On 28/07/06, Christian Brunschen <cb@[...].se>  wrote:
>  Even if Apple were to announce (and I'm just making wild suggestions
>  here, not saying that this is possible or plausible) that they have
>  been working internally on an improved, unified Darwin codebase for
>  Leopard, and are now releasing it as Open Source, buildable for ppc
>  and x86 architectures form a single codebase? And that as part of a
>  concerted push, they are going to be actively working with open-
>  source developers to get drivers for various hardware working, and to
>  help people build replacement Mac OS X kernels from the Darwin codebase?

Many people have lived for years with some sort of blind optimism that
things would improve. They have gradually had enough, given up and
left. No offence, but if you care so much about OpenDarwin, perhaps
you should have stepped up to the plate to offer some of your time and
effort to maintaining it. Those that have been doing the thankless job
for a long period of time have had enough.

>  > You can't make up 6 years of regression and
>  > distrust at one event.
> 
>  Perhaps not; but one single event might _start_ to heal things, which
>  might thus at least postpone the decision to close down the project.

It's too late for that. It really isn't fair to try and maintain
things in a state of limbo indefinitely.

>  > Given that this is the first WWDC that does
>  > not have an Open Source Feedback Forum since 2000, that can be taken
>  > as an indication of Apple's desire for communication on the subject.
> 
>  On the other hand, WWDC this year has _50_ sessions 'to be
>  announced', which is more than last year's 30, for instance; and _if_
>  there were to be a big shift in strategy regarding Open Source, that
>  might be precisely one of the things to keep hidden until the last
>  possible moment.

There have been no indications that this will happen. Again, no
offence, but the people who made this decision have probably been
following Apple's interactions with the open source community and the
status of OpenDarwin for far longer than you have. There are a lot of
problems which might not be immediately obvious if you haven't been
involved directly.

>  I don't see how the entire OpenDarwin project can be considered a
>  failure - parts of it have indeed failed to materialise, but in the
>  mean time OpenDarwin has become host to a number of related and quite
>  successful projects (DarwinPorts, Darwine, WebKit, etc). It seems to
>  me that closing down opendarwin.org entirely is a bit of let-down
>  towards those projects.

It has become increasingly clear that OpenDarwin is unable to provide
the infrastructural services required to those projects. There appears
to be a great deal of resentment harboured by the WebKit project
towards OpenDarwin's system administrators. Darwine has been using
SourceForge fairly heavily for a long time.

The only casualty is DarwinPorts, but I'm sure it won't be terribly
hard for them to find another host (SF, Google Code, etc).

>  If someone were to step up and offer to take over the reins, so to
>  speak, would the OpenDarwin core team be willing to let them?

Many have tried and failed.

 -- Finlay
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