Apple circumvents DTrace open source utility
updated 11:30 am EST, Fri January 25, 2008
Apple circumvents DTrace
Some open source developers are upset with Apple for "undermining" a key piece of open source software called DTrace in Mac OS X. Apple's introduction of a feature that allows programs like iTunes to disable tracing as well as other debugging tools is causing serious problems for open source developers, effectively rendering useless other parts of DTrace in unanticipated ways -- such as causing unrelated probes to fail while anti-tracing flags are running.
DTrace is a tracing framework that got its start at Sun Microsystems, and was later released as open source as part of OpenSolaris. The software allows developers to tune as well as troubleshoot applications and the operating system itself, according to Macworld UK.
Apple's implementation of DTrace breaks some of the utility's functionality and is "antithetical to the notion of systemic tracing, antithetical to the goals of DTrace, and antithetical to the spirit of open source," according to Adam Leventhal, one of DTrace's original developers.
"They're not just crippling DTrace in the way they intended, but also in ways that are, in some ways, more pervasive," Leventhal wrote in his blog. "It's annoying that Apple decided to disallow tracing for applications that choose to opt out, and it's a fairly serious issue, but the bigger issue is that in doing so they've broken DTrace."
Junior Member
Joined: Jan 2007
i can see the
uses for such a tool, and Apple's including it was a nice touch, but I doubt Apple intentionally breaks Dtrace for use in applications that havn't "opted out" of tracing. Dtrace is a nice tool for legitimate developers, but arguably also a nice tool for less noble ends. Apple certainly has a right to opt out certain applications from Dtrace, and I'm sure that the side effects noted are bugs introduced by Apple's opting out. It could be that Dtrace has a hole in it's logic that allows anti-tracing flags to prevent other non-related probes to fail. Don't know. Seems like an issue between the Dtrace developers and Apple.
The blog post pointed to by the article could just be posturing to get more attention on the problem, rightly or wrongly. Don't know if the developer/s had much dialog with Apple regarding the problem. It appears from the MacWorld article that there is a workaround available, and my guess is that Apple will provide a fix for this eventually...