We do document OCLP quite a bit as well as OpenCore has plenty of documentation as well. We make sure users have all the information available if they're interested in learning more:
-
OpenCore Legacy Patcher Guide (Includes terminology, boot process and kext break down)
-
OpenCorePkg documentation
Its less of a black box and more that users do not actively research, that is fine but we've made it so that nothing seems like a mystery.
Not necessarily, you only need to update OpenCore when you have an issue. Otherwise use the OpenCore build you built with till you feel there's some benefit with the newer updates
Mainly security and engineering efforts. If Intel drops microcode updates for a certain generation of CPU, Apple's not interested in having a security flaw due to a 3rd party vendor. For users here, that may not matter but to Apple, who advertises the security of their platform, it's very important.
- Mykola
You have somehow overlooked all the ironies in my comments.
Nonetheless I appreciate all the good work.
The OCLP project is beautifully organized a la Github, and the writeup worked well for me. The Github portal is great where issues can be submitted at same channel as picking releases reading docs, and getting involved, so love it.
What I'm trying to convey re my comments for documentation is my surprise at something akin to the observation 'what are the limits of running a virtual machine on a virtual machine?' — It so happens my interests include science and philosophy, where problems in meta and recursion are perennial topics. There's a great treatment of this in a book which was once very popular among geeks in the 80s (no it's not the stupid Fountainhead!) It's titled '
Godel,
Escher and
Bach,' by Doug Hodstadter. He discusses the epistemological limits of meta in the work of these three great creators and offers a thougt experiment limits of an unbreakable record player, like Superman, with one weakness; from wikipedia writeup:
//An [unbreakable] phonograph dubbed "Record Player X" destroys itself by playing a record titled I Cannot Be Played on Record Player X (an analogy to
Gödel's incompleteness theorems), an examination of
canon form in
music, and a discussion of Escher's
lithograph of two hands drawing each other.//
I'll leave it at thar, hoping this reference provides food for thought beyond bounds of EFI hacking. Google "record player x" for a good medium.com article on meta and fascism, which is a topic always too close to the machinations of giant media/technology corporations building thought-control devices.
Back to OCLP:
All my points are meta-points about limits of support, aimed at dudez who post complaints about Apple dropping support. There are good reasons to be unhappy about loss of support, and we may wish it were otherwise, but it doesn't imply Apple is screwing up.
If it sounds like I'm working both sides od the street, I am.
The freedom for a community to support itself is key and in keeping with Stallman and GNU's original concerns for free software. It's wonderful to find an intelligent, active support community for gear that a conpany of extraordinary wealth and power, built on backs of these its users, has no overt interest in supporting except by selling us more of the same.
And the writing is on the wall: soon Apple products will be completely locked away from their users, which is a situation I find much more dangerous than the risks of security — following a dictum of Record Player X.
This community is giving everyone more freedom to chose how to keep living with our existing gear. Thank you!
As to how good this is? It feels really good, though I have to admit I'm overlooking effects like maybe the high electrical power consumption of my old Mac Pro has a downstream cost in pollution that would be better mitigated by the upfront cost of a much more efficient M1? IDK honestly.
As you say, maybe it's not so much a sealed black box as just being willing / able to look inside.
Our society, although conpletely computerized, only clumsily applies such to help understand life's tradeoffs.
I still think locally even tho I act globally haha. And by local measures keeping my old gear working is a preservation of wealth that makes sense to me!
People working together freely to do so is the best expression of creativity.
I hope any reader can see my views look up past horizon as well as watching to not stumble over ground at my feet.
Again I pray I'm not wasting time.
Carry on
