OSNews > Thread > "RE[2]: The linux plateau" by mojeaix

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 2nd Feb 2009 12:00 UTC

Since it's nigh on impossible to produce accurate figures of operating system usage, we have to make do with figures that provide a rough estimate, at best. One such set of statistics are the figures from Net Applications, which tracks the 160 million monthly visitors to its hosted websites. The latest figures from January 2009 have been published, and they show that the rise of Mac OS X continues, as well as that of the iPhone and iPod Touch. Unsurprisingly, Windows 7 did quite well too.

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RE[2]: The linux plateau

by mojeaix on Mon 2nd Feb 2009 14:36 UTC in reply to "RE: The linux plateau"

Member since:
2006-11-29

That's basically what Apple did with BSD. Darwin is basically BSD with the Aqua GUI on top. Apple could have chosen to use Linux, but I think the licensing for BSD suited them better.

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RE[3]: The linux plateau

by Tom K on Mon 2nd Feb 2009 18:19 in reply to "RE[2]: The linux plateau"

Member since:
2005-07-06

The technology suited them better, too. Can you imagine Apple trying to develop an OS like OS X on a kernel as volatile as Linux?

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RE[4]: The linux plateau

by TechGeek on Mon 2nd Feb 2009 18:36 in reply to "RE[3]: The linux plateau"

Member since:
2006-01-14

There is no reason why Apple couldnt have forked the Linux kernel and done their own thing. The only real reason why they didnt is that they wanted more control over what happens than the GPL allows.

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RE[3]: The linux plateau

by tyrione on Mon 2nd Feb 2009 22:43 in reply to "RE[2]: The linux plateau"

Member since:
2005-11-21

That's basically what Apple did with BSD. Darwin is basically BSD with the Aqua GUI on top. Apple could have chosen to use Linux, but I think the licensing for BSD suited them better.

Wrong. Darwin has no Aqua GUI on top. OS X is far more than Darwin with Aqua GUI on top.

The massive collection of Cocoa Frameworks, the various parts of BSD, non-BSD, and more that add to their custom kernel and much more is OS X.

The additions of OpenCL and its Dev APIs for Cocoa and more, plus other additions to CUPS specifically for OS X, etc., not in Darwin is another reason people haven't just slapped X11 on-top of Darwin and thus presto! We've got OS X.

People who want Darwin with X11 also want Darwin to have all the QuickTime APIs, Xcode, Cocoa and more, but don't want to pay for it.

That's life.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 4