[objclxt]

> defined as Apple, you know the company with the most popular open source operating system in the world?

I'm not sure which OS you're talking about...perhaps you could point me to the source code of either OS X or iOS? Certain core components of OS X are open source, but Darwin isn't OS X.

As someone who makes his living from writing Objective-C code, I don't have any ideological objection to Apple. But I think you shouldn't accuse people of spreading "lies and engineering ignorance" when you seem to be claiming something that's patently untrue.

[hosay123]

Perhaps you didn't experience the PR storm around the time OS X was initially released: it was heavily geared towards nerds and the literal phrase "open source" was extensively employed in their marketing material.

This aside, you're basically trying to write off nirvana's (IMHO excellent) rant using a minor technicality, one of the common features of the discussions here that tends to make my skin crawl.

[naner]

you're basically trying to write off nirvana's (IMHO excellent) rant using a minor technicality

He's not trying to write anything off and it is a pretty big technicality. nirvana should have omitted that ideological jab to begin with as it was unnecessary and shows his bias for Apple/against Google. Google is more "open source" than Apple in any way that matters, considering Android is currently on devices their competitors (Amazon) are selling. Apple is mostly responsible for WebKit which is commendable and useful but as far as practical considerations go, nobody gives two shits about Darwin.

But yes, engineering should be the focus and people assume the worst with Apple.

[rustynails77]

>But yes, engineering should be the focus and people assume the worst with Apple.

Some people sometimes assume the worst of Apple, or Microsoft or Google, or [insert name of company here]. One of the things that can cause strong anti-Apple sentiment are the rabid fanboys (ie. postings like Nirvana's). They paint Apple to be patron saints - and when reality hits (like it did for me with antenna-gate), users are annoyed because of the unrealistic expectations, but also because of the RDF created by Fanboys. For the record, I think Apple have shown the phone industry a thing or two about engineering excellent products while maintaining a strong focus and excellent compromises. I just wish the rabid Fanboys would shut up, or present a balanced view ... it would make Apple a lot easier to respect.

[dasil003]

I would tend to agree wrt HN nitpicking except in this case nirvana is presenting himself as the paragon of objectivity setting the story straight against the unwashed rabble of knee-jerk Apple haters, when in fact he is nowhere near objective when it comes to Apple, and shooting ignorant fish in a barrel is not good enough to validate his points. He needs to be held to a higher standard.

[nier]

The technicality being that Darwin seizes to be an open source operating system once it is shipped with closed source components. Why would this be true?

[hosay123]

OK here we go, and why not, after all it's Sunday and I've got nothing better to do.. right?

The central tenet was that discourse here is regularly devoid of sound engineering because it tends to be blinded by mindless cultural perceptions of the companies involved in whatever happens to be under discussion. In the case of Apple the expectation is their products are flawless and if not then all hell will be paid on blogs and comment sections everywhere.

Whether or not Darwin is or isn't open source doesn't freaking matter, it was heavily marketed as such back in the sands of time and even if this wasn't the case it doesn't invalidate the central point made in the rant - that just because this device has an Apple logo every popular discussion surrounding it turns to mindless diatribe as a result of non-engineering centric expectations people place on their products, and every engineering-centric party (i.e. hackers) must deal with the whining polluting engineering-centric forums for days every time it happens.

In effect, the complaint is that commenting resembles the squabble of a throng of uninformed consumers rather than the judicious discourse of a forum of engineers.

[jfb]

While I agree that there is precious little interesting technical discussion on HN, engineering is an ideological discipline, just like anything else.

[pifflesnort]

I don't agree that engineering is necessarily and solely a cargo cult discipline. We have math, we have observable and repeatable experiments.

[erichocean]

The technicality being that Darwin seizes [sic] to be an open source operating system once it is shipped with closed source components.

GNU/Linux is therefore cough nVidia cough completely, 100% open. Thanks for clearing that up. Darwin sux!1!

/sarc

[pohl]

"...Darwin isn't OS X".

Ok, but Darwin is the operating system.

I remember back in the early days – from Mach on black hardware through Openstep on 4 different architectures – the folks from NeXT were always very careful to use the phrase "system software" when referring to the whole thing and only using the phrase "operating system" when referring to the layer that supports basic functions like scheduling tasks, invoking user-space code, and controlling peripherals.

This is one of the things I appreciated of them back then, as they were respectful of the nomenclature actually used in computer science.

Now I realize that the phrase "operating system" commonly receives slight colloquial abuse to refer to everything inside the shrinkwrap, but I think the formal meaning hasn't completely died yet, so nirvana should be allowed to use it properly if he so desires.

[YooLi]

Darwin is the operating system. Trying to point out that the whole system stack is considered not open source because the windowing system isn't open has nothing to do with it. Does my Ubuntu system become not open source when I use the binary nvidia drivers?