Apple no longer self-hosts their open source code and moved it all to GitHub | Hacker News Reader

Apple no longer self-hosts their open source code and moved it all to GitHub

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57 pointsvarenc18 comments

Apple seems to have just stopped self-hosting their open source code and all old links 404. Google/DDG still have it in the index and Apple doesn't offer a redirect or warning. GitHub is now the only source. They link to various projects here: https://opensource.apple.com/releases/

I'm slightly sad because I used to appreciate it that when I searched for obscure macOS internal strings that the source code would come up.

The number of times I’ve run into 404 errors searching for Apple documentation is astounding.

When I have to search something about Apple apps or Apple devices or maybe iCloud et cetera, I specifically avoid clicking any link that has "-----.apple.com" at its end.

No, I really do that. There's some sort of sadist connotations when you go through the documentation published by Apple. It is deliberately made open to interpretations, vague, and yes, utterly useless. It's a subtle jarring experience. It's written clearly, kinda short, but it doesn't solve what you are looking for at all. Almost never. It feels those docs are designed to not solve your problems. I end up looking at reddit, some blogs that writes a million word post to share info that could have been done in 100 words but at least that solves my problem and sometime that Apple StackEx site. And no, God no, no http://discussions.apple.com please - I mean what on dear God's earth is that forum? Why does it even exist? What is its purpose other than making any customer who landed their realise the futility of that exercise?

I have not looked a lot at Apple's developer docs but something tells me that those may not be much different (this one is just an assumption though).

I completely agree. Regarding discussions.apple.com, I had a laugh a couple of years ago when they took it down for a few days and when it came up all previous URLs were a 404. Wow.

Here's the other kicker about Apple documentation: it absolutely sucks. There are exceptions to this, but in general, it is incomplete and completely lacks examples. The man pages for a ton of stuff are just horrible.

It shows that Apple doesn't really care much about developers.

Maybe Im misunderstanding, but why cant you just search said string in their github collection? The only reason I could think of is that github search is a bit broken…

GitHub search requires an account now, but more importantly it's poorly indexed by Google et al. You only look something up on GitHub if you're expecting to find it on GitHub.

Yeah it's a bummer how google treats github, today I was googling something for a random piece of hardware. I kept finding wonky tutorials and so on and then ... thought "wait maybe github?" blamo, that company had put all their code on there. I didn't even know they did that / they didn't really advertise they were open source or such.

I found repositories, example code, and readmes that matched my google searches exactly, but I never saw them on google :(

For those wanting to see the code, here's the GitHub repository.

https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions

Should they now pay 30% of the App Store subscriptions to Github for hosting their infrastructure?

If that were GitHub’s terms for hosting the code, maybe this would make some kind of sense to ask. Otherwise it seems like comparing apples and a chip on your shoulder.

Presumably Apple pays the fees GitHub have specified up-front, or they'd not use their services.

Isn't that how things work? A company provides something for a fee and potential customers decide if they're going to use said thing in exchange for said fee..?

you mean Github paying Apple 30% of what they make when Copilot use their code? :D

No because Github and the App Store/iOS/iPhone are two different business models.

Just like My business and the App Store/iOS/iPhone

I have a business that sells tomatoes in a can. It's very different than Walmart's business. Yet, I'd have to pay put my products in Walmart.

However, customers who bought their frying pan at Walmart can still buy their canned tomatoes from other stores.

I clicked on an OS and it was 3 years ago How is this news exactly?

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