Darling: Run Apple OS X Binaries On Linux 255
An anonymous reader writes "After having Wine to run Windows binaries on Linux, there is now the Darling Project that allows users to run unmodified Apple OS X binaries on Linux. The project builds upon GNUstep and has built the various frameworks/libraries to be binary compatible with OSX/Darwin. The project is still being worked on as part of an academic thesis but is already running basic OS X programs."
How long before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
Because as good as OS X is, it's not a particularly good server platform and requires Mac hardware, while Linux has been around for ages, runs on commodity hardware, has a very well supported number of open source packages and is considered mainstream by most Unix admins.
As a server platform, OS X suffers from the same problem as Solaris. You need the vendor supplied hardware to get it to run well. Solaris is a dying OS because Sun and Oracle supplied hardware is too expensive and just isn't worth it when you can get three times the computing power for less money, and X86 Solaris is frankly crap, since it has such a small hardware compatibility list.
I don't mention BSD since it's not really mainstream any longer. It's a good OS, but lacks overall vendor support.
All that being said, I prefer OS X systems for my workstation and CentOS or Scientific Linux for servers. Redhat's nice, but overpriced when you need to deploy a lot of systems.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to do with my post. (Score:2, Insightful)
A port of GNUstep to Android would let iOS application developers target Android with much less additional effort. It could help make a lot of currently App Store-exclusive applications into cross-platform applications.
...and this is backward thinking. Apple threw away market share protecting their profits, but we [by we I mean me and the ex-shareholders of Apple] are all in agreement that gravy chain is coming to an end. Apple need to step up, and support cross-platform development from the get go, otherwise they will find themselves marginalised [more] pretty quickly. I shouldn't have to reiterate...the days of iPhone exclusives are long over. You post would have maybe been relevant a year ago, but that is a long time ago.
Although this has little to do with my post, which is Apple need to open their storefront, to sell DRM free [or loose DRM] cross platform applications [and allow ease of those self same applications]...and update those of other stores. Otherwise again it will continue to marginalize itself. In fact I don't limit it to Apple because I think the freedom to move between *ecosystems* is going to become a problem, but locking myself into the loosing platform is not going to happen...and many more will follow me. I've seen how Apple treats its customers who bought its DRM ridden MP3's at 128...they have to pay a premium. I'm not into a company that has that mentality.
Re:How long before... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What about the rest of the APIs? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean a project that just started with a single guy isn't complete or near completion ?
Yeah it's gonna be tough but it doesn't mean it can't be useful or grow much bigger than it is now (rember this thing called Linux ?).