Apple and Linux are engaged in battle a battle to win over disgruntled Windows users. But who will win, and what will the consequences be for the loser? The most commonly held belief amongst Apple and Linux fanboys is that both factions are engaged in some kind of a war with Microsoft. The truth is that if you look at the market share figure for Windows, Mac and Linux, both Mac OS and all the Linux distros that have ever been released are dwarfed by Windows.
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Member since:2005-07-24
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Macs are even more copyrightly anal than Windows, considering you cant even install them on commodity hardware.
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If Apple were in Microsofts position, we wouldnt have only a OS monopoly, but also a hardware monopoly. Other computer OEMs probably wouldnt even exist, since the monopolist's OS wouldnt work on their machines. [/q]
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True, but irrelevant. Since it is *exceedingly* unlikely that Apple could gain a monopoly position without opening up far more than MS. In fact, it would still be exceedingly unlikely even if they did. Ditto, Linux. Even MS couldn't gain a desktop stranglehold today if they did not already have one.
Let's not lose site of the real, extant monopoly... the one that is actually doing the damage. It makes no sense for Linux, the *BSDs, or pretty much anyone else outside of Microsoft, to feel adversarial towards Apple.
As Kang said in "Day of the Dove", "Only a fool fights in a burning house."
Edit: And OSS will only be at its best with some proprietary competition to keep us on our toes.
Edited 2007-12-17 17:06
Member since:
2006-05-14
> Why should Linux and MacOSX users and developers,
> essentially on the same "side", be at odds?
Because Free Software like Linux was largerly created as a replacement for proprietary systems. And regarding proprietarity, Macs are even more copyrightly anal than Windows, considering you cant even install them on commodity hardware. If Apple were in Microsofts position, we wouldnt have only a OS monopoly, but also a hardware monopoly. Other computer OEMs probably wouldnt even exist, since the monopolist's OS wouldnt work on their machines.