Last year, Apple released macOS Sequoia with several updates, but recently users discovered that Apple updated the rsync program to use the openrsync project, allowing users to use the new version of the rsync protocol after refusing to update for almost 20 years.
Rsync is one of the most popular programs for data backup because it can send only the “difference” part of the data, making the data copying process with minimal changes much faster. For example, backup database files (which may be large but actually don’t change much) can speed up data copying tenfold to a thousandfold.
It’s unclear why Apple refused to update the rsync program and left it at version 2.6.9, but one possibility is that rsync switched licenses to GPLv3 in 2007, and there may be some issues that Apple did not accept, leaving it at rsync 2.x, which uses GPLv2. On the other hand, openrsync is a separate project of OpenBSD that attempts to implement the new version of the Rsync protocol, but the project is under a more permissive BSD license.
Even though Apple may update it, in reality, it may not affect many people because serious rsync users likely install it through homebrew. However, basic users may not need to install it themselves anymore.
Source: Der Flounder
TLDR: Apple updated the rsync program to utilize the openrsync project, potentially impacting users who have been using rsync for data backup for a long time.
Leave a Comment