Linux Ported to the M1 | Hacker News Reader

Linux Ported to the M1

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Hector Martin (founder/project lead of Asahi Linux), provided more context [0]:

> Full disclosure: @corelliumhq ported Linux to earlier iPhone chipsets a year ago, but their public code release does not meet upstream standards (nor can I certify it meets our RE policy) and I can therefore not use their work. Their CTO is mad at me for this. [screenshot of DM conversation]

> He has now, apparently, decided to turn this into a competition. That's fine by me - if they want to race us to upstream their code and win, everyone wins

[0]: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1350331791584886791

I agree with the latter statement: everyone wins. Let’s focus on the technical challenges, not the personal feuds.

>does not meet upstream standards (nor can I certify it meets our RE policy)

what would those be? something about stealing the thunder perhaps?

I believe this is the reason:

> They, however, embed linux-apfs into their single-commit dump, without full credit, which is a copyright violation. I thought it was their code until I found the original history.

> That tells me that they do not care to respect authorship information for open source code they incorporate, and thus makes me extremely wary that they may have also copied Apple code as part of their port. Licensing is something you have to take seriously.

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1350382593510817795

He's arguing in bad faith.

https://twitter.com/never_released/status/135040331615765708...

then he argues that anyone shipping source in tarballs is noncompliant:

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1350408910314721280?s=21

While Red Hat does this for RHEL and CentOS, and is standard practice in the industry:

https://twitter.com/never_released/status/135041167764109312...

Nothing to see here.

He made it clear that he won't use any of the code from elsewhere, it's an not-invented-here syndrome on steroids that will result in lots of lost time. :-(

> then he argues that anyone shipping source in tarballs is noncompliant:

I think he might be referring to the section 2a of GPLv2 (5a of GPLv3) which require keeping track of modifications to the source code. I've never seen this clause being enforced, though. (IANAL)

I also wishes there were some sort of collaboration rather than an outright dismissal.

It's a tantrum, he'll probably come to his senses a few days later. And then those issues can be cleaned up.

The way I see it is he's just trying to be extremely cautious about legalities. Which should always be fair but especially when you're dealing with a corporation like Apple. It sucks that it hurts collaboration but I find it astonishing that people are trying to blame him for it when all he wants is to protect himself legally.

This is a different group (Corellium, which might ring a bell[1]) than the aforementioned[2] Asahi Linux[3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25573176

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25649719

[3] https://asahilinux.org

When people talk about Linux on M1, is that typically in reference to the chipset, or the entire laptop?

The distinction could cause confusion if Asahi Linux (which looks very clean and appears to be attempting to implement support for the laptop and all associated peripherals[1]) and Corellium (which has a bootable implementation on the chipset by the looks of it) have slightly different goals in mind.

[1] - https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Tasks

The M1 isn't a laptop (and it's not really a chipset either, but sure).

I don't think the differences between the two projects you are trying to highlight are particularly meaningful. The vast majority of the infrastructure and code required is for devices embedded on the soc, not external (like a touchpad).

Asahi looks very clean because it consists of nothing so far.

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