Open source developers unhappy that Apple has undermined DTrace code
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 25, 2008 at 1:10pm
Open source developers are unhappy with Apple for “undermining” a key piece of open source developer code, called DTrace, in its Mac OS X implementation, according to Macworld UK. DTrace provides an infrastructure to permit administrators, developers, and service personnel to answer arbitrary questions about the behavior of the operating system and user programs.
It can dynamically instrument code by modifying a program after it gets loaded into memory. It was released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) in January 2005 and included in Sun’s Solaris 10 for troubleshooting system problems in real time. DTrace was the first component of the OpenSolaris project to be released under the CDDL.
Apple quietly introduced a feature into its implementation that allows particular programs such as iTunes to disable tracing in DTrace and other debugging tools, Adam Leventhal, one of DTrace’s original developers, told Macworld UK. Also, he adds that the alteration actually breaks other parts of DTrace in a way that doesn’t seem intentional. You can read the complete story here.
Also, in his Sun Microsystems blogblog, Adam Leventhal says Apple is explicitly preventing DTrace from examining or recording data for processes which don’t permit tracing.
“This is antithetical to the notion of systemic tracing, antithetical to the goals of DTrace, and antithetical to the spirit of open source,” he writes. “I’m sure this was inserted under pressure from ISVs, but that makes the pill no easier to swallow. To say that Apple has crippled DTrace on Mac OS X would be a bit alarmist, but they’ve certainly undermined its efficacy and, in doing do, unintentionally damaged some of its most basic functionality. To users of Mac OS X and of DTrace: Apple has done a service by porting DTrace, but let’s convince them to go one step further and port it properly.”
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
