MacStadium Supports the Open Source Community

The open source community is a cornerstone of innovation in the tech world at large, and that holds true for those in the iOS and macOS space as well. However, the cost of Mac compute resources can sometimes be a challenge for teams that are contributing to the community without direct compensation. To recognize the value of these contributions, MacStadium offers an Open Source Project as a way to support these important innovations by providing dedicated Mac hosting for free and open source software (FOSS) projects in the iOS and macOS space.

When you enroll in the program, you are given a cloud-hosted, bare metal, Mac mini server to act as a remote build agent to help you continue to efficiently drive innovation without breaking the bank. With your free Mac mini, you can develop your iOS or macOS FOSS project locally, and then build and test it in the cloud for free.

Both Apple Silicon and Intel-based Mac minis

The race toward compatibility with Mac’s new M1 hardware is in full swing, and we’re excited to be able to support FOSS teams to make the transition as well. Our Open Source Program lets teams choose between either M1 or Intel-based Mac minis so that you can run your builds, tests, or CI jobs on either platform.

And if a single Mac mini can’t handle the bandwidth of your project, no problem! You can apply the value of a single Intel-based or Apple silicon-based Mac mini to any of our Mac private cloud solutions.

How it works

For your FOSS project to qualify for a free Mac mini, you’ll have to meet some basic criteria. For example, you need to be an unpaid project lead or regular contributor to the project, and the project needs to be under active development. Your free or open source project shouldn’t receive funding from commercial organizations or accept paid sponsorships. And last but not least, your FOSS project has to be fully free to the community. Check out our Open Source Project page for a full rundown of the rules to participate.

To get started, fill out a quick application telling us about your open source project. If you meet the criteria, you’ll receive instructions for how to get started with your free Mac mini. We’ll also include you in our directory of free and open source projects! If you have any questions about the process or concerns about meeting the qualifications, please let us know. Of course, we have to have some rules to keep things fair, but our primary goal is to help all developers who are contributing to the open source community however we can.

Some of our favorite projects

We are proud to support, and value the contributions of, all of the participants in our Open Source Project, but the value that some offer to the iOS and macOS development communities is particularly noteworthy.

Homebrew

As the de facto package manager for macOS, Homebrew makes it simple to install all manner of software on macOS with only a brew install command.

Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. It opens up the asynchronous goodness of JavaScript in the backend!

AdoptOpenJDK

AdoptOpenJDK provides OpenJDK and Eclipse OpenJ9 (with OpenJDK class libraries) binaries for the Java ecosystem and also provides infrastructure as code, and a build farm for builders of OpenJDK and Eclipse OpenJ9 (with OpenJDK class libraries), on any platform.

Swift Package Index

The Swift Package Index is a search engine for packages that support the Swift Package Manager. Picking high-quality packages is hard, and the Swift Package Index helps you make better decisions about your dependencies.