MacOS X goes proprietary

[mdlbear]

Macworld UK - Apple closes down OS X

Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code. Stripped of openness, it no longer possesses the quality that elevated Linux to its status as the second most popular commercial OS.

...thereby demonstrating the reason why Apple picked the BSD license for Darwin, and the reason why Linux, with the GPL, remains open.

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I suspect they're protecting DRM technology, probably at the request of the big content companies; these days Apple is more of a broadcaster than a computer company. However, it's possible they'll reopen it; let's not panic too quickly.

[mdlbear]

That, or trying to prevent people from running it on commodity hardware.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

It will probably run on commodity hardware so long as that hardware has a TPM chip with its unique "mark of the beast" private key embedded in it. So called "Premium Content" seems to require strong authentication and recovability (weasel-speak for content locked onto explicit machines and they control how often you can watch/play it), all made easier by the TPM.

[mdlbear]

Except that the stuff they're DRM-protecting includes the UI. Apple's business model depends on selling the only hardware that MacOS runs on.