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Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

422 points · 290 comments · ADevWithAnIdea

AKSF_Ackermann · 1789509486 · focus · HN ↗
I am not by any means a copyright lawyer, so can anyone enlighten me on if it is a good idea for upstream projects to accept such kind of code from an ex-Apple employee, especially since Apple is currently suing OpenAI.
1. ADevWithAnIdea · 1789509770 · focus · HN ↗
  Great observation, two things:
  - During my time at Apple I never saw any of the macOS source code, at all, even for userspace components. I had not even heard of things like SPTM.
  - I have not worked there since June 2025
  I don't believe that there's any risk due to my former Apple employment. As another example, WINE does not ban all former Microsoft employees, they just ban anyone who has ever looked at the Windows source code. If I felt there was even a chance that my employment at Apple may have exposed me to relevant internal secrets, I would refrain from contributing to community projects.
  1. liamgm · 1789524815 · focus · HN ↗
    Great job for bringing up new apple's silicon chip , m4 a18 to linux . I hope the project keep alive and maintained , and if you can't mainline it , remmber many other project do out-of-tree version well maintained [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] .
    [1]: <a href="https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux Rust for Linux
    [2]: <a href="https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/" rel="nofollow">https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/ Android OS linux kernel
    [3]: <a href="https://github.com/openzfs/zfs" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/openzfs/zfs OpenZFS kernel module
    [4]: <a href="https://github.com/awemorris/linux-pc98" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/awemorris/linux-pc98 Linux pc98 / 32 bit x86
    [5]: <a href="https://github.com/OpenDingux/linux" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/OpenDingux/linux Linux on retro gaming device
    [6]: <a href="https://github.com/AsahiLinux/linux" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/AsahiLinux/linux Linux on older apple silicon M1/M2/M3 chip
    [7]: <a href="https://github.com/microsoft/wsl2-linux-kernel" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/microsoft/wsl2-linux-kernel Linux on Windows

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