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Apple Businesses Software Linux

Mac OS X Sessions at LinuxExpo 103

Posted by pudge from the because-linux-is-just-a-synonym-for-unix dept.
h0tblack writes "The latest ADC Newsletter has details of a few sessions Apple are hosting at LinuxExpo in Paris in a couple of weeks. The sessions are: Mac OS X for the Linux Community, Mac OS X in Heterogeneous Environments and Mac OS X and Developer Tools. Shame that the first session clashes with the keynote from RMS ..." Yes. Shame.
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Mac OS X Sessions at LinuxExpo More

Mac OS X Sessions at LinuxExpo

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  • Screw that conflict! (Score:5, Funny)

    by leviramsey ( 248057 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @01:19PM (#5162646) Journal

    I want to see real conflict between RMS and Steve Jobs. I mean knock-down, drag-out brawl conflict. Anybody with me?

    --
    Starnix [qhcf.net]: It don't matter if you're a Linux, OS X, *BSD, Solaris, AIX, ... user, Starnix is the Unix community for you.

  • I suppose RMS wants Mac OS X renamed? (Score:4, Funny)

    by miguel_at_menino.com ( 89271 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @02:59PM (#5163173)
    RMS is probably disassembling Jaguar, looking for evidence of any GNU code.

    Then he'll start correcting people for calling it Mac OS X or Jaguar.

    "It should be GNU/Jaguar"

    Don't Jaguars eat GNUs?

    • Re:I suppose RMS wants Mac OS X renamed? (Score:5, Informative)

      by entrylevel ( 559061 ) <jaundoh@yahoo.com> on Sunday January 26, 2003 @04:54PM (#5163675)
      Uh, there is plenty of GPL code in Mac OS X. For example: bash, cvs, gcc, gdb, gprof, diffutils, and patchutils, just to name a few. Apple has, of course, submitted any changes to this code back to the FSF and any other applicable maintainers. They also have this thing called "Darwin" that allows you to download the open-source core of Mac OS X, which also includes lots of GPL code. However, there is also plenty of BSD code, like fileutils, top, and sysctl.

      Finally, there is some proprietary code which you can purchase as an add-on to Darwin. It comes with an easy-to-use installer, a nice GUI, and support for actual commercial software that people use to make money!

      Of course, if you truly must have your GNU add-ons, you can just install Fink [sf.net], or, if cash is your problem, give GNU-Darwin [gnu-drawin.org] a try.

      I know, I know, I Have Been Trolled ;)
      • Just an off-topic rant here, but this is the Apple section, so that's expected.

        I hate BSD top. It's too plain and austere. Where are all the fucking options? Same goes for a lot of BSD utilities. Ah well, nobody has stopped me from compiling and installing them on my Mac.
        • I hate BSD top. It's too plain and austere. Where are all the fucking options?

          Fair enough. So why don't you just go add them yourself, then? That *is* the idea, right? BTW, Apple has already produced a half-assed GUI layer around TOP (ProcessViewer)

    • Gnus are old-world herbivores.
      Jaguars are new-world critters.

      No.

  • Good to see this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Knife_Edge ( 582068 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @05:04PM (#5163722)
    It is good that Apple is encouraging cross-platform interoperability, and they are genuinely interested in open source developers. Linux users should find a lot to like about current Apple systems. They are continuously getting more capable from unix point of view. I am watching for ever more powerful server hardware to come out of Apple, probably in about six months, when they are expected to release the next major update to the operating system.

    They are courting geeks to try to get them to switch from other *nixes. Initially, they are focusing mostly on individual desktop users. I think part of their strategy now is to get their products into the hands of people who will be making corporate purchasing decisions down the road. Right now the server variant of the OS is not there yet - Many advertised features do not work as documented, or as they should. The next major update will probably be much better. Once you have an Apple in the server room, it is possible for you to provide all sorts of specialized services to Apple clients, making it more attractive to obtain them.

    Watch for businesses that want the stability and manageability of Linux but also want to be associated with a mainstream company to look at Apple. We are already seeing plenty of sysadmins switch. First, personal machines, then (Apple hopes!) the machines they are responsible for.
    • It is good that Apple is encouraging cross-platform interoperability

      Mmmm.... how so? MacOS apps will only work on MacOS. It's not like you can just install Aqua and a Quartz server on Linux and display these apps, like you can with X11/GTK is it?

      I think part of their strategy now is to get their products into the hands of people who will be making corporate purchasing decisions down the road.

      Possibly, but it'd have to be a pretty dumb sysadmin to blow their IT budget year on year replacing PCs with Macs, only to find that model has been obsoleted by Apple a few years down the line. Plus of course repurchasing all their software as well. And IT budgets aren't getting bigger quicker like they used to.

      Personal systems for UNIX geeks is one thing, because most likely all their software was open source already so can simply be recompiled and run under X. Most businesses and home users however run Windows, and aren't really interested enough in technology to want to cough up for shiny things. At least, that's what I've observed.

      • Re:Good to see this (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JonathanBoyd ( 644397 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @05:34AM (#5166323) Homepage
        Mmmm.... how so? MacOS apps will only work on MacOS. It's not like you can just install Aqua and a Quartz server on Linux and display these apps, like you can with X11/GTK is it?

        But Apple do provide X11 for you to run and you can compile a lot of Unix stuff for the Mac, so in that sense it is cross-platform.

        Possibly, but it'd have to be a pretty dumb sysadmin to blow their IT budget year on year replacing PCs with Macs, only to find that model has been obsoleted by Apple a few years down the line. Plus of course repurchasing all their software as well. And IT budgets aren't getting bigger quicker like they used to.

        Just because Apple builds a better computer a few months later doesn't mean the one you bought won't still do the job you bought it for. There's no law I'm awar eof requiring you to upgrade computers continuously. It's been noted quite a few times that the TCO for Macs is significantly lower than for Windows machines, in part due to not having to replace/repair/upgrade them as often.

        I for example am using an iBook 500 which the better part of 2 years old now. Newer iBooks for lower prices run rings around it. It still does everything I need it to perfectly well. It runs Jaguar, gets me on the Internet, runs Maple and Appleworks/Office, plays the occassional game, manages my photos and mp3s and allows me to dabble in movie-creation. In short, it is far from being functioanlly obsolete.

        • But Apple do provide X11 for you to run and you can compile a lot of Unix stuff for the Mac, so in that sense it is cross-platform.

          No, open source UNIX apps are cross platform, MacOS apps are not. You can run linux apps on windows too. Is Windows nice and cross-platform? I don't think so.

          Just because Apple builds a better computer a few months later doesn't mean the one you bought won't still do the job you bought it for.

          What if you want a bugfix in the next version of MacOS, but they tie it to some hardware. Businesses need support, and Apples goal is to sell more hardware. As apps move on, OS 9 is being abandoned yes? So those people have to upgrade if they want to keep up with their one particular app, regardless of whether OS 9 was all they needed or not. This is well known, you can't just buy some technology then never upgrade it (well you can, but it's not wise).

          • There's a difference between Mac OS X running nix stuff and Windows running it. OS X is a version of Unix in its own right. Apple is encouraging the open source community, writing software for them (Safari rendering engine, Darwin) and giving people a much wider range of software to work with. Write a program in Cocoa and it can be moved a lot quicker to another platform than most programs.

            As for bugfixes requiring hardware, that doesn't really happen. Your 9-X analogy is flawed as 9 was a continuation of 7 and 8 i.e. a series of OSes that spanned a lot of years. It will be a good many years before an operating system requires radically different hardware to run. And as long as current programs run on older OSes, everything is fine. We don't have a 9-X situation every couple of years; ee have it once a decade which is not unreasonablle.
            • There's a difference between Mac OS X running nix stuff and Windows running it. OS X is a version of Unix in its own right.

              There's no difference. An operating system being UNIX is determined by how POSIX compliant it is. When OS X was first release, even Windows NT was more POSIX compliant than it. I don't know if that's still the case. Anyway, academic arguments about what is or isn't unix gets us nowhere, it's technically irrelevant.

              Apple is encouraging the open source community, writing software for them (Safari rendering engine, Darwin)

              Huh? KHTML was written by the open source community, that's not Apple writing software for us, exactly the opposite. In the same way, Darwin was mostly FreeBSD, which was already open source. They've released practically no code they've written that wasn't simply modifications to something that was already open source.

              Write a program in Cocoa and it can be moved a lot quicker to another platform than most programs.

              Not true at all. Java maybe. Cocoa is not a cross platform set of APIs, nowhere near. Where is the reference implementation? Where is the implementation for Windows, or for Linux? GNUstep only implements the OpenStep APIs, not any of Apples own extensions.

              As for bugfixes requiring hardware, that doesn't really happen.

              Apple are constantly pushing up the system requirements for new OS releases. Once there is a significantly faster machine out from them, expect to see even more cycle-eating eye candy in MacOS. MacOS X is hardly usable on old iMacs, I've tried it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in a few years the G4s were considered too old to run the latest versions of MacOS.

              • There's no difference. An operating system being UNIX is determined by how POSIX compliant it is.
                I avoid Windows where possible, so I could be wrong about this, but don't you have to install extra software to run most Unix stuff? Cygwin or something like that? And it doesn't come with the basic Unix tools built in. Windows has some POSIX compatability, but OS X has FreeBSD running underneath it, ships with a proper Terminal program, has a free X11 implementation available from Apple which will no doubt soon be included as an install option with the OS, gives you nice free deveeloper tools and Apple plays nice with the OSS community. They encourage the use of Unix and advertise themselves as one, promoting the ability to run Unix software. Microsoft's attitude is the exact opposite. If you don't see the difference here, then I'm not sure how to explain it to you.
                Huh? KHTML was written by the open source community, that's not Apple writing software for us, exactly the opposite. In the same way, Darwin was mostly FreeBSD, which was already open source. They've released practically no code they've written that wasn't simply modifications to something that was already open source.

                Which is one of the big selling points of open source. You don't have to build code from scratch - you can take somebody else's, modify it, distribute it and let everyone share in the fun. That's what a heck of a lot of open source developers do. f everyone had to write code from scratch in order for it to be defined as open, what would be the point?

                Apple took KHTML, fixed a lot of bugs, built Safari and released the rendering code with enhancements back. I fail to see how this sin't open source development on their part.

                Not true at all. Java maybe. Cocoa is not a cross platform set of APIs, nowhere near. Where is the reference implementation? Where is the implementation for Windows, or for Linux? GNUstep only implements the OpenStep APIs, not any of Apples own extensions.
                I guess I should have ben more specific and said the Java parts. Sorry.
                Apple are constantly pushing up the system requirements for new OS releases. Once there is a significantly faster machine out from them, expect to see even more cycle-eating eye candy in MacOS. MacOS X is hardly usable on old iMacs, I've tried it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in a few years the G4s were considered too old to run the latest versions of MacOS.

                That's not true in my experience. Each elease has made the system faster. hat's what's amde the updates to eagerly awaited - getitng usable speed. 10.0.x was useless. Did nothing and did i slowly. 10.1 was usable, but not ready to full time replace 9.x. 10.1.5 was where it became woth using full time and 10.2.x flies. It feels just as fast on an iMac 400 as 9.x, is more stable and looks better. It even performs satisfactorily on my iBook.

                Perhaps Quartz Extreme is confusing you - it is a benefit for machines with a good video card, but that doesn't mean that it causes older machines to slow down. It isn't a zero sum equation. The existence of Quartz Extreme has not impacted my iBook in the slightest. So far, the OS has bene getting faster and the software is being written better. If anything, I expect speedups over the next year as people get used to coding for X.

              • Re:Good to see this (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward
                Your entire argument was lost with me as soon as you stated a need to upgrade Macs every few years not being feasible.

                I have a Biege G3 (1998) and 2 first inception G4s (2000) in production. All three are running Jaguar just fine, and will for another couple years at the least. (The G4s will probably last much longer)

                Conversely, we have 450 Windows boxes which have been through 3 replacements since 1998 because they can't keep up with the demands of modern Windows OS and apps.

                You have failed to convince me that Apple is requiring more freqent replacements than Windows is. The reverse is actually true in my experience. The noly upgrade I've made to the Macs is new video cards to take advantage of Quartz extreme, and that wasn't a requriement of Jaguar, just an added bonus.

                As for running Uniz apps on Windows, your experience must be different from my department's experience. Apache and PHP, frankly, aren't worth attempting on Windows. Not if you know how it is supposed to run on a *nix plat. Many OpenSource *nix apps won't run properly, or offer no benefit, if used on Windows.

                Your argument is fraught with misinformation and opinions.

              • Re:Good to see this (Score:4, Informative)

                by Lebannen ( 626462 ) <<slash> <at> <irowan.com>> on Monday January 27, 2003 @10:58AM (#5167579) Homepage
                While I agree with some of your comments, I'm not so sure about others.

                1) I used to run Mac OS X 10.1 on my iMacDV quite happily - that's over three years old by now. And this was 10.1 - rather than jack up the requirements with each release, Apple have so far lowered them. This isn't a trend that's likely to continue (!) but it's a pretty nice achievemnt nonetheless. However much people complain it should have been this fast to start with, OS X did mean an enormous step up in what it was doing - full alpha compositing, etc. And the reason it was included at the time was so that OS X wouldn't change too drastically as it developed; we've been seeing a lot of changes, including API changes, but the overall technique of the OS hasn't changed and is fairly unlikely to.

                I'm not saying Apple don't render old hardware obsolete, cos they do... especially some of the older graphics hardware, which still doesn't have OSX acceleration. But I wouldn't say they're always pushing up the hardware requirements; things like Quartz extreme aren't a requirement, they're an acceleration.

                2) Open source-isms; Apple haven't released many totally new projects into the community, except for a few minorish things such as Rendezvous, but they have done some sterling work on some of the projects they've used. The KHTML team received an enormous amount of changes, fixes and optimisations; it's not just a one-way path, and while it may just be compliance with the licences, they're being pretty nice about it. I was working on a little app recently, wrote apple's engineers about something I was having problems with, and the guy didn't just help but sent me some of their proprietary (ie, not Darwin) code to illustrate how they had performed certain functions.

                Yes, I am an Apple fan; no, I'm not an Apple zealot. For all their problems and some of their suckitude, they're also doing some rather nice things in a rather nice way.

              • Apple are constantly pushing up the system requirements for new OS releases. Once there is a significantly faster machine out from them, expect to see even more cycle-eating eye candy in MacOS. MacOS X is hardly usable on old iMacs, I've tried it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in a few years the G4s were considered too old to run the latest versions of MacOS.

                This is speculation and should have been left out. On about all other points I agree with you.

                It boiles down to that software written for mainstream unixes runs on Mac but not the other way around. This is of course very deliberate from Apple and thats why I don't touch them. Unix has been through incaompabilities before but this takes the grand price.

                Apple can't even release a quicktime player for other unixes... Great move guys. We love you and will surely buy your systems.
                • "Apple can't even release a quicktime player for other unixes... Great move guys. We love you and will surely buy your systems."

                  You do realize most of us purchase computers because they do what we want/need them to for a minimum amount of fuss and not because we are politically motivated as to what someone chooses to or not to port their software to.

                  Please, I consider QuickTime Player to be a reason *to* use MacOS X rather than that they won't port it to other systems a reason not to.

                  As to the file format, its MPEG4.
          • >>But Apple do provide X11 for you to run and you
            >>can compile a lot of Unix stuff for the Mac, so
            >>in that sense it is cross-platform.

            >No, open source UNIX apps are cross platform,
            >MacOS apps are not. You can run linux apps on
            >windows too. Is Windows nice and cross-platform?
            >I don't think so.

            Don't give Bill any ideas for new marketing slogans. I'm sure they could afford the court costs to prove that "cross-platform" actually means something other than what we here at /. think it does.

      • Re:Good to see this (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @09:37AM (#5167130)
        You're forgetting that Cocoa and OpenStep are source compatible. OpenStep is a free specification, one that the GNU-Step is making decent progress reimplementing. If you want to write a cross platform app you can target it to the Cocoa/OpenStep API and have it be compatible on anything that will run GNU-Step. That was the original point of the OpenStep initiative was so enable an OS vendor to write their own OpenStep implementation and run source compatible apps. If your compiler supported fat binaries you could easily have a single executable that would run on just about any OpenStep host.

        No Apple isn't about to release the source for Quartz or some of their more tightly held technologies, this however does not preclude you from writing open source applications that will run on both Linux and MacOS. For a large commercial company Apple's done a pretty good job with open source thus far. They've given code back to several open source projects including but not limited to enhancements to GCC and KHTML. They're also using a ton of open specifications in their products which makes it quite easy for you to make hetrogeneous Linux/MacOS environments work very well together.

        I'm not sure your system purchasing comments make much sense either. You're saying a company shouldn't ever change platforms (to anything) because the move is expensive. Well duh. That however doesn't mean switching platforms whole hog or incrementally is a bad thing. Would you not want a company to consider migrating from Windows to Linux if Linux was a better proposition for them?

        As for the hardware, it isn't the fastest or cheapest in the world but it lasts a pretty long time. Out of the box they're going to last a while but if you're so inclined you can upgrade them for a pretty decent price. I've seen more than a couple "obsolete" Macs with a G3 or G4 upgrade card running OSX without any problem. Just about any PCI Mac with a little tinkering will run OSX. Even without upgrading to OSX there's a ton of old Macs that are plenty usable.

      • interoperability [ariadne.ac.uk]. I agree with Knife_Edge that Apple is encouraging [apple.com] cross-platform [apple.com] interoperability.

        • Apple includes a notable Java environment [apple.com].
        • Apple promotes [apple.com] (see the "Use the best tool for the job" heading) Virtual PC [connectix.com].
        • fink [sourceforge.net]
        • Appleworks [apple.com] provides file-format interoperability with common Microsoft Office applications through the use of MacLinkPlus [dataviz.com] tools.

  • Bold of Apple (Score:4, Insightful)

    by absurdhero ( 614828 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @05:42PM (#5163891) Homepage
    It is pretty amazing that Steve Jobs had the guts to set up shop in a linux expo. By the same token, I applaud him for taking notice of and respecting the linux community. Certain other OS vendors try to hide linux in the closet and pretend that it isn't a serious undertaking.

    • Re:Bold of Apple (Score:4, Insightful)

      by grantb ( 624519 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @07:13PM (#5164219) Homepage Journal
      So this is like Steve coming out of the closet? I think the main reason that apple is in attendance is to say, "..hey were not Microsoft..." and frankly OS X does work pretty darn good with linux. But Steve has been pushing Unix in general since NeXT. So he really came out ages ago(on unix that is). But also look at apples recent release of X11 for OSX, they are really trying to push unix in general and if they can attract some Linux people to the platform all the better.

  • OSX and Linux (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jim Buzbee ( 517 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @09:14PM (#5164757) Homepage
    Here's what I'd like to see :
    User Mode Linux under OSX [sourceforge.net] That would be interesting. Running a complete Linux OS as a user process under OSX.

  • The New Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mitchell_pgh ( 536538 ) on Sunday January 26, 2003 @11:29PM (#5165211)
    If Safari is any indication of what we have in store for OS X and the iApps, Apple is going to really start embracing Open Source projects. Everyone, including Apple, is starting to realize that it's going to end up being a Linux/Unix vs. Windows "war". Apple has realized that it will win over more Linux users by showing them that OS X is everything Linux strives to be, but with a larger user base, a unified vision, commercial applications and a WOW factor. The question to Apple should be, will Linux users use an OS that has a proprietary GUI and hardware? That being said, I bet many Linux users would love to get a little of that Mac user base money...
    • If Safari is any indication of what we have in store for OS X and the iApps, Apple is going to really start embracing Open Source projects.

      I think you mean embrace and extend. Safari is not open source for instance.

      Everyone, including Apple, is starting to realize that it's going to end up being a Linux/Unix vs. Windows "war".

      Actually it's a Linux vs MacOS vs Windows war. Linux is probably Apples biggest competitor. That's very true on the server for instance, I have yet to see good value propositions for Apple servers. Right now Linux is still playing catchup on the desktop, but once it "gets there" in terms of ease of use, all those geeks who so easily went to Apple could easily go back. Will they? Who knows. But it's certainly possible.

      The kind of customers Apple have now are the slippery kind, they quite probably use MacOS, Linux and Windows day in, day out. That means they can move between platforms very easily. That also means Apple are going to have to work very hard to keep them.

      Apple has realized that it will win over more Linux users by showing them that OS X is everything Linux strives to be, but with a larger user base, a unified vision, commercial applications and a WOW factor.

      I think you missed the point about Linux, which is software freedom and openness RMS style. It's not striving to have lots of users or commercial applications, although that is the implication of having lots of people work on it and use it.

      The question to Apple should be, will Linux users use an OS that has a proprietary GUI and hardware?

      I wish people would stop saying that. It's not simply a case of a nice but unnecessary added extra you know. Mac apps will not work without all the proprietary Apple code, which isn't just the gui note, but also CoreAudio, IOKit, Cocoa, Carbon and so on.

      If it was really "just a proprietary gui" then I could run MacOS apps in KDE yes? I'd be using a different desktop but I could still use the apps. But that doesn't work.

      • Re:The New Apple (Score:2, Interesting)

        by JonathanBoyd ( 644397 )
        Safari may not be opensource, but the rendering engine, i.e. the bit they used from Konqueror, is. People are quite free to take it and use it in their own browsers. A few months and we'll see it as a framework in OS X, so people won't need to bother with the source code.

        Apple are doing exactly what they're suppossed to with open source and coming out and saying to the world that it is A Good Thing.

        • Re:The New Apple (Score:2, Insightful)

          by WaKall ( 461142 )
          This is the way that software should be done - open source foundations and tools, and the options of commercial and free software for things the users (well, non-coding users) interact with. You as a user choose software that has a payment model and source license model that works for you. The developer does the same, and everyone is happy.

          There should be free (as in beer and liberty) tools and OS's, but to claim that everything on a system should be OSS, thats just silly. If you want it personally for your machines, that's fine. But don't preach it to everyone else, because OSS doesn't imply usable; it doesn't imply reliable, or secure, or any other part of what makes a piece of software great, except for price and extensibility. And the truth is, extensibility means next to nothing to most people, as they don't have the slightest idea how to modify source code.
        • Yes yes, I'm quite aware of that. Using open source is not the same as embracing it however. Redhat embrace open source. Apple use it. Microsoft use it too, believe it or not. Have they embraced open source?

          • Re:The New Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

            by iomud ( 241310 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:12AM (#5166592) Homepage Journal
            Using open source is not the same as embracing it however. Redhat embrace open source. Apple use it. Microsoft use it too, believe it or not. Have they embraced open source?
            And guess what, they're free to do so. You don't give someone something under certain conditions and then bitch when they actually take it. They're still abide by the conditions set forth and that's all they have to do. Apple isn't in the make the world a better place business, they're in business to make money. Be thankful that by all accounts they've taken an incomplete rendering engine with a relatively small and clean codebase and will help turn it into a respectable one that Apple users and Linux users will both benifit from.
            • This is insightful? Oh yes, of course, this is apple.slashdot.org

              I never said they weren't free to use it. I never claimed they were violating the license. I'm not bitching that they took it.

              I pointed out that embracing open source would mean actually taking the ideals of the movement to heart, not simply using code from it to further their own ends.

              Anyway, I really can't be bothered arguing with you on this point, I've been around it a hundred times before on dot.kde.org, look in the Safari story. It should be pretty obvious which posts are mine. Apples long term goals are to lock the industry in to their proprietary hardware and software, which are in conflict with what I think is best for the industry. Therefore people should realise that simply using free software, even if you meet your legal obligations in doing so, is not the same as embracing it.

              • Re:The New Apple (Score:3, Interesting)

                by Gropo ( 445879 )
                Apples long term goals are to lock the industry in to their proprietary hardware and software,
                which are in conflict with what I think is best for the industry.
                Forgive me for not trudging through the aforementioned slashboard to read your opinions in full (must get busy soon), but I would find any argument other than:
                What is best for the industry as a whole is a diversity in choices - including choices between 'closed-loop' platforms that offer more ubiquitous integration and more strict human interface guidelines against fully open platforms.
                ...to be entirely hard to swallow regardless of the qualifying arguments. My personal problem when overlaying a biodiversity analogy against the platforms is thus: GNU represents the Paleozoic era (chaotic period in which it seems every possible body type was tried and discarded - very slow evolutionary period in context to the later eras)... Whereas Closed-loop platforms such as Sun, Apple and IBM (and yes even M$) are more akin to the Cenozoic era (Mammals, Mollusks and Birds have attained cerebral niches, dominate their environments, diversification of species is carried out at a much faster pace).

                That isn't to say that OPENopen platforms are less relevant in today's general computing arena, just that the philosophy can never fulfill the needs of *all* users. In my opinion, Paleozoic-era biodiversity is neccessary for a healthy computing humanity - but no moreso than the strict, regimented 'dominance' paradigm.

                Anyways, I should probably digest Raymond's "tCatB" before I ramble off in this direction again...

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
                Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Steve Jobs stood on stage at the latest MacWorld and said that open source was a good thing.As has bene pointed out, open sourcing everything they do would be bad for business. They seem quite happy to work with OSS on the heart of a program as long as they can put a nice skin over the top, which allows them to make money to develop new apps which take open source, improve on it, release it back, and so on. Apple making money off of open source is a great thing because it means that they'll keep coming back, improving on code and releasing it to the OSS community to use.

            The Adopt a KDE Geek program exists because developers of open source don't have a lot of resources. Apple does. They're doing way more than their fair share of RnD in the computing industry and everyone can benefit from that if it is turned towards developing even a small part of open source code.
          • Using open source is not the same as embracing it however.

            Well, I might ask you what you think the following slide shown to 40,000 people meant:

            "Open Source
            We think it's good."

            I mean, seriously, if that's not embracing it does he have to sleep with RMS to get on the "inside track"?

      • Re:The New Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:42AM (#5166898) Homepage
        I think you mean embrace and extend. Safari is not open source for instance.

        I'm not really sure what you mean. As others have pointed out Apple is working with the KDE team to integrate their changes in KHTML back into the KConq browser line and work off a common source tree. As far as the Cocoa functions which create a high power HTML library for Objective-C which calls the KHTML engine they've released that open source as Webcore [apple.com]. Omni for example is thinking of switching over to webcore. The graphics templates are under some licensing restrictions since that's part of Apple's look and feel however they available to anyone with Safari. Finally they open sourced KWQ which is there QT for Aqua not using QT.

        I guess I'd ask what do you think is missing? The only thing I can see is look and feel.

        If it was really "just a proprietary gui" then I could run MacOS apps in KDE yes? I'd be using a different desktop but I could still use the apps. But that doesn't work.

        I think you are oversimplifying. Apple has not just created its own window manager but rather an entirely seperate system from the frame buffer on up. Its not X11 based so it doesn't run under KDE (which assumes the apps are making QT or X11 calls). It can be implemented under X11 (see the GNUStep project for example). Further Aqua can support X11. You can't run Berlin apps under KDE either; even though both are open source Unix gui apps.

        So it is in fact a propietery gui; which is more than a propietery window manager.
  • Although Apple has introduced a lot of GPL based software, it has remained consistent in pushing "the Apple look." Just look at the Aqua interface and their hardware. Clearly built to push a image. What I would like to see is a more liberal stance. IF Steve wants to push OS X as a alternative to Linux, then the least he could do is try putting themes into the OS. I like aqua, but those lovely blue buttons just aren't me. (Incidentially, I have information from a credible source stating that themes would make the OS considerably less stable.)

    • Re:Apple at a Linux Expo? (Score:5, Informative)

      by foniksonik ( 573572 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @05:30AM (#5166313) Homepage Journal
      "then the least he could do is try putting themes into the OS"

      Interesting that even with Linux distributions you have to download and install 'themes'...

      I have a theme on my OS X 'top... MaggraX by reknowned theme designer... Takashi Izawa. It's very nice! Right now there isn't a warehouse full of themes available but there are some nice ones... and templates for making more. Several free tools and some shareware tools enable painless theme installation, etc.

      So stop complaining and start Gimping your way to a new freakin' theme!

      'nuff said,
    • Apple opening up the user interface design requirements / guidelines? No way. Because that's the main added-value OS X has in comparison to any GNULinux distro. While Linux, after many years of joint effort, hasn't managed to create a unified graphical user interface that people need to comfortably use applications, Apple has done so and made me happy with it. Don't forget - even command line interfaces in Linux differ from application to application. Sometimes it's -?, sometimes --help, sometimes just nothing. It could be -h or /h, or even (crazy!) -help.
  • How about Firewire 800, Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, Superdrive, 2 MB L3 cache, 2GB RAM, 4 internal disk drives, Gigabit Ethernet, Mac OS X, dozens of free programming tools, iLife, the style, the reliability, the lower TCO, ...

    Come on people, I thought /. readers are intelligent enough to look beyond the box.

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