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Apple Joins Hollywood's Academy Software Foundation to Aid in Open Source Support

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The Academy Software Foundation, a collaborative effort to advance open source software development in the motion picture and media industries, today announced that Apple has joined the foundation as a "premier" member.

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"Filmmakers everywhere use Apple products. We are delighted to welcome Apple as a new member, and we look forward to working with them to ensure that our open source projects run well on Apple software platforms," said David Morin, Executive Director of the Academy Software Foundation.

Launched in August 2018 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation is described as "a neutral forum for open source software developers to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation and sound."

Apple's streaming video service Apple TV+ will feature dozens of Hollywood-produced TV shows and movies. The service launches November 1 for $4.99 per month, including Family Sharing, with a free seven-day trial available.

Top Rated Comments

mdriftmeyer Avatar
85 months ago
Apple has dozens of FOSS based products it supports. The OpenDarwin was taken away to avoid clone hacking on Hackintosh.

OpenGL is in legacy mode and will soon be superseded. Khronos Group knows it and that's why we have Vulkan and Metal on OS X/iOS.

Apple invented OpenCL and still oversees it's evolutionary development.

It merged the best ideas of OpenCL and low-level Hardware programming ala DirectX 12 and Vulkan before either DirectX 12 and Vulkan had emerged--the progress with Khronos Group was stalled and Apple decided not to wait any longer so developed it's best version and it is Metal. We are up to Metal 2.2 now.

CUPS--w/o Apple this printing foundation that is across all platforms would be nowhere near as robust as what is now CUPS 2.3.

Ask FreeBSD how much Apple has contributed back.

Systemd on Linux only exists because of Launchd from Apple.

Clang was funded and invented by Apple.

On and on and on.

Apple is contributing as one of the core creators of AV1.

HEIC/HEVC is pushed to hundreds of millions of seats first by Apple. HEIC/HEVC is the industry standard equivalent to AV1.

ALAC is Open Sourced.

https://developer.apple.com/opensource/

ResearchKit--Open Sourced

WebKit -- Open Sourced has expanded greatly, even with Google forking their own version

Swift -- Open Sourced

CareKit -- Open Sourced

Bonjour -- Open Sourced

All the low end UNIX code is available.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ikir Avatar
85 months ago
Apple has dozens of FOSS based products it supports. The OpenDarwin was taken away to avoid clone hacking on Hackintosh.

OpenGL is in legacy mode and will soon be superseded. Khronos Group knows it and that's why we have Vulkan and Metal on OS X/iOS.

Apple invented OpenCL and still oversees it's evolutionary development.

It merged the best ideas of OpenCL and low-level Hardware programming ala DirectX 12 and Vulkan before either DirectX 12 and Vulkan had emerged--the progress with Khronos Group was stalled and Apple decided not to wait any longer so developed it's best version and it is Metal. We are up to Metal 2.2 now.

CUPS--w/o Apple this printing foundation that is across all platforms would be nowhere near as robust as what is now CUPS 2.3.

Ask FreeBSD how much Apple has contributed back.

Systemd on Linux only exists because of Launchd from Apple.

Clang was funded and invented by Apple.

On and on and on.

Apple is contributing as one of the core creators of AV1.

HEIC/HEVC is pushed to hundreds of millions of seats first by Apple. HEIC/HEVC is the industry standard equivalent to AV1.

ALAC is Open Sourced.

https://developer.apple.com/opensource/

ResearchKit--Open Sourced

WebKit -- Open Sourced has expanded greatly, even with Google forking their own version

Swift -- Open Sourced

CareKit -- Open Sourced

Bonjour -- Open Sourced

All the low end UNIX code is available.
Sometimes here you can find post like this from competent user who know what happened, what is happening now and the true reasons of choices. Sadly like this time there are post of whiners, haters and kids who don’t have a clue but pretend to understand how to run a big company and what is right and wrong, but even worst they distort reality based on their delusional experience.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
85 months ago
Say what you will about Tim Cook but I love that he's opening Apple up to third-parties, common standards and open-source communities. Steve Jobs had Apple locked down harder than Azkaban.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gplusplus Avatar
85 months ago
Executive summary:

Say what you will about Tim Cook but I love that he's opening Apple up to third-parties, common standards and open-source communities. Steve Jobs had Apple locked down harder than Azkaban.
Wrong.

Actually no. Back then, in Jobs' time, we had stuff like OpenDarwin. And it's only gotten worse.
Correct. Also, we had OpenGL.

He is? Where?
A good takeaway question for later.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Vjosullivan Avatar
85 months ago
.
!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
organicCPU Avatar
85 months ago
Right now there are those Current Technical Projects ('https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac#current-technical-projects') by the Academy Software Foundation ('https://www.aswf.io')

* OpenColorIO ('http://opencolorio.org/') (color management solution by Sony Pictures Imageworks)
* OpenCue ('https://github.com/imageworks/OpenCue') (render manager by Sony Pictures Imageworks)
* OpenEXR ('http://www.openexr.com/') (image file format by Industrial Light & Magic)
* OpenTimelineIO ('http://opentimeline.io/') (API and interchange format for editorial cut information by Pixar Animation Studios)
* OpenVDB ('https://openvdb.org/') (C++ library and tools for 3D volumetric data by DreamWorks Animation)

Some time ago I've been noticing the integration of OpenColorIO and OpenEXR in Serif's Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. As of recent OpenCue release v0.2.65 it is announced that Blender ('https://blender.org/') is added as an option to CueSubmit. OpenTimelineIO does have Final Cut Pro XML adapters and OpenVDB is supported by Blender since version 2.77a. So we need to await the development of an OpenTimelineIO adapter to some open source video editor like the one integrated in Blender and we can immediately start with some Hollywood grade movie making at no or very low cost ;-)
I really appreciate that Apple has joined the board of ASWF. To satisfy the critics: I remember that Apple also joined the Blu-ray Group in 2005, but we've unfortunately never seen something like a Blu-Ray Superdrive. As optimistic end users, we should hope that this affiliation will evolve into something great and that it will be able to provide us more and more real world benefits.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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