more on next obvious question

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <shap () eros-os org>
Date: June 6, 2005 4:11:44 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Ip ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] next obvious question


On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 15:31 -0400, David Farber wrote:

> What will Apple do to stop me from using the Apple enviroment on  say
> a  ultralight Sony [or similar].

The developer kit released today is based on the Pentium 4. Until this
was clear we didn't know *which* Intel processor was under discussion.

Here are the technical impediments to running OS X on generic PC's:

1. Drivers. Hundreds of thousands of drivers.
2. Application binary compatibility.

The second one we have already discussed, so let me address the first:

1. Apple selects the devices that it wishes to support in a first-class
way. I.e. the ones that exist on apple machines.

2. *If* apple wants to support the OS on third-party machines, they make
interfaces available that enable third-party drivers, such as the
existing Linux drivers, to be ported to their OS. The existing OS is
BSD-based. It would be very feasible to add a binary module loading
interface that would allow existing linux drivers to be executed
**without raising any licensing problems.**

There are several graduate students I know who could do this whether
Apple wants to or not.

However, there are statements circulating that Apple does not wish to
support this usage, and has no plans to do so.

If I wanted to *prevent* this behavior, it's very very easy. I take
advantage of the DRM technology on the latest generation of Pentiums to
ensure that the OS only runs successfully on machines shipped by Apple.

shap



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