Apple open sources Snow Leopard's multicore code helper
*nix train boards at Grand Central
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In a surprise move, Apple has open-sourced its Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) technology under the Apache 2.0 public license.
Baked into the recently released Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, GCD eases the programming challenges that developers face when coding for multicore processors. You can download a PDF of Apple's half-marketing, half-technical description of it here.
As explained by Mac OS Forge, GCD is based on libdispatch. Before it can be widely implemented, however, C compiler support for its underlying blocks structure will be necessary.
Blocks support is not found in the majority of C compilers, and surely, Apple hopes that open-sourcing GCD will add some momentum to blocks adoption. As Drew McCormack over at MacResearch opines: "By offering Grand Central to the broader programming community, [Apple] may be hoping it will catch on, and make the argument for incorporating blocks in the C standard that much stronger."
Open-sourcing GCD could be a boon both to Apple and to the larger *nix community. Mac OS X, of course, is based on open source Mach and BSD. If Apple can entice Unix and Linux developers and compiler creators to embrace GCD, it will strengthen both GCD's developer base and enhance its chances of becoming a wide-ranging standard, incorporated into other *nix systems. And, of course, further distinguish Mac OS X - and, for that matter, Linux in all its flavors - from operating systems emanating from Redmond. ®
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COMMENTS
Apple in actually helpful and useful shocker!
I nearly fell off my seat when I saw this. Apple (A.K.A Microsoft 2.1) open sources [another] of its projects in hope of bringing a standard for multi-core programming to the C standard.
At the risk of sounding naive, this is almost altruistic on their part: Microsoft only open sourced code this year to avoid having their drawers pulled down in public by the FSF; Apple are actually doing something that will make life easier for some (if not all) C developers in future.
I still hate Jobs on principle, but this is definitely worth a pint.
You missed one ...
Apple own CUPS, it's still open source and with Apple's acquisition, it has gone on to be a fine upstanding printing solution. (Printing on Linux still has problems, but it's nowhere near the black art it used to be and Windows, well, OS that thinks printer drivers belong in kernel space has a problem all of its own.)
Making GCD open source is just going to enamour them to a lot of OSS folks, me included, and from where I'm say Microsoft are doing to great job of marginalising themselves.
@Simon Banyard
Agreed but I'm sorry I don't like these fucking constant lies. I'm no fanboi, I just want people to start telling the truth on this site and thus allow people make judgments based on said truth.
Unfortunately it's not a case of people growing up, it's far more sinister than that, as it always has been with the constant spread of misinformation by the Microsoft shills.
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