Apple and the Open Source Community 473
Dozix007 writes "Sitepoint reports an interesting article on the increasing interconnection between Apple's recently released Tiger, and the open source community. Tiger includes improved releases of Apple's directory services (LDAP), secure authentication (Kerberos), mail server (Postfix), web server (Apache) and many more features, nearly all based on existing open source software. Most significant may be the release of Rendezvous for Java, Linux/Unix and Windows. This is a zero-configuration tool for networking that includes network protocols, identification and configuration of devices and services such as printers and local/remote servers, and was based on open source technology."
The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun anym (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple has given a lot more to the open source movement that IBM or Sun.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has been making the right moves, and people are switching. With OS X being the most widely used UNIX on the desktop, you can expect a lot of (hobbyist) development work to be done on, for, or taking into account OS X. I think it has a great future.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Informative)
And people are switching. I used to hate Macs before OS X, but they've gone from crappy, slow computers with an outdated OS to sleek, quick computers with the most technologically advanced OS available (for the desktop, at least). Now I own one, and have several friends who want to switch.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Insightful)
to sleek, quick computers with the most technologically advanced OS available (for the desktop, at least).
True!
The Apple succes on unix desktops always reminds me how right was Steve Jobs with his NeXT computers [wikipedia.org], ahead of time by 19 years!.
And some people still thinks we are in the fast lane!
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't understand this talk of "Apple zealots." I'm sure they must exist but I'm certainly not one. I didn't use Macs at all until I bought a Powerbook a few months ago. I'm a long-time Unix user and used Windows grudgingly from time to time, and to me Mac OS was just another limited OS like Windows only more expensive and with fewer apps. OS X changed all that.
Now I have a Mac and I love it, but if Apple got stupid and started producing crap again I'd switch in a heartbeat. As opposed to the Microsoft zealots who complain about their buggy systems but inevitably line up for the next Windows release.
As for Apple's contribution to open source, well, they strike an interesting balance between free and proprietary software and however you feel about the OSS "purity" issues you have to admit (if you're honest with yourself) that the end product is damned effective. The fact that they give back when they don't have to impresses me even if it doesn't impress anyone else, but the reason I like their stuff is that it's good. I'm willing to pay a premium for quality.
I have a Unix laptop with a slick UI and I do not have to fuck with it all the time to make it work. Even most of the pre-installed Linux laptops I've seen do not fully support all of the onboard hardware, and none of them are as nice as a Powerbook (though some of them are about as good as a P-P-P-Powerbook!) Apparently, my willingness to pay a little more for this makes me a zealot. Um, yeah, whatever. I say I'm a person who likes nice stuff and is getting too old to spend hours fucking around with hardware just to save a few bucks.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Insightful)
It pretty much boils down to this: people who care about how well their computers work care about keeping it up-to-date. People who don't care, and just want The Internet to work (i.e., want an appliance) end up with Windows, PCs, because they're the default choice these days (they don't care to investigate all the choices available to them, and instead just buy whatever the loser at Best Buy tells them to - and Best Buy doesn't sell Macs). Therefore, Mac users care about their computer being up-to date.
So, I would say that the vast majority of those Macs on the Zeitgeist are running OS X.
*note that I'm not saying Macs are overpriced, or even necessarily expensive - but they have only high-end and midrange machines, no eMachines or Dell style low end
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Just the other day my mum was saying "I would really like a consumer UNIX satisfactory to both end and power users that is capable of running POSIX and most Linux-targeted software without modification, just compile and it runs".
And I said "d000000d, where have you been. Get a Mac! This is a major coup, and it surprises me people don't see this!"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Indeed (Score:4, Funny)
There are 10 types of people in the world--those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Re:Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Indeed (Score:4, Informative)
I was at Apple 10 years ago and I can say with certainty that System 7 (the OS at the time) was a mix of C and assembler, for the most part. Pascal had long since been eliminated from everything except MacApp.
It was called A/UX (not AIX) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Indeed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:3, Interesting)
Boycott Apple - Some time before 1989, Apple Computer, Inc. started a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, claiming they had breached Apple's copyright on the look and feel of the Macintosh user interface. In December 1989, Xerox failed to sue Apple Computer, cl
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Informative)
Read the FIRST PARAGRAPH here [gnu.org] and try not to spread FUD.
I'm very grateful it's not true copyleft, since I've had to integrate this code into existing commercial modules. Truly "free as in freedom" licenses allow that, and Apple is to be commended for picking a license that allows this (since they could have released under a different license and bypassed any such restriction themselves as the copyright owners).
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaching as in taking code, improving it, and releasing your modifications back to the community. Which is how open source works.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Insightful)
Other companies may not be so nice.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Insightful)
What did MS do as soon as Safari was release? That's right, they claimed that OSX now has a browser and EOL'd IE for Mac. There is also the argument you hear time and time again from the GNU community (as opposed to the OSS community as a whole) if you don't like the terms of the licence, don't use the code. The KDE team was free to reject the Apple code wholesale if they didn't want the hastle of integrating the code bases.
Apple have so far been a fine player in the OSS community, they have worked hard and we cant forget that they are a commercial company, in the world of commerce first to market actually means something. Apple don't want to spend millions investing in making a browser for their platform for the whole project to be torpedoed by buggy early releases, code handed back to KDE that isn't ready for the primetime and an early exit from the market by MS.
To be frank, Apple have given more back to the community than you give them credit for with comments like "the corporate version dumped on your lap by an organization merely following the letter of the law". You are completely neglecting the contribution that is Darwin. That was BSD, that had a BSD licence, they could have just taken and not given anything back. They chose to keep it OSS.
I've been in the corporate world - it's not much fun, and I'll bet it would leave a very bitter taste in one's mouth if a competitor used your code to beat you to the punch, released a browser and dumped a large "patch" of your own code to a project before you'd finished; while at the same time your platform languished because said 'followers' didn't have a decent browser. Obviously this is a worst case everything went wrong scenario, but they aren't doing it for the love, no Mac 'follower' is really fooled into thinking they're doing it for anything except to line the pockets of the shareholders, it's just that at the same time we think they're doing it right.
YMMV.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever consider that they picked KHTML because they prefer LGPL over MPL or GPL?
You post begs much explanation, because it makes no sense as is.An Apple employee invented ZeroConf (Rendezvous) (Score:5, Informative)
proof #1
"In 1998, between finishing my PhD and starting work full-time at Apple..."
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/#Personal
--
proof #2
"Peter Ford from Microsoft helped me co-chair those meetings, and we gathered enough interest to warrant the formation of an official IETF Working Group, under the new name "Zero Configuration Networking", in September 1999."
http://www.theideabasket.com/index.php/article/
Now stop spreading FUD!
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:5, Interesting)
As others have said, using, improving, and returning your improvements back to the open source projects is hard to be considered leeching either. And this is what they are doing for gcc, FreeBSD, KHTML, and other projects.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Insightful)
Proprietary media formats? Like UFS, Samba, AAC, MPEG-4, PDF, and XML?
Media players? The only thing proprietary about the formats that iPod plays is the FairPlay DRM, and that's only there to make the record companies comfortable enough to buy into iTMS. But you can play AAC, MP3, AIFF, WAV, etc... And you can load it from a Mac, Windows, or anything that will talk to a FireWire device.
I'm not sure what services for the OS you're talking about, but a significant portion of the OS itself is open source.
There's nothing about any of this that 'locks you in to their proprietary' anything. Use what you want, don't use what you don't want.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple does however give you less opportunity to buy less and therefore pay less. That dopes not make them more expensive but it does make their system less configurable at the initial purchase time. If you can get over that detail, everything else with their solution is wonderful IMHO
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:2)
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:2)
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Informative)
Here are two editorials that respond to that flaimbait. I suggest you (and others that adopt this way of thinking) read them.
The New FUD: Apple Market Share [osviews.com]
Gartner Research - Server Install-base vs. market share [osviews.com]
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:3, Insightful)
Its only when a company abuses their monopoly to leverage their way into new markets and stifle competition where monopoly status becomes a problem... and is also illegal.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:3, Insightful)
And that may have something to do with their willingness to release many aspects of their OS as open source. What distinguishes the Apple "brand" and sells the hardware, after all, is not their tweaks to postfix, but their user interface. So they can treat their unix implementation as non-proprietary.
Re:Sun??? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sun??? (Score:4, Insightful)
They've donated Openoffice.org.
Re:Sun??? (Score:5, Informative)
Further, they've involved in several smaller projects. Check out http://www.sunsource.net/ [sunsource.net] for more information. Oh, and they're a member of the Open Source Development Lab.
Is that good enough for you?
Further, Sun has developed several technologies which have been widely adopted by other Unix vendors, such as NFS and PAM.
While Sun doesn't get a lot of media attention for their open-source work, they do contribute a lot.
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:3, Interesting)
By their contributions to the BSDs? Apple uses FreeBSD a lot but it's only a trickle back. Sure, they give some gnawed bones to the FreeBSD kernel guys, but what about the rest of BSD?
Seeing this, it implies to me that you are just ranting with no idea what you talking about. The part of FreeBSD that Apple is not using is the kernel. They are using the BSD w/ Mach thing that they inherited from NeXT. It is the user space utilities that are mostly from FreeBSD. Instead of the ones that shipped with NextS
Re:The argument isn't just between IBM & Sun a (Score:4, Informative)
So unless you think the Apple website is wrong and they don't really use FreeBSD in their kernel, despite their own developer's website saying that they do, I think you might be mistaken.
Yes, I think that quote that you grabbed somewhat misleading. Or at least a large simplification. Lets look at how many lines in the kernel have either copyright or RCS variables that reference FreeBSD
Now as a comparison, lets grab src/sys from FreeBSD for comparison
and just to round things out, lets look for how many references there is to Apple anywhere in the FreeBSD source.
I discounted the references to appletalk, which aren't apple code and skew the results. If you look closely at the rest of those 53 files, they are hardware related files that aren't common between the two. (most of the PCI and low level disk drivers are handled by Mach, not BSD on the Darwin side)
Based on this, I'll repeat my assertion. The Darwin kernel is an evolutionary outgrowth of the work that was done at NeXT. NeXT's BSD is based off of the BSD source before it became free software and before the FreeBSD project began. There is very little, if any FreeBSD code in Apple's kernel. The rest of the BSD subsystem, the parts above the kernel, (mostly the stuff in /usr/lib and /{,usr}/{,s}bin) are a different story and have a lot of connection to FreeBSD.
Recently revealed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Recently revealed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Recently revealed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Recently revealed (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely you mean "the source to the Darwin that is contained in the Tiger WWDC preview is available now". Mac OS X 10.4 hasn't, as the original poster noted, been released yet, and source to it isn't available for the simple reason that it doesn't yet exist.
Similar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Similar (Score:4, Informative)
I run Linux, Panther, and Windows. It's far easier to connect Linux and OSX to a Windows environment than the other way around.
You don't even have to reboot Linux and OSX to join a Windows workgroup.
VPN for Mac also includes RSA encryption that isn't available for Windows except through 3rd party software.
Needless to say, I use OSX VPN for my terminal server connections instead of Windows.
Re:Similar (Score:2)
Apple's OSS efforst (Score:5, Interesting)
Their use of a solid, tested (open) base for OS X has allowed them to spend most of their developer time refining the user experience. They seem to be moving a lot faster with OS developement than Microsoft (or any other vendor), currently.
Apple seems to grok the spirt of the open source community, and has generally been a good citizen about giving back to the community technologies from OS X (from bug fixes to packages used in OS X, to Apple paid developer time on OSS projects, to release of Apple software under a open license (Darwin, Rendezvous, etc.)
The real news (Score:5, Interesting)
Good Deal (Score:3, Insightful)
With web applications becoming more prevalent, this will give Apple a huge leg up on the competition which means other competitors like Microsoft or Macromedia will have to play catch-up. I think we're beginning to see that a lot more, recently. Microsoft and other proprietary vendors are falling back to vendors that are willing to embrace open source to move forward instead of just standing still and plugging more and more useless features into already overbloated software.
It was not Open Source until they gave it (Score:5, Informative)
The implementation, however, is Apple's. Apple wrote it, incorporated it in Mac OS X, and made the parts of it that make sense when lifted from the Mac OS X context public. They wrote stuff and opened it consequently; original work, not "based on" open source.
Re:It was not Open Source until they gave it (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the history [theideabasket.com] of ZeroConf:
The initial seeds of Zeroconf started in a Macintosh network programmers' mailing list called net-thinkers, back in 1997 when I was still a PhD student at Stanford. We were discussing the poor state of ease-of-use for IP networking, particularly the lack of any equivalent to the old AppleTalk Chooser for browsing for services. I proposed that part of the solution might be simply to layer the existing AppleTalk Name Binding Protocol (NBP) over UDP Multicast.
Self Reliance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Self Reliance (Score:5, Funny)
Although it is comparing apples to oranges... (Score:3, Funny)
Kjella
Re:Self Reliance (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Self Reliance (Score:3, Insightful)
I find Apple's take on 'non-conformist' quite interesting, as they have moved towards many industry standards over the last few years that a decade ago they would have shunned. Gone is their ADB, bus structure, and in comes PCI, AGP, USB.This brings it all down to what a Apple m
Apple (Score:5, Funny)
But it is getting harder to argue against them every day.
Re:Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple (and Be) (Score:3, Interesting)
A wonderful relationship. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A wonderful relationship. (Score:4, Informative)
FYI, The X11 server included in OS X 10.3 is based off XFree86 [xfree86.org].
Yaz.
Re:When when when! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When when when! (Score:2)
Um, or I could just buy an x86 PC without an OS (those [url=http://www.ibuypower.com]do exist[/url], ya know) and put Linux on it. This is Slashdot, after all. Some of us actually do use Linux, not just talk about it.
And yes, you can run Linux on PPC too, but
Re:When when when! (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Re:When when when! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you compare prices then compare value as well.
And in this case this not only aplies to the hardware but to the OS as well, because in order to get the same amout of functionality you get with your latest OSX release you'd have to buy quite a bit of extra Software to your WindowsXP Home edition.
And even if you were to just compare the hardware itself, you'd see that the g5 powermac is hardly any more expansive than a comparable PC (to the extend you can compare the two).
Macs aren't really so expansive, it's just that they don't offer the same half-assed systems a lot of other companies *cough* Dell *cough* do. This was btw. written on a Dell Inspiron8200 with broken USB Ports and a rich history of fucking itself up.
Re: Re:When when when! (Score:3, Informative)
As for your ridiculous assertion, Apple themselves produce more than one application in some product categories, because needs differ. But don't let the facts get in the way of your predjudice.
Yes, I am a Mac fan (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, most people I know that use computers aren't really aware what Linux is. Then, when a penguin-head tries to tell them about it, they don't really understand it or even care. I've faced that problem multiple times when trying to explain linux to folks.
The thing is that the average user only cares about internet, email, instant messenging, pirated mp3s, and porn. While it's all fine and dandy that linux is more efficient, it still takes a lot more set-up to get it all working. To the average person, one major system crash a week is more tolerable than dealing with a whole new system from scratch.
On top of that, there's the nervous insecurity that comes with knowing they're mostly on their own. Nobody likes tech support, but it's still nice to know that they're there. Apple has handled open source wonderfully. Users feel secure with a Mac in their hands - at least moreso than Linux. On top of that, if they actually know what open source is, they feel like they're elite for using it.
The developers get more open access, the users get a sense of pride and security that comes from open source well handled, and Apple makes money.
I think they have the formula that will drive open source to the home user. Linux will be the better for it, too - while Windows will eventually fall further behind as "too restrictive."
But these are just my predictions being typed on a very efficient and dependable PowerBook. Writer bias, anyone?
Re:Yes, I am a Mac fan (Score:5, Informative)
Most common opensource packages compile out of the box on OS X as well, so you can roll your own of your prefer.
Re:Yes indeed, you are gay (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, in the days when Mac bashing was slightly more fashionable it was (often) done by people who had a relatively good grasp on technology.
Nowadays it's the other way around. The people quickest to bash Macs are the ones who read a couple issues of PC Magazine, watch TechTV, and like the image of being a 'geek' though they are technically inept. In other words, it's the people who know the least about technology.
I dunno, when I see a Mac-basher I think of a white kid in Nebraska who 'hates' niggers, but wears baggy pants and listens to Eminem and 50 Cent all day; half of his 'world' is a black one. Windows users are the same, except half of their world is a Mac one, and a half-assed imitation of it at that. They're experiencing an identity crisis.
Open Source developer machines (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd love to get a Mac so that I could improve the project on Mac myself, but sadly they are too expensive to acquire. The cheapest Mac I can find new is $800. There are second hand ones around $650, but you usually need to add $130 to upgrade the OS to 10.3 putting you back at the $800 price tag anyway. (Sadly I can't do development remotely as I need to play with USB based devices).
By comparison, you can get x86 based machines for $200-$300, which makes the barrier of entry to Linux/Windows very low. There are also products like VMWare and VirtualPC which help significantly.
It would be nice if Apple had some way for developers like me to get loaned or cheap equipment. They could even set minimum download thresholds from SourceForge or other similar minimum requirements. (My project spent most of last week within the top 100 projects on SF).
Re:Open Source developer machines (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know if you're aware of PearPC [sourceforge.net], but it might help. Sadly my system's too slow to make any use of it, so I can't offer much in the way of a review. Also sadly, I'm in the same situation as yourself - well, minus project popularity. I'd be happy if there were just a way to easily crosscompile for osx/ppc from an x86 linux setup.
Re:Open Source developer machines (Score:4, Insightful)
The barrier to entry got a little bit lower all of a sudden.
If you just want to develop free software... free as in beer, stick with Linux. Us Mac people would rather pay you for free as in speech software... which would let you develop more software for us.
It's hard to feel sorry for you in any case. You've got skills apparently so use them.
Again free as in beer is nice but put the extra effort into the details and give us a good binary dist as well, with a custom icon a thoughtful GUI and some documentation, for $20 - $30... if you get one person a month to buy it.. there's your Mac. Was that so hard?
Re:Open Source developer machines (Score:4, Informative)
disclaimer: IANAAccountant
BTW you missed the point... when you have a small cottage business you get to write the whole thing off as a loss on your taxes... ie: the Mac you buy depreciates in value... you get to write that value off, it's about 30% of the purchase price each year, that's about $1000 tax credit. Add in the developer manuals, other software you may purchase, a percentage of your cable modem, your cell phone, your hotspot access, your peripherals (scanner, printer, etc.) plus incidentals(keep your receipts) and you'd probably end up with a total of an extra $3000 tax credit, each year. This means you have to do a line item deduction, hire someone to do it for you for $100 which you also deduct.
If you put a little thought into it you can get a tax refund that could easily equal the total price of the Mac... then the following year you can pocket the extra cash. Yes you spend the money to buy the stuff, but you get it all back and get to keep the stuff, hence it's 'free' as in beer.
Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in the US alone use a second business, usually an expensive hobby, to get their tax dollars back from the government one way or another... usuallly through investing in the economy in some way, but getting to enjoy their expensive hobby for free. Sailing and flying hobbies are huge for this, as are traveling, scuba diving, and other adventure hobbies... you get a license or certification and act as your friends 'guide' when ever they want to go out, or take a few parties out in your boat or plane a couple times a year... instant business, that loses money every year, just enough that you get your tax dollars back, in the form of harbor fees or hangar fees or scuba gear or hiking equipment or a Mac...
Re:Open Source developer machines (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't say anything about running a profitable business... all it needs to do is pay for your hobby expenses and as I said it can do that simply by being a tax deduction. In fact any good business never makes a profit. Between expenses and payroll a good business will spend all it's profit every year.
How much work do you think it would be to run a small business? You pay $70 for a 5 year license... you set up a web site, you get an account with Kagi to handle credit
Re:Open Source developer machines (Score:4, Informative)
It would be nice if Apple had some way for developers like me to get loaned or cheap equipment.
Is the Sourceforge Compile Farm what you're looking for? Listed as available:
Re:Open Source developer machines (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be under the impression that I am ragging on Apple. They are a business and are free to do whatever they want. I am merely pointing out one problem that I as an open source developer (getting zero dollars) have in better supporting the Apple platform, and am looking for constructive solutions. If you want to do fan boy ranting or play in a religous war, please pick a different thread.
You are correct that they didn't. I already have x86 based equipment because I have far more options for applications and operating systems. And if I didn't, the costs to acquire them are very low. Additionally I can easily get parts and do partial upgrades (motherboards, CPU, memory, hard disks, graphics cards etc). The Mac world was really bad at that in the past which is why people like me didn't even consider them and now have an x86 based setup. Apple is now doing a lot better with all those, but that doesn't change the past nor what I already have and the reasons I have it.
There are still 4 days left on that item. The vast majority of bidding and hence the actual price happens in the last few hours of listing (which you knew if you did eBay more than superficially). For other items in a similar price range, the costs of upgrading to 10.3, plus putting in a new hard drive and memory puts it back in the several hundred dollar range. Not to mention that I don't think 266MHz processors would be too useful for developing and testing my app.
Sorry to burst your fan boy bubble, but I was referencing VMWare and VirtualPC for x86. Those products let you use one host x86 machine, and run almost any x86 operating system as a guest. That makes it easy for an open source developer to support multiple families (and versions) of x86 based operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, *BSD etc (and without dual boot, plus undoable disks etc).
So talking about open source development, the cost of entry and the tools available are quite a bit lower in the x86 world. As an open source developer I want to support the Apple environment better, and my constructive suggestion is Apple loaning hardware providing certain constraints are met (such as number of downloads). Do you have any better constructive suggestions?
Get your head out of your ass, moron. (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X will never, never, never run on any hardware that Apple has not produced-- so surrender the fantasy of running OS X on some homebuilt x86 shitbox, or even a Dell. The major selling point of the Mac is the "it just works" factor-- the tight integration between Apple software and Apple hardware. They won't be able to deliver that if they suddenly have to support hundreds of varieties of commodity hardware flying out of factories in East Bumblefuck, Asia. Microsoft has blown through umpteen billion dollars over damn near twenty years in their attempt to do it, and they still haven't got it right. And if you think Dell would offer OS X as a preload option on their machines, think again. Microsoft would revoke their Windows license in a heartbeat and try to put them out of business.
Apple is a hardware company, period. Their software is just a selling point for their hardware. Look at iTunes and the iTunes Music Store as another example-- iTunes is a free download, and they barely make a profit on the sale of iTMS music. The whole thing is set up to sell iPods (highly profitable), and ideally induce some satisifed iPod buyers to switch to the Mac (also highly profitable).
Re:Get your head out of your ass, moron. (Score:2)
Is there some DRM or something on Mac hardware that prevents people from illegally copying OSX on the mac platform?
Re: Mac OS X Piracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, none at all. It would annoy customers, and, frankly, Apple doesn't care that you're pirating their $129 OS, because you can only run it on a computer for which you already paid Apple at least ten times that much.
Re:Get your head out of your ass, moron. (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. I think that Apple is positioning itself to once again license its' software to other companies, but is waiting for something with which to differentiate its hardware - the G5 and G6. I think we'll eventually see G4s for starters in 'commodity' hardware, maybe lower clock G5s once the G6 appears. Apple will continue to produce higher clock machines in classy-yet-practical cases.
Not a chance, you say? Perhaps. Bu
Re:Get your head out of your ass, moron. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not also forget that there is a lot of evidence that PC OEM's don't like to bundle operating systems from a vendor that competes wih them in the hardware arena.
Just look at what happened when IBM attempted to gather OEMs to preload OS/2. The attempt was, for the most part, a huge failure, with only some of the smaller OEMs (and some bigger OEMs outside North America) preloading OS/2 in the mid 90's. One or two of the bigger OEMs did have some preloaded systems (Compaq comes to mind), but they were difficult to find (ie: were only available as a special order item).
OEMs don't want to compete with their OS vendors in the hardware space. They've seen all too often the type of crap Microsoft pulls whenever they decide they don't like something an OEM has done -- why should they make even more deals with more (potential) devils in this fashion?
Yaz.
Re:Get your head out of your ass, moron. (Score:2)
Re:You're another victim of retrocranial inversion (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/
They were good enough for the US Navy subs.
Re:Get your head out of your ass, moron. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When when when! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When when when! (Score:3, Informative)
which you kind of lose if you'll start assembling them together like x86 pc's from parts from dozens of vendors..
I'm sure someone will educate(flame/troll) you on the finer points why x86 backwards compatibility isn't really such a big deal in real world(as in, it doesn't really hinder the performance due to the way the processors are built internally).
x86 architecture (Score:3)
What I meant is that the x86 architecture...is very subobtimal. There is a lot of legacy cruft (Real Mode, Virtual86 Mode, BIOS, CHS,
Re:When when when! (Score:2)
GNUStep (Score:3, Informative)
- GNUStep runs on a variety of platforms, including GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows.
- GNUStep is far less resource hungry than OS X.
- Applications developed for GNUStep are trivial to port to OS X - mainly the menu layout needs to be changed.
The developer tools for GNUStep are really nice, a
Re:Yup. Great relationship . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yup. Great relationship . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a horrendously dangerous way to think.
A business model is not a right.
Again for emphasis, a business model is not a right.
Re:Yup. Great relationship . . . (Score:2, Funny)
Re:everyone uses open source (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: apple hardware...well you get what you pay for. When you decide to "go apple" you just have to accept that fact that its Apple's way or the highway. Many apple users enjoy having their decisions made for them and they just put the
Re:everyone uses open source (Score:4, Interesting)
The only time Apple took more than three days to get my machine back to me was when a part was out of stock. They gave me a $200.00 credit on the Apple Store as an apology.
As for the single processor, why would you want a single processor 1.6, when the new low end is a dual 1.8 for a couple of hundred bucks more? There is some evidence that the new 1.8 might not be quite as good as the old one, but it's still better than a single 1.6 and is cheaper than it was before.
My experience with Apple hardware (all the way back to the Apple
Re:everyone uses open source (Score:4, Insightful)
So if Chrysler won't sell you a battery powered PT Cruiser, does that make them a monopoly?
Re:everyone uses open source (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's no longer the case: "Memory: 256MB of PC2100 (266MHz) DDR SDRAM (256MB built-in and one available SO-DIMM slot) with support for up to 1.25GB"
Source [apple.com]
Re:The taint of Tiger (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot to add, "IMHO." Not all developers feel as you do.
Better yet, read John Gruber's take [daringfireball.net] on this non-issue, and see if you still feel the same way.
Re:The taint of Tiger (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh... quicktime? (Score:4, Informative)
There isn't a single Quicktime codec, but a host of standard codecs that work under the Quicktime umbrella. Codecs like Sorenson and MPEG. These are licensed out by the various owners, but not owned by Apple. This means that Apple can't open source Quicktime unless the owners of these codecs open source their codecs.
And if that happens, well, it's when I win the lotto.
Re:Uh... quicktime? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
But in terms of why we should care, well, remember back in the late 1990's, when everyone was trying to get people to get their bosses to use open source? The rationale was simple: open code makes better software which makes for better IT which makes for better business.
What this means is that an Apple computer, by virtue of being based on OSS, should run faster/better/with greater stability than one that isn't based on open source software.
While I do see your point about community involvement, you've got to realize that that isn't the whole deal to a lot of people.
And, if you're wondering, yes, I'm writing this on a PowerBook, and yes, I like Apple, no, I don't think they're from God, and yes, I like the fact that my laptop just works without any trouble.
Tim
Wake up!!! (Score:3, Informative)
This is your wake up call. [apple.com] Click the links on the left under the title Open Source Projects. All of Apple's modifications to KHTML, etc. are in there, along with the kernel, compilers, and everything else. Next time, expending your energy on a rant based on incorrect assumptions, try a Google search; it only takes 10 seconds, 8.3 if you merge Apple's changes into your KHTML.