be contrasted to "replacements for GNU/Linux".

One of the benefits of macOS is precisely that as a UNIX it can run all kinds of UNIX tools, not just the basic POSIX utils, but close to everything available in a Linux/FreeBSD/etc package manager...

[valuearb]

Homebrew and Macports maintainers could have easily reached out to Apple and gotten free DTKs to port with, just like thousands of other developers.

But the truth is that XCode built software is far more important to Mac users and that’s where Apples focus was. Homebrew users are less than 1% of their installed base.

The other truth is the M1 hadn’t been important to Homebrew maintainers. At least not yet.

[Wowfunhappy]

On the MacPorts side, I know that at least Saagar Jha (who posts on HN often) did indeed have a DTK. Perhaps consequently (?), MacPorts does support ARM right now.

[saagarjha]

I have very little to do with MacPorts's ARM support, I'm not even a maintainer ;) Most of that infrastructure was already there from the PowerPC→Intel transition, and Apple engineers had patches for basic support ready fairly quickly. I worked a little bit on early support for some heavily-depended-on packages, but I wasn't really directly involved in the effort.

[Wowfunhappy]

Whooops! I only mentioned you because I remembered you were listed on MacPorts's website until recently, as a contact for "Apple DTK issues" or something like that.

[saagarjha]

Ah, I remember adding myself to that page because I was trying to see if there was anyone else with one to help. The actual team is here: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsDevelopers

[ricketycricket]

DTKs were $500 USD, not free.

[armadsen]

I think he's suggesting that Apple would have donated them to Homebrew and MacPorts if they had asked. Seems extremely doubtful to me...

[callahad]

Apple offered free remote access to DTKs for open source developers, in cooperation with MacStadium.

Cite: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/3853#issuecomment-678249...

[mikemcquaid]

Apple did donate them to Homebrew without us asking. When we asked for more: they donated more.

[coldtea]

What's "doubtful"? Apple has done similar things in the past...