[nycbug-talk] WWDC representation for NYCBUG

[Isaac Levy]

Hi Bob,

I'm really happy you asked this question here, as I was planning to go 
to WWDC but now cannot- and have some definite questions for this 
summer's event:

On Jun 20, 2004, at 12:54 AM, Bob Ippolito wrote:

> I'm attending WWDC later this month (28th-2nd), and I know a lot of 
> you own or maintain Apple gear, so I was wondering if there are any 
> pressing questions or issues that you all have that I can take with me 
> to San Fran.  I'm quasi-officially representing the MacPython 
> community on my ticket, but I'm sure I could be of some service to the 
> local BSD community as well.
>
> As the title suggests, this is a developers conference, so I will be 
> speaking with mostly engineers.  Questions and comments about Apple's 
> legal/political stance do not apply.  Also, it should be obvious that 
> it's hardly even worth asking questions about Apple's future plans 
> (beyond the Tiger release, anyway).  You've got a full week to come up 
> with stuff, so take your time.  If it's about a technical issue please 
> do a little research first (Google is your friend?) to make sure that 
> we're not asking for answers already available.

Well, I have 2 questions- both of which, when I asked the East Coast 
sales engineer when he spoke at NYCBUG, he said should be sounded off 
at some meeting on the last day where apple business suits and 
engineering management sit and listen to Developer's beefs-

The first question is a small-ish unix question with regard to Tiger 
features, and I'm fine not knowing the answer if it's supped to stay 
secret until release:
Is the FreeBSD jail call (and jailing subsystem) going to be 
implemented in Tiger?  This was rumored among reliable sources, and I'm 
VERY interested in this functionality.

--
The second question, is more of a request from Apple- and I know 
exactly where/how to direct it.
When the Apple Engineer spoke at NYCBUG, I asked some very specific 
questions about Open Source, and Apple's contribution back to the Open 
Source communities, where Apple is becoming an excellent connoisseur of 
technologies, (to their, and our benefit).
Basically, I see a large participation hole at this stage of Apple's 
Open Source plans, insomuch as I feel their direct feedback into 
various Open Source projects (actually getting some of their internal 
developers commiting code externally, and besides the FreeBSD tree), 
would help them from a business perspective, in many ways.  Let me give 
an example-

If apple got one of their Rendezvous/zero-conf developers to write and 
contribute some Rendezvous packages to any of the FreeBSD, OpenBSD and 
NetBSD teams, and perhaps some Linux distro, with the rammifications of 
making low-level networking Rendezvous aware, and things like ssl 
simply worked with rendezvous, it would be a HUGE benefit for sysadmins 
all over, and could get more apple machines into their networks- (by 
exposing them to awesome Apple stuff, much like the strategy for 
putting iTunes/iPods on Windows, but likely a lot less work [!]).

With that, I'd really like to See apple put more direct code out into 
other projects, in order to not only share particular technologies by 
making them usable outside of Apple stuff, but also to make Apple stuff 
natively more interoperable (and therefore desirable) to start slipping 
into our respective IT infrastructures.

The Apple Engineer stated that these Forums, on the last day of WWDC, 
are EXACTLY THE PLACE TO ASK WHAT I JUST ASKED:

The Sunset Room:
FF015 (2:00 - 3:30 PM)
  Enterprise Feedback Forum
FF000 (3:30 - 5:00 PM)
  WebObjects Feedback Forum
FF011 (5:00 - 6:30 PM)
  Worldwide Developer Relations Feedback Forum

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/calendar/friday_pm.html

>
> Additionally, since I am and will be under NDA, I may not be able to 
> completely answer all inquiries immediately upon my return as some of 
> the information may be dependent on information Apple has not yet made 
> public which I will not legally be allowed to disclose.

Understandable, have fun with it!!!!

> However, I assure you that questions asked and comments raised are 
> better than those never heard :)

Indeed!

Rocket,
.ike