Re:Kernel RCE in iOS/macOS with ICMP
by lunixbochs on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @09:49PM
(#18350877)
Really? I found Skia easier to compile than actually use.
One needs to duplicate Google's build infrastructure, which is quite a pain versus other open source projects that rely on more mainstream tooling.
Which would be fine if they provided some straight forward way to replicate that (like a container). It really seems like open source doesn't have that high of a standing at Google (anymore?). I guess limiting hardware manufacturers use of open source, not spending time making sure other people can build open source code, is what gives you the promotion these days
It's probably gotten better lately. A few years ago it took me several days to get it built.
So it is not only me.
On my case I ended up giving up and went back to Qt.
I also found this to be true when I tried to use Skia.
I don’t see why compiling XNU needs to be more complicated than 1. install the compiler (easy to do just by typing ‘cc’ on a pristine Mac) 2. Type ‘make’
It doesn't need to be that more complicated, but build systems inevitably have a way of needing at least one full time engineer to get them to the point of being that nice to use.
That’s not how software teams work unfortunately.
There’s probably three build systems and none of them work on certain days of the week and the guy who wrote it all left six months ago.
Large projects at companies tend to be hard to build, simply because it takes a lot of effort to make the build system for something so complex easy. If community contributions aren't particularly valued (which they aren't for XNU), then it's hard to internally justify spending the effort. Linux hackers are spoiled…
XNU isn't even one of the worst offenders. Try compiling Google's Skia, for example…