OSNews > Thread > "RE: No, it is not" by Kroc

Are Macs the Red-Headed Stepchild of Open Source?

Linked by Tony Steidler-Dennison on Wed 9th Jul 2008 12:03 UTC, submitted by estherschindler

One benefit to open-source applications is they can run on any operating system you want. But getting open-source software developed for the Mac is -- depending on whom you ask -- slow as molasses or quick as lightning. Mac expert Lisa Hoover collected several viewpoints. Which do you think is right?

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RE: No, it is not

by Kroc on Wed 9th Jul 2008 12:47 UTC in reply to "No, it is not"

Member since:
2005-11-10

"Good Enough" isn't good enough on OS X.
Adium is a prime example. Open Source will flourish on the Mac, as long as it's for the Mac.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 10

RE[2]: No, it is not

by kragil on Wed 9th Jul 2008 13:41 in reply to "RE: No, it is not"

Member since:
2006-01-04

So Mac people have to "fork" every project like they did Adium, cause hardly any open source projects are started on Macs.

Well .. maybe OT4 gpl and KDE4 will change that in a few years ( not too soon I guess ).

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 4

RE[3]: No, it is not

by Kroc on Wed 9th Jul 2008 13:54 in reply to "RE[2]: No, it is not"

Member since:
2005-11-10

There is no fork involved with Adium. (at least not this far down the line)
It's standard libpurple, with their own Cocoa front-end.

You have to understand that open source on the Mac does not always equal "portable" & "cross platform". It just means open source, and that's it.

Edited 2008-07-09 13:55 UTC

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RE[3]: No, it is not

by tyrione on Wed 9th Jul 2008 22:53 in reply to "RE[2]: No, it is not"

Member since:
2005-11-21

I dunno. VLC media player seems to be doing pretty well on the Mac platform. Most of the Mac users I know prefer VLC over quicktime.

They prefer it because all the really useful stuff in QuickTime requires the Professional License and then it's overkill for most users.

Of course QuickTime X being Pure Cocoa utilizing OpenCL and Multi-Core from the ground up with the design of the consumer not needing all the add-on codecs to do some of the work they'd like to do, as a bonus for buying Snow Leopard, will enjoy it immensely.

Hell, even VLC will benefit if it writes to the Snow Leopard QTKit for Cocoa under 10.6.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 3