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Open Source Discussion


u1m2
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There is this debate going frequently on in the forums as many of you probably have noticed. Some people (incl. myself) claim that all progress on the drivers etc... should be open source as there might always be talented people interested in helping out with the project. Others argue that open source will not help the progress in any way since writing the driver is so complex that the forum is not the right place to find people to help with the drivers. I disagree with this from what I have seen so far because I have seen many people (with or without decent programming experience) make very important contributions to the osx86 project in general.

 

The case might be different with drivers being so complicated and etc... but what if there are people who are experienced enough to understand the code yet know little about graphics drivers in general, who might learn a lot from the open source drivers to ultimately contribute back to the project. Isn't that the idea behind open source anyway, so that people understand the code and at some point take the code further?

 

Anyway, this is just my two cents so if you would like to add to the discussion please do so intelligently. I don't want to read baseless arguments like "it's their code so stfu" because it doesn't clarify why closed source is advantageous, it is just bitching...

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While I am an open-source type of person, I believe that it is probably better to keep it closed source. My reasoning behind that is Apple could possibly find a way to stop our custom drivers from working. With a closed source, they could still do it, but I think it would take longer for them to find a way to block it. I could be wrong, but it seems logical to me.

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That has been Omni's argument for keeping his driver source code closed. However, I am not convinced that is the best way to go. It seems clear to me that the real problem facing the OSx86Community is a lack of serious development effort, not the mere possibility of Apple's misuse of source code.

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and if more people learn, the better quality drivers we might have... at some point I believe the drivers will eventually become open source. I truly don't believe in some conspiracy theory resulting in price tags for drivers. Hell, if there were such a market for 10$ drivers Apple would be selling them to us already :)

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