Great work and even more surprising: a great writeup (writing that as someone who always struggles to document my own work). This really gives me hope to have an usable, native Linux on the M1 machines.
I really wished Apple would see, how much benefit this would bring to their platform. Their new hardware is really exciting, the first ARM on the desktop, which doesn't just compete, but in many aspects beat current x86 chips. A lot of the Linux and tech enthusiast crowd would love to jump onto Apple Silicon. And while they might not bring huge profits by themselves, these are the people who do come up with great new technologies. Better give them a home on Apple devices. It doesn't need a complete and formal documentation of every aspect, just supporting those projects with a little bit of information would go a long way. A single engineer who would answer questions by those developers might be sufficient. So come on, Apple, do it! :)
> A mid-1987 Personal Computer World preview of the Archimedes based on the "A500 Development System" expressed enthusiasm about the computer's performance, that it "felt like the fastest computer I have ever used, by a considerable margin"
Well, in this millenium :). And while I remember the Archimedes well, this was another day and age and unfortunately it failed to gain much traction back then. A lot of bad tech could have been avoided, if it had become main stream. I fondly remember the times, when there were plenty of competing processor architectures, almost every one more interesting than the x86 architecture.
>> This is a company that actively fights right to repair and implements software DRM to lock out non-Apple authorised replacements.
But they do all these things for obvious reasons. Reasons you and I may not agree with or be happy about, but still obvious reasons. In the case of repair/replacement it's just because they want you to use expensive replacement parts, they want to lure you into their Apple stores, and they don't want any liability/accountability for repairs with 'unofficial' parts.
I don't see how providing specifications about how their GPU's work so someone can make a Linux driver out of it hurts their commercial interests or liability though. Yes people may screw up their system if they install Linux on a Mac and it doesn't boot anymore, but as long as you can still take it into an Apple store and they can restore it to MacOS, why would Apple actively fight the extremely small minority of people who want to do that? And even if more people (developers/enthusiasts) would buy M1 hardware and immediately slap Linux on it, why would they care about that? They still made the sale, and these people will still walk around with a machine with a big fat Apple logo on it?
They previously spent a lot of effort accomodating people who wanted to run Windows on Macs using Boot Camp, so why would they be worried about people running Linux on M1 macs?
Edit: I can imagine Apple want to protect their IP and hence don't want to disclose anything about out it, period. Much like NVidia and most other GPU manufacturers do. But if AMD and Intel can be OSS-friendly, Apple could be too, apparently IP protection does not have to be a deal-breaker.
As a Linux person, I have to say my iPad almost got me into becoming also an Apple person. Let's be real, Apple would not lose a single penny to inviting the Linux crowd directly, however, some of those Linux people will become Apple people. There are two reasons to not open up, for the future outlook:
1. Why tho?
2. MacOS increasing lock-down makes even Linux attractive to a wider customer base, and therefore threatening their huge, carefree software extortion business.
Personally I think, they do number 2 on their customer base. I think not opening up to Linux is an indirect admission to their unfair competition game. I think Linux support would very much limit how much they can push their DRM, subscription, software extortion and expropriation mischief. It would allow for consumer choices.
I don’t think they care, unfortunately. Apple sells billions of devices to non-techies. The user base that might run Linux or do development on Apple machines is a small fraction like 0.001% or less. The reasons behind preventing you from installing Linux is likely more a consequence of preventing device theft or software piracy.
I really wished Apple would see, how much benefit this would bring to their platform. Their new hardware is really exciting, the first ARM on the desktop, which doesn't just compete, but in many aspects beat current x86 chips. A lot of the Linux and tech enthusiast crowd would love to jump onto Apple Silicon. And while they might not bring huge profits by themselves, these are the people who do come up with great new technologies. Better give them a home on Apple devices. It doesn't need a complete and formal documentation of every aspect, just supporting those projects with a little bit of information would go a long way. A single engineer who would answer questions by those developers might be sufficient. So come on, Apple, do it! :)