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The Cathedral And The Bizarre
Euro writes: "Jeff Lewis has written
an interesting article for
macopinion.com that discusses why Open Source hasn't taken off that well among the Mac enthusiasts. Interesting reading, as well as some excellent commentary on why the Bazaar development model isn't always a great idea." (timothy butts in: You might also want to revisit the recent Ask Slashdot about promoting Open Source on the Mac.)
Since Apple products are the monolithic beasts they are, I think they actually inspire more curiosity. Ever since ResEdit and MacsBug were written, neophites have been introducing themselves to the wonderful world of OS hacking. One early example that comes to mind is the classic shareware game, "Spaceward, Ho!". It lacked a few keyboard shortcuts that some people wanted... a quick edit of the resource fork, and viola! Command-T suddenly advances the turn. The new keystroke even shows up on the right side of the menu option, just like in all other MacOS keystroke options. Make one minor change like this to one program and you get sucked in.
Hardware is also tinkered with. The original iMac had a "Mezzanene" slot on the mobo (left over from when that board was meant to become a thin client). A clever German company saw it as a potential unsupported PDS slot to make up for the lack of PCI expansion. They made a combo card of video-out and SCSI.
Mac hacking is possible, you just need to know the platform. Since most hackers cut their eyeteeth on x86 boxes, a lot of the Apple world seems strange and impenetrable, but it's not so bad once you learn it. For example, the LinuxPPC group had an iMac port within weeks of the release, USB support and all.
Okay, okay... enough cheerleading. I'll stop now.
The story was interesting, and almost as one-sided as ESR's speech. It would be cool to get JL and ESR on a debate panel together. (After they each make a quick pass through a metal detector. No need for bloodshed.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Because, in terms of openness, Mac is to Windows as Windows is to Linux.
No really--the hood is almost literally welded shut on every Mac. This style of computer doesn't breed much curiosity in the user, so Open Source is unlikely to interest them. That doesn't mean they couldn't benefit from it, it just means that the two groups don't have much overlap.
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Imagine my surprise, as an Apple II, II+, and IIe user, when I first looked at a Mac. "How do you open this (*&$ thing?" It was the single most disappointing thing that I'd ever seen in the world of computers.
That is, until I tried to figure out how to program for them, and found out that
1. There was no command line.
2. You had to buy additional software, as far as I could tell, just to program the damn things.
3. Apple didn't want you developing for the Mac unless you werre a commercial licenser.
4. Hardware upgrades? Pshaw!
5. There were 15 books you had to read in their damn developer's guide.
In fact, Apple put up so many barriers to entry, relative to the Apple II line, that I'm surprised that anyone ended up programming for their sealed-box, crappy-spec'ed, proprietary bull&(*t.
It was shortly thereafter I switched to x86, and so far, I have no regrets whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, Apple is basically the antithesis of everything the Open Source philosophy represents.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
There's something strange about writing Open Source software on a platform when the development tools are Closed Source. It's kind of hard to write Open Source in Microsoft Visual C++, and it's also kind of hard to do it in Metrowerks Codewarrior. Why? You obviously paid for those tools - and so you don't necessarily want to give it away for free. With MacOSX, the development tools are now free, both as in beer an in speech. It makes it much easier to develop Open source applications.
Secondly, there just wasn't enough Open Source software to leverage on the MacOS environment. Most free software on Linux is built around free libraries, and couldn't exist without them. On MacOS (pre-X), there weren't enough free software libraries available. On MacOSX, the BSD subsystem garuntees easy ports of libraries like guile and glib, upon which many applications depends.
It's quite probable that when MacOS X arrives, there'll be an outpouring of Open Source software just for those reasons. Once some of the GNU libraries are ported, people will start to use them - and Open Source what they create.
Wow. Where to start, where to start.....
Well, maybe that is why there aren't that many devlopers for MAC. Maybe that is why there is such a small base of software for the MAC.
A MAC is an ID number found on ethernet cards. To get to your point, I've never had trouble finding software for my Mac, and there seem to be plenty of developers around.
The other serious mistake the author makes is somehow equating Linux as a GUI, then the GUI is xfree86. Ironically, X Windows is one of the oldest GUI's in existance, and the author is trying to make the point that it is too "new" to be mature and compete.
It depends on what you mean by "mature and complete." If you mean that it's technically flushed out, sure. It's old and stable and has a lot of work behind it. However, as a GUI, it falls pretty much flat on its face. It's not easy to use, and nearly every program has its own little way of doing things. Gnome and KDE may be pretty, but they don't address that fundamental problem.
And yet it's one of the most popular OSS programs today. Not a very good example of OSS failing is it?
Windows is one of the most popular pieces of software in existance today. Not a very good example of Microsoft failing, is it?
We all know that popularity is a bad metric to judge things by. Perl is amazingly free and powerful. It's also a write-only language, and allows me far too much leeway in how I do things. Personally, I do much better when my language enforces things on me. The perl syntax is a hopeless mishmash. At my place of employment, when somebody needs help with Perl, it's almost always about syntax. Some of us have been using it for quite a long time, too. Perl may be powerful, but it is a very poor design.
Don't get me wrong, I love *BSD, but what qualifies it as the fruit of OSS? I would put Apache or Linux in that slot, hell Perl has more of a claim to that title.
Er, I dunno. Maybe because BSD is OSS, and has been worked on as an OSS project for years? What's so hard to understand about this?
This same 'elitism' is what pulled us into a GUI based world of computing.
I believe Xerox was the one who did that. You "elitism" is showing simply by insuating that Apple invented the GUI.
He never claimed Apple invented the GUI. He said that Apple popularized the GUI. There is a big difference. Xerox may have made the first vaguely-practical GUI system, but they couldn't market it worth a damn. They didn't even try. There's a long, long road between having a proof-of-concept machine and having a system that sells millions of copies a year.
This guy really seems to have some deep anger towards OSS and the success of Linux, and while he makes one or two good points, they are overshadowed by his inaccurate claims.
This guy really seems to have some deep anger towards critics of OSS and the success of Apple, and while he makes one or two good points, they are overshadowed by his inaccurate claims.
There. I'm off the sarcasm bandwagon for today.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
An opinion from a Mac guy:
Most of the Mac people I know are artists, musicians and designers. In other words, not programmers. This is Apple's main market, and these folks probably couldn't care less about whether or not their programs have source code because they wouldn't know what to do with it even if it was available.
Me? I'm in with them: an HTML and graphics guy. I'm not a programmer by trade, but am enthusiastic about the Open Source movement as a whole. I have PHP3 installed on my server and will eventually figure it out because I want to make better Web pages. I'm also really looking forward to OS X to see what things like Apache will do for me.
I've used my share of OSes and platforms, and the current MacOS does what I want to right now. In the future, this may change, but I like what I have.
The general rancour I've seen from the so-called 'Open Source' community against people who aren't programmers will hardly lead the masses to the cause.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
One of the reasons linux is insanely popular with it's users is that it is an operating system developed for, and by, the developer mindset. I love linux because I can do absolutely whatever I want with it, to it, and for it, without anyone telling me "no you can't". Mac and Windows are operating systems for "Everyone" and their dog.. so of course, they're not designed for the hard-core segment of the market that founded this industry - the geeks!
The crux of this is that do we really want linux to be mainstream? I don't really think that people are working to make linux mainstream - sure, the installers are getting better. Sure, we have gnome, kde, berlin - but these are still made for and by developers and the hard-core, just those that want it to look prettier. People are working to make linux better, and that's what makes it great.
This article misses that very key point that in many cases, the users are the programmers. There's no great divide between the two like in the Mac world - I would hazard a guess that the majority of Mac users have never compiled a program. I would hazard a guess that the majority of linux users HAVE compiled a program before, and in many cases, I'd guess they've even compiled the kernel - the OS itself!
Windows is fine for some people, it's not fine for me. I don't develop in Linux for the windows sheep. I use linux because I want a powerful OS that lets me do what I want. There just happen to be a lot more people like that than Bill Gates things, and because a lot of those people are developers, the end result is a whole shebang of software and "nifty stuff".
The french have it right: To each their own. Those that want linux, will come. I don't plan on ramming linux down anyone's throat (although it might be fun to ram up another orfice of one or two CEOs.. *grin*)
..don't panic
The author seems to be assuming that every OS is targeted to the same market segment. With that line of rational, if Linux is trying to hit the same people as Mac, then yeah, it's doing pretty poor. But Mac is a near-total flop for a person who wants to tinker, build, destroy, and improve without shelling out for proprietary courses. I think that is the big issue right now with Linux, and its one that gets dodged in this article. Where is the platform headed? Is is to remain in the domain of servers and cool projects for tech hobbyists? Is there even that much interest in the community in targeting slapping a Linux box on every grandma's desktop on the planet? Mac does great at the market it has already picked out for itself. MS does the same, by and large (yeah, the irritate the hell out of me sometimes, and fall on their face, but so does everything else, once in a while). Linux is unique among these in that it has not clearly defined where it is going to sit in the OS world. A lot of people want to keep it as a hobbyists machine; lots of power, lots of experimentation, and more work for the end user. Some elements (especially the commercial distibutors) would like to see it become more of a business player, or a Joe & Jane home-user desktop product. No one knows right now. The criticisms in this article definately have some substance to them. I just wonder if some of them are based on the wrong criteria- like saying that a 12-gauge shot gun is a poor tool for making caserole.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Wow.
/. community) want everything to be open, RMS (and another huge group of /.ers) want everything to be Free. The real world is far more nuanced than that, for better or for worse.
Finally, a lucid explanation of how the Open Source model isn't necessarily the best development model all of the time. It generally makes a lot of sense, and there are a lot of things it's well-suited to, but the points made in this article are valid and real.
Commercial software is typically designed for the simple purpose of making money. Not to make the world a better place, and not to do "something cool for the community" in order to satisfy egos. It's written to provide a useful program that pays the salaries of the people involved. Sure, there's exceptions, but that's the basic gist of it.
That said, what Apple has done is finally come up with a model by which they can exchange something with the community (Darwin), and yet maintain what they feel is their proprietary asset (the consistency of the Mac UI "experience" so they can sell more Macs and make more money for the employees and stockholders. Even though I'd like a little more from them, I'll settle for this. I have Apple stock - I don't want anybody to be able to make a Mac (which is possible when it's all open), but I do want people to be able to take advantage of some of the cool stuff Apple's done to improve other products and systems. It's a decent compromise.
Not every program benefits from Open Source, either, though many do. I love Bungie and Id's giving away old game code to help jumpstart programmers and projects, but you don't see any of them opening up their latest and greatest engines, either. That's because the latest engine is something they can earn money licensing - they leave money on the table if they give the latest stuff away. But at least they share something, if not everything. Corel Linux may be open, but Corel WordPerfect isn't, and never will be, I bet. Companies need revenue somewhere, and unless you're in the systems support business, if you give away razors you need to be able to sell blades. The only reallt open commercial office suite, for instance, is StarOffice. But Sun isn't using StarOffice to make money - they're using it to try and sell Sun equipment and they're giving it away because it may help them towards that goal and because Scott McNealy has a personal vendetta against Bill Gates (but who doesn't?). StarOffice is a razor, and Sun workstations and servers (and their little bitty SunRays) are the blades in this scenario.
I think that the Mac overall will do just fine with no more Open Source contact than they have right now - but I would like to see more. Some programs will benefit from being opened, some will not. People like ESR (and a lot of the
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Bowie, for every one open source developer that gives into greed, or sells out, or whatever you predict happens, there will be several more to replace him/her. The movement is growing, not just on the corporate end of things, every time I turn around there is another OSS project begining. Yes, many of them will fail and disappear, but with all the devlopers moving to Linux daily, how can you begin predicting the end while everything is growing?
If Linux fails COMPLETLY on the commerical front, who cares? RHAT, LNUX, Corel, they cal all disappear and it wouldn't affect the community that much. We already have a usable base of software and many of us have invested years of "fun" into devloping programs for Linux, those people wont stop.
Perhaps I get a little riled up when people judge Linux's success and future by corporate standards, but let's face it, we were here before the Linux commercialism and we will be here after it. I personally could care less about how Linux stocks are doing, I care about how my server is doing. That's MY movitation, and many others like me. If you believe that OSS will die if the corporate support vanishes, then you must not realise that OSS existed before RedHat and VA.
Finkployd