“A headline like that is bound to draw the ire of the Macintosh faithful. After all, since Microsoft, which can marshal its forces and target competitors at will with lethal precision, hasn’t finished-off Apple after all these years (and I’m not saying that this was necessarily a Redmond goal), how on earth can an operating system like Linux spell trouble for Apple?” Read the comentary at ZDNet by David Berlind.
Will Linux finish off the Mac?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Linux’s biggest problem is that there is no unified front representing it. Without a central authority to provide leadership and vision, Linux will **always** lag other commercial offerings, and always be a cloning (copying) system. Apple (with Tiger) is positioned to finally shift from 2-3% market share to 20-30%. Any alternative to Redmond lies in Cupertino.
With the growing popularity of the marvel that is OS X ( the unix with a face you could show to children) i highly doubt Linux could kill the Mac any time soon. Here is why children, 1). Linux does not have the commerical support of the power hitters like Adobe, Macromedia (we are talking native here kiddies), Quark, and Digi Design (pro tools) 2.) Mac works well right out of the box i mean you might have to do some basic tweaks if you have a static network but all in all it can auto detect anything also the firewall works. Its just simple i know how to set up my SMB shares, my active directory, and other lovely unix tools for networking 3.) COME ON, linux is my lover on the side and all but Mac OS X come on thats a trophey wife right there kids. Not to mention in over all support costs and hardware costs Apple is acutally turning out to be much cheaper.
of it in another way: Could Linux bring more people to Mac?
Windows didn’t finish off MacOS, why should Linux be the one to do it?
Quote: “Linux will **always** lag other commercial offerings, and always be a cloning (copying) system”
Rubbish. Linux desktop environments have features not found in any other desktop environment, even OS X.
Quote: “Apple (with Tiger) is positioned to finally shift from 2-3% market share to 20-30%”
I think you’re really dreaming here. I prefer OS X to Windows any day, but I just don’t see it happening…
Quote: “Linux is so far behind the Mac in usability, it’s not even funny.”
To some extent I agree. Apple MacIntosh operating systems have long been very user friendly. That said, using a Linux desktop, whilst still not dead easy, is a lot easier these days, and getting easier all the time.
Quote: “Linux does not have the commerical support of the power hitters like Adobe, Macromedia (we are talking native here kiddies)”
Yeah well, Adobe has plans to stop producing Mac versions of its software – citing costs aren’t worth it for such a small platform. Proprietary software always shifts to where the money/users are. That’s business sense.
It’s well known knowledge that Mac users are dwindling, and that Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the world. Both desktop and server machines. It’s almost impossible to accurately count Linux numbers for a variety of reasons as you most probably can imagine. Even Billy boy Gates believes that it’s a two horse race – Microsoft vs Linux. As much as I like OS X (and I do think that it’s a fantastic operating system), I don’t honestly think market share is going to increase.
Dave
When I was out in Oregon at OSCON all of the Alpha geeks had iBooks running OS X. It provides something that the current Linux distros can’t. The stability and geekiness of Unix with the usability and beautiful interface of an Apple OS. I know once I got an iBook running OS X I stopped fiddling around with my Slackware box at home. Haven’t even turned it on in over a month; before then it just sat there for a few months being ignored. You’ll always have the people that go crazy if everything on their machine isn’t built from source, or at least “libre/free” so they won’t be coming over to the OS X world, but there are lots of others out there that can.
>> Linux does not have the commerical support of the power hitters like Adobe, Macromedia (we are talking native here kiddies), Quark, and Digi Design (pro tools)
LMAO so as Apple’s marketshare continues to drop (which it will since X86 will undoubtly grow faster, espically since new markets are emerging(China, India, etc)), will ISVs give a rats ass about supporting Apple’s products?
1.8% is OK…how about 5-10yrs in the future…0.05%?
Just make a Mac like GUI for Linux.
Then a Mac OSX Emulator… oh, wait…. just recompile?
Wow. Now if there were only good games in some numbers with a decent API for Linux…
It’d be over then.
I work with a bunch of people. Almost all of them use Macs. Most of them used to use Linux. Most of them still have a desktop/personal server running Linux. They just love Mac OS X. It’s really nice. I still run Linux on my main box, but Mac OS X has so many cool things.
There were articles saying things like “Will Mac OS X kill Linux?” back when it came out. It won’t. The fact is that the web, email, and IM are the killer apps right now and they’re available on every platform. This is bad for Windows. It means that people can choose the platform they like and not worry about what they want to do on it as much as in the past.
Running with this tangent, I think Moilla is going to be the worst thing for Microsoft and the best thing for Mac OS X and Linux. A free cross-platform GUI framework that works exceedingly well on OS X, Linux and Windows is dangerous for Windows (because they can really only loose marketshare by software being platform agnostic). With Gnome looking at it becoming the basis of their next-gen stuff (along with things like Mono and Java), it becomes even worst for MSFT. And AOL still doesn’t get it.
Mac OS X is just really well put together. It’s in no danger of going away and neither is Windows or Linux.
I totally agree that at this point in time that linux is behind Mac in (regular user) usability. There are not unified tools to setup things as SMB that ALL distros get behind. Though I will say that most distros are seeing the need for this and are working on unified tools.
Though I have noticed some issues with MAC.
1.)as apple makes there own software other software houses are discontinuing there well known line of software (MS IE and adobe….umm..crap forgot). Even though there is only a hand ful now, it still has to get you thinking that in the future, that peice of software might not be around
2) Hardware is still expensive and lacks in places (20 inch imac at 1899.00 still only has a 64mb GEFOREFX5200……not my idea of graphics power house and 256MB of ram?..ehh)
this is not to say I don’t want mac around. Hell, I would love to have apple port OSX to x86 cause god knows I would ditch windows and have a nice dual boot enviroment of linux and mac.
I just think OSX and Linux (as of now) bring in a different crowds. Though if the two can work together, they would be a force to recon with
Is that nobody ever questions if it will go away until better ideas are developed.. since it’s here and it’s free (GNU). It’s just a matter of time until there are distributions that the common people still stuck to the desktop metaphor (thanks to Apple and Microsoft for getting almost all GUI software stuck to it) will find easy to use and capable enough of doing all of the tasks they want to do. The only thing Apple and Microsoft can hope to do is keep on buying innovative companies/ideas that implement software and devices that everyone thinks they can’t live without. They can then patent and copyright and drm most of the ways of using the software to slow down the GNU/Linux developers from implementing them. There’s absolutely little else other than IP and interest standing in the way of GNU/Linux or future free developers from taking more and more market share away from Apple and Microsoft. It’s all a matter of time.
Yeah well, Adobe has plans to stop producing Mac versions of its software – citing costs aren’t worth it for such a small platform.
Rubbish. OS X is only a small platform if you look at it from the overall marketshare. OS X marketshare in the media business is significantly higher than 2-3%. Companies don’t just stop doing things that are making them money.
Apple is a non-player, now and forever. EVEN MS sees them as pathetic. Why else would MS support MacOSX (Office, VPC, IE, etc)?
Because Microsoft needs a competitor to keep the government off its back. And no matter how much Microsoft is focusing on Linux, Apple gets the glitz. If Apple were to disappear, Microsoft’s antitrust problems would grow by leaps and bounds.
Oh, and Microsoft isn’t supporting IE for OS X anymore. That idea, if it wasn’t dead before, died with Safari. And VPC was a product they purchased. If Microsoft, a monopoly in the OS market, purchased a product that allowed for OS interoperability and then killed it….let’s just say there are many lawyers and regulators that wouldn’t look too kindly on that.
But, it’s true that Microsoft doesn’t see them as a competitor for their main cash cow: business software
I guess I am one of the few who prefers Linux over Macs. I just like the tweaking and working out problems. Sure, Macs “just work” but I personally think that takes out all the fun.
Gnome has come a long way. KDE is developing fast. X.org is getting along with some nice eye candy. It won’t be long before someone integrates all these great features and makes an environment that can rival Windows and Mac OSX.
I for one, aside from not liking Mac OSX, think Mac hardware is a tad bit expensive (okay, very). Sure, it’s pretty and has nice bells and whistles, but I don’t do much on my computer aside from read e-mail, surf the web, listen to music and play a few games now and then. I don’t want to buy hardware just to experience another OS. I like the fact I can pop Linux on just about any computer I want.
However, I think Mac OSX will stick around for quite a bit longer. Its user base is amazingly loyal.
market share and profitable markets are not even relatable. to be profitable in a market, you need to make more than you spend on development. when you have a potential market of 25 million users, no matter what the size of share of the over al market that is, it is still highly profitable, however, just like with any market, if you make crap products and no one buys them, because the competition is better, you stop making the product.
I am a long time Linux user, since the Slackware 2.0 days, and in recent years a FreeBSD and Gentoo user. I studied CS at college where I used alot of Solaris workstations. So, I know unix, I know programming and compiling and linking, and I am not afriad of the command line or configuration files. I have spent, and enjoyed spending, days setting up my OS from scratch and compiling all the apps and laying out the filesystem the way I wanted and fighting through finding and compiling/installing all the libs I needed to compile and link properly all the software I wanted to install and fighting to get the drivers and configuration just the way I wanted to to work on my hardware. It gives quite a sense of accomplishment when you get it to work and that is the problem. Your average user doesn’t want to, and generally can’t, step up to that sort of challange.
Since I have joined the real world doing IT work all day I have found that I just didn’t have the interest in fighting the good fight getting instaling and updating Linux and FreeBSD and getting it to do what I wanted anymore. I sold off all of my desktops and was left with one nice new Inspiron 8600. And, after a few brief attempt to get both Gentoo and FreeBSD to work on here as my primary OS I actually gave Windows XP Pro a chance. I hadn’t used Windows primarilly on my desktop since 98 and support NT 4 at work and found , to my surprise, Windows has gotten unbelieably better – better to the point where I chose “just works” over the control and unixy feeling I was used to and made it my primary OS for the last few months.
That was until the other day when I saw a refurb eMac at Apple’s online store for $500. I had always figured it was going to cost me into the thousands for a OSX capable Mac figured that $500 was worth it to learn/play with OSX and so I made a bit of an impulse buy as I was missing having a desktop anyway. I couldn’t be happier. It satisfies the yearning I had for unix but in a way like Windows satisfied my “just works” desire to not having to fight with the OS as much. In one evening I installed fink and in no time had all of my old unix tools working fine next to commercial software like Office 2004. The OS does it right and uses all of the tools I am used to in the backend with nice easy front ends for config (CUPS, Samba, Apache, etc). I was pleased to find I can still use all of these tools in the same command line way I am used to if I want to wax nostalgic. Any unix geek will LOVE Mac OS X. I never thought I’d be a Apple convert but I am converted… I highly reccommend that any unix geeks give it a try. I am giving them the biggest endorsement of all… as long as Apple keeps it up and stays in buisiness I will have one of their systems from now on.
ahh..nothing like generalizations and stereotypes to make a point.
I am a mac user only since OS X came out……
so if you are right, that means that I have never used a computer before in my life.
hmm, wonder what I did with all those copies of Linux I had laying around, and Windows 95, 98, and My XP cd. before then, I use an Apple IIe (nice computer for writing papers for elementary school…that is the extent of my work on that machine)
In my school’s CS program we have more Mac users than Linux users, and Linux used to be a very large minority. Most of our Linux users are now full time OSX users. I love SuSE 9.1, but it can’t hold a candle IMO to MacOS X. It’s a good utilitarian desktop, but MacOS X is just too far ahead.
And to the posters that believe that writing a Mac-compatible GUI is going to be easy, guess again. You’d have to ditch X11 as the underlying GUI system to get the kind of capabilities that Quartz and Aqua have.
And as for the Mac being insignificant, therefore MS supports them, that’s very flawed thinking. Microsoft supports MacOS because it’s a big market that will actually buy its products. 2-3% wasn’t much 5 years ago, but now 2-3% of the market can be 30 million systems. Do you think they want to miss 30,000,000 potential licenses of Office?
The Steve Jobs’ hardware tax will keep Apple’s market share at a miniscule 2-3% if not below. Maybe when the board gives him the boot again, we’ll see OSX on x86.
Linux, if it hasn’t already, will overtake Apple in market share, not that Apple users really care. The one thing that hampers Linux is a standard desktop (really a standard toolkit). This keeps ISVs from porting some of their apps to it and it makes Linux on the desktop somewhat a mess unless you stick with your apps written with your DE toolkit.
So I see pretty much the status quo for the next four years as we’ve seen in the past four years. Remember, 2000 was the year of the linux desktop. So you’ll see Apple and Linux both having a combined under 10% of the market, while Windows continues as always.
only when linux usability gets close to windows’ then, Apple should start to worry…. and that wont be for a long time.
I find it hard to say, but…
other than your attitude about apple hardware which is totally misrepresentative and reactionary, you are right about the status quo…ouch, that hurt.
David Pastern said: “It’s well known knowledge that Mac users are dwindling”
Really? Have you considered the possibility that more people are buying Macs, but their market share is shrinking because the Wintel market is growing at a much faster rate? And I’m absolutely sick and tired of pointing out that market share doesn’t mean squat, it’s all about profitability.
By coincidence, just today Slashdot carried the item about Cherry OS, the purported PowerPC emulator that can run OS X on x86. There’s something really fishy about the claims of the manufacturer, but that’s beside the point; the old “why doesn’t Apple release OS X for x86” argument came up, and one of the posters pointed out why it wouldn’t happen:
“Look, you guys just can’t get it through your heads that the reason why OS X works so well is because it runs on such a limited pool of hardware– this allows the engineers coding OS X to make assumptions THAT CANNOT BE MADE in the x86 world, where a machine could be using one of thousands of motherboards, network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, etc. Windows developers have to code for the lowest common denominator. OS X developers code for specific hardware. Even the version of NeXTStep that ran on Intel hardware ran on a tiny subset of the available PC hardware. If your CD-ROM drive and motherboard weren’t on the “supported hardware” list that came with NeXTStep, you were SOL.
That little fantasy you all have of buying “Mac OS X for x86″, running it on some homebuilt shitbox you cobbled together from spare parts, and having it work as well as a G5 runs Panther today will NEVER come to pass. Microsoft has spent twenty years and untold millions trying to achieve that goal, and they still have quite a way to go.
Do you think Jobs could just snap his fingers one day and a few months later have a product on the shelves that would run perfectly on every PC capable of running XP today? It’s impossible. And even if it were possible, you wouldn’t buy it. Why? Because Apple uses their software to sell their hardware, so a copy of OS X for x86 would have to be priced to ease the pain of a lost hardware sale– you’d either do without it and bitterly bitch about the price here on /., or you’d pirate it– either way, Apple would lose money on it.”
The ZDNet article was pretty lousy; the writer trots out the tired old “security through obscurity” hogwash, and makes the claim that Linux will eventually equal or surpass OS X’s usability. John Gruber of Daring Fireball explains why interface and usability are not the strong suits of open source projects (with notable exceptions)
http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/spray_on_usability
and follows up with further clarification.
http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/sundry_spray_on
I think it will be windows that will have to worry.
and Gnome is very close to OS X in usability IMHO. now , if they would just let me put the menu in the top bar rather than on the windows, i could feel better on Linux (has that been resolved in 2.6 and beyond?)
Apple’s share of the PC market, and its interest in said market, has done nothing for years but decline. 20-30%? Not a whelk’s chance in a supernova.
I just like the tweaking and working out problems. Sure, Macs “just work” but I personally think that takes out all the fun.>>
And I cannot think of a less fun computing experience than stuff *not* working. (Right now I’m dealing with the fact that I’ve got a corrupt install of 10.3.5 and it has me pulling my hair out. [Yes, I’ll go for the archive and install, but I’m in the middle of a project.])
To me, my computer should be like my car. In exchange for a weekly tank of gas, monthly fluid and tire pressure checks, and a trip to the mechanic every 3-5k miles, the car should JUST WORK.
My computer is a tool.
I have no use/need/time for a broken tool.
It’s probably true that stranger things have happened than Linux equalling the ease of use and elegance of Mac OS X, but off hand I can’t think of any.
At the moment Linux is significantly less user friendly than Windows XP and Mac OS X has a significant lead over Windows. I’ve seen little evidence that this will change any time soon. Annoying Linux problems like crippled cut/copy/paste between different toolkits still haven’t been fixed, while Mac OS X keeps getting better and better.
If people want a mainstream OS running on cheap hardware with loads of apps and games, then they’ll go with Windows. If they want a free OS and they enjoy tweaking and customising, then they’ll run Linux. If someone wants the most elegant and user friendly OS and is willing to pay a bit more, then they’ll get a Mac.
Maybe one day Mac OS will stagnate and eventually Linux will catch up with it. But I can’t see that happening for a very long time.
“And I’m absolutely sick and tired of pointing out that market share doesn’t mean squat, it’s all about profitability.”
Yes. Yes, it is. Remind me which made a bigger profit last year, Microsoft or Apple? Intel or Apple?
At the levels we’re talking here, market share EQUALS profitability. This is the business model Microsoft has been running on for twenty years, after all.
I read that whole article twice but didn’t see a reason why MacOSX would go away. Certainly, it seems that Linux will continue to rise in Desktop market share, but the vast majority of those numbers are plainly coming from Windows users not MacOS users. And as “alternative” operating systems become more commonplace it seems more likely that MacOSX will have more room to survive, not less. It’s relatively easy to port a Linux app to OSX/X11, so the potential application base for OSX can only grow.
I think Apple has a solid future of providing cool-looking hardware to their fans, and it’s foolhardy to think they will switch to Linux anytime soon just to save a few bucks. If they wanted to save a few bucks they’d already be using Windows!
“Annoying Linux problems like crippled cut/copy/paste between different toolkits still haven’t been fixed”
y’know, I haven’t seen any evidence of this for two years. forget cut ‘n’ paste between toolkits, drag ‘n’ drop between DEs works these days (you can drag files for a DVD burn from Nautilus to k3b). Quit living in the past.
“y’know, I haven’t seen any evidence of this for two years. forget cut ‘n’ paste between toolkits, drag ‘n’ drop between DEs works these days (you can drag files for a DVD burn from Nautilus to k3b). Quit living in the past.”
I’m running Mandrake 10 on my secondary PC, do you consider that living in the past?
Cut/copy/paste of anything except plain text does not work properly between a great many apps. That’s just one of about 101 problems that make me really hate working in Linux. I keep a copy on an old PC to play around with and try out new software, but it would drive me totally nuts if I actually had to do real work on such an amateurish mess. It’s got a long way to go to match the usability of Windows, let alone the elegance of Mac OS X.
At this point all I can see if Linux developers concerned for matching feature for feature each feature in Windows/Mac, this is why Mac OS X is so great. Apple just focuses on themselves and they develop great features which everybody else ends up copying. If all you do is that then you’ll never surpass anybody.
Linux needs to come up with great new innovative features that other people want, not the reverse. First off make Linux easy! Sure if you wanna spend hours upon hours tweaking with stuff, then be my guest meanwhile I want to actually be productive and get meaningfull work done.
Mac OS X is great because if your a novice user it’s freakin easy to use, if your a power user you an tweak it and download 3rd parts apps like TinkerTool to help tweak it.
Lastly Apple actually listens to it’s users, every WWDC or Macworld you usually hear Steve jobs saying “we’ve added x because customers asked for it…” Granted I don’t know everything about this GNOME thing but it sounds like GNOME developers totally ignored a big part of their users when they made natilus spatial. It’s sortta pathetic they wouldn’t even add a configurable option for that considering bother Apple AND Microsoft allow you to configure this.
For Linux to really progress every(or most devs) would need to start focusing their efforts and not continuously forking a project because they don’t like 1 little thing about the project. Thats somewhat unfair, but I get that impression a lot from reading about some projects.
Apple is a non-player, now and forever. EVEN MS sees them as pathetic. Why else would MS support MacOSX (Office, VPC, IE, etc)?
Because Microsoft – despite what seems to be common belief – is in the business of selling software.
Some said that Apple is only 1%-2% of the market because PC sales have increased so much that it now dwarfs Apple sales. In part this is true but also it’s a fact that the “Apple Tax” has also hindered any rapid growth. Is Apple growing ? Yes slowly but it’s growing can it out pace the growth of the PC with either Linux or Windows or both ? NO ! Apple growth is not going to grow at a fast enough pace to keep up with MS’s strangle hold on the desktop or Linux’s free handouts. Sorry but Apple will always remain a nitch market because Steve Job’s would not have it any other way. OS-X will always be tied to very expensive Apple hardware sales because Steve Job’s would not have it any other way. Apple is the Sun or IBM of the desktop….in other words it’s good software tied down to expensive hardware which may or may not be the fast or best when compared to the PC market.
I don’t typically comment on these type of futile OS-partisan hot button issues, but I’ll add my thoughts.
I rarely hear much talk about Apple outside of industrialized nations. What I see are articles and websites that discuss Linux being used in third-world nations or poor countries. Generally speaking, the cost of running open source software on PC will always be more appealing than running OS X on a Mac/Windows on a PC for the majority of countries in the world. Until Apple can commoditize their hardware, they will play a niche market.
Personally, I don’t think that Apple will ever go away. Businesses and diehards will continue to support Apple’s proprietary hardware and software now and into the future – unless Apple management really screws up.
– OS X is the easiest step into the Unix/Linux environment, and I won’t give that up, on a desktop. On a server: Linux or Solaris are viable choices.
– The unix compatibility of OS X and HP UX is very nice as well.
– Linux would need a Linus of the desktop to ever get close to Apple’s competency.
– Apple hardware and OS X are only a part of Apple:
There’s also the Video and Music software that’s very strong in the industry and If you’ve got interest in either area you’d be a fool to buy anything but Apple just to give yourself the Choice of some of the best software on the market.
I can’t see any reason that Linux will finish it off.
They’re not playing the same game; Apple’s product runs exclusively on PowerPC and is very expensive. Linux runs on damn near anything and is free.
If you buy an Apple machine, you buy it from Apple and get OSX with it; there’s not such a huge advantage from going to Linux. Whereas by going from Windows to Linux, you avoid all the security issues etc.
Plus the fact that Microsoft’s user base is enormous; a large proportion of them are using Windows for no good reason or because they have to; Apple’s user base is comparatively small and *very* supportive of anything with the logo on it. They’re not so keen to change, because they actually like what they’re using.
Linux is going to gain in market share, sure, but it’s not likely to be at Apple’s expense.
If you are a unix geek… you will love osx. It’s the best of the unix/linux world tied onto a beautiful operating environment that is MILES ahead of desktop Linux and in my opinion a far superior alternative to Windows than Linux ever will be.
I don’t need 50 applications that do the exact same thing (pointing a finger at Linux development) I just need one that does it, and does it well. I’ll take the iApps over ANY other standard apps for Linux/Windows anyday.
Have you ever tried installing things in Linux… configuring them…. oh and what if you do a kernel recompile… that’s right I have to recompile vmware every time I do it. What happens if I go from 10.3 to 10.3.5 …. nothing and everything works beautifully. No dependency issues… no hangs… it just works and thats what I paid for. I get far more work done on my mac than I’ve ever got done on my Linux box or my Windows 2003 server. Hands down. Reformatting and reinstalling? Never. Ghosting? Never. Worries? None!
@Debman
>>market share and profitable markets are not even relatable.
ISVs have limited resources. If they can target 99.95% of consumers(not potential) what incentive do they have to invest in the 0.05% segment? Why shouldn’t they invest in the bigger market segment so their product can better compete with that of their competitors? At what point do they say, “fuck it”, too small, who cares if my product is not available to 1 person, when I can better compete for the other 25?
>>Because Microsoft – despite what seems to be common belief – is in the business of selling software.
OK so where’s IE, OFFICE, VPC for Linux? Where’s the FUD attack against Apple?
Thats last quote was from drsmithy
Honestly speaking I really wonder why one needs to finish other to be number one? After all this all is for our comfort. Infact Mac and M$ are here that is why we r mvoing forward. Opensource is not to kill each others apps! Its to grow together,expand and most important freedom to choose! Let linux gain any popularity you will always find people using MAC and Windows and that makes perfect enviornment of compitation.
OK so where’s IE, OFFICE, VPC for Linux?
1. Tiny number of customers.
2. No standard platform to target (Redhat ? Suse ? Gnome ? KDE ? Motif ?).
In other words, there’s little chance of making any money and a significant possibility of fruitlessly spending a lot.
Where’s the FUD attack against Apple?
I’m sure there are comparisons of Windows and OS X somewhere.
>>1. Tiny number of customers.
Do you have sources to back this up? According to HP/IDC, Linux exceeds Mac in users.
>>2. No standard platform to target (Redhat ? Suse ? Gnome ? KDE ? Motif ?).
Motif?!?Er…yeah toolkit.
MS would follow Oracle for example. Provide support for Red Hat/SUSE. You make it sound like 1 software package would need a complete rewrite to work from 1 distro to another, within reason.
>> I’m sure there are comparisons of Windows and OS X somewhere.
I’ll wait for you to find some with the same severity as MS’s “Get the Facts” campaign.
Linux will for sure surpass Apple in popularity or install base but Apple will never die anytime soon. Apple always has new designs and interesting ideas (that Microsoft ends up adapting). Linux and Mac will be around for a long time, Microsoft has its days numbered for their lack of creativity and quality.
your looking at companies who sell a PRODUCT tot desktop PCs. apple is an ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER. look at their profits compared to companies like Dell, and gateway. look at IBMs Low end Server + PC business, same with HP.
how can you look at the profits of 2 companies who have products that can be PARTS of more than just a desktop computer or low end computer and think that is even equivalent?
Shortly after OS-X came out, a mandatory upgrade was released for $149. The Mac faithful grumbled, but quickly forgave.
As for me, I can do without being a slave to my computer vendor – whether it’s apple or msft or sunw.
There are some technicalities here. OSX only runs on new-world ppc hardware. Linux runs on 19 different architectures. OSX is only (darwin) bsd + gui. Linux is a kernel. Some Linux distros have portage systems. BSD has portage systems. OSX has cheap adaptions of bsd like ports, but gentoo did port their portage system to osx. Basically theres no winner here, OSX has a nice setup going for it but Linux has far to much diversity and momentum (and its also free as in beer and speach). OSX need to start unrolling cheap, small and powerfull hardware to even begin to compete with Linux. Personally I don’t care if Linux kills mac, I kind of like having Apple around even though I’m not a Apple freak. I’d rather see Windows go out the door not Apple.
again, you missed the point. 30 million users is a lot. especially users in a part of the world that PAY for software rather than steal it.
you want to make a popular shareware app? make it for OS X first and you will get better exposure because of the smaller market, but you will still make a butt load of money because the market itself is of sufficient numbers that you can move lots of units. then you have the resources to port it to windows, where there is now sufficient Buzz to not have to worry much about how to get customers.
if your product stinks, the odds of you making money in windows or OS X are non existent.
and even if you are not an ISV, but a large corporation. 30 million people is a lot of users to ignore when you have a popular piece of software that can fill a niche in the Mac market that is not yet filled.
“And I’m absolutely sick and tired of pointing out that market share doesn’t mean squat, it’s all about profitability.”
Yes. Yes, it is. Remind me which made a bigger profit last year, Microsoft or Apple? Intel or Apple?
At the levels we’re talking here, market share EQUALS profitability. This is the business model Microsoft has been running on for twenty years, after all.
But if a company is profitable they can subsist, it doesn’t necessarily matter how profitable a company is compared to another. That’s an idea created by our (in my opinion) broken system of public trading.
The perfect example is Matrox, a much better one than the publically traded Apple. A large portion of the Windows using enthusiast community ridicules them because they can’t compete with ATI and Nvidia in 3D performance. What people don’t understand is the unsurpassed 2D quality and dual and triple head configurability. They’re the absolute best in medical display adapters, among others, and for enthusiasts who use their cards 3D is an afterthought, and adequate.
There’s more to the world than the mainstream, and companies like Matrox and Apple cater to these niches. As long as they’re happy to do so and remain comfortably profitable, more power to them.
Umm, Apple doe snot make proprietary hardware. all their interconnects are industry standards, all their peripherals are industry standard, in fact, even their firmware is industry standard (Open Firmware)
name a part that is not standard…and just so you know, just because you can not buy the motherboards to build your own system does not make it proprietary, in fact, with pearPC, I bet that how ever they got to emulate the stuff that you need to run OS X on even a PPC motherboard, they could modify it to make a flasher so some one could flash the ROM on a Pegasus motherboard and you could build your Own S X machine.
so, what is proprietary?
first off, most people that buy a new mac these days buy a ibook or powerbook. laptops are perfect for the apple idea of a integrated os and hardware package from the same company. why? laptops are in no way upgrade friendly when it comes to to the big things like motherboard, cpu or storage (unless you feel like useing usb hds. wait isnt that what the ipod is?).
linux have one real strength and that is the fact that its not locked to the hardware. to run a linux distro (a binary like debian that pride itself in supporting many hardware bases, or any source based one where you can get a boot image for hardware in question) you can run it on allmost any cpu out there. windows is more or less locked to x86 and mac is locked to powerpc.
therefor i belive we will see a growth in linux on corp and home desktops/workstations (both however is going to get a bit of a drop with the growth in wifi and similar tech) and on servers. why? you can install it onto the existing infrastructure. if you want to go mac you have to replace all the hardware if you have x86 or any other non-powerpc setup.
however linux still dont do “sleep”-mode cleanly, alltho its getting there. students and other people on the move wants a machine where they can just close the lid and forget about it. and when opend again their desktop comes back to life just like they left it.
so the final question is, are we talking desktops, laptops, servers or something else? i think that with the greneral support for tcp/ip networks, smb and other “standards” it will in the end not matter what os your useing as long as it can read and write the files your friends have. and with the xml based openoffice files being pushed as a standard for offices files and so on i belive we will kill of the last of the proprietary lockins (microsoft office). and when that happens you can use any os that fits your needs, i dont realy care
if i ever pick up a mac it will most likely be a laptop. for dektop units the ability of getting x86 hardware from any corner electronics store is a killer feature
“Have you ever tried installing things in Linux… configuring them….”
Yep… works a treat on here. I find it hard to believe OSX is easier, given the lack of package management.
“oh and what if you do a kernel recompile… that’s right I have to recompile vmware every time I do it.”
Um…. if I recompile my kernel everything works fine. I don’t use VMware, but neither do 99% of OSX users – if they recompiled their kernel I bet they’d have to recompile VMWare too.
“What happens if I go from 10.3 to 10.3.5 …. nothing and everything works beautifully. No dependency issues… no hangs… it just works and thats what I paid for.”
Or alternatively you go to 10.3.6 (I think… recollection is hazy, so number may well be inaccurate) which is so broken Apple recommend you don’t use it.
“I get far more work done on my mac than I’ve ever got done on my Linux box or my Windows 2003 server. Hands down. ”
Oh whatever, what exactly makes you so much more productive? Name something serious, go on – how do you get far more work done if you’re, say, word processing? or writing code? or using Photoshop?
“Reformatting and reinstalling? Never. Ghosting? Never. Worries? None!”
None of those on my Linux installs either, and it’s free (in every sense of the word).
yes, hardware availability for building a system is there on the PC side, but you can upgrade a Mac’s CPU, Video, Memory, hard drives, Optical Drives, etc. all but the Motherboard (which I bet since PearPC cracked OS X wide open on emulators, it will be a matter of time before some company markets a tool to turn a PPC MOtherboard into a mac bootable motherboard. that will be perfect for the people who want to build a system…it is harder to do than PCs, but that will be part f the fun and keep the unwashed masses from doing it which will keep Apple’s hardware sales up, though I am sure they would go after anyone who attempted to sell the machines.
but regardless, I am upgrading my 5 year old Mac to a near top end G4 (1.2 GHz) from a 400 MHz G4 and adding a dual layer DVD burner replacing the DRD-ROM that came with the system. I am also upgrading the Video card from a rage 128 to a GeForce 3 Ti with 64 MBs of memory…it is flashed, but so what, I got it for 1/3 the price of the low end ATI AGP card.
umm, you want to know how easy it is? drag app / app folder to trash…delete trash….application is uninstalled.
Actually, as an earlier poster said (about the third or so) I see that Linux will INCREASE the number of Mac users (and vice-versa). The Mac and Linux have exactly the same obstacle to overcome, which is the blinders that the ordinary consumer has towards alternatives in the desktop PC market. The Mac and Linux are both Unix’ish and therefore can share a lot of software, also Apple’s better attitude towards open source improves the amount of communciation between the camps. While Linux and Apple don’t really _need_ each other per se, it’s entirely a symbiotic relationship, improving the lot of both.
A breakthrough will occur for both when the ordinary person realizes there are multiple choices to be had in the desktop system market and shops accordingly. And each system increases the visibility and viability of alternatives in the marketplace.
Erik
At this point all I can see if Linux developers concerned for matching feature for feature each feature in Windows/Mac, this is why Mac OS X is so great. Apple just focuses on themselves and they develop great features which everybody else ends up copying. If all you do is that then you’ll never surpass anybody.
Some do, yes. This is the failing of many arguments. Unlike OS X and Windows, Linux isn’t contained by the goals of a single company. Yes, there are those like XPde that attempt to clone the work of others, kind of like Apple and Microsoft did with Xerox back in the day. But then there are Gnome and KDE which do it to a lesser extent, and then the likes of Enlightenment and [Black]box who don’t care to please Windows or OS X users.
That’s just using Window Managers as an example, there are others for every application category, and distributions as well. It’s not a company, it’s a community, and the fruit can be whatever you want it to be. In fact, your OS X is a fruit of the similar BSD community.
I am reading Osnews for quite some time now every day of the week but I have just got enough articles like: Linux kills Windows, Windows kills Microsoft, Linux prevails and so on. Come on … Hidden adverteising? Or what is it? Get me some real links on this page not all the crap that other sites write. I want to see that: a technical comparison between MacOS and Linux. An usability comparison between Windows and Linux. Not like X,Y will prevail because someone waked up in the morning and just hadn’t nothing else to write about.
Ok ?
I will switch back to linux soon.
Hehe, Installing Gentoo on my powerbook will be pretty fun.
Apple is proprietary system. You don’t wanna be a slave do you?
Many people here have no idea why Free software is so important. (You apple advocates should know that apple is free riding on free software world) I have a different philosophy.
Without freedom, Nothing is worth.
Good luck guys! I love GNU. I love GPL.
That’s it!
actually, MS and Apple took Xeroxes ideas and moved them to the next level. what is going on in the Linux world is more like if MS and Apple had copied Xerox and then waited to see what they came up with next so they could copy it again.
Linux developers are getting better though and many OSS projects come up with announcements of ideas shortly before I hear them from Apple or MS, but the majority of the time it is “hmm, MS/Apple has does that…we should do that” or “well, we have a pretty good copy here, lets tweak it some”
“freeriding” as you put it implies that Apple takes but does not give…
Apple employes developers who work on KHTML, GCC, Darwin, Mach, and probably a few OSS apps that come with the BSD subsystem. isn’t that what Red hat and al the Linux distributers do? oh, but you want all the parts to be free or else you think there is a free ride in there. sorry, but that is not what the OSS licenses (especially the GPL) say.
I don’t understand it. all the Linux folks were bashing MS back in 99 and 2000 when they tried their “viral licensing” campaign saying that the GPL would force companies who use the software of build on it to open up their code as well.
well, now the linux folks are complaining that Apple is using the software and improving it and giving back, but because they have not opened their entire system up under an OSS license, that is bad and apple should not be allowed to use GPLed software.
so which is it people? I was a Linux Activist back in those days and I seem to recall most people I ran into to be enlightened about this topic…now all the new kiddies have not bothered learning what the GPL and OSS is about and have turned to a Xenophobic type stance on the OSS software.
I guess someone really fired up by my word.
But how about this
Apple do not allow you to run OS X on non-apple hardware.
I am selling out my powerbook. Actually, I tried to buy new powerbook. but now I am hesitating.
This company is even worse than Microsoft or same.
Software license really sucks. Free does not mean “free in money” I don’t understand why apple is trying to control every bit of user activity.
yeah I am poisoned by GPL but you should think seriously.
You buy software and you can only “use it” that’s it.
yeah, I am not talkin about BSD license. I don’t consider OSS equal to GPL. So don’t say apple is not doing “free ride”
It is her strategy to survive. “Pathetic foul play”
If I hurt mac users, I apologize but I do really need freedom in software field. Nobody sue me if I tweak my car but why this guys are trying to ristrict me after they sold their product.
Don’t you think it is weird?
Shortly after OS-X came out, a mandatory upgrade was released for $149. The Mac faithful grumbled, but quickly forgave.
that ‘upgrade’ was free.
fyi.
“OK so where’s IE, OFFICE, VPC for Linux?”
Why anybody would want to use Internet Exploiter on Linux (except for the obvious ‘rendering’ issues) is beyong me! Mozilla, Konqueror, etc. are *way* ahead of IE and I am sure Safari must be too. Starting to use IE instead of these would be like going two centuries back in history!
It is hard for me to take this comment serious when IE is used as an example…
I own a Linux desktop PC, and a Mac Laptop. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, my interest in Linux is what sparked my interest in Mac OS X and thus Apple Computers.
I feel really comfortable using Mac OS X. I’ve never felt more comfortable using a computer. I can open a terminal and ssh into my desktop box, run apps remotely over X11, scp or transfer files via nfs/samba/whatever. It just works.
actually, MS and Apple took Xeroxes ideas and moved them to the next level. what is going on in the Linux world is more like if MS and Apple had copied Xerox and then waited to see what they came up with next so they could copy it again.
Linux developers are getting better though and many OSS projects come up with announcements of ideas shortly before I hear them from Apple or MS, but the majority of the time it is “hmm, MS/Apple has does that…we should do that” or “well, we have a pretty good copy here, lets tweak it some”
Please, if that were the case then Gnome and KDE (neither of which I use) would be identical to OS X or Windows. That’s obviously not true.
I don’t think you understand what freedom is all about. It’s not about being able to download free software, and it goes beyond being able to freely contribute to projects and view source code. It’s about all of us living in the same world, all of us being in the same boat. Yes, there are similarities between all computer interfaces, it’s inescapable because they’re interfacing with very similar hardware to accomplish very similar tasks using the same set of human perceptions. Freedom is the ability to implement a design goal without worrying about what that other guy has done and patented. It’s about being able to borrow a good idea from another human being, and let them borrow yours in turn. It’s about realizing that it’s not thievery it’s sharing, it’s about being a good community member.
I wasn’t attacking Microsoft and Apple from feeding off both Xerox and each other. They all do it today, and that’s ok. The problem is restricting people’s creativity by claiming sequences of naturally occuring building blocks as their own.
Lighten up, it’s only a war if you turn it into one. Maybe there’s reason to be defensive in many cases, but I don’t see any need for animosity between Linux and BSD.
“Have you ever tried installing things in Linux… configuring them…. oh and what if you do a kernel recompile… that’s right I have to recompile vmware every time I do it. What happens if I go from 10.3 to 10.3.5 …. nothing and everything works beautifully. No dependency issues… no hangs… it just works and thats what I paid for. I get far more work done on my mac than I’ve ever got done on my Linux box or my Windows 2003 server. Hands down. Reformatting and reinstalling? Never. Ghosting? Never. Worries? None!”
that’s funny, I install software with one command, I haven’t recompiled a kernel since I ran SuSE 7.2 on my laptop, and I’ve been doing useful work on Linux systems for the last three years. My laptop hasn’t had a clean install since MDK 9.0; my last desktop had MDK installed on it exactly once in the year-and-a-bit I owned it, and so’s my new one. Ghosting? Eh?
@akumax: um, they didn’t “make” Nautilus spatial. They implemented a spatial interface and made it the default, in GNOME 2.6. There’s always been a gconf key (from 2.6) and a menu option (from 2.8) to have the browser view as the default instead.
as has been noted by many above, Macs are a complete non-starter so far as being a non-niche player in the world of general-purpose desktop computers (a world which has a definite time limit, in my book, but that’s outside the scope of this thread) is concerned. That doesn’t mean Macs suck, or that OS X sucks (can’t say I like it personally, but it certainly doesn’t suck). It’s never going to be bigger than Windows, though, and once Linux definitively moves ahead of it it’ll just keep moving further, thanks to the competitive advantage of access to a far wider market, commodity hardware and the price everyone likes to hear.
For heaven’s sake step back a second. With OS X and Linux being UN*X brethren we should join forces and try to get rid of the Windows domination.
I am a big fan of Open Source Software, but it doesn’t mean that all software has to be GPLed in any case. I think choice is good. I want to be able to have the choice between GPL, BSD licenses or whatever I feel like.
I’d love to get to a point where I could choose AtheOS, Linux, Mac OS X, jeez even AmigaOS you name it, and know that this choice is merely a matter of my personal preference and it won’t be accompanied by several drawbacks concerning interoperability with other OSes to a big degree.
Microsofts domination is really taking away a lot of choice and I’d love to see even more operating systems gaining market share to stir up the operating system landscape a bit. Once we have 6 or 7 OSes trying to get the biggest bite of the market, maybe then finally people start to realize that we need first and foremost open standards for communication and file exchange and we need everyone to stick to them (!!!), so that communication and data exchange becomes platform agnostic as it should have been in the first place.
I mean whatever happened to the World Wide Web being accessible by any browser that complies to the standards? There are too many sites that try to tell you with what and how you are supposed to surf the Web. Let’s not go there anymore.
“ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER. look at their profits compared to companies like Dell”
well, that’s not the comparison you started off making, but I’d be happy to!
for the most recent quarter for which results are available, Dell made $800m net on $11bn of revenue (source: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/pressoffice… ). Apple made $61m net on $2bn of revenue (source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jul/14results.html ). Any more comparisons you’d like to try?
precisely – see my above post suggesting that Apple will remain a viable niche vendor. I agree with you that this is where Apple has always lived and where it will go on living, so far as computers are concerned. I was responding to the people suggesting Apple was poised (or even trying) to take a position in the mainstream of general-purpose computing (hardware or software).
and just to throw a little more oil on the fire – Red Hat’s annual report claims an operating return of $61m for the entire last financial *year*. go to it, kids!
actually, large parts of the OS X operating system (the Darwin project) are released under an open source license. The graphical layer is the part that isn’t.
Quote: “Would you actually bother to run Linux on a Mac, after going to all that additional expense for the hardware. Its like putting a Ford engine in a BMW. Why would you do that? ”
mmm hate to disappoint you but Linus himself runs Linux on PPC on a PowerMac G5 … I think Linus knows what he’s doing 😉 I really hope to see IBMs PPC970 CPU available to the market, competing with AMD & Intel, would be very very interesting…
Dave
I agree that they’re not poised to take over the market, but I won’t go so far as to say they never will. I don’t know about you, but I can’t read the future, and I don’t really care to do so.
But then, in an ideal market nobody would be dominant: not Microsoft, not OS X, BSD, or Linux. Everyone’s always saying how we need to bring Microsoft down for the sake of competition, but then those same people talk about how they want to capture the market, and many go so far as to slander the competition.
But yes, Apple is certainly a viable niche vendor, as are many Linux distributions.
Quote: “when you do a market share, you are comparing the growth of one group against the growth of everyone else.”
That’s not maths, that’s economics. Different kettle of fishes. Market share in mathematical terms is the total number of users. As an example, 3 groups, A, B & C.
A has 1.2 million
B has 2.5 million
C has 24 million
Which has the largest market share? Total market is all 3 combined plus any sundries (smaller players etc). If the total market is 29 million, then group C has 24/29, roughly 80% or so. I don’t care what their market share was six months ago, 2 years ago or 5 years ago. I’m comparing the market share NOW. Of course comparative market shares are useful for predicting trends. You will find that the Mac user base is staying roughly the same, maybe a few new users. Microsoft is very slowly dwindling. Linux is going upwards. Trends normally stay trends, so unless something happens very drastically to Linux, it will keep getting more users. Now – several things are possible. You could have a user who users Linux/Windows on a dual boot. You could have a user who owns a powerbook and runs a Linux box at home. Or all 3. That makes it really difficult to split results.
Dave
Quote: “Would you actually bother to run Linux on a Mac, after going to all that additional expense for the hardware. Its like putting a Ford engine in a BMW. Why would you do that? ”
mmm hate to disappoint you but Linus himself runs Linux on PPC on a PowerMac G5 … I think Linus knows what he’s doing 😉 I really hope to see IBMs PPC970 CPU available to the market, competing with AMD & Intel, would be very very interesting…
I would give my left nut for a steady, reasonably priced supplier of barebones PPC970’s, preferably dually. Sure, I’d try OS X (if the firmware were hacked), but I strongly suspect I’d continue to run primarily Linux.
The author wasn’t bashing OS X, so there’s no need for a flame war.
I suppose we could imagine a time in the distant future where Linux, or some other free global OS has been perfected; and is so ideal in every way that no one would consider using anything else.
But to even talk about Linux eliminating Mac OS X at this time is silly.
Think about the market. Mac users are those people who are willing to spend more for quality. The are the group least likely to compromise.
It’s the Windows users here that are always going on about how much cheaper they can buy a motherboard or enclosure. That’s the big group of price concious consumers who would be willing to move to another operating system (that’s already compatible with their hardware anyway) when it is perceived by them to be good enough.
The article could just as easily have had the title, “Will Linux kill Windows?”; but of course that’s exactly what everyone’s been arguing about for years now.
1.) It “just works”.
That’s true for 90-98% of the installation (depending on what you do). But try stepping off the beaten path and you find yourself in a world of pain. I will never understand Apple’s insistance on do it our way or not at all. Getting the printer configuration to do true SMB printing (as opposed to the CIFS setup it comes with) for example requires a hack which smacks very much of the bad old WinRegistry days.
2.) It’s ideal for the less computer-literate
Not really. If you want the ideal box for a non-geek, have some knowledgeable person set up and lock down a Linux install. The major pain in Linux is still the setup and configuration, once that is done it’s as easy to use as the next system. Easier than some because you can customize it far better. I’ll give you an example. My father recently got an ibook as his work laptop. After a little while three problems emerged:
– it wouldn’t print with the Canon BJC-85 printer he has. This turned out to be because he only ever inserts the black-and-white cartridge and doesn’t use the colour cartridge at all (saves money). Works fine under Windows and Linux but OS X just throws an error about a missing cartridge and won’t continue (the saving-a-user-from-himself syndrome).
– wouldn’t dial out via bluetooth to his Siemens cellphone. The Siemens apparently is finicky about access to it’s inbuilt modem and will stall if certain commands are in the wrong order or sent with the wrong timing. Wouldn’t work under OS X for love or money. Under Linux I just hack the ppp scripts and away it goes.
– The ibook has a British keyboard but he needs German characters (don’t ask). Under OS X you can switch keyboard layouts with the localization applet (which is nice) but this switches your entire keyboard and is a pain to use if you need to alternate often. Under Linux I just add an appropriate /etc/X11/Xmodmap and he can access the German characters where he’s used to using AltGr.
He’s now running Debian on the ibook and is happy. I’m not saying everybody is going to run into similar problems, but I’m saying if you have problems like these OS X will get into your way more than it’ll help whereas under Linux you’ll always have a solution.
3.) OS X performance
Sorry, that just sucks. The performance boost you get when switching an Apple over to Linux is not even funny anymore (especially if you use the 2.6 kernel, wheeee). No spinning beachball of death, no getting coffee while loading Mozilla. I understand that a lot of the crawl is down to OS X doing far more in the graphics department, so you’re just paying for the glitz, but for someone who just wants to get work done on his machine it can be very annoying. I think this is especially true for laptops because of the slow disks they have.
I don’t think in the short run Linux is going to be a threat to OS X, there’s enough marketing behind Apple, and they seem to be making a bit of money with iTunes, so they’ll likely go on for a while. And who knows, once Windows is gone (or relegated firmly into fifth-or-sixth place, where it belongs) maybe Apple will BSD-license their entire OS (since they hate the GPL) and open up a bit. That should be interesting.
Quote: “again, you missed the point. 30 million users is a lot. especially users in a part of the world that PAY for software rather than steal it. ”
Huh? you’re not starting that shit again are you? God…go away with crap like Linux users are people who pirate software, it’s a load of bloody crap. There’s a fair amount of OS X and Apple related stuff around on p2p for pirating – are you saying now that PC users are downloading that and using it? mmm?
Apples Mac OS X is nice, very nice. I don’t agree with their methods of using a bsd kernel (and bsd licence – ie. they can take but not give back improvements, that’s a *real* community spirit – NOT). Apple is riding on the hard work of the BSD developers and stuffing them over big time. Why didn’t Apple write its own kernel? mmm? tell me why please? Maybe, just maybe, it’s not an *easy* thing to do? Mac OS X and Apple zealots are the worst computer users out there for spinning why their system is the best, and they’re mostly sore losers. You ever wonder why so many Windows users go mac bashing? Have a look at the average elitist Mac user antics and you’ll see why. It makes elitist Linux power users who say ‘rtfm’ look plain polite sometimes.
Dave
Quote: “and just so you know, just because you can not buy the motherboards to build your own system does not make it proprietary”
No, it’s a monopoly. It’s a well known fact that Apple had competitors in Australia some time ago that were cloning the Apple hardware. They got their asses sued off them and a cease/desist letter for their troubles. Apple couldn’t stand to have competition that provided an equal quality at a cheaper price and that it *wasn’t* prepared to stand for.
As an example, both AMD & Intel release details of motherboard requirements to suit their CPUs to motherboard manufacturers. That’s how in the PC world we have many different motherboard manufacturers and such diversity. Apple doesn’t even want that.
Apples primary reason for not releasing OS X for i686 is twofold:
1. They’ve modified the kernel that it only runs on a VERY limited hardware pool – this does reduce hardware issues but it also severely limits anyone who wants to upgrade themselves…I can buy OEM parts (video card, soundcard etc for a PC very cheaply). With Apple it’s more difficult. Video cards spring to mind here.
2. Apple makes its money from hardware, not software. If it ports OS X to i686 people won’t buy the Mac hardware, they’ll buy the cheaper PC hardware, but OS X for i686 and away they go. Apple simply cannot afford to lose hardware sales, it would die. The hardware sales prop up the software sales.
Dave
In a sense Apple did write it’s own kernel.
Avie Tavanian
http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/tevanian.html
was a primary developer of Mach, which was modified into NextStep, and that hash been reworked even more into the current Mac OS X.
There are pieces of FreeBSD in there, but not the scheduler. It’s a heavily modified system from either the original Mach, or FreeBSD.
It’s interesting to hate something because of what you think the users of that system are like. I don’t care that you aren’t objective. I just find it interesting.
Quote: “umm, you want to know how easy it is? drag app / app folder to trash…delete trash….application is uninstalled.”
Are you really sure you know how to use a Mac system running OS X? There’s items that are in many instances installed to /applications, but also to /library, ~/library, ~/applications, /system etc. not to mention plist files that *should* be removed. They’re a lot better than Windows registry crap, at least they’re xml files 🙂
Please get your facts right.
Dave
I think your Dad is very lucky to have you to set up a system for him. Isn’t it possible though that if you had been as knowledgeable about how OS X is set up that you could have gone into ‘/Library/Modem Scripts/’ and ‘/Library/Keyboard Layouts/’ and edited those files as well? Maybe leave an empty color cartridge in the printer?
Quote: ‘well, now the linux folks are complaining that Apple is using the software and improving it and giving back, but because they have not opened their entire system up under an OSS license, that is bad and apple should not be allowed to use GPLed software. ”
Sorry Debman i’m not actually trying to pick a fight with you lol, just some of your comments obviously hit the spot and I need to reply…no malice intended (as I said in one of my other posts I like OS X a lot)
Apple takes from the BSD license. They do *not* have to contribute any of their improvements back to the OSS community. Period. This is the one immoral reason why I do not endorse a BSD style license. The GPL allows *anyone* to take, even Microsoft. They can alter it, improve it etc etc. If they do so, and only use the improved version internally they do not have to publish the improvements/changes etc. If they intend to sell it and release it to the public then they *must* provide the src code for any of the changes/improvements etc etc. That forces working with the community, and giving back to the community, for the benefit of the community.
Apple has not given much back to the OSS community. Sure they took KDEs khtml and used it as the base for Safari, and they have returned improvements back to the KDE/khtml camp. But there are still sites that display on Safari properly, but konqueror has problems (ie won’t display at all). So…Apple clearly hasn’t given *everything* back. And why would they, I mean their in business to compete and make money. Unfortunately, if you take a GPL’d product, modify it for a profit you must give back. Not part of the chances/modifications, but all. That’s a simplification, it’s not quite that clear.
Read why RMS didn’t use BSD licenses, but drafted up the GPL, and it’s for the exact same reason as what Apple is doing with BSD stuff.
That said, i’m going to see RMS talking about software patents tommorrow at Sydney Uni and boy am I happy!!!
Dave
Quote: “and just so you know, just because you can not buy the motherboards to build your own system does not make it proprietary”
No, it’s a monopoly. It’s a well known fact that Apple had competitors in Australia some time ago that were cloning the Apple hardware. They got their asses sued off them and a cease/desist letter for their troubles. Apple couldn’t stand to have competition that provided an equal quality at a cheaper price and that it *wasn’t* prepared to stand for.
Compare that to PlayStation or Xbox.
Just curious if it bothers you that those are closed hardware platforms, meaning you have to buy from a single supplier. Is that a really, really bad thing, or can you live with it?
1. They’ve modified the kernel that it only runs on a VERY limited hardware pool – this does reduce hardware issues but it also severely limits anyone who wants to upgrade themselves…I can buy OEM parts (video card, soundcard etc for a PC very cheaply). With Apple it’s more difficult. Video cards spring to mind here.
This is not because the “kernel” is modified to only run on Apple hardware, it’s simply because very few manufacturers bother to make OS X drivers.
OS X runs on x86. Darwin is freely available for x86 and I guarantee Apple will keep internal, fully functional builds in sync with the “main tree” to ensure the system remains portable. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if there’s at least fully up-to-date x86, x86-64 and Itanium builds floating around inside Apple’s development centres.
2. Apple makes its money from hardware, not software. If it ports OS X to i686 people won’t buy the Mac hardware, they’ll buy the cheaper PC hardware, but OS X for i686 and away they go. Apple simply cannot afford to lose hardware sales, it would die. The hardware sales prop up the software sales.
You’re half right. Certainly, Apple makes most of its money in hardware, but you make the same mistake most people make when talking about an “x86 port” – that Apple would port it to the generic PC platform. If Apple were to move to x86 (and now with the G5 there is no longer any reason to whatsoever, so they won’t), they wouldn’t make “IBM compatible PCs” that ran OS X, they’d make Macs with x86 processors. These machines would *not* be PC compatible and the version of OS X that ran on them would *not* work on generic PCs.
No, the single biggest reason Apple wouldn’t migrate to x86 is software – or rather the lack of it. What would people run on their shiny new x86 OS X systems ? No Office. No Photoshop. No FCP. No software of any note whatsoever. Porting things like Office and Photoshop takes *years* – hell, most “OS X” programs are really just MacOS Classic apps written in Carbon and recompiled – not particularly portable at all. And even that’s assuming the software developers would even both trying to port their software in the first place.
Heck, if the only concern Apple had was porting the OS and protecting its hardware profit margins, we would have seen “x86 Macs” years ago – back when the G4 CPUs first started to fall dramatically behind in the performance stakes (ie: when the first dual G4s were released). In reality, these two things would have been the least of Apple’s worries with regards to moving over to x86.
Quote: “It’s interesting to hate something because of what you think the users of that system are like”
Actually, no Keath. I like Apples’ Mac OS X. I don’t like the company, nor do I like their businesses practices, but that’s entirely different to their software. And I like Apple users. I’ll give you an idea, I spent nine months contracting at Apple providing technical assistance (tier 1) to Apple customers, and I enjoyed the time spent working with and helping Apple customers with their problems. When customers keep asking to speak to you (in deference to others), you must be doing something right.
I still have many friends that work at Apple, that I keep in touch with. In fact, I was most probably above most of the tier 1 guys, cos nearly all of them had not used a Unix or Unix like system before, and had no idea of the heritage of OS X, Unix commands etc etc. So when they had to drop to a command line, or weren’t sure on a Unix type question they came and asked me for help, which I gladly provided.
And yes I know that technically speaking, mach/nextos/bsd are all inter-related etc…
Dave
Quote: “No, the single biggest reason Apple wouldn’t migrate to x86 is software – or rather the lack of it. What would people run on their shiny new x86 OS X systems ? No Office. No Photoshop. No FCP.”
You’re absolutely right there drsmithy – I didn’t even think that far down the track. Glad that we’re not at each others throats (like from one of the other stories a week or so ago). 🙂
It’s amazing, we all get passionate, and heated up in our arguments, but when things calm down we all seem to end up wiping the slate clean and talking again. That’s a good community.
Dave
Do you have sources to back this up?
No, but I’m sure Microsoft and dozens of other major software developers do.
According to HP/IDC, Linux exceeds Mac in users.
Raw user numbers are not what counts. The number of users who would actually buy the product are what counts.
The proportion of the Linux user base that would be interested in – let alone pay for – Microsoft Office is tiny. Nowhere near enough to even justify the massively labour-intensive task of porting it, let alone the ongoing task of supporting the product and maintaining the code base.
MS would follow Oracle for example. Provide support for Red Hat/SUSE. You make it sound like 1 software package would need a complete rewrite to work from 1 distro to another, within reason.
Oracle aren’t making a heavily user-interactive GUI app where the UI is the most important part of the product. *Huge* difference.
Again, what do they write their software for ? Generic GNOME ? Generic KDE ? Sun’s Java Desktop ? Redhat’s desktop ? What ? How do they deal with the support calls from people who “just know” it’ll work on Gentoo or $UNSUPPORTED_LINUX_DISTRO but can’t figure out how ? How do they deal with dependency hell ?
I’ll wait for you to find some with the same severity as MS’s “Get the Facts” campaign.
I’m sure if you ask a Mac zealot about any comparison they’ll have a similarly apoplectic reaction that the Linux ones do about that.
If Microsoft though they could make money developing and selling software for Linux, believe me they’d be doing it. They’ve demonstrated more than often enough that – like any successful corporation – they’re more than happy to put profits before principle.
At least with the playstation or xbox the hardware isn’t to costly. When it comes to computers, workstations or servers repairing a closed platform is costly which is the only real thing I hate about macs. In the PC world on a windows and linux machine hardware to replace the broken or outdated part is easy and cheap. On a mac the only thing I can think of macs using that is easy to obtain are harddrives. Don’t even say ram because you can’t just throw in any ddr 400 stick in a mac. Also just like linux you have a choice in hardware from a large list of vendors that meets the needs for most people. Intel, AMD VIA or transmeta for processors and VIA, Intel, nvidia, ati, amd, or sis for motherboard chipsets. Also most of the hardware innovations are introduced to the PC like the upcoming pci e, sata II, dual graphics cards through SLI or alienwares motherboard, ddr 2, newcard, mxm or ati’s solution for upgradable gfx on laptops, ect. Arguing about operating systems is great but having an operating system sitting on top of the best hardware running efficiently is even better. Sorry but opterons are better than G5s and building dual opteron systems are getting cheaper. If mac used the same gfx cards and not need special ram for macs then I wouldn’t really be bashing macs and hardware support.
Sorry, but your “technical” argument is just bs. After all there are a lot of closed source apps for linux already. Take StarOffice, Opera, Textmaker, DoomIII, Realplayer, Acrobat Reader etc. for example.
I also would doubt that MS had any interest into porting Office to Linux, not just because they wouldn’t make enough money with it (which may be true or not), but because it would make Linux an even more viable alternative to Windows than it already is and I don’t think MS has any interest in that.
2Zenja
I could never beleive people, who claim to know biggest problem of someone/something else. It’s a crap way of thinking, which only leads to holy wars.
2David Pastern
Yes, Adobe seems to drop development of some software for Mac like FrameMaker and it hasn’t started porting to Mac its recently bought software like CoolEdit->Audition.
But still most publishing is done in Mac environment and noone is ever planning to switch DTP workstations to x86, even if Scribus becomes pro DTP app, which it almost is.
There are just too many things to count and too many people who have nothing else to do than sit here and strike. Noone of you will ever switch from his favourite OS to the other just because someone else said “dude, you’re wrong”.
People who really work, are somewhere else, not here
That said, I’m coming back to work 
drsmithy, before you keep on talking about things you don’t know much about, please name one app that runs on Fedora and doesn’t run on Debian or the other way round (pick two distros of your choice).
Cheers
Tried the modem script under OS X but never could get it to work, largely because I couldn’t get the connection establishment to output any useful debugging info. I did not try again after having gotten it right under Linux, so you may be correct that I may have gotten it to work after doing the debugging under Linux.
The keyboard layout scripts would require me to understand either the binary format of the .rsrc files or define an entirely new keyboard layout using Apple’s own XML format according to Library/DTDs/KeyboardLayout.dtd . I found working with xmodmap a lot easier (and I didn’t know anything about it before starting out).
As for the empty printer cartridge, that’s how it was. We also tried removing the cartridge entirely, but that didn’t fly either.
And my point is not that all of these things are entirely impossible in OS X, they’re just a lot harder than in Linux. And I personally find the last 5% of configuring a computer the most worthwhile, because they save you lots of time in the long run. If you don’t tweak your machine OS X is good (certainly better than Windows), but if you do Linux is better. Always IMHO of course ;-).
Go to an open source developer event, like FOSDEM (Brussels). Two years ago, around 10% of the developers there had a mac. Last year it was like half of all the machines were macs. Although some had linux on them (like a few Gentoo developers showing their distro being compiled on a dual G5), most of the developers had an ibook/powerbook with Mac OS X on them. Some presentations were even done with macs, (the ruby presentation used xcode and keynote for example).
There is a large shift from Linux to Mac OS X. Any increase to the Linux market share thus comes from Windows, *not* from Mac OS X. I have yet to see anecdotical evidence or a scientific study to say that there is a large shift from OSX to Linux.
“LMAO so as Apple’s marketshare continues to drop (which it will since X86 will undoubtly grow faster, espically since new markets are emerging(China, India, etc)), will ISVs give a rats ass about supporting Apple’s products?
1.8% is OK…how about 5-10yrs in the future…0.05%?”
You obviously don’t understand the intricacies of marketshare, do you?
*scratches his head* okay, sorry but I do not get it…
Is Linux actually supposed to kill Mac? I do not get it.
My laptop has a mandrake Linux installed and works flawlessly.
I like the GUI of MacOSX and replicated as best as I could using a mix of KDE settings and superkaramba applets.
Okay.
So, were is the point were I should start to scream that Linux will kill Mac OSX and feast on its entrail?
Am I supposed to scream like a banshee and start a Jihad because I like Linux?
Linux is about choice, choice to use an OS. I do not want to use Windows ( I personally I mean) thus I have a lot of choices ( Be/os, SkyOs, Unix, Freebsd etc).
The two choices I could come around, though, were using Linux or using Mac. I chose Linux because I liked the free philosophy behind the open source mouvemente and, more than all, I cannot afford a Mac ( don’t sweat it guys, just do the following, go to the site of Apple Italy, that’s were I live, and calculate the price of a mac; even if Euro is stronger than dollar, I’ll pay it about a third more than in US) it is a way too expensive machine. Period
That said, I love the OsX GUI and copied it, end game…
Now… I’m still waiting that someone explains me when I will come to the point in wich i will want Linux to kill Mac……………..
Hello? Anyone there?^_^
Don’t forget that Apple sells hardware. The secret of Apple’s success is its control of hardware and software, and its ability to create and enforce design standards.
Linux fails on all three fronts. Linux doesn’t do hardware. After more than 10 years, Linus has made only rudimentary steps to creating, much less enforcing, a single sets of standards for application design.
Even an open-sourced OS X would not seriously reduce Apple’s sales. Why? Without the hardware, it’s not an Apple.
i doubt Linux will kill Apple/macintosh, i do think both Linux and Apple/macintosh will be gaining more userbase in the near future, since OS-X is BSD based i am sure there is someone possibly making a x86 clone of OS-X from one of the BSDs and if Apple does not port theirs to X-86 then they will lose out on sales to Linux and BSD & their respective derivitaves…
I wonder if this will happen, doubtful, but you never know!
Michael
http://phantasyrpg.com/main.php?view=9898
The fact that many, if not most, applications developed for the Linux “platform” can be run very happily under Darwin/Mac OS X (with the obvious necessity for a small amount of porting work) is a point that keeps being neglected. I actually get _more_ application options by running Mac OS X just by itself than by running a Linux distribution just by itself (I say “just by itself” to exclude things like VirtualPC, VMWare, and other options that enable you to run applications not native to the platform, since that misses the point). Why is this point continually neglected?
Very many good points and a very worthy discussion. I’ll just make a few responses…
From: Atari_Assassin
Subject: Knock Knock whos there a clue 😉
as apple makes there own software other software houses are discontinuing there well known line of software (MS IE and adobe….umm..crap forgot). Even though there is only a hand ful now, it still has to get you thinking that in the future, that peice of software might not be around
Adobe Premiere was the casualty. This goes on from what David mentioned above:
http://news.com.com/Adobe+pares+Mac+support/2100-1046_3-1023167.htm…
Adobe were none too happy with Apple regarding Final Cut Pro, and I can’t blame them a bit. Whether they would have dropped Premiere for Mac OS X anyway is up for contention.
Microsoft stopped serious development of Internet Explorer well before Apple introduced Safari. Given the situation with browsers at the time, and the otherwise healthy browser competition occurring in the ‘absence’ of Internet Explorer, I believe Apple made the right choice in developing and releasing Safari.
Yes, it does get you thinking. Both of these organisations still do a lot of business in the Macintosh area; we’ll have to see if and when that changes. In the meantime, the software is there.
I just think OSX and Linux (as of now) bring in a different crowds. Though if the two can work together, they would be a force to recon with
In various ways, they do work together. And in various ways, they are a force to reckon with.
From: BigBenAussie
Subject: Is Linux even in competition with Macs????
Isn’t buying a Mac like joining an elite club.
No more than buying into hardware from any other manufacturer. Honest.
Would you actually bother to run Linux on a Mac, after going to all that additional expense for the hardware. Its like putting a Ford engine in a BMW. Why would you do that?
Plenty of reasons. TerraSoft sells a PowerPC Linux distribution that mainly targets Macintosh hardware. Below is a link to some of their semi-promotional material (I warn you that it is semi-promotional material in advance, so you can add the appropriate grains of salt) which answers this exact question:
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/products/why/
Linux users aren’t in the same demographic as most Mac users.
Ah, but you’re wrong! The number of ‘Linux geeks’ now harboring iBooks or PowerBooks running Mac OS X is on the rise. Head on over to Slashdot and see for yourself.
From: Jason Umiker
Subject: Mac OS X killed off Linux and FreeBSD on my desktop
Amen to your story, with a slight twist; it’s nice to come home (IT job here also) and use something that _isn’t_ what you use at work.
It’s amazing that people should get so furious about all that. Linux will not kill MacOSX and OSX will not kill linux. If anything, they add more credibility to each other.
OSX has somehow given some hints to linux desktop about the direction to take. Simplicity + good looks.
OSX uses the linux desktop paradigm (unix type kernel + separate gui) but a lot more money and marketing has gone into it but anyone who’s using Linux now knows it’s changing fast. And Apple would never have been able to pull that off without the availability of all the open source tools they’ve used. It took years to MS to get into the server room. Look how long it took to Apple to cover everything from mp3 player to HPC. MS is playing catch up on that now ! Granted, they are not a big player but they are there,profitable and I’d like that kind of market share for myself, thank you very much 😉
Linux + OSX = more choice. Just have your pick.
Its been said elsewhere in this thread but hey, originality is over-rated.
If Linux gains significant desktop market share (lets say 5-10%) then rather than displace Macs it makes them more viable as Linux use mandates OPEN STANDARDS – which Apple can work with.
Apple’s greatest threat is failure to work easily with existing systems. Sys-admins are reluctant to add Macs to their network as they think supporting an MS Windows/Mac mix will be harder than supporting a MS Windows only network.
Apple porting Mac OS X to X86 is never going to happen. Remember basics…Apple is a hardware company…They sell hardware to make money…They make software to gravitate people to their hardware. So if every Linux/Unix/Windows user slaps a copy of Mac OS X to their hardware, who is going to buy their hardware? No one buys the hardware, Apple will close shop because the software/OS sold will never be able to maintain the margin that Apple enjoys on its hardware. Is that so difficult to understand?