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Venezeuela has a perfect analogy this time. :-) Macs *are* great, but Linux will eat Apple's lunch if they don't watch it.

Venezeuela has a perfect analogy this time. :-) Macs *are* great, but Linux will eat Apple's lunch if they don't watch it. "

Keep dreaming. If you think Linux has an easier time of converting people to Linux over OS X you truly are dreaming.

Focus on making Linux as consistent and user friendly as OS X and you'll accelerate more Windows people to Linux just as they are moving to OS X. They won't switch from OS X to Linux as they already have the GUI paradigm and they also have familiar applications under that paradigm.

Linux will never be the big player for Desktop as long as Desktops require a GUI and a consistent user experience.

Linux has made huge inroads in the server space against traditional big iron companies because these companies have dumped billions into helping it mature.

If Linux Community lost the funding/support from IBM, Novell, Google and Sun you'd see advancement of the OS go from a tidal wave to a stream.

Not likely. Linux lacks several things that OS X has:
* A consistent ABI
* consistent driver model
* a consistent user interface
What does linux have? On the ABI front, every distro has a different version of glibc, gcc, and the other base tools (half the time with additional "distro-supplied" patches applied that cause unforseen bugs). On the UI level, we have a lot of different DEs/WMs to choose from, none of which really look or feel like any others. Even if we choose a DE and not a WM, the apps in that DE are hardly consistent--worse, IMHO, than even some of the inconsistent windows apps. Finally, we have the Linux driver model which, for in-kernel drivers or other open source drivers, is fine. But it falls short when dealing with the possibilities of vendor-supplied drivers. One of the major issues is, of course, that the drivers have to be linked to a certain kernel version. Now, before you Linux zealots go after me, yes I know there are ways to work around that (usually making the kernel-specific stuff open source and putting the rest in a binary blob)--nVidia, OSS, and Smartlink are evidence of this fact, but it doesn't change the underlying issue that every time you receive a kernel update, any vendor-supplied drivers need to be reinstalled. To the end user, this is worse than annoying. Yes, I know that if someone's voluntarily updating their kernel they are aware of what will need to be done in regards to their drivers. But, for the average users, their distro gives them a kernel update that they don't pay attention to. They click on software update, the distro updates itself, then tells them they need to reboot. So they do... only to find that some of their hardware isn't working anymore.
All of these things mean that Linux is not a consistent target for vendors to supply drivers and applications for. Each distro is slightly different, has a different kernel, a different DE or version of said DE, etc. So, which one do they target?
This is contrasted to OS X and Windows, where you know exactly what is part of the base OS and what is not, and the ABIs and APIs are done in a way that updating the OS, and even the kernel, doesn't break drivers and apps. OS X has a better handle on this than Windows does at the moment, especially with Windows Vista.
I'm not an OS zealot, I happen to prefer OS X, as it gives me the power of BSD with a consistent and functional GUI. My point is simply to illustrate that Linux has some major hurdles to overcome before it can ever "eat Apple's lunch." Unfortunately, it seems that providing a consistent target is the last thing on the mind of the OSS devs which is understandable, given their development process.

I've been getting more and more frustrated with Apple lately. I love that OS X is a great interface to a BSD-based OS, but it has its share of problems that all go back to Apple's proprietary nature. Granted it's nothing compared to Microsoft's DRM and activation riddled Vista OS, but it's still very annoying.

On the mobile front, the 2.0 firmware for the iPhone has really pissed me off. Sure, it's nice to be able to install 3rd party software without voiding my warranty, but the SDK is so limited that there are no "Wow!" apps like some of the ones for jailbroken phones. Add to that corrupted backups that you don't find out are corrupted until your phone freezes and you have to restore. I lost almost all my photos and did lose all my notes. It wasn't an earth-shattering situation, but it still stings to have lost things of minor personal value to something that should have been fixed before rolling out the door.

I'm seriously considering going back to Linux or possibly BSD for a main OS. The only thing I'll lose is a few games, and to be honest they're just time wasters anyway. On the phone side of things, a good Symbian phone will probably do everything I need with the bonus of not having to convert videos to iPod format just to watch them on the go.

Oh My God, please, put the cool-aid down and walk away from the computer. OS X is just as riddled with DRM as Windows, how else could you play BR disks? New DVDs? itunes music? Apple even uses a form of DRM to try to keep you from running OS X on non Apple hardware.

Apple can avoid activation by tying the OS to specific hardware, so they don't really need it, but they will sue to keep you from running OS X on generic hardware. I'll put up with clicking "activate now" in Windows, waiting 30 seconds and then getting on with my life. Activation is not such a big deal, especially if you actually have EXPERIENCE with the process.

Look Kawai,

IMO, you are being a bit of a troll, lately. I like you. And we have things in common. But I have also noted that you used to be a Linux fan. Linux could do no wrong. Then you left it, claiming "too many broken promises" (something about your wireless card) and moved to OpenSolaris, saying that it liked your wireless card and was so much better. Linux could do no right and (yeah, I watched your blog) OpenSolaris could do no wrong. And then you decided that OpenSolaris had "too many broken promises" for you.

Now you are an Apple freak.

I absolutely respect our friends who happen to prefer Apple Macs. Please do not take this as an attack upon people who happen to prefer them. There is much good to be said about Apple Macs, today.

But please make up your mind, Kaiwai. It's bad enough that people like me are consistently Linux zealots^Wadvocates. But when a person keeps shifting around...

And, yeah, I do try to stay on the "advocate" side of the fence, and avoid the "zealot" side. So should we all.

Edited 2008-08-03 23:34 UTC

I'm going to refrain from making a joke involving sheep and intimacy.