Magenta - "It is fully binary compatible with iPhone OS 5.0"

http://crna.cc/magenta.html

by mparlane • 14 years ago

326 124 14 years ago

crna.cc

tantalor• 14 years ago

The "teaser",

http://crna.cc/test2.png

apaprocki• 14 years ago

Liking the ANSI. Maybe someone here has a few iCE/ACiD contacts laying around to make some serious art for it.

christina_b8• 14 years ago

I'm glad you like it.

zmanji• 14 years ago

If this can run CoreFoundation, then can't anyone with the iOS SDK target this platform with no modifications to the SDK?

Xuzz2• 14 years ago

Yep, that's how the binaries for it are currently built: with the iPhone SDK. However, higher-level stuff hasn't been developed (e.g. graphics), and the native iOS libraries would need emulation of additional lower-level services (like IOKit for hardware interaction) to run.

10dpd• 14 years ago

"You may ask, why am I doing this? The answer is: no f'ing idea :)"

Love it.

shiven• 14 years ago

No graphics. No problem. Great, open (source) system to test iOS internals and hack at the lower level stuff.

Also, nice way to test exploits, proof of concept backdoors, virii, trojans and the like without requiring major investment into the apple ecosystem.

Maybe, even the beginnings of a third option besides Android and iOS ?

Thanks!

taligent4• 14 years ago

Maybe Meego would be a good fit ?

But if she could get this working on Android it would be huge. I guarantee you could get a million off Kickstarter if you decided to be a little evil and stoke the fanboy flames a bit on Engadget/Reddit etc.

geon• 14 years ago

How could you test exploits, when the underlying os core is linux, not darwin, and all higher level libraries are completely different implementations as well?

flatline39• 14 years ago

As cool as this project is, virtualizing OS X -- or emulating an ARM system for iOS -- is much more likely to be useful for testing iOS internals / lower-level bits without requiring Apple hardware.

For example: http://www.iemu.org/index.php/Main_Page

bretthopper• 14 years ago

Actual quote is "You may ask, why am I doing this? The answer is: no fucking idea :)"

Not sure why you would censor that when the author didn't.

SomeCallMeTim6• 14 years ago

It's a cute tech demo, but:

   * Will it run iPhone OS apps?
   	* No, because I'm not aiming to have compatible high level frameworks. Just think
   	  about how much work is required to have a 100% compatible implementation of UIKit
   	  or Celestial. HOWEVER, the CoreOS part should be 100% (or 99%) compatible. Just not
   	  the higher level OS. If you're just interested in this because it will "run iOS apps"
   	  please go away.

I think the submission title is deceptive -- by "fully binary compatible" the developer means that it runs executables compiled for iOS.

christina_b8• 14 years ago

Aw.

SomeCallMeTim6• 14 years ago

Sorry. Cool project, but the headline implied (to me) app compatibility. Your page was much more clear (he took the quote out of context); my beef was with the person who posted it on HN with a deceptive headline.

If it had instead said "full binary compatibility with DARWIN", or iOS 5 Darwin, it would have been clear.

And, by the way, if you hadn't said "go away" to people who wanted app compatibility, I might have been less annoyed by the deception. OF COURSE people want app compatibility. It's the core coolness of the project's potential! And maybe someday you'll get a crowd of people around you that can help achieve that. But telling them to go away isn't going to help.

batista3• 14 years ago

binary compatibillity is a standard and well defined term in programming, and this is it.

It is not about having access to all iOS Cocoa Touch etc libraries, or running iOS apps.

Camillo4• 14 years ago

"Binary compatibility" is routinely applied to libraries as well. The point of contention is not the meaning of "binary compatibility", but that of "iPhone OS 5.0".

SomeCallMeTim's assumption that this would include the upper layers of the system is reasonable, especially given that the lower layer has its own name (Darwin) and it was not used. OTOH, given that there's no such thing as "iPhone OS 5" (it's been called iOS since version 4), I'd chalk it up to confusion rather than deception.

SomeCallMeTim6• 14 years ago

Really? You think this made #1 on the front page because people are excited that you can run ls from Darwin on a non-iPhone ARM7 system that's really running Linux? Which has its own ls?

No, people saw the headline and voted it up thinking that "binary compatibility" with iPhone meant compatibility with iPhone 5.0, not just with Darwin. I bet most didn't even read the article first.

Honestly, if there's not even an eventual goal to run iOS apps, I don't see the point. Linux is there underneath already, and just about anything you could compile for Darwin could be compiled for Linux. What iOS "binaries" exist (other than apps) that would make such an environment useful?

I understand (from the FAQ) that the author doesn't even ATTEMPT to justify the project's existence. That's FINE. Not slighting the developer. Sometimes you climb a mountain Because It's There (TM).

But the excitement around it was generated because of a deception.

sounds2• 14 years ago

Is anyone else theorizing about Apple's response?

whois crna.cc: WhoisGuard protected. WhoisGuard is in L.A; a subpoena and "Christina" could find the ICS logo on her site and a DMCA takedown notice for distributing "tools used to violate copyright."

crna.cc says "Will it run iPhone OS apps? * No". But Apple is already suing Samsung for the Galaxy Tab, Nexus S, and Epic 4G [1] [2], so unless nobody is interested in taking this idea to completion, Apple could be an enormous target for cloners.

To me, it's obvious: unlike hardware, where there are still effective barriers to competition, software like iOS is inherently vulnerable to cloning, copying, and being replaced.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/04/bad-touchwiz-apple-sues...

[2] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/apple-samsung-walk-away...

christina_b8• 14 years ago

This does not violate anyone's copyrights.

sounds2• 14 years ago

I don't have to take a position on that to theorize that Apple can use the DMCA to take it down, citing 17 U.S.C. Sec. 1201 (a). [1] [2]

Nevertheless I think you're right, it doesn't violate anyone's copyrights.

[1] http://chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/faq.cgi#QID91

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention#Distribution...

taligent4• 14 years ago

a) You have a complete misunderstanding of how patents/copyright work and why Apple is suing Samsung.

b) Christina has already mentioned that the GUI frameworks are missing which are non-trivial to implement to say the least.

christina_b8• 14 years ago

By the way, the sources are up on http://crna.cc/ now.

taligent4• 14 years ago

Any thoughts about getting this up on Github ? Would definitely get you some contributors.

mparlane2• 14 years ago

From IRC (don't shoot the messenger, please..):

<_Christina_> no github, i dont like revision control

robot2• 14 years ago

Would it be super hard (and, illegal) to port upper iOS layers as binaries?

mparlane2• 14 years ago

It's a time intensive thing and not illegal if it's your own code/implementation. The google/oracle case shows that the api is not copyrightable but the implementation is.

Xuzz2• 14 years ago

The legal route would to be to provide an installer that downloads e iOS frameworks from Apple, so you aren't redistributing anything. However, it would still be quite a bit of work: iOS has a not-insignificant layer of drivers in the not-yet-recreated IOKit kernel framework (although some are open source), and likely many other low-level layers that would need to be recreated.

However, it's certainly possible, but as 'mparlane says, it would be a lot of (difficult) work.

densh• 14 years ago

IMO if it's not illegal at the moment, apple will add another clause to their next EULA to make it so if project gains any traction. (Similar to the way they prohibit use of OS X on non-apple hardware.)

zvrba• 14 years ago

And this is announced just after the judge has decided APIs are not copyrightable!

ajasmin2• 14 years ago

Does it use some of the open source Darwin code from Apple?

christina_b8• 14 years ago

Yes, but the code is under APSL so I'm not violating any copyrights. I'm fully complying with the APSL license.

RandallBrown• 14 years ago

I'm a little confused as to what this actually is. It's a version of linux that can run apps compiled for the iPhone?

jurre• 14 years ago

Re: apps

Will it run iPhone OS apps? No, because I'm not aiming to have compatible high level frameworks. Just think about how much work is required to have a 100% compatible implementation of UIKit or Celestial. HOWEVER, the CoreOS part should be 100% (or 99%) compatible. Just not the higher level OS. If you're just interested in this because it will "run iOS apps" please go away.

ajasmin2• 14 years ago

From what I understand it is a version of Linux that can run binaries compiled for the iPhone on an ARM chip but doesn't provide any of the higher level Cocoa libraries (i.e. no GUI stuff)

kvnn2• 14 years ago

Actually, so am I. Lets go through it together:

1) "Implementation of Darwin" [1]

2) "On top of the Linux kernel" [2]

3) "Binary compatible with iOS 5.0" [3]

4) "The final goal is probably recreating the iPhone OS 1.0 stack" [4]

--------

[1] "Darwin forms the core set of components upon which Mac OS X and iOS are based"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

[2] "The main component of most computer operating systems"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(computing)

[3] "In computing, a computer that can run the same binary code intended to be run on another computer is said to be binary-compatible"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_code_compatibility

[4] "Initial OS release".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_1.x:_in...

kvnn2• 14 years ago

This is the sort of person that I want to be engaged with:

* highly opinionated

* driven by personal interest

* not afraid to go down the worm hole and come up with little public recognition and enormous personal gain

This is the sort of project that makes me grin:

* highly engrossing project page

* mysterious motivations

* unknown implications

* legally ambiguous

I love this shit. Keep it up, Christina.

christina_b8• 14 years ago

I love you.

Cushman3• 14 years ago

HN needs more conversations like this.

Edit: Ooh, controversy. I'm quite sincere about this-- love to chat with whoever disagrees.

devin• 14 years ago

Ha! Well played, Christina. Well played.

taligent4• 14 years ago

Is it just me that reads this and is reminded of Linus/Linux ?

Camillo4• 14 years ago

This is really weird. When there is a submission about some guy's project, do we evaluate his potential as a mate? Does that become the top comment? What in the world is going on here?

coob• 14 years ago

I think you're misinterpreting 'engaged with' there…

kenrikm• 14 years ago

I think he ment engaged on a mental level? not like.. you know engaged.

Dove• 14 years ago

I'm surprised that people are confused. Is there a regional difference in the way this would be phrased? In my (US) experience, "engaged with" unambiguously means working together, while "engaged to" unambiguously means getting married.

imd• 14 years ago

I see that philosophy and math aren't the only fields where someone's work is more praiseworthy for being less practical!

dspillett2• 14 years ago

less immediately practical

How much "non practical" mathematics from the last couple of hundred years has turned out to be useful in physics problems and other areas (or just inspired other bits of maths that have had uses) over the last few decades?

If you are doing something new then there is no such thing as science purely for science's sake.

nitrogen• 14 years ago

I look forward to seeing Phoronix fan the OS war flames by benchmarking Linux running BSD binaries vs. BSD running Linux binaries.

More importantly, what planet do you come from, and is it accepting immigrants?

bprater• 14 years ago

What is Magenta -- in plain english? And what does binary compatible with iOS 5 mean?

masklinn• 14 years ago

> What is Magenta -- in plain english?

Not sure what could be clearer than:

> Magenta is an implementation of Darwin/BSD on top of the Linux kernel.

> And what does binary compatible with iOS 5 mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_code_compatibility

That Magenta will run programs compiled for iOS5 unmodified (if they don't use APIs which haven't been reimplemented yet of course)

shalmanese• 14 years ago

That's not clear at all.

This guy has basically built an OS from scratch that can run on iPhones and supports iPhone apps without having to recompile them. Currently, only the base layer has been built so graphics/sound etc do not work but the goal is to emulate the entire iPhone OS.

It's based on the linux kernel and the Darwin OS which is the open source core of the Mac OS X.

cs702• 14 years ago

I love it: hacking for the sake of hacking, just to have fun.

Christina's announcement reminds me a little bit of Linus Torvalds's 'this won't amount to anything' post to comp.os.minix on August 25, 1991.[1]

I'm by no means suggesting or implying that Magenta will be as successful as Linux or anything like that, just that the announcements posted by Christina and Linus strike me as very similar in tone and attitude :-)

[1] https://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/b813d52cbc...

shuri• 14 years ago

very cool

tomrod• 14 years ago

Cool. So what does this mean it can do? Run iPhone OS apps?

SomeCallMeTim6• 14 years ago

No.

I tried to post that running iPhone apps wasn't even a design goal, but got downvoted. [1]

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4087395

sciurus• 14 years ago

This makes me wonder how long until there is a project that tries to reimplement the ios libraries, similar to what GNUstep is doing for Cocoa.

http://www.gnustep.org/

nglevin• 14 years ago

It's not quite what you describe, but Ivan Vučica is currently working on a GSoC project to implement a subset of UIKit with parts of Quartz and CoreAnimation in GNUstep.

http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/project/google/gsoc2012/i...

"This proposal covers implementing a flexible animation API compatible with a certain popular existing desktop and mobile platform, as well as adding APIs compatible with a popular mobile platform. This will allow extremely user-friendly interfaces, as well as allow development or porting of applications that use CoreAnimation or UIKit API on platforms that don't yet support it."

flatline39• 14 years ago

There are a number of past projects very similar to this one. The two I remember off-hand:

- http://hcpnet.free.fr/applebsd.html -- NetBSD in-kernel COMPAT_MACH / COMPAT_DARWIN support. This got to the point of being able to run XDarwin, which is a pretty major step towards being able to run the WindowServer: http://hcpnet.free.fr/xdarwin.jpeg

- https://github.com/shinh/maloader -- A user-space Mach-O binary loader. The only goal was to be able to run Apple's binary toolchain on Linux, which it is able to do.

It's very possible to implement the necessary kernel APIs to run Mac / iOS Darwin binaries. Where you run into trouble is the massive software stack that sits on top of those OS APIs.

Without $10M or more to spend on development, it's simply not feasible to produce full binary-compatible replacements for Apple's software frameworks. The best you can hope for is to copy over Apple's software from a real installation, and then run it atop your own kernel.

I love hacks like this, so god speed to christina_b. This is awesome.

To those of you telling the Christina to put her work on github to get contributors, I don't think that is particularly helpful advice. The barrier to entry on a project like this has nothing to do with the SCM being used.

kqa53• 14 years ago

From your first example:

"This project is dead due to a lack of interest from users."

Do they really mean "lack of interest from other developers"?

They shouldn't be doing it for users, they should be doing it for themselves, and to their credit, I think that's often why they do what they do. They have more common sense than the usual. That's why their work is so good. (It's also because they have more of a cathedral-like structure, and not just with respect to the kernel.)

Who are these "users" we need interest from? How do we measure interest? Among OS's NetBSD's user base (non-corporate) is very small.

This developer chose the Linux kernel not to please users by making the "popular choice" or because it is necessarily the easiest to work with. As the blurb says, it's a matter of driver support.

Yes, Godspeed.

flatline39• 14 years ago

In the case of the NetBSD project, users and developers were the same people, and there wasn't much interest.

When looking for people with the necessary skills to contribute, you'll find that the majority qualified individuals are Mac OS X kernel/systems engineers, who already have Apple hardware, and don't have any particular need to support an alternative clone of their existing target platform.

This was certainly the case with the NetBSD project. When it was contemporary, I kept tabs on it, but never bothered to contribute -- Mac OS X worked fine for me.

Revisiting the problem space now, my development time would be better spent working on the open source alternatives (such as Android), rather than attempting to clone Apple's stack. It's just too big. Personally I work with Android on OMAP4 hardware.

kqa53• 14 years ago

An open source smartphone OS that

- you can compile yourself easily

- which has a real command line and

- is not controlled by some company.

This would be most welcome.

Palm-sized "UNIX". A true opens source "UNIX phone". No company-controlled virtual machines or high level GUI frameworks. Lower complexity, less bloat, same communication functionality.

duaneb2• 14 years ago

How do you deal with mach/whatever calls inside the darwin userland? Do you just replace them with equivalent linux/bsd calls?

robot2• 14 years ago

We can easily virtualize this and run it aside Android on Galaxy Nexus.

But that would be meaningful only if it was possible to run iOS apps:

" * Will it run iPhone OS apps? * No, because I'm not aiming to have compatible high level frameworks. Just think about how much work is required to have a 100% compatible implementation of UIKit or Celestial. HOWEVER, the CoreOS part should be 100% (or 99%) compatible. Just not the higher level OS. If you're just interested in this because it will "run iOS apps" please go away. "

I wonder if it would be possible to port the binary ios stack.

dspillett2• 14 years ago

"I'm not aiming to have compatible high level frameworks" doesn't mean it won't happen, just that it isn't one of her personal targets. The beauty of an open release is that if others want it enough they can work on it.

Let her concentrate on the bit she finds interesting (the core) and that will provide a nice stable platform for others to build the higher level stack on top of if they wish.

Of course there are probably legal issues hidden in there somewhere, so care will need to be taken especially if importing binaries rather than building your own API compatible versions.

While this won't have anything like the scale of Linux, I don't think the comparison some have made regarding the "shape" of the project is exaggerated. She seems to have the right attitude to be the "benevolent dictator" over something significantly wider than she could do alone.

qqyy2• 14 years ago

Would it be possible to have a Linux kernel with all it's up-to-the-minute hardware support together with a BSD userland maybe via DarwinPorts?[1]

For users who prefer a BSD userland to the one GNU offers, this would be magnificent.

1. e.g. Debian is doing the reverse: FreeBSD kernel and GNU userland.

Magenta - "It is fully binary compatible with iPhone OS 5.0"

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