IIRC, Apple uses 'platform' to refer to an SoC integration. For example, M1, M2 and etc. are separate platforms. M5 in Vision Pro is a separate platform than M5 in MacBook Pro. I believe Apple's XNU does somewhat still support non-Apple Silicon as well though.
Twice, on the basis that NEXT used the same kernel and that ran on 68k and Intel when Apple bought them and later ported it for Power PC. When Steve Jobs went back to Apple, for a long time he ran NEXT on a Thinkpad.
Well x86 at one point, arm both the 32 and 64 bit versions. I think they had RISCV support in their source tree at one point but not really at a commercial level. It does cover a lot different levels of hardware though
Does Apple use macOS in servers in its datacentres? Or are they all Linux?
Surely at a minimum they need macOS for CI.
Apple does have one advantage here-they can legally grant themselves permission to run macOS internally on non-Apple hardware, and I don’t believe doing so legally obliges them to extend the same allowance to their customers.
But that might give them a reason to keep x86_64 alive for internal use, since that platform (still) gives you more options for server-class hardware than ARM does
They do run Apple Silicon in data centers, so perhaps another custom version of Darwin + their system frameworks. It is hard to tell without some leaks :)
For Private Cloud Compute: “a new operating system: a hardened subset of the foundations of iOS and macOS tailored to support Large Language Model (LLM) inference workloads while presenting an extremely narrow attack surface.” https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
Well there were still the historical arm32 chips in their iOS devices, but until recently the watches were a cursed arm64_32 (or something like that) which is arm64 with 32 bit pointers iirc.
I should have just soureced this, They had PowerPC not RISCV in there source tree that was the X factor one. The Arm32 bit variant is closed sourced (leaked before) but was supported until IOS 11. XNU is really old almost 30 years! And before XNU there was the MACH kernel and the larger BSD tree it was built on which is an argument that it probably had a initial MIPs release too but I couldn't source the truth on that.
I'm sure there's vestiges of them somewhere, but the underlying support (the architecture specific parts of the mach portion of the kernel) is gone for those archs.
I wouldn't be surprised if they keep a minimal Power base maintained behind closed doors. It's how they managed to jump ship to intel so quickly, they never stopped maintaining NeXTSTEPs x86 port
Apple's ARM implementation is in a really good place right now. It would take something extremely compelling to get them to consider any other architecture for an application processor, especially considering that it'd mean giving up some degree of control.
Power is probably not where Apple would choose to go unless something really unusual happened. It's essentially just IBM's pet architecture at this point.
When I mean minimal arm base, I basically mean making sure XNU at least compiles on PPC64. I don't doubt they'd likely never have a use for it, but they maintained intel support behind closed doors when macos forked from NeXTstep and nobody thought they'd need that
They've been making quite a few changes to the virtual memory code over the past decade, and keeping those vestigial arch's around is a pretty big maintenance burden. It'd probably be less work to just add the arch as if it were new when it's needed at this point since the kernel itself is pretty portable.
> The only way to accomplish this at scale is to build something that is legit better and let the market decide. Anything else is just principled wishful thinking.
How effective would this setup be if the parent company in the US is ordered to order the EU subsidiary to do something not in the interests of the EU?
If it breaks the law in the EU, then the European employees staffing the data center refuse, because they don't want to go to jail or pay fines.
That's the entire point of setting it up like this.
Think of it like fast-food franchises. They have to sell the same food and use the same branding and charge the same prices. But if McDonald's tells you to start selling cocaine on the side, you tell them nope, that's not in the contract and I don't feel like going to prison.
What if the software is developed and potentially backdoored in the US and deployed by the EU team in the sovereign region? Or did they rewrite the entire AWS stack?
If the EU employees can look around the code, it would then get quite interesting if they were to point out a backdoor. which they would of course raise with an EU based CERT.
In a way that protects US customers as well having a set that can't be stopped from doing that.
I don't think there are any protections against that. On the other hand, you'd have to ask yourself how realistic it is that the US is forcing Amazon to secretly backdoor its own software for US spying abroad? I can't give an answer on that one, you'll have to form your own opinion.
I imagine that if a back door were ever discovered, AWS's reputation would tank so hard that a lot of companies would probably never do business with it again.
Over 100%, in that I'm sure multiple independent groups are working on it all the time. The spooks regularly place actual agents in foreign governments (the Germans found a big nest of them and nothing much happened in the end). There's no way it would be challenging for them to find an employee willing to cash a giant cheque in exchange for quietly granting their own government access.
Unfortunately, due to safety reasons Apple cannot allow you to leave the walled garden, it is only in your own best interest. All communication services on our iOS devices require at least one US-based NSA-integrated middleman. /s
Google is no better here, I would say they are even worse since they are scanning your files actively. Remember story of Father who was asked by doctor to send his baby son private parts photos due to covid and Google not only locked him out but also notified Police. Even after getting statement from Law Enforcement there was no crime they didn't restore his access. Guy lost 20 years of live history due to algorithm.
I feel the narrative on these kind of issues should be updated. We've been using their framing of "algorithms" but it is taking away all responsibility from the US tech workers who are actually designing and running Google.
The guy lost 20 years of life history due to US tech workers at Google wrongfully blocking his account and then ignoring his pleads for reactivation.
When US tech workers can show up to take cash and bonus payments from Google, they can also show up to take responsibility for Google's impact.
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