> But with how Apple operates, it's really hard to believe they'd pull downstream from something they don't have some kind of soft power over. They do still pull downstream AFAIK? Maybe that's changed?
Apple doesn't merge often. They basically haven't merged kernel tcp since 2002. When I started using OSX in 2011, they hadn't merged userland for several years, and when I stopped in 2019, they had only merged once.
They famously stopped picking up bash when upstream changed the license, and most of the FreeBSD userland doesn't change that frequently, so most things you wouldn't notice a difference. cal(1) started highlighting the current day at some point, tar probably grew new compresion arguments, etc.
Apple certainly was a major contributor/driving force/etc of LLVM for a while, not sure if they still are? And LLVM was adopted by FreeBSD, so maybe that's where this idea is coming from?
> And LLVM was adopted by FreeBSD, so maybe that's where this idea is coming from?
Partially, but after seeing the Jordan Hubbard connection, there's a lot of layers to this. May have reinforced my biases, but it's definitely non-trivial according to my hippie-tier anarchist baseline. Oops. Worst case scenario of answering your own question.
But your reply does give me actually contradicting evidence. It wouldn't surprise me that distance has grown to the point of total atrophy, given the general trajectory Apple has been on since 2012 or so. This is why I ask these questions, because the people on the ground give the most informative answers.
As Ptahhotep advises circa ~2300BCE:
> Fine words are more sought after than greenstone, but can be found with the women at the grindstone.
> May have reinforced my biases, but it's definitely non-trivial according to my hippie-tier anarchist baseline.
The definition of 'trivial' would come into play yes. I would only consider it non-trivial if a commercial party can (and does) influence the direction of development. I don't think Apple does so. Even Netflix. In the Linux world there's billions of investment and many contributors are directly employed by big business. The waters are much murkier there.
Again, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just not something I want which is one of the reasons I picked FreeBSD. Other reasons were the great ports collection, the division between OS and apps (you can have rolling apps but a stable OS), the traditionalism (only change things if it's really needed) and the single main flavour of the OS which makes support much easier. Also the excellent documentation.
Apple doesn't merge often. They basically haven't merged kernel tcp since 2002. When I started using OSX in 2011, they hadn't merged userland for several years, and when I stopped in 2019, they had only merged once.
They famously stopped picking up bash when upstream changed the license, and most of the FreeBSD userland doesn't change that frequently, so most things you wouldn't notice a difference. cal(1) started highlighting the current day at some point, tar probably grew new compresion arguments, etc.
Apple certainly was a major contributor/driving force/etc of LLVM for a while, not sure if they still are? And LLVM was adopted by FreeBSD, so maybe that's where this idea is coming from?