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They don't have to support it, just document the system or release their own kernel code. They don't even have to mention Linux.
by mrj 5mo ago
They don't have to support it, just document the system or release their own kernel code. They don't even have to mention Linux.
- internet2000 5mo agoThat’s called support. We count that as support.
- cromka 5mo agoJesus, no, that's not called support.
- wtallis 5mo agoAs used by commercial hardware and software vendors, "support" can mean anything from "we'll come fix it for you when it breaks, or your money back" to merely "theoretically, it should work, and we won't get in the way of you trying". Likewise, "unsupported" can mean anything from "don't complain to us if it doesn't work" to "we're going to spend significant engineering effort to prevent it from working". A stance of "here's some hardware documentation, implement the drivers yourself" definitely falls within that spectrum of "support", and is the kind of "support" for Linux that some hardware vendors have in the past been lauded for, eg. when AMD started documenting their GPUs. That level of "support" from Apple for running Linux bare-metal on Apple Silicon would be an improvement from the status quo, and in practice would probably be sufficient to get good drivers written and upstreamed in short order, given how much interest there is in running Linux on these devices.
- cromka 5mo agoWe're talking about "people walking into Genius Bar expecting help with Linux" support. It's not philosophical discussion on what support is, there's literally a specific thing discussed here.
- wtallis 5mo agoThat's one of the several forms of support under discussion, under the specious claim that it would become the expected level of support as soon as Apple declared any level of support for Linux. But as the comments you're refusing to understand have explained, Apple could meaningfully "support" Linux in the form of providing hardware documentation, without making any promises to help any customers troubleshoot Linux running on that hardware.
- exe34 5mo agoThey could anonymously drop off a package to the Asahi team.
- saagarjha 5mo agoThey do release their own kernel code.