7 ms·

X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X

90 points by codedivine 14y ago

nodegree_throw 14y ago
Guy uses closed source software, moans when it changes in ways he can't control. Fail.
0x0 14y ago
One can only hope the developers inside Apple still enjoy using the terminal and "unix subsystem" in their work, enough to keep these things going into the future. I mean, xcode still needs to shell out to run gcc/llvm/clang, right?
- ef4 14y ago
  I'm not sure that it does. In fact the Mountain Lion upgrade deleted the command line toolchain from my machine. I had to go into Xcode and manually tell it to re-download the "Command Line Tools" optional extension.
  - 0x0 14y ago
    That's just the stuff that goes in /usr/bin, right? Aren't the files always present in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin etc.?
    - shadowfiend 14y ago
      Correct. And you can always run it using xcrun (e.g. xcrun clang).
- gaius 14y ago
  They have since day 1 - check out MPW, Macintosh Programmers Workshop. And I mean, since MacOS pre-1.0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer%27s_Workshop#MPW_Shell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer%27s_Worksh...
ambirex 14y ago
"Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?" I kind of lost respect for the article at this point, Mail.app, really? I see them removing built in support for X11 the same as them not bundling java. There probably isn't the corporate will to keep up to date on these packages and it is better to have groups that will keep them update maintaining them.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  While that seems unlikely , there is definitely a strong constituent of people who would applaud it as a "bold and forward thinking move", "lol, who uses email anymore?"
tomstuart 14y ago
Imagine if Apple removes [the floppy drive] itself in the next version of [the Mac], or decides [wi-fi] is the future and gets rid of [the Ethernet port]?
- stone2020 14y ago
  Imagine if [fanboy] doesn't cherry pick from the last 20 years and talks about the [article].
  - ctdonath 14y ago
    Cherry pick? Apple has a long history of removing what most users don't use. RS-232, Centronix ("printer"), FireWire, VGA, Ethernet, and various other ports have all been dropped over time. Floppy (both 5.25" & 3.5"), CD, DVD, and probably other media (escaping me) support gone. Blu-ray in effect dropped before even included. Likewise, various software support has been eradicated over time as use dwindled to more-hassle-than-it's-worth status. When dropped, everything still was available those needing it, provided by easy/cheap add-ons & installs. Users do well to wean off HyperCard, X11, and other things which cling to a double-digit past. Contrast that with the Dell box on my desk right now, which still has every physical port mentioned above, plus 2 PS/2 (!!!) plugs, an eSATA port, and an I-don't-know-what; the software running thereon (Windows) will _still_ run darned near everything I've accumulated over the last 30 years. ..._WHY_ do I want to run darned near everything I've accumulated over the last 30 years? No wonder this two-cubic-foot boat anchor has a Geekbench score lower than a barely-there MacBook Air.
    - smackfu 14y ago
      >Apple has a long history of removing what most users don't use. Apple has a long history of removing what they think users shouldn't use.
      - nicholassmith 14y ago
        And they're generally right as well.
rimantas 14y ago
Stupid article. Don't read.
- ibotty 14y ago
  Stupid comment. Don't read.
  - nodegree_throw 14y ago
    sigh more and more like Reddit everyday.
    - gonzo 14y ago
      Stupid Reddit. Don't read.
rimantas 14y ago
Stupid article. Don't read.
mmphosis 14y ago
http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/ http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/
zdw 14y ago
X11 never really fit in anyway. It was nearly always a special extra package to add in, and frequently lagged behind the open source effort they sponsored. The upside of this, much like with Java and other similar unbundlings, is that updates to the software are no longer in lockstep with OS releases. In the end, we get a lower likelihood of it being installed, but a higher likelihood that it's up to date.
bradleyland 14y ago
The trend only appears disturbing if you few it from a very, very high level. Apple didn't do the best job of keeping up with some OSS components included in OS X. X11 is a great example of such a component. Outside of OS X, lots of changes were occurring with X windows servers. By including X11 (or even providing their own package), Apple was actually in the way. XQuartz dates back to 2007. There were five releases in 2010 and 2011. By stepping out of the way, OS X users will have a more up to date version of X11 on their machines. That is a good thing™.
- leephillips 14y ago
  That's a good argument for Apple not including their own version of x11. But the author was most anguished that they removed an installation of x11 that he was depending on.
  - keithpeter 14y ago
    Did all the config go as well? The dotfiles? Did the author try installing the recommended X11 over the top to see if the old configs were picked up?
    - bradleyland 14y ago
      My experience: My current OS install dates back to Leopard, which was installed on my MacBook Pro back when I purchased it in 2009. I've upgraded to each subsequent OS X release since then, and maintained a development environment utilizing X11 (for gnuplot) the entire time. It is my understanding that the X11 included with OS X was actually a snapshot of XQuartz at the time of OS release, so the config data is in line with what XQuartz expects. In the Unixy bits, OS X upgrades are a lot like other Unix-like operating systems in that package operations remove the application, but not the configuration. After installing XQuartz, gnuplot continues to run just like it did under previous versions of OS X. I simply ran the XQuartz installer and got back to work.
      - keithpeter 14y ago
vvhn 14y ago
interestingly, X11 is part of the "open sourced" part ( almost all of the UNIX underpinnings ) of OS X. Can you change what goes into the distribution CD provided by ubuntu ?
- keithpeter 14y ago
  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization Sort of. I've never done this myself.
- Craiggybear 14y ago
  You can install minimal (mini or server) then add just what you want when you want it. And yes, you've always been able to build your own distros with as much or as little as you like.
Camillo 14y ago
The X11 that Apple provided with OS X was nothing but a snapshot of whatever XQuartz version was current when that version of OS X went GM. In other words, we are now getting the exact same product, but with more timely updates. It takes a special brand of cluelessness to see that as a bad thing.
- jws 14y ago
  It's a good thing. X11 has joined Flash and Java in the ranks of "stuff third parties maintain". RSS removal is a different animal. Statistically speaking, no one used it (except you and me of course) but 10 minutes of app shopping and I've got a better solution running. Much better.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - signalsignal 14y ago
    You are wrong. Apple maintains java and didn't uninstall it when I upgraded.
nicholassmith 14y ago
Whilst Apple removing an application without informing the user is bad, them not shipping things that are less used is a good thing. RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications. X11 on OS X has always been, well, not that great and I use it fairly regularly for remote session testing and a few other bits and bobs. Apple wants someone else to keep it up to date for the people who need it to download it? Fine. Lets go down that route. Apple is as committed to the terminal as they've ever been, which is to say it'll be there as long as there's developers and 'power users' on the system. If they do decide no longer to ship a terminal? There'll be other packages to do it. They can't rip the UNIX underpinnings out overnight.
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  > RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications. Exactly this is my issue (not the rest of your comment, but this sentiment which I see everywhere since a couple years or so). Every time Apple drops support for anything, people talk about cleaning up, or the inevitable march of progress, or about how Microsoft is doomed because you can still install their OS on unworthy 32-bit boxen. RSS support in mail hardly imposed any overhead on users. Why do we care about what Apple's programmers think or feel? These folks are paid to keep their apps running. Maintaining Cocoa apps is something that Apple can easily hire more people for (unlike hacking on the kernel, or on system frameworks).
  - nicholassmith 14y ago
    It probably doesn't impose any overhead specifically on users, but it's additional codebase that needs to be maintained and whilst that's a 'well that sucks for the devs' issue it becomes a user issue as they're not focusing on their core competencies, which in this case is making the email client as good as possible. I'll take a better email app over additional, underused features.
gizmo686 14y ago
I had a simmilar experience with Ubuntu a few week ago, when I updated from 10.04 to 12.10. I was already using Awesome as my window manager so I wasn't exposed to most of there UI overhaul, but somewhere during the update they removed the battery indicator applet.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  Suggestion, try the XFCE battery indicator: might bring a panel with it, I don't use Awesome.
xutopia 14y ago
What I find disturbing here is the expectation that they would include it. I was speaking to a Microsoft evangelist two years ago and asked him why it took them so long to release a new version of Windows. He essentially told me that Microsoft does the best legacy support in the world and wanted to ensure that every single piece of important software could still be installed and work with the new version. He also explained to me that Microsoft was not in the business of pushing new technology but that they were in the business of bringing it to the masses. It was his excuse for why IE was so much worse than Firefox or Chrome. X11 missing from my computer was a simple google search away from a fix. It's not essential for 99.9% of Mac users and only developers and system admins would want it installed. They know how to use google. To a company like Apple pushing technology is more important and supporting a fraction of users with something they can get on their own is spending time in the wrong place.
- jwbaker 14y ago
  That certainly does not justify the installer removing X11 from a perfectly working Mac.
  - kapuzineralex 14y ago
    +1. <black humor>Next time they remove Dropbox because it might be a conflict of interest with iCloud. And then...</black humor>
  - simonster 14y ago
    If the old version of X11 will not function on 10.8, it does.
  - gmac 14y ago
    My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that an 'upgrade' is really a fresh installation, with your user data migrated across afterwards. In that context it's not really a 'removal' as such -- and it's hard to see how else they'd do it. I'm actually glad they made this change. In the past, XQuartz was sometimes ahead of the officially distributed version, which could be messy. Now they're the same thing.
cicloid 14y ago
TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation. Apple didn't include X11 in order to not tie the releases to certification and QA. In the other hand, many engineers on apple still work on XQuartz. Releasing more fast via the XQuartz Everyone that really depended on it, has known for the last couple of years. And even beforehand talked about on the last rc's for Mountain Lion was a topic very active discussed with documentation readily available on Apple support site (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5293 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5293). And the same narrow-minded people replying with comments "my TASCAM (any hardware really) doesn't work on ML", blame the hardware vendors, they did have many months to do testing and porting of software to the latest release or at least inform your customers. It wasnt like ML was a surprise release and the same will happen with Windows 8. Years of blaming that could be solved by RTFM.
- justin66 14y ago
  > TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation. What is the value in giving a synopsis like this which is completely wrong? The author discusses his feelings a couple of times in the article, impugns Apple's motives not once, doesn't discuss corporatism, and uses the word "bad" precisely once to describe his experience here. He's not hyperbolic enough to use the word "evil," that was you. Users who depend on both X11 and Apple's RSS support (all ten of them) are going to find this upgrade a bit of a pain. That's not reflective of a narrow mindset, it's reflective of an unusual use case.
  - cicloid 14y ago
    The thing is, nobody is forcing them to upgrade. Except for the RSS thing that was a dubious way to handle it (maybe being more clear on ways to get out a OPML file). Apple did inform, maybe in a way too opaque. But they did inform it. On the topic of corporations. I may not interpret it as americans have the "corporations" rhetoric. But the feeling I have as a whole, from the author (Anthony and comments) was very paranoid. Even calling the backend of OSX has "The Terminal" was very narrow on his scope to explain the problem of this trend and what we loose. From where I see it, let XQuartz (partially supported/founded by Apple), Google (as seen on iOS6 Youtube.app removal), do it outside the OSX/iOS release schedule, even Apple did it for the iBooks apps and Podcast app. Having old software stalling progress is just bad for all.
ap22213 14y ago
For me, OS X has increasingly become too difficult for use in development. For a while there, it was the best, especially with tools like homebrew. But, it's just become too much of a headache. Too often, I find myself wasting hours trying to get over small OSS compatibility hurdles. More and more, I've been finding myself picking up my 'other' laptop, firing up VirtualBox, and running Linux straight. I do miss the build quality of my MBP, though.
- danbee 14y ago
  Couldn't you just run VirtualBox on your MacBook Pro?
  - ap22213 14y ago
    I could and have. But, the performance of VirtualBox on my 2011 Lion-based MBP seems much worse than on my windows box (with comparable hardware). I have a task on my todo list to investigate.
- acdha 14y ago
  I'm curious, what do you have problems with? For me it's been smooth sailing since around 10.5 or so - and the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools.
  - duaneb 14y ago
    Their reorganization of XCode into an app bundle was really, really annoying and, frankly, makes zero sense; making the command line tools an extra download makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers (as opposed to general purpose ones).
    - CrLf 14y ago
      "makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers" No surprise here. It is very clear that the Mac is becoming two things: 1. Just a bigger iPad that isn't too awkward to use where your average consumer can actually create stuff (videos, photos, etc.); 2. A development machine to create iOS apps. Everything else is an afterthought.
michael_miller 14y ago
This is a very rational decision for Apple to make. 99% of their customers don't even know what X11 is, yet most of them will be downloading Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Not bundling X11 saves most users 70MB of unnecessary download.
- jwbaker 14y ago
  It's been some time since Apple shipped the X11 package by default. You've had to download it yourself. They're not saving anything by removing it from people's computers
smallsharptools 14y ago
This is just stupid. Who copies text from one terminal to another. You are missing the entire point of the command-line and piping. This is clearly a novice who just wants easy access to X11 because he does not know how to use the command-line tools properly. I manage remote FreeBSD servers with just Terminal. It is perfectly fine. And I never copy and paste text in terminal windows.
- mjwalshe 14y ago
  what a single terminal window? having multiple xterm windows is a godsend for admins. and being able to select and past with just the mouse is a realy usefull.
- mikeash 14y ago
  People with different workflows are stupid!
franzus 14y ago
How was that quote again? "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"
- ctdonath 14y ago
  _
- brudgers 14y ago
  <Godwin's Law> First they came for the communists... </Godwin's Law>
callumjones 14y ago
I'm not sure what the problem is here, especially given this is a consumer OS targeted at the masses but still its underpinnings means it can scale out to the niche when required. And this is exactly the case with X11, it doesn't exist on OS X 10.8 by default but luckily the OS tells me Apple have an open source version ready for me to download when I need it. This seems like the best of both worlds, an average computer user isn't bogged down by niche software shipped with their computer and the developer can easily hop onto MacForge and extend the functionality of their computer. Heck you can even compile things since it's just BSD/Mach underneath.
Someone 14y ago
I have a X11.app in /Applications/Utilities. When launched, it shows a dialog: An application has requested access to X11. Would you like to install X11 now? X11 is no longer included with OS X. Apple continues to support the development of X11 on OS X with the open source community. Clicking “Continue” will take you to an Apple Knowledge Base Article which provides information about installing X11. [ Cancel ] [ Continue ] So, I think that "and giving me this when I search their knowledge base for answers" is a bit dishonest. At least on my system, searching wasn't necessary. Apple pointed me there.
nikcub 14y ago
In the time it took to write this you could have just installed the damn thing
jwbaker 14y ago
I guess there's nobody left at Apple who believed in the spirit of this advertisement: http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg Now that the Apple no longer needs to be saved by dorks, the dorks are being thrown overboard.
- mikeash 14y ago
  That ad is from 2002. X11 didn't ship with Mac OS X until 2003. Either they never believed in the spirit of that advertisement and the whole thing was a sham, or built-in X11 support isn't actually necessary for it.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
I wonder if Apple risks losing its technical (i.e. programmer) users. If OS X stops feeling like a UNIX-like OS to technical users, and they move away, OS X may receive less attention from developers. And that won't be good for the platform.
- mikeash 14y ago
  As long as it's possible to install the technical apps, I don't really care whether they ship with the system. I don't imagine many technical users would care, although I could be wrong. You never got a compiler with Mac OS X without downloading and installing one separately, and many other tools people like to use have to be downloaded separately too.
  - neverm0re 14y ago
    It actually always came on the install media up until very recently.
    - mikeash 14y ago
      True, forgot about that, since it was almost always out of date and not worth using. In any case, it didn't get installed by default, so I think the point still stands.
    - Someone 14y ago
      Also until very recently, users bought the OS on DVD and installed it on gigantic hard disks. Now, Apple optimizes for distribution over the Internet and installation on SSDs. That is also why Mac OS X no longer ships with that printer driver DVD.
      - neverm0re 14y ago
        You don't say.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Apple went to great lengths to get OS X validated as a full-on UNIX. To what degree do developers in general confuse UNIX itself with good-riddance mis-associations therewith which cause unnecessary friction against modern development? (Can we drop vi already? fine paradigm unto itself, but counter to any other 21st-century UI...)
acdha 14y ago
> The Terminal was always limited, copy and pasting text in it was non standard, there was no default repository for ports or applications. And no matter how many cores or how much RAM I threw at it, it would beachball when copying and pasting from one terminal to another using the default app on Mac OS X. I stopped taking the author seriously around this point: the lack of package management outside of the App Store is a serious problem but the other two distractions are signs that he's either misconfigured his system or is doing something crazy like pasting data files rather than using pbcopy / pbpaste. For long-time users, this is a minor change and actually a good move: there were only a couple of releases where we didn't have to install XQuartz anyway to get performance or features which weren't available in the shipped version. Since this affected only a very, very small number of generally more technical Mac users I'm not surprised that Apple is moving it back outside of the default release cycle.
runjake 14y ago
This seems rather knee-jerk. XQuartz is X11.app. Percentage-wise, not many users needed X11 and the ones who do should be smart enough to follow the instructions they give to get XQuartz. Apple effectively removed engineering redundancy. It allows for a more aggressive release cycle. Apple engineers still oversee XQuartz. Many of the main committers are Apple employees working on Apple's time, for example, Jeremy Huddleston. I liken it more to the Java distribution transition as opposed to something like Messages.app obsoleting Mail.app.
- redial 14y ago
  I think you mean 'Messages.app obsoleting iChat.app.'
  - runjake 14y ago
    I did not mean that. I was referring to the following from the article: "Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?"
cstross 14y ago
It's worth noting that OSX does provide VNC support, transparently, as "Screen Sharing". AIUI this should be compatible with other desktop machines that run a VNC server and Bonjour. While I wouldn't want to defend Apple's decision to drop X11 support, I should note that X11 is a minority pursuit on that platform, the Apple X11 server never worked brilliantly (Apple's use of the Alt/Meta key mapping for accented characters made for a messy collision with X11 world), and if there's a more seamless screen sharing system built into the OS, why not go with the path of least resistance?
- jmmcd 14y ago
  X11 has little to with screen sharing. They always describe it as the networked window server, but in reality on OSX, it is the software that allows Inkscape and similar programs to run on your own machine.
NelsonMinar 14y ago
Apple should remove Terminal.app and replace it with a stub that prompts you to install iTerm2.
- derleth 14y ago
  Apple may well decide that the Macintosh should go back to being a Macintosh and remove Terminal.app period. It's undeniably what Jobs would do.
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    Jobs was in charge of Apple as they shipped numerous versions of Terminal.app for a period of over 10 years. If he was going to remove it, he would have.
pnathan 14y ago
A general desktop computer shouldn't be an iPad. I think that's the central issue here. Some people just want an iOS experience - some people want to use the full depth and power of a general purpose computer.
mrbill 14y ago
From FEBRUARY: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57381996-263/apple-to-drop-in-house-x11-support-and-more-in-mountain-lion/ http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57381996-263/apple-to-d... I think someone wasn't paying attention and is just butthurt.
duaneb 14y ago
Well, it's a click away - just like java. Not much worse than having to install it from one of the non-install DVDs that came with the OS.
swdunlop 14y ago
That is a lot of excitement for something that was available at http://xquartz.macosforge.org/ http://xquartz.macosforge.org/ on release day. I didn't even notice or care until I realized that libpng's headers were considered part of X11. When Apple introduced X11.app, I regarded it a tactic to get UNIX developers onto the platform. At the time, MacOS developers were sticking to Carbon like glue, and I think that by improving the POSIX compatibility and adding X11, Apple was trying to get other communities excited about OSX. X11.app did not integrate well with OSX, let alone Apple's shrinkwrap vision of the Desktop. I'm not surprised to see they treat it like an optional add on package, and I am somewhat relieved to see it continue as an open source project with support and recognition by Apple. It's the right way to handle a legacy framework in my opinion. As for the loss of RSS from Mail.app and Safari.app. Srsly? People use that who don't have a six paragraph definition for "semantic web"?
shimsham 14y ago
Hacker News?
Rhymenocerus 14y ago
X11? Do I need that for my Mac to get on Facebook?
rogerchucker 14y ago
My question is this.. why the fuck does Apple ship Photobooth, Mail, Safari, Garageband, iMovie and iDVD with my OS and make it super bloated, when I have no bloody use for those? Why can't we just go to Apple's website and install it if we want to?
im_dario 14y ago
I was just developing with headless gem [0] in a new open data project [1] (shameless plug) and I found this "issue". For the record, I come from a hardcore Linux background (no Windows in my home ;) Nicely handled by Apple, instead of permanently remove it and leave no trace, they shipped a "xstub" binary, symlinked all the binaries in /usr/X11/bin to it and make it show a clear way to install XQuartz. IMHO, it is not a big deal, as some already pointed. [0] https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/headless https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/headless [1] https://github.com/qomun/pipar https://github.com/qomun/pipar

90 points by codedivine 14y ago

Guy uses closed source software, moans when it changes in ways he can't control. Fail.

0x0 14y ago

One can only hope the developers inside Apple still enjoy using the terminal and "unix subsystem" in their work, enough to keep these things going into the future. I mean, xcode still needs to shell out to run gcc/llvm/clang, right?

ef4 14y ago
I'm not sure that it does. In fact the Mountain Lion upgrade deleted the command line toolchain from my machine. I had to go into Xcode and manually tell it to re-download the "Command Line Tools" optional extension.
- 0x0 14y ago
  That's just the stuff that goes in /usr/bin, right? Aren't the files always present in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin etc.?
  - shadowfiend 14y ago
    Correct. And you can always run it using xcrun (e.g. xcrun clang).
gaius 14y ago
They have since day 1 - check out MPW, Macintosh Programmers Workshop. And I mean, since MacOS pre-1.0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer%27s_Workshop#MPW_Shell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer%27s_Worksh...

ambirex 14y ago

"Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?" I kind of lost respect for the article at this point, Mail.app, really? I see them removing built in support for X11 the same as them not bundling java. There probably isn't the corporate will to keep up to date on these packages and it is better to have groups that will keep them update maintaining them.

jiggy2011 14y ago
While that seems unlikely , there is definitely a strong constituent of people who would applaud it as a "bold and forward thinking move", "lol, who uses email anymore?"

tomstuart 14y ago

Imagine if Apple removes [the floppy drive] itself in the next version of [the Mac], or decides [wi-fi] is the future and gets rid of [the Ethernet port]?

stone2020 14y ago
Imagine if [fanboy] doesn't cherry pick from the last 20 years and talks about the [article].
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Cherry pick? Apple has a long history of removing what most users don't use. RS-232, Centronix ("printer"), FireWire, VGA, Ethernet, and various other ports have all been dropped over time. Floppy (both 5.25" & 3.5"), CD, DVD, and probably other media (escaping me) support gone. Blu-ray in effect dropped before even included. Likewise, various software support has been eradicated over time as use dwindled to more-hassle-than-it's-worth status. When dropped, everything still was available those needing it, provided by easy/cheap add-ons & installs. Users do well to wean off HyperCard, X11, and other things which cling to a double-digit past. Contrast that with the Dell box on my desk right now, which still has every physical port mentioned above, plus 2 PS/2 (!!!) plugs, an eSATA port, and an I-don't-know-what; the software running thereon (Windows) will _still_ run darned near everything I've accumulated over the last 30 years. ..._WHY_ do I want to run darned near everything I've accumulated over the last 30 years? No wonder this two-cubic-foot boat anchor has a Geekbench score lower than a barely-there MacBook Air.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    >Apple has a long history of removing what most users don't use. Apple has a long history of removing what they think users shouldn't use.
    - nicholassmith 14y ago
      And they're generally right as well.

rimantas 14y ago

Stupid article. Don't read.

ibotty 14y ago
Stupid comment. Don't read.
- nodegree_throw 14y ago
  sigh more and more like Reddit everyday.
  - gonzo 14y ago
    Stupid Reddit. Don't read.

rimantas 14y ago

Stupid article. Don't read.

mmphosis 14y ago

http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/ http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/

zdw 14y ago

X11 never really fit in anyway. It was nearly always a special extra package to add in, and frequently lagged behind the open source effort they sponsored. The upside of this, much like with Java and other similar unbundlings, is that updates to the software are no longer in lockstep with OS releases. In the end, we get a lower likelihood of it being installed, but a higher likelihood that it's up to date.

bradleyland 14y ago

The trend only appears disturbing if you few it from a very, very high level. Apple didn't do the best job of keeping up with some OSS components included in OS X. X11 is a great example of such a component. Outside of OS X, lots of changes were occurring with X windows servers. By including X11 (or even providing their own package), Apple was actually in the way. XQuartz dates back to 2007. There were five releases in 2010 and 2011. By stepping out of the way, OS X users will have a more up to date version of X11 on their machines. That is a good thing™.

leephillips 14y ago
That's a good argument for Apple not including their own version of x11. But the author was most anguished that they removed an installation of x11 that he was depending on.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  Did all the config go as well? The dotfiles? Did the author try installing the recommended X11 over the top to see if the old configs were picked up?
  - bradleyland 14y ago
    My experience: My current OS install dates back to Leopard, which was installed on my MacBook Pro back when I purchased it in 2009. I've upgraded to each subsequent OS X release since then, and maintained a development environment utilizing X11 (for gnuplot) the entire time. It is my understanding that the X11 included with OS X was actually a snapshot of XQuartz at the time of OS release, so the config data is in line with what XQuartz expects. In the Unixy bits, OS X upgrades are a lot like other Unix-like operating systems in that package operations remove the application, but not the configuration. After installing XQuartz, gnuplot continues to run just like it did under previous versions of OS X. I simply ran the XQuartz installer and got back to work.
    - keithpeter 14y ago

vvhn 14y ago

interestingly, X11 is part of the "open sourced" part ( almost all of the UNIX underpinnings ) of OS X. Can you change what goes into the distribution CD provided by ubuntu ?

keithpeter 14y ago
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization Sort of. I've never done this myself.
Craiggybear 14y ago
You can install minimal (mini or server) then add just what you want when you want it. And yes, you've always been able to build your own distros with as much or as little as you like.

Camillo 14y ago

The X11 that Apple provided with OS X was nothing but a snapshot of whatever XQuartz version was current when that version of OS X went GM. In other words, we are now getting the exact same product, but with more timely updates. It takes a special brand of cluelessness to see that as a bad thing.

jws 14y ago
It's a good thing. X11 has joined Flash and Java in the ranks of "stuff third parties maintain". RSS removal is a different animal. Statistically speaking, no one used it (except you and me of course) but 10 minutes of app shopping and I've got a better solution running. Much better.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- signalsignal 14y ago
  You are wrong. Apple maintains java and didn't uninstall it when I upgraded.

nicholassmith 14y ago

Whilst Apple removing an application without informing the user is bad, them not shipping things that are less used is a good thing. RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications. X11 on OS X has always been, well, not that great and I use it fairly regularly for remote session testing and a few other bits and bobs. Apple wants someone else to keep it up to date for the people who need it to download it? Fine. Lets go down that route. Apple is as committed to the terminal as they've ever been, which is to say it'll be there as long as there's developers and 'power users' on the system. If they do decide no longer to ship a terminal? There'll be other packages to do it. They can't rip the UNIX underpinnings out overnight.

gurkendoktor 14y ago
> RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications. Exactly this is my issue (not the rest of your comment, but this sentiment which I see everywhere since a couple years or so). Every time Apple drops support for anything, people talk about cleaning up, or the inevitable march of progress, or about how Microsoft is doomed because you can still install their OS on unworthy 32-bit boxen. RSS support in mail hardly imposed any overhead on users. Why do we care about what Apple's programmers think or feel? These folks are paid to keep their apps running. Maintaining Cocoa apps is something that Apple can easily hire more people for (unlike hacking on the kernel, or on system frameworks).
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  It probably doesn't impose any overhead specifically on users, but it's additional codebase that needs to be maintained and whilst that's a 'well that sucks for the devs' issue it becomes a user issue as they're not focusing on their core competencies, which in this case is making the email client as good as possible. I'll take a better email app over additional, underused features.

gizmo686 14y ago

I had a simmilar experience with Ubuntu a few week ago, when I updated from 10.04 to 12.10. I was already using Awesome as my window manager so I wasn't exposed to most of there UI overhaul, but somewhere during the update they removed the battery indicator applet.

keithpeter 14y ago
Suggestion, try the XFCE battery indicator: might bring a panel with it, I don't use Awesome.

xutopia 14y ago

What I find disturbing here is the expectation that they would include it. I was speaking to a Microsoft evangelist two years ago and asked him why it took them so long to release a new version of Windows. He essentially told me that Microsoft does the best legacy support in the world and wanted to ensure that every single piece of important software could still be installed and work with the new version. He also explained to me that Microsoft was not in the business of pushing new technology but that they were in the business of bringing it to the masses. It was his excuse for why IE was so much worse than Firefox or Chrome. X11 missing from my computer was a simple google search away from a fix. It's not essential for 99.9% of Mac users and only developers and system admins would want it installed. They know how to use google. To a company like Apple pushing technology is more important and supporting a fraction of users with something they can get on their own is spending time in the wrong place.

jwbaker 14y ago
That certainly does not justify the installer removing X11 from a perfectly working Mac.
- kapuzineralex 14y ago
  +1. <black humor>Next time they remove Dropbox because it might be a conflict of interest with iCloud. And then...</black humor>
- simonster 14y ago
  If the old version of X11 will not function on 10.8, it does.
- gmac 14y ago
  My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that an 'upgrade' is really a fresh installation, with your user data migrated across afterwards. In that context it's not really a 'removal' as such -- and it's hard to see how else they'd do it. I'm actually glad they made this change. In the past, XQuartz was sometimes ahead of the officially distributed version, which could be messy. Now they're the same thing.

cicloid 14y ago

TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation. Apple didn't include X11 in order to not tie the releases to certification and QA. In the other hand, many engineers on apple still work on XQuartz. Releasing more fast via the XQuartz Everyone that really depended on it, has known for the last couple of years. And even beforehand talked about on the last rc's for Mountain Lion was a topic very active discussed with documentation readily available on Apple support site (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5293 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5293). And the same narrow-minded people replying with comments "my TASCAM (any hardware really) doesn't work on ML", blame the hardware vendors, they did have many months to do testing and porting of software to the latest release or at least inform your customers. It wasnt like ML was a surprise release and the same will happen with Windows 8. Years of blaming that could be solved by RTFM.

justin66 14y ago
> TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation. What is the value in giving a synopsis like this which is completely wrong? The author discusses his feelings a couple of times in the article, impugns Apple's motives not once, doesn't discuss corporatism, and uses the word "bad" precisely once to describe his experience here. He's not hyperbolic enough to use the word "evil," that was you. Users who depend on both X11 and Apple's RSS support (all ten of them) are going to find this upgrade a bit of a pain. That's not reflective of a narrow mindset, it's reflective of an unusual use case.
- cicloid 14y ago
  The thing is, nobody is forcing them to upgrade. Except for the RSS thing that was a dubious way to handle it (maybe being more clear on ways to get out a OPML file). Apple did inform, maybe in a way too opaque. But they did inform it. On the topic of corporations. I may not interpret it as americans have the "corporations" rhetoric. But the feeling I have as a whole, from the author (Anthony and comments) was very paranoid. Even calling the backend of OSX has "The Terminal" was very narrow on his scope to explain the problem of this trend and what we loose. From where I see it, let XQuartz (partially supported/founded by Apple), Google (as seen on iOS6 Youtube.app removal), do it outside the OSX/iOS release schedule, even Apple did it for the iBooks apps and Podcast app. Having old software stalling progress is just bad for all.

ap22213 14y ago

For me, OS X has increasingly become too difficult for use in development. For a while there, it was the best, especially with tools like homebrew. But, it's just become too much of a headache. Too often, I find myself wasting hours trying to get over small OSS compatibility hurdles. More and more, I've been finding myself picking up my 'other' laptop, firing up VirtualBox, and running Linux straight. I do miss the build quality of my MBP, though.

danbee 14y ago
Couldn't you just run VirtualBox on your MacBook Pro?
- ap22213 14y ago
  I could and have. But, the performance of VirtualBox on my 2011 Lion-based MBP seems much worse than on my windows box (with comparable hardware). I have a task on my todo list to investigate.
acdha 14y ago
I'm curious, what do you have problems with? For me it's been smooth sailing since around 10.5 or so - and the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools.
- duaneb 14y ago
  Their reorganization of XCode into an app bundle was really, really annoying and, frankly, makes zero sense; making the command line tools an extra download makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers (as opposed to general purpose ones).
  - CrLf 14y ago
    "makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers" No surprise here. It is very clear that the Mac is becoming two things: 1. Just a bigger iPad that isn't too awkward to use where your average consumer can actually create stuff (videos, photos, etc.); 2. A development machine to create iOS apps. Everything else is an afterthought.

michael_miller 14y ago

This is a very rational decision for Apple to make. 99% of their customers don't even know what X11 is, yet most of them will be downloading Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Not bundling X11 saves most users 70MB of unnecessary download.

jwbaker 14y ago
It's been some time since Apple shipped the X11 package by default. You've had to download it yourself. They're not saving anything by removing it from people's computers

smallsharptools 14y ago

This is just stupid. Who copies text from one terminal to another. You are missing the entire point of the command-line and piping. This is clearly a novice who just wants easy access to X11 because he does not know how to use the command-line tools properly. I manage remote FreeBSD servers with just Terminal. It is perfectly fine. And I never copy and paste text in terminal windows.

mjwalshe 14y ago
what a single terminal window? having multiple xterm windows is a godsend for admins. and being able to select and past with just the mouse is a realy usefull.
mikeash 14y ago
People with different workflows are stupid!

franzus 14y ago

How was that quote again? "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"

ctdonath 14y ago
_
brudgers 14y ago
<Godwin's Law> First they came for the communists... </Godwin's Law>

callumjones 14y ago

I'm not sure what the problem is here, especially given this is a consumer OS targeted at the masses but still its underpinnings means it can scale out to the niche when required. And this is exactly the case with X11, it doesn't exist on OS X 10.8 by default but luckily the OS tells me Apple have an open source version ready for me to download when I need it. This seems like the best of both worlds, an average computer user isn't bogged down by niche software shipped with their computer and the developer can easily hop onto MacForge and extend the functionality of their computer. Heck you can even compile things since it's just BSD/Mach underneath.

Someone 14y ago

I have a X11.app in /Applications/Utilities. When launched, it shows a dialog: An application has requested access to X11. Would you like to install X11 now? X11 is no longer included with OS X. Apple continues to support the development of X11 on OS X with the open source community. Clicking “Continue” will take you to an Apple Knowledge Base Article which provides information about installing X11. [ Cancel ] [ Continue ] So, I think that "and giving me this when I search their knowledge base for answers" is a bit dishonest. At least on my system, searching wasn't necessary. Apple pointed me there.

nikcub 14y ago

In the time it took to write this you could have just installed the damn thing

jwbaker 14y ago

I guess there's nobody left at Apple who believed in the spirit of this advertisement: http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg Now that the Apple no longer needs to be saved by dorks, the dorks are being thrown overboard.

mikeash 14y ago
That ad is from 2002. X11 didn't ship with Mac OS X until 2003. Either they never believed in the spirit of that advertisement and the whole thing was a sham, or built-in X11 support isn't actually necessary for it.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

I wonder if Apple risks losing its technical (i.e. programmer) users. If OS X stops feeling like a UNIX-like OS to technical users, and they move away, OS X may receive less attention from developers. And that won't be good for the platform.

mikeash 14y ago
As long as it's possible to install the technical apps, I don't really care whether they ship with the system. I don't imagine many technical users would care, although I could be wrong. You never got a compiler with Mac OS X without downloading and installing one separately, and many other tools people like to use have to be downloaded separately too.
- neverm0re 14y ago
  It actually always came on the install media up until very recently.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    True, forgot about that, since it was almost always out of date and not worth using. In any case, it didn't get installed by default, so I think the point still stands.
  - Someone 14y ago
    Also until very recently, users bought the OS on DVD and installed it on gigantic hard disks. Now, Apple optimizes for distribution over the Internet and installation on SSDs. That is also why Mac OS X no longer ships with that printer driver DVD.
    - neverm0re 14y ago
      You don't say.
ctdonath 14y ago
Apple went to great lengths to get OS X validated as a full-on UNIX. To what degree do developers in general confuse UNIX itself with good-riddance mis-associations therewith which cause unnecessary friction against modern development? (Can we drop vi already? fine paradigm unto itself, but counter to any other 21st-century UI...)

acdha 14y ago

> The Terminal was always limited, copy and pasting text in it was non standard, there was no default repository for ports or applications. And no matter how many cores or how much RAM I threw at it, it would beachball when copying and pasting from one terminal to another using the default app on Mac OS X. I stopped taking the author seriously around this point: the lack of package management outside of the App Store is a serious problem but the other two distractions are signs that he's either misconfigured his system or is doing something crazy like pasting data files rather than using pbcopy / pbpaste. For long-time users, this is a minor change and actually a good move: there were only a couple of releases where we didn't have to install XQuartz anyway to get performance or features which weren't available in the shipped version. Since this affected only a very, very small number of generally more technical Mac users I'm not surprised that Apple is moving it back outside of the default release cycle.

runjake 14y ago

This seems rather knee-jerk. XQuartz is X11.app. Percentage-wise, not many users needed X11 and the ones who do should be smart enough to follow the instructions they give to get XQuartz. Apple effectively removed engineering redundancy. It allows for a more aggressive release cycle. Apple engineers still oversee XQuartz. Many of the main committers are Apple employees working on Apple's time, for example, Jeremy Huddleston. I liken it more to the Java distribution transition as opposed to something like Messages.app obsoleting Mail.app.

redial 14y ago
I think you mean 'Messages.app obsoleting iChat.app.'
- runjake 14y ago
  I did not mean that. I was referring to the following from the article: "Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?"

cstross 14y ago

It's worth noting that OSX does provide VNC support, transparently, as "Screen Sharing". AIUI this should be compatible with other desktop machines that run a VNC server and Bonjour. While I wouldn't want to defend Apple's decision to drop X11 support, I should note that X11 is a minority pursuit on that platform, the Apple X11 server never worked brilliantly (Apple's use of the Alt/Meta key mapping for accented characters made for a messy collision with X11 world), and if there's a more seamless screen sharing system built into the OS, why not go with the path of least resistance?

jmmcd 14y ago
X11 has little to with screen sharing. They always describe it as the networked window server, but in reality on OSX, it is the software that allows Inkscape and similar programs to run on your own machine.

NelsonMinar 14y ago

Apple should remove Terminal.app and replace it with a stub that prompts you to install iTerm2.

derleth 14y ago
Apple may well decide that the Macintosh should go back to being a Macintosh and remove Terminal.app period. It's undeniably what Jobs would do.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  Jobs was in charge of Apple as they shipped numerous versions of Terminal.app for a period of over 10 years. If he was going to remove it, he would have.

pnathan 14y ago

A general desktop computer shouldn't be an iPad. I think that's the central issue here. Some people just want an iOS experience - some people want to use the full depth and power of a general purpose computer.

mrbill 14y ago

From FEBRUARY: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57381996-263/apple-to-drop-in-house-x11-support-and-more-in-mountain-lion/ http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57381996-263/apple-to-d... I think someone wasn't paying attention and is just butthurt.

duaneb 14y ago

Well, it's a click away - just like java. Not much worse than having to install it from one of the non-install DVDs that came with the OS.

swdunlop 14y ago

That is a lot of excitement for something that was available at http://xquartz.macosforge.org/ http://xquartz.macosforge.org/ on release day. I didn't even notice or care until I realized that libpng's headers were considered part of X11. When Apple introduced X11.app, I regarded it a tactic to get UNIX developers onto the platform. At the time, MacOS developers were sticking to Carbon like glue, and I think that by improving the POSIX compatibility and adding X11, Apple was trying to get other communities excited about OSX. X11.app did not integrate well with OSX, let alone Apple's shrinkwrap vision of the Desktop. I'm not surprised to see they treat it like an optional add on package, and I am somewhat relieved to see it continue as an open source project with support and recognition by Apple. It's the right way to handle a legacy framework in my opinion. As for the loss of RSS from Mail.app and Safari.app. Srsly? People use that who don't have a six paragraph definition for "semantic web"?

shimsham 14y ago

Hacker News?

Rhymenocerus 14y ago

X11? Do I need that for my Mac to get on Facebook?

rogerchucker 14y ago

My question is this.. why the fuck does Apple ship Photobooth, Mail, Safari, Garageband, iMovie and iDVD with my OS and make it super bloated, when I have no bloody use for those? Why can't we just go to Apple's website and install it if we want to?

im_dario 14y ago

I was just developing with headless gem [0] in a new open data project [1] (shameless plug) and I found this "issue". For the record, I come from a hardcore Linux background (no Windows in my home ;) Nicely handled by Apple, instead of permanently remove it and leave no trace, they shipped a "xstub" binary, symlinked all the binaries in /usr/X11/bin to it and make it show a clear way to install XQuartz. IMHO, it is not a big deal, as some already pointed. [0] https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/headless https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/headless [1] https://github.com/qomun/pipar https://github.com/qomun/pipar