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You will be able to, hopefully. This site has a petition and some information on what I'm talking about. Currently Darwin (the "underpinnings" of Mac OS X) is running on x86 hardware, but the pretty UI that really sets MOSX apart is still not opensource, so sign up, and let apple know we want another hardware choice...

No, much of the drive to be cross-compatible with x86 hardware and x86 executables is so the famed "RedBox" (ala "Yellow Box" for cocoa development/nextstep compatibility and "Blue Box" for carbon development/macOS compatibility) can make its mainstay as a 3rd-party solution. Apple has long left huge marketing doors open for its third parties such as USB, which even most PC enthusiasts have to agree couldn't have been stimulated nearly as much as Apple managed to stimulate the market for USB products. FireWire is another good example, and they're poised to let Red Box be king of their cross-compatibility solution - in grand Apple style, farmed out to a third party (probably Connectix, of Virtual PC fame). Whoever gets the bid, it'll be the biggest showstopper in town without a little old-fashioned Apple R&D beforehand, the fruits of which we are surely seeing in these OSXonIntel.com sites.

No discussion of Apple strategy would be complete without at least giving lip service to its at times seemingly-deranged, but generally über-inspired CEO, Steve Jobs. Steve has, in many ways, been responsible for the total rebirth of Apple. Granted, a lot of what happened after he got there was set in motion long before he made his entrance. But the simple fact is, he knows what he thinks is cool. That's the problem with Apple's business strategy, they make products THEY think are cool and leave it to the consumers with similar tastes (or, really, a lack of options) to buy them up. Jobs slashed R&D, and what do you get? A flop on cube sales.

In many ways OSX will be their nest egg, and it simply doesn't make ANY sense to ANYone who knows ANYthinga bout Apple to blindly assume that they'd pursue this as part of a smart, business-oriented endgame. But then Apple's actions to date haven't warranted such an assumption, anyway.

Mark
mark@setz.org

"They have it, we want it. Mac OS X on the Intel platform." as they say at http://www.osxonintel.com.

Wanna have OS X on your intelbox? Go to OS X on Intel .com and sign a petition that some day will be sent to Apple. They already have some 23000 signatures and the numbers is growing all the time :)

I'm a Mac user my self, but I think PC users should be given a chance too.

"They have it, we want it. Mac OS X on the Intel platform." as they say at http://www.osxonintel.com.

Wanna have OS X on your intelbox? Go to OS X on Intel .com and sign a petition that some day will be sent to Apple. They already have some 23000 signatures and the numbers is growing all the time :)

I'm a Mac user my self, but I think PC users should be given a chance too.

I've heard that Darwin boots on Intel, and I'd love to check it out for myself, but I haven't been able to actually find any way of doing it. Anybody here been able to get it working? If so, how?

If you're interested in seeing Apple pursue this further, make sure to check out the OSX on Intel petition. Also, read the Register article about rumors that Apple is actually porting OSX to Intel, and their article about Apple's recent Darwin update.

> Ironic? How?

Probably only because I could reverse the words in the quote I was mangling, and end up with a statement that was every bit as compelling as the original.

> Regarding your comment of Linux catching up in usability before the next 17 years are over, which is available now? A Linux desktop your grandma can appreciate, or a simplified computer (Mac) that runs traditional Mac OS alongside BSD on Mach, with all the benefits thereof? As much as I love open-source, UNIX-based OSes, this smacks of denial. Linux -- later, but better?

If I understand you correctly... you didn't understand me. My point was that it's no surprise that Apple put a nice GUI on Unix. They've been doing nice GUIs for 17 years; all they had to do is do it once more on a new OS. And if you do UIs, that's a BFD, because Unix gave them a reasonably sensible API to layer their work on top of.

The "Linux" crowd, OTOH, does not seem to have 17 years of GUI expertise, so it's no surprise that they have not beat Apple at Apple's own game.

> Linux -- later, but better?

The "later" comes naturally from starting later. One can only hope about the "better". When KDE and GNOME have been around 17 years, yes, I expect them to be as nice as anything Apple has done to date. Should be sooner, since Apple has already served as trailblazer. (And hopefully Apple will blaze even further ahead, meanwhile.)

> Apple honestly deserves our accolades for at least attempting what they're doing with UNIX.

I didn't mean to dis them; I was just showing how easy it was to counterspin the (apparently) biased rant I was replying to.

As for Apple, yes, kudos for them. And they may be placing themselves for a strategic coup: The Register mentions a site professing a grassroots demand for OSX on Intel. Funny thing is, it should be a pretty easy move for Apple, since we all know that Unix on Intel is a done deal. I presume they could just grab another BSD that has already been ported, and then make whatever tweaks their UI requires to run on it.

It might leave them sitting pretty if they have the balls to go for it. At stake would be a drop in sales of all that overpriced Apple software, vs. a chance of a vastly increased market share in software.

Indeed, I suspect that they will benefit from OSX even if they don't take the Intel plunge, since they will already reap the ability to run essentially all non-GUI Unix/Linux software. And for the GUI'd software... well, we're already seeing teams port specific utilities both to GNOME and to KDE. Why not a third team porting it to the Mac UI as well?

Apple has handily achieved the Holy Grail of UNIX in the home.

Actually, I don't mind. Though it has to be a matter of degree, since Unix already is in lots of our homes.

> (Sorry mate! Zealotry...that's where I'm a viking.)

Understandable. In general, I'm at my most biased when I'm responding to something that I take to be overly biased to start with. In this case, I felt like the poster I was responding to was insinuating more than could be rationally supported, and I couldn't resist the temptation to stand it on its ear.

In general, I'm in favor of all software that is of good quality, of reasonable price, and does not have any unreasonable strings attached.

--

There is an online petition for Apple to port OSX to x86 here. I think this is something they need to do. Their ability to compete using proprietary hardware which is more expensive than commodity PC's is only going to worsen as time goes by.

They should leverage the PC and gain a portion of its massive market instead of trying to hold on to their own separate market, which is tiny in comparison and progressively getting smaller.

A new OS isn't going to be enough to convince very many to replace their hardware. But offer that new OS for the hardware they already own and you'll have yourself some customers. Customers equal money and market share and Apple needs all it can get of both.

Lee