So Google’s admitted that Android is not open source. Some parts are, some parts are not. That’s the same with iOS. Many parts of iOS are from open source projects (I’ll mention cups, the printer stack on many Linux systems, that is very much supported by Apple, even though it’s GPL). Heck, even Microsoft Windows has components from open source projects (the ftp client being my favourite example). To me, it’s not so much about these projects being open source, as what do they give back to the open source projects.

The kernel and userland of both OS X and iOS is based on various BSD systems, I believe for the most part FreeBSD, and put into their own BSD system called Darwin. Darwin is open source and under the BSD license. Now, I’m sure Apple makes many changes that are so specific for their use and their scenarios that you don’t necessarily want these changes committed back as they may be a diversion from the project rather than something that’s good for the project. However, I’m sure they make great improvements to the OS, and for me the real benchmark of their openness is how fast these changes flow back to the originating changes and thus become a benefit for all parts. Unlike cups which is under GPL, Apple isn’t required to send this code back. I don’t mind that at all, but I still hold that my benchmark for their openness is how much useful code they volunteer back to the originating project.

I’d love to hear how many changes made by the Android development have benefitted the originating open source projects. I have an idea about how much Apple has committed back to the FreeBSD project, but I don’t have any solid facts at the moment, so if anyone does, that’d be great to hear. Hey, even hearing how much Microsoft’s mobile offering has led to improved code being committed back to open source projects not originating at Microsoft would be great hearing about. I’m looking forward to reading your comments

I hate instant messaging. Not because I don’t like talking to people, but because there are so many networks I have to be part of, and once I’m signed up I have to use this program or that program, which means I have to have a ton of programs running, or I can wait a while and get a program that does a half decent job at implementing many different networks and then have a few more programs running to open what that program doesn’t support. So I log off, and never log back in again. I would really like to use IM, I would really like to be more available that way, but it’s such a hassle.

That’s why I have big hopes for iMessage. If Apple were to open iMessage for extension, the providers of the IM networks themselves could extend it to support their network. Then I could have all the chats in one place, and be signed in to these different networks so that if there’s an incoming Skype call, I’m available on Skype, without having the app open (or knowing that I do), and if I get an instant message from something as ancient as ICQ, it gets into the message list. Grouping accounts together on one contact would be nice also. No more logging in and out of IMs, just always on, and perhaps set a do-not-disturb mode for whenever I go to sleep. Man I hope they open up iMessage for extension, that would be awesome!

I thought I’d give Tapptics a little plug. I love writing nice applications for the iPhone, but taking on a graphics artist for pet projects is sometimes a bit hard to justify. But a while ago I read about Tapptics and saw their site and bookmarked the article so I could come back to it when I had a project where I needed some graphics. That time has come, so I signed up and it’s just a bucket full of resources, both nice tutorials and guides, and a lot of excellent graphics to use in my app. There were, however, two glyphs that I wanted that weren’t there, but no sooner had I enquired about them, had Jen whipped them up: two gorgeous glyphs that will have a prominent position in my app. The price is well worth it, so go check Jen’s site out today. If you’re an app developer and need nice graphics, you’ll love it!

I just quickly want to plug The state of iOS Open Source – and what to do about it! by Fredrik Olsson. It’s a great little piece of advice for all us iOS developers

I’m working on setting up my continuous integration system to work with Xcode. I’m using Jenkins on a separate Mac Mini, and I found this great article by Christian Hedin where he introduces his ocunit2junit.rb utility that converts the output of OCUnit to something looking like JUnit, thus making it easier for Jenkins to pick integrate with the build.