[OpenIndiana-discuss] Some opt to open their systems while others don't

[Nikola M]

On 10/ 1/17 10:03 AM, Jerry Kemp wrote:
> I don't believe that this page is anything new.
>
> OS X has been open since the beginning, with the exclusion of their 
> "Aqua" GUI, or what ever it is currently called.

Yes, open source core of Apple's OS is called Darwin and were published 
regularly by Apple all these years. Darwin had some open distributions, 
but they couldn't be fully compatible with OSX/MacOS because of those 
proprietary GUI libraries etc.
I wonder what is new here, since Apple publish it in open (while adding 
their proprietary parts when making a producst) for quite some time.. Ah 
yes, their core of ARM OSes is now open as well..

Even it created success and big income for the company, I think that 
proprietary/one hardware producer combination does not work on market 
anymore.
Yeah, some of their products are great, yet always overpriced and in 
Europe. Apple, since it's beginning, lacked with support, availability, 
prices and market philosophy and any real presence worth mentioning.

Last time I got excited about any Apple product is when they still had 
rainbow-apple logos on their cases. :) .. and that was the time before 
multimedia PCs and free software operating systems.
My first OS on internet was Linux with X and Netscape in 1995/6 and 
since then I knew how much everything proprietary basically does not 
need a reason to exist.

While Microsoft killed Nokia and let go the brand and hardware business 
to the other company, for the next 10 years, and violently killed open 
source Symbian project as their strategic move to kill opponents, now 
Windows phone is killed by Microsoft (by as soon as 2018)
So controlling platform tightly and keep it proprietary, is more the way 
to the abyss then to the bright future of any product, software or 
hardware one.

About free vs proprietary, Openindiana/illumos currently uses Nvidia 
proprieatary drivers for desktop graphics cards and even they funcion 
great and Nvidia have probably best long term proprietary driver 
support, AMD lacks same level of commitment , but AMD now have open 
source drivers that could be supported and maintained by illumos 
community, so more effort and people is needed on making them work..

Maybe real reaction on this is: Any volunteers to continue porting of 
illumos to ARM? :)