Slashdot Mirror
Has Linux Lapped Apple As Competition For Redmond?
Stephen Beale of MacWeek writes: "Some key Linux developers, encouraged by the emergence of GNOME as the standard desktop environment for Linux and Unix, believe that Linux is poised to overtake the Macintosh as the primary challenger to Microsoft Windows. One, open source advocate Eric S. Raymond told MacWEEK that the Mac platform is 'a noble but doomed cause.' MacWEEK reporter David Read also spoke with Andy Hertzfeld of Eazel, a member of the original Mac development team, who agrees with Raymond that Linux is having a more profound influence on the industry than Apple. But he's more sanguine about Apple's prospects and told MacWEEK that his G4 Cube has just arrived. Mac users may not appreciate what amounts to anti-Mac 'trash talk' from a leading Linux advocate, but Raymond and Hertzfeld raise interesting issues about the competitive relationship between two alternatives to Microsoft Windows."
This distinction seems thinner to me than this article makes it out to be, but it's interesting to note the possibility of machines running Linux outnumbering Apples running Mac OS, and what that could mean for everyone behind the keyboards. With more and more ease-of-install- and UI-obsessed folks like Hertzfeld jumping into the Free software world, it probably means happier users at least. Place yer bets now on relative percentages for 2001, 2003 and 2007 ...
I was a professional programmer when the original 128K Mac was rolled out. I remember the crowds ten deep around the Mac display at the Harvard COOP, gawking at MacPaint. Nobody had ever seen any computer program that did anything so sophisticated that any numbskull could just sit down in front and use.
Macs had a reputation as being hard to program, but this was undeserved. It required a change in mindset to user centered, event driven programming that was hard for a lot of folks to make. In point of fact, to make a Mac application was incredibly easy when you considered how sophisticated the results were. The Mac Toolbox was a thing of beauty.
As a result, the Mac platform attracted tremendous developer creativity. Back in the mid eighties to early nineties, developers kept turning out incredible software for the Mac the likes of whcih simply had never been seen before -- such as MacSpin, Talking Moose, In Control, and MapGrafix.
By comparison, on the DOS end of things, creativity was comparatively stagnant.
So, what happened?
Well, first of all PCs were cheaper -- way cheaper. I was an MIS director at the time, and I could equip two PC users for every Mac user. Since this was the dawn of corporate computing, we were marching from nil towards the goal of one user per computer. This kind of exponential growth meant that a 2 for 1 price differential was a fatal handicap in the procurement race. This gave MS a lockdown on the strategic office automation software market. This was when, if ever, Apple needed to license clone makers: when exponetial growth could make up for loss of hardware revenues.
The longrunning train wreck of mid-nineties Apple had many causes -- arrogance towards customers, high product costs, stability problems, inefficient business practices (such as large inventories), and market-share chickens coming home to roost.
But, most of all, Apple's gross maltreatment of developers is responsible for the loss of their mojo. If you were a good solider and went in the directions Apple set for you for you to do (develop in Pascal, port to OpenDoc, etc.etc.etc.) you were a goner. Except for a few die hard true believers, developers who lived through that period are never going to trust Apple again. The flight of creativity from Mac development is a severe blow, because a single new idea, such as desktop publishing, can be the foundation for a business, and a beachead for moving into new businesses (e.g. content developent). It's safe to say that the next big thing is not going to come out of the Apple camp.
This is the reason that innovative new products like the iBook notwithstanding, the glory days are never coming back.
Where has all the creativity gone?
It's not hard to find. It's all gravitated to open source platforms, which are cheaper (for those poor but smart college students), and allow you to control your own destiny.
It's the creative ferment that makes Linux and other open source projects as the viable counterweight to total MS hegemony over IT.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Absolutely. I love Linux and am amazed by the progress that's been made over the last few years. But it's still far from being a competitive desktop platform. Inside the Slashdot echo chamber ("AbiWord is better than M$ Word!" "I would die if I had to cut and paste with the keyboard!" "Winblows crashes every five minutes!") people lose track of what reality is.
Besides, let's say Linux quadruples MacOS's market share. Which market would you rather have - 10%, that buys your high-margin hardware and lots of software or the 40% that considers a point of honor to never spend a dime on software.
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What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Er, the use of 'lapped' in the article title is kind of misleading. In auto racing, if you've lapped someone, it means you have a lead on them equal to the entire racecourse, and you've passed them again. It's important on oval-type tracks because when a yellow light comes on (from an accident or whatever), all the cars on the same lap bunch back up together again-- but the lapped cars are still a lap behind. A full lap is a Significant Lead and is not easy to overcome. To say that Linux has lapped Apple is thus an entirely different statement than saying that Linux has passed Apple.
Now, arguably, you could say that Microsoft had lapped the entire field in terms of the desktop market, and that perhaps now Linux is threatening to get on the lead lap with Microsoft.
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At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Linux is not the answer to life, the universe, and everything. 42 is.
:), but I dont want to run Linux on everything that anyone ever made that was electronic.
I really, really hate to see this kind of thing happen--and its happening a helluvalot more lately.
Linux zealots (and I'll call them zealots, because I know there are far more sane people in the Linux world) are always "Linux can do this, Linux can do that. I want Linux to run my toaster and my supercomputer".
I love Linux, I think it makes a great workstation OS, and low-end server OS (I'm also a BSD guy
Mac OS does a lot of things really well, graphically, as well as in the UI (the UI has good ideas, you decide about the implementation). Mac OS 9 basically sucks, yes. Mac OS X kicks outright ass, albeit thats probably the NeXT in it.
Point is, we, the Linux community, alienate ourselves from other communities by simple acts of stupidity such as this: claiming the Mac a dead platform and saying we will overtake you. Its different when its a drunk guy in an IRC channel, and a promenent open source figure on slashdot. Yes, Linux is a great platform, but I think the community needs to pinch itself and check out the real world again.
I wonder not so much about Apple's hardware versus their software. They make some great pieces of hardware and bring it to the masses before a lot of other companies. Look at Apple's 22" Cinema display or Airport networking.
I've been using LinuxPPC for a while now on my PowerBook 2000. I can dual-boot with the MacOS (9) if I want to or even better use MacOnLinux. Why should I load MacOSX? I have a great, well supported, stable version of Linux and can still run my MacOS applications (ok, there are some exceptions, Diablo2 won't run because of copy protection). OSX still isn't here and developers are only slowly announcing support.
I'll continue to buy Apple hardware because they make good things, but will I continue to run Apple's OS (and therefore support MacOS software vendors)? Only time will tell.
Apple should have split up their hardware and software divisions long ago. Even if one goes out of business the other has a better chance of surviving.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Well, I am rather sick of the Mac bashing coming from those who think they know computers. All these geeks out there talking about how dumb iMacs and Cubes are because it can't do x y and z.
How about some bashing from a former Mac zealot? Steve Jobs really needs to lay off of the acid. The trippy colors and goofy cases REALLY annoy me. Overnight Apple decides to dump compatibility with "old" hardware. No serial, No SCSI, No Comm Slots, and No ADB, just USB, and fire wire. What about those of us who have several thousand dollars invested in our old peripherals that still work great? They tell us "You can get a USB to X adapter..." Fuck you! I bought all of this stuff to work with my mac. So, in order to upgrade I'll have to spend 2 grand minimum to get a decent machine AND you want me to spend MORE money? No thanks. I suffered through the hard times with Apples. When I was 15 I remember going to an electronics boutique and seeing 4 mac titles while there were hundreds of dos/win titles.
I'm seriously considering selling off all of my Mac hardware(4 Machines and lotsa goodies) and going to x86-Linux/*BSD as my main OS. I'm tired of being fucked over by Apple.
Linux isn't a "my mom could use it" OS yet, not by a long shot.
What OS is? Mac OS? Hardly. I sell macs for a living and you wouldn't believe some of the morons who come in to buy them. People who can't understand that you don't have to double click on links and buttons in Netscape... I've got another customer, who is a pretty decent guy, who can't understand why hiding an application doesn't free up the memory that it's using.
I personally am offended by the recent influx of clueless morons who want to own a computer now because "everyone else has one". 17 years ago when I started to use and program computers, we were "nerds", now all of the "cool" people ask us for advice.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Since when is Gnome the standard? I normally use Gnome, but yesterday I gave the latest KDE2 beta a try, and whoa! It's great! Gnome has their work cut out for them.
"The Linux community, on the other hand, has gone from nowhere to a desktop market share comparable to the Mac's in three years flat." I think he should watch his language in many respects. Desktop market share usually implies a market group in which a desktop operating system is used. An example of this being Windows, Mac OS, BeOS, Linux WITH Gnome/KDE. Linux has a tiny desktop market share, and a proportionally very large server market share. Most Linux computers are not running in a desktop environment, rather in a server or development environment. To try and compare the two is like comparing Apples with Coca Cola, it makes no sense. Of similar note is this quite concerning obsession with Linux. Considering that OSX is based on the Mach kernel with an optional BSD layer I wonder why he sees that a UNIX operating system such as MacOSX cant success but a Linux one can. Remember my friend: Linux is not the only UNIX-style operating system out there. Naden www.it-guys.com
Funtage Factor: Purple
The important difference is that GNU/Linux *wants* to become the everyman's OS, whereas Mac OS users don't want that to happen. I should know: I'm a Mac user that jumps ship when Mac OS can't handle what I want to do. If Mac OS were in the position of Windows, I probably wouldn't use it. Talk to any Mac users and you'll notice right away that they have no interest in making everyone in the world us Mac OS, just the people who care enough about their experience to use Mac OS. In the past, this was the way with Linux, but now there are commercial interest trying to displace Windows, so we can bet the distro wars will flame up. I might keep using Debian or Slackware, whether they are the best or not, just becase everyone else on my street runs Red Hat or SuSE.
-- Gordon Worley
The NeXT UI is far superior to both the traditional Mac UI and Aqua. But that's a matter of opinion. What I really fear is that Cocoa and Objective C won't get the attention they deserve. If they can create a strong and vibrant Cocoa developer base (a good possibility if they can hold the previous Mac OS developer community in tow) then GNUstep can thrive. MOSX success is important!
"The windows UI is the most extensible UI. You can change it, hook onto it, write plugins for it, and even write scripts for it with DHTML/Javascript. On windows, apps like ICQ and winzip can add to context menus for example - something no other GUI shell has done anywhere near as well."
Mac OS also has the applity for apps Context (Control-Click) Menus to the desktop, as of Mac OS 8.0. Stuffit Deluxe, for example does that. Via. the template feature in KDE 1 you can also add apps own context menus (although this is limited). KDE 2 has even better support for this.
Mac OS since System 5.0, has supported extensions, which can replace any part of System code or ROM loaded into memory with your own version. This is possible to a lesser extent under Linux with kernel modules. Not to mention that higher levels of Linux are totally modular, you can replace bits and parts of them at almost any level (assuming you have permission).
Mac OS uses extensions instead of plugins, see above. They are far more powerful (and potentially dangerous). KDE 2 supports many forms of plugins, including kicker plugins, kwin plugins, filters, and the list goes on...
Linux nor Mac OS can not run scripts in DHTML/Javascript except using a browser. This is a good security pratice, in my experience. Plus they have their own scripting languages, for Linux it's perl (using perl bindings) or bash (using stuff like kwmcom or dcop command line app for GUI stuff), in Mac OS it's AppleScript (which can also do gui stuff).
Is this article really about Linux/MAC, or just another Gnome/KDE flamewar article?
...encouraged by the emergence of GNOME as the standard desktop environment for Linux and Unix
:-)
Hello, please check your facts? I thought KDE had some share too (not that I can support that with facts, but I guess *someone* must be using it, right?
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Just out of curiosity, what would you qualify as "colour perfect work"?
From my experience once you set up the appropriate ICC profiles for your various devices you are good to go. This can take some time and effort initially(you get out of it what you put into it).
As for ESRs comments, I don't think he was ever implying that GNU/Linux is more advanced than mac as far as UI goes, but rather that linux is potentially more of a threat to MS/windows.
- Toby
In "The Good Ol' Days", it wasn't a two horse race. There was the PC, usually a clone running some form of DOS, and the much cheaper and powerful (in terms of stuff you could do with them) 68000 machines. The first and foremost of these was the Macintosh, which solidified and progressed the UI behind the Lisa. There was also the Amiga and the Atari ST. This was the golden age of computing, IMO, where technology leapt forward at a breakneck pace, feuled by competition and a desire to break existing boundaries.
After both Commodore and Atari went belly up (because of bad management rather than a loss of popularity or an inability to compete with Apple or Wintel), the industry =stagnated=.
For most of the nineties, we've been running in place. The last technical revolutions we've had were the Web and PDAs, and that's pretty sad considering both really made it to the bigtime in '95 or so. With Apple on the ropes and unable to actually market its innovative ideas, and Microsoft simply "embracing and extending" and potential competition to an early grave, the computer scene in the past ten years has been dull as dishwater. Open Source sprung into being as a direct response the the homogonization of the the digital age.
Linux is neither innovative nor progressive. It's "user surly" at best, it incorporates not one technology that others haven't invented or implemented better elsewhere, and it encourages the same sort of keyboard cowboys that kept DOS in the top slot despite the incredibly capable competition.
Linux, however, serves a purpose, and a valuable one. It is the Omega. Once Linux has a capability, there is no real point in charging for it. This means that software comapnies will have to keep pushing their technology forward...or they will be swallowed and destroyed by Linux and Open Source. This is a Good Thing, IMO, and something the industry has sorely, sorely needed for a long time. Linux is the predator,it thins the weak and the sick from the herd.
The Mac is a different sort of platform, used for different sorts of things. Linux is a server OS that's popular with hobbyists, and likely to remain that way because of the culture around it. However, as "competition to Redmond", Linux wins hands down. Apple, with its history of breaking new ground, really has nothing to fear from Linux, but Microsoft, the previous "Nifty Idea, let's steal it!" champs are facing more than their match with Linux.
SoupIsGood Food
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
"... Enlightenment window manager has ...",
I use enlightenment, eterm nicely shows the desktop but completely ignores anything that sits between your terminal window and the desktop. So, nice rip off but not fully implemented yet.
"It may not occur now or even in 6 more months"
Make that 6 years. I've heard that 'it's coming, the new and improved version is just around the corner' a bit too often. It will probably come but currently there are significant issues: there is no GUI standard to which you can develop applications, there are two mostly incompatible candidates for this standard that are currently engaging in mud fighting.
Jilles
First of all people use Macs because it's easier. I've used GNOME and (shudder)KDE. GNOME is nice. Nice for a Linux GUI. It plain blows for the average Joe and Sally.
Linux will never be the desktop OS for everyone. The Linux community has always said that that was the inevitable result. But the only thing keeping that reality from happining is the Linux community itself. I've seen cases in geek meetings where a newbie would ask a question about Linux and get pounced on as a lamer. Hardly conducive to encourage someone to use Linux.
Now some of you will say "But those were just a few bad apples." I say that it is, unfortunatly, a majority of Linux folks.
As for the numbers that there will be more Linux users than Mac users, I ask "What kinda of users?". With Linux generally being free or at least fairly cheap. Most of those users are people who are just trying the OS out. They will dig around a bit and come to one of two conclusions. One, theres not Microsquish apps here. We'll go back. Or two, this is clumsy better go back to Winblows or MacOS.
These are the people that is currently and temporarily driving this number that is being ballyhooed by the Linux community.
I use Linux, MacOS, Solaris and unfortunaly Win 95/98/NT. With the exception of the last I like them all. I have never been a fan of blind OS zealotry and I don't need to hear more from the Linux camp.
-- What's this '-r *' file doing here? -- Oh well, a simple 'rm' should do the trick.
I agree that the "popular == bad" mentality is elitist and stupid (although not always wrong). However, that's not what the OP was saying. Quote: "In the past, this was the way with Linux, but now there are commercial interest trying to displace Windows, so we can bet the distro wars will flame up."
He's not saying that "Linux was cool until it 'sold out', man". He's saying "People starting to use Linux because it's right for them is good, people starting to use Linux because a marketing beast told them to is wrong." I agree with this statement.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Linux is not a desktop operating system, or at least not in the foreseable future. A good desktop requires a commercial-grade operation like the kind Microsoft or Apple can provide. Open source encourages bug-fixing and feature-adding, but not interface polishing and consistency checking. You think I'm lying? Try and get a band of OS coders to invent the successor to (not just a clone of) Quartz and Aqua. It'll never happen.
Linux (like most UNIX variations and clones) is however, good for serving and nerding. So if Linux is going to spread anywhere, it will be to the back offices of corporations, and onto the desktops of the tech staff. And this is precisely where it will benefit Mac OS.
How?
1. Platform independence. You don't have Windows servers anymore, so why should you limit yourself to Windows clients? There'll be no more reasons to force the graphics dept to switch platforms.
2. Platform independence, the circular theory. If a company is using a non-mainstream solution in one area, they are more likely to consider a non-mainstream solution in another.
3. Mac OS X is built upon a UNIX variant. This might not turn out to be a significant advantage, rit might turn out to be a godsend for UNIX-served environments.
Hmmm
--
Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
Ok, if your goal is to take over Microsoft, why is the Linux camp fighting with the Mac camp?
:)
Kind of pathetic, really.
Although the Mac does kind of suck.
::Linux, on the other hand, hasn't really changed a thing. It has given us an alternative, and a good one at that.
:so why is the phrase "open source software" one of the most popular buzzwords nowadays?
You are putting the Apple cart in front of the horse, and expecting to have the horse pull the cart.
"Open Source software" has existed for YEARS before Linus T. took minix and re-worked it as Linux. Before a 'marketing label' was applied to it, "Open Source" was BSD licenced, BSD licenced with an AT&T source licence, GPLed, or posted to comp.sources with a copywrite notice and not much else.
Open Source is the big event. Linux happens to be the most visable part of Open Source. But without all the BSD, GPL, X11, Artistic licenced, (blah blah blah) parts that are glued together in the Linux distro of the week, Linux is just a kernel that sits there and does very little useful stuff.
If you have some kind of timeline showing no GPL, no BSD, no X11, no artistic licence existing before the Linux kernel sprung forth from the forehead of Linus, I'd love to see this.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Cite? I keep hearing this, but I haven't seen any real numbers. Sure, there are rc5 blocks/sec and SETI rates, but that's not why I buy computers. So who has task-specific numbers comparing LinuxPPC and x86? Like kernel rebuilds, X benchmarks, TPC, etc.
What I'd really like is a price/performance chart for both platforms, but I'll settle for even a few data points.
Kinda biased don't ya think?
One guy a devoted open source Linux myrmidon and the other an ex-Apple employee saying Apple is irrelevant???? The next time I want to know which airline is best I'll just ask one of them to critique someone else. Honestly does anyone think Mac is a serious contender to overtake anyone? For the past what, 10 years Apple has tried to hold its own with the claim that they are not somebody else. Along comes a bunch of poorly funded attempts like BeOS that say - "we're like Apple only, not, or better, or something...!" Apple is great for people who like Apple and use it.
Most businesses don't survive when they believe their customers are morons.
Do you work in retail? If you did you'd know that MANY people out there are. I'd say that it's a minority of all customers, but they're still out there.
Why should you have to click some things twice and other things once?
One click in the finder to select an icon. Sometimes you want to open an app or a document, sometimes you just want to select them to move them or to get info. In a web browser why would you want to click more than once?
If the MacOS was modern, the user's wouldn't have to worry about application memory when they hid the app, it would swap to disk and essentially be completely gone the way he wanted.
It should only be swapped to disk if that memory was needed by another program, not just because it's hidden.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Microsoft's shares are non-voting and was part
of an under-the-table patent disupte settlement. They have little or no influence on Apple's policy.
As evidenced by Apple's testimony in the anti-trust trial about MS's trickery involving quicktime.
Apple has been a profitable company (with out infusuions of cash since before the introduction of the imac, can't remember the year right now).
Myddrin
There are just as good tools out there, and in fact some of them even blow ProTools away...
Examples:
Ensoniq Paris
SEK'd Samplitude
MOTU 2408-based system
All it would take is for Motu to port it's AudioWire drivers to Linux (not unfathomable) or at the very least, MacOSX, and a system as comparable as ProTools would be within the reach of any Linux user.
Even Ensoniq could do it for Paris - their hardware design would make it very easy to do this...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
On the Mac you can't see the full filename, you can't increase the size of the dialog, you cant re-sort the files by size/date/name, you can't create directories or delete files etc.
I really hate to feed trolls, but this particular statement some people still believe.
FYI, all of the above and a great deal more comes with using Navigation Services, which has been around since 8.0 and is no longer optional under Carbon.
Granted several common applications still don't use it, but that's their fault for not adopting a technology shipped with the System for over two years now. And unless they want to ship Classic-only apps for OS X, they'll have to get a clue soon.
either it's good or it's not. either it does what you want or it doesn't.
Actually, if the author knew what he was talking about, this would read "either it's good for the purpose it's serving or it's not."
Different operating systems serve different purposes. I wouldn't want to serve up web pages on the Macintosh, nor would I want to give Linux to my mother--two different operating systems with two different sets of strengths and weaknesses which make them ideal in two different circumstances.
I've tried a number of different window managers on it (windowmaker, afterstep, fvwm2, blackbox, etc.), and the best thing i've found so far is Enlightenment 0.16.4 w/ the Aqua theme (it has no window borders, which makes screen refreshes a lot quicker. It also looks pretty spiffy.). Enlightenment, with all the special effects turned off and without sound (i compiled it without EsounD) is really fast. I can use licq/wordperfect eight/etc. at reasonable speeds. I tried to load Gnome once... i think i saw blood start to flow from the vents of my machine and it started to scream at me to stop the pain...
Now, there is something about Enlightenment/Windowmaker/Afterstep that i really like (and is the reason i run litestep on my windows box). Personally, i find the desktop concept becomes really cluttered and ugly. I like it a lot better having all kinds of menus of programs, and having the desktop just for my programs and a nice background, and not all kinds of icons. Additionally, the flexability of E (and X in general), being able to easily customize the interface to my exact desire (with customizable themes, menus, window behaviour, virtual desktops, and so on) makes using something less flexable almost painful. Again, my personal taste.
Now, time for a statement on the topic... hmph, well, I've played with the MacOS X developers releases. Personally, i'd rather run Linux + X + aqua theme, but for people who use a computer as a means and not an end, I think MacOS X is seriously a Good Thing. It has the sweet goodness of being based on BSD (proper working multitasking, for one thing), while delivering the easyness of being a Mac. Personally, i hate MacOS 9.x and below and would rather run Windows (and i am typing this on an iBook in MacOS 9.0.4), but MacOS X seems to be far better then either for the home user market. If they made it for the x86 platform, i'm sure it would seriouly challange windows. On the other hand, perhaps it will cause a surge in sales of Apple hardware (which seems to be pretty good from my experimentation with LinuxPPC and Yellowdog)
anyways, enough out of me. if you made it this far, thanks for reading. ;^)
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
these are the words of a moron :
The important difference is that GNU/Linux *wants* to become the everyman's OS, whereas Mac OS users don't
want that to happen. I should know: I'm a Mac user that jumps ship when Mac OS can't handle what I want to do.
If Mac OS were in the position of Windows, I probably wouldn't use it. Talk to any Mac users and you'll notice
right away that they have no interest in making everyone in the world us Mac OS, just the people who care enough
about their experience to use Mac OS. In the past, this was the way with Linux, but now there are commercial
interest trying to displace Windows, so we can bet the distro wars will flame up. I might keep using Debian or
Slackware, whether they are the best or not, just becase everyone else on my street runs Red Hat or SuSE.
'i do it because everyone else doesn't!'
are you, by any chance, 12 years old? what the fuck does it matter what everyone else does? do you think somehow that makes you unique? no, it does not. you aren't *doing* anything new, you're merely attempting (feebly) to be different.
this is the philosophy of morons. like when nirvana became popular and suddenly a lot of 'fans' abandoned them. 'well now EVERYBODY likes them! i only liked them 'coz nobody else knew about them!' that's pure stupidity!
either it's good or it's not. either it does what you want or it doesn't.
fads and anti-fads are things for imbeciles to worry about.
i can say bye-bye to my karma but i think this needed to be said, and i do NOT think it is flamebait.
i've always used linux because it runs faster than windoze, and more stably as well. i do not use macos because it is restrictive, ugly and slow. (though i'm sure many mac zealots will disagree.)
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Great,
it's bad enough that Linux wishes it was a real operating system. But now, Linux advocates need to put down other platforms as a way to boost their own platform up.
Fortunately, it doesn't work that way.
The only way Linux will be a great operating system is for it to SHIP something stable that all will use without pause. Linux 2.2 and 2.4 were both very late.
And we're all tired of the "it's in the new version of Linux that might ship soon" when making feature comparisons to other platforms. This smacks of someone saying "the check is in the mail".
I've been using Linux for many years, and I think it's a great solution to many computing problems, but Linux isn't better because we put down other systems. Indeed, stories like this make Linux users look like a bunch of dorks.
You know you obviously don't have any patience, money, time, or idea of what sells to the consumer.
So a shiny turd is more marketable than a dull diamond in your mind?
Also they don't give a crap about you.
I've noticed. That's why they'll get no more of my money.
If I were you I wouldn't complain a bit.
They love people like you in jail. Anal rape again? No problem, you'll find the silver lining.
With users like you we would be using parallel ports well into 2020.
What reason is there not to? Parallel is good for many things. Fine, you'll get no arguement that USB is better, as long as there is a segment of the user base who wants/needs it, it's fucked up to cut them off.
You certainly can't boot MacOS off a floppy anymore, so they are useless.
Is booting the only thing that floppys are good for? I just transported my research paper to and from school multiple times per week on a 1.44 meg floppy. I got a B in that class, so I guess the floppy isn't all that useless after all.
I personally prefer my nice brand-new cruft-free mac to nursing along a constantly upgraded PC or mac.
That says a lot more about you than it does about the hardware.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
> he even bothered to take part in a discussion around here?
Don't hold your breath: Advogato: Personal info for esr
I did start out life as a die-hard Mac user, though... maybe I'm biased on MacOS X.
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
Linux, despite being as widely adored as it is, is just not cut out to compete as a desktop OS. It's more difficult to install than either Win95 or MacOS 9, it has fewer software options than either, and its OS and software are overall less intuitive. A desktop OS really needs to be "idiot-friendly"; Linux still isn't.
My point? That Linux's main competitor in Redmond is Windows NT/2000 (the server OS), while Mac's main competitor is Windows 95/98/ME (the consumer OS). Microsoft blends the compatibility of those two OSes, but make no mistake that they're targetted at two completely different audiences. This being the case, I don't think Linux can be said to be "overtaking" the MacOS in the vs-Microsoft wars at all -- they're not actually fighting the same enemy.
Thank you for a well reasoned article.
Frankly, I believe that the Macintosh OS and Linux, as operating systems, have completely different strengths and weaknesses which allow each to co-exist. That is, there is no reason why we shouldn't have two operating systems "overtaking Microsoft" instead of one, with one (the Macintosh) used in markets such as desktop publishing, where ease of use is paramount, and the other (Linux) used for serving up web pages and other server-related and compute-bound related areas--where reliability and stability is important.
So I would say that, even if Linux "overtakes" the Mac as the main "opponent" of Microsoft, it's not really a sign of the Mac's demise.
You have to keep in mind that everyone and their dog has predicted the Macintosh's demise "within 6 months to a year at most" almost since the first day the Macintosh was released in 1984. I still remember my college roommates showing me articles about how the Mac was doomed to die in 1986. I can recall the critical articles indicating Apple's virtually immediate death in 1989-1990, and of course we all remember when everyone predicted Apple's death just before Steve Jobs came back to Apple.
I think this has to do with the fact that you either love Apple (and/or want to play catchup), or hate Apple (and complain bitterly about the "dumbing down" of computers). Because everyone has an opinion, everyone has an opinion about when (not if) Apple will die.\
I wonder how people will think Apple will die in 5 years?
As usual, I can't quite seem to grasp what is so wonderous about Apple. What is so "noble" about a company struggling to take their 5% market niche up to 6% or 7%?
I suppose if Linux would come out in flavors rather than distributions than open source could be innovative too. Maybe, just maybe somebody else out there can take $600 retail worth of hardware, stick it inside a plexiglass fish bowl, sell it for $1299 and they too can be marked as innovating design. Or sued for using plexiglass.
What I really want to know is why Tandy didn't try suing Apple for stealing their TRS-80 Model III design. Heck, even that old box at least came with a floppy drive.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Having been a Mac aficionado back in the early 90s (with a pair of PowerBooks), I still don't see why Apple is considered such the "nice guy" in these debates. Does anyone remember the look and feel lawsuits they brought against Microsoft, and anyone else who dared to use a WIMP interface? This was in the same vein as Lotus's successful look and feel lawsuits against competitors producing spreadsheets.
And one of Steve Jobs's first actions upon his return to Apple was to get rid of the all the new Mac clones from Power Computing and others. Apple is a tyranny no less offensive than Microsoft. I like the designs of the newest Macs (onboard and wireless Ethernet being chief among them), but the thought of seeing Apple rebuilt into their former image makes me ill.
I can see this happening. But, Raymond's remarks are made a little too hastily. To wit:
As a platform, we have LinuxPPC, which totally blows away the x86 platform in terms of performance.
The GIMP is good, but, until we get some *decent* and *quality* (and, I mean production and prepress film quality) plug ins, and functionality, it will not replace photoshop. As I have yet to meet a Windows box that can do color perfect work, with correct Gamma, Mac is gonna be around for a long long time to come.
Hell, unless we see a comparable suite of tools, along the lines of Adobe products, Linux cannot take the desktop market.
Filemaker is a very widely used solution. I have yet to see any Filemaker apache solution present itself.
Whether you believe it or not, there are some things I dont use Linux for. Especially in the server area. There are much more secure and easier to use DNS Servers for MacOS. BIND and named are fine, but, ease of use is not something that springs to mind when you think of them.
Gnome and GTK are cool, but, in all actuality, they have a mucho long way to go before they can even come close to what the Mac UI has attained. Eazel is cool, but, same rule applies.
In short, I think ESR's comments were a bit premature. And, I think he needs to take a good strong look at the actual situation.
Remember also, Napolean lost by trying to fight two fronts.
Im an Open Source fan as much as the next guy, but, for myself, and indeed, for my client's bottom line, I will always choose the tool that is most stable, and most dependable at that paticular time, for that paticular job.
And, thats one of things that really needs to be kept in the front of our minds.
Supernaut
The biggest single reason to move from Linux to FreeBSD is Linux users.
Linux and the Apple fill different niche markets. Most of the people that I know that still heavily use macintoshes for work are people who do video editing or other graphics and msuic or sound related work. The other people I know that use macintoshes just want a computer that will work and know that a macintosh is easy to use and install and that it will not have signifigant issues out of box like many windows machines do. For these people, a mac is perfect and I believe they will continue to use them rather than having to learn another system that is more difficult to setup.
Linux on the other hand does not fill either of these niche markets. Currently, doing video editing is not as easy or as inexpensive on linux as it is on a macintosh and while linux is much more stable than win98, it is much more difficult to configure than a mac and is also more intimidating in general. The niche that linux fills is people that were not happy with the power or stability that their previous system gave them and wanted something better. This niche is not directly competing with Apple's primary market.
Because of these factors, I believe that the mac will be with us for a while still. Whether or not the macintosh computer will eventually die out I do not know, but I know that linux will not be the os to kill it and that right now they are alive and well.
Aaron Bryden
Aaron Bryden
abrydenREMOVETHIS@gmail.com
MacOS as we know it is certainly a doomed cause; Apple has said as much (though Steve only ever admitted that bit grudgingly). However, OSX makes things more interesting. All but one of Linux's strengths (the missing one being that Linux is totally open, where only the core of OSX its), and only one of Linux's weaknesses (that being the Unix base, which necessarily degrades ease of use significantly). I've got OSX DP4 myself (legitimetely, I might add). Still rough around the edges, and definitely not ready for release, but with all the makings of a viable contender. Linux won't be displacing MacOS anytime soon. Rather, I believe the two will continue to erode M$ marketshare (yes, MacOS marketshare is growing too) until we have three operating systems competing - and I mean really competing; not the usual "you're alize because Billy wants you to" crap that MacOS deriders insist is happenning. Interesting question: once Windows has to actually compete on its merits, rather than relying on its monopoly, how long do you think it'll last?
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It's going to be very, very hard to wrench the Mac away from the culture of designers who are committed to it -- and I certainly don't see anything about Gnome or Linux that will make them move.
Graphic designers, Photoshop jocks, HTML developers, and so forth -- these are the people who have kept Apple alive through some of its worst periods. I work with a company full of them, and I can't see how a herd of wild horses or stampeding elephants could drag them away from their Macs.
As much as Linux, and Gnome in particular, have been progressing on the desktop, the Linux user interfaces are far and away too technical and unintuitive to get this crowd to switch. If they find themselves having to drop to a shell and command line just once, they'll run away screaming. User interfaces and high-quality graphics, not technical arcana, are what's essential to designers' daily work and user experience, and I think MacOS will have Linux beat in those fields for a long time to come.
This niche market may not be enough to keep the Mac's market share ahead of Linux, but it will continue to be enough to keep Apple from going under altogether.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
BULLSHIT! I chose the best platform for the work I do. That's my point. I was responding to a post that the guy blantantly said he chose the best platform because he wanted to be non-conformist. I use windows because I program strictly for a living and 98% of the jobs where I live are for Windoze programming skills. Period.
I think that of these two alternatives:
1: Use a tool because everyone else is using it, without any logic or research.
2: Use a tool used by a small minority of the population because you want to be non-conformist (also without any research -- remember, that was the contention)
I think (2) is far stupider. At least with (1), you can say "well, it may not be the best, but at least there is a lot of support for using that tool."
Now, remember that my post was saying you should do neither 1 or 2, you should evaluate and use the best tool. If I got back into graphics these days, I would still use a Mac. If I got into helping design a high-availability, heavy backend, super high-traffic website, I would definitely look into *nixes (probably hiring help, as I'm sure I could do that cheaper/faster than getting up to speed myself.)
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I loved it. For the next 5 years I was a Mac zealot and had to endure PC users give me the excuses about how GUIs are for WIMPs (Windows Icons Mouse PulldownMenus). They said there's nothing more productive than being able to keep your hands on the keyboard and blast away at your work and that having a stupid GUI get between you and your work was a horrible waste of computing resources.
Now it's 2000 and I'm a UNIX zealot and I now hear from PC bigots about how UNIX boxen are hard to use cause you have to memorize commands, how much better a GUI is to use, how X sucks cause the widgets are not as refined as in Windows, etc, etc...
Whatever....
You can pick any UI apart if you focus on one of its more obvious flaws.
But the trick totally backfires when you have your facts all wrong.
1. Open/Save dialog boxes: Look for information on 'Navigation Services'. In my opinion it is superior than most others (no sideways scrolling, Finder style hierarchy arrows, etc).
2. Contextual menus: The only thing haphazard about it is that Mac mice only have one mouse button. The contextual menu API is quite clear, and any 3rd party mouse I know of can use it.
3. Context switching: Command-tab works like your alt-tab, and the toolbar argument is clearly a subjective argument. In my opinion, there's nothing user friendly about seeing the first 3 characters of each open window. It's a poor use of screen real estate.
For the record, you CAN turn the Application pallette into a taskbar-like bar at the bottom of the screen, but it's not terribly useful IMHO. And while it's not fair to bring up 3rd party apps, GoMac pretty much replicates the taskbar if it's such a big deal.
...
If you want to get in a full-on debate over true user interface issues, let me know. The examples you cite are poor (and largely untrue), but I hate to think of how many thousands of hours of combined human productivity have been lost due to how Windows handles menus. It's enough to give a guy Fitts.
The Mac doesn't have a perfect UI. Far from it. But you've got to be kidding if you think Windows is better.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
i think he was referring to osX, which is, at its roots "Unix too" (BSD on Mach) and "open too" (the BSD/mach layer is open source for obvious reasons, called Darwin)
when osX hits the street (it has already, in preview form, and soon in beta form) i expect apple stock will take a little jump, but i'm not buying any (more) shares myself.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Bah! Give me a powerful, quiet cube any day of the week.
Gnome was not declared to be the standard. It was declared to be a standard desktop and development environment for Unix and Linux. The Gnome Foundation is trying to set up Gnome as a standard. This does not mean that they are declaring KDE dead or saying it will not play a role. By declaring Gnome as a standard and getting companies like Sun, HP, IBM, OMG, Helix Code, Eazel, etc. involved, they are increasing the scope of the project.
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Celebrate the finer things in life
Sorry, I do not understand what the hoots are all about.
Is there any use to compare Apple with Linux ?
I mean, there are similarities between Linux and Apple OS, and there are differences as well. Linux with the new Gnome (especially with the contribution from Easel) may look as slick as the Applie GUI, but Apple is MORE than an OS.
Apple is a combination of hardware and software. I am no brown nose, but still, I admire Steve Jobs for his vision.
The "cubes" from NExT and Apple wouldn't have been existed if not for Steve Jobs. The computer world would have been much less funner without Jobs.
Only if there is such person in the Linux camp.
I mean, Linux right now is like an old black-and-white movie. It takes a guy with great visions such as Steve Jobs to put colors in it.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This was the best I could do on short notice. (Took about 3 minutes of searching.)
http://www.itmatter s.bworldonline.com/past/0897/new08/str7.html
While it does not draw a direct connection between the two, the $150M investment was announced at the same time as an agreement for cross-licensceing of all patents. I have seen this stated much more forcefull other places (I _THINK_ it was the register, but I'm not positive.)
Is this good enough or should I dig around a little more?
Myddrin
You do know that Apple invented pull-down menus, right?
Another idea stolen from others - at Xerox Parc. Along with the mouse, and the GUI.
Apple has made some real innovations of its own, but mostly they, like Microsoft, like linux, like other Unices, use ideas taken from elsewhere.
Odd, the writing style doesn't fit that of the real Joe Barr at all.
Could it be that you made up the whole thing?
Pardon me if I don't see the humor in an AC slandering a great American.
-Mick
Can I bum a
You think PPC's are really that bad.
No, I don't. I do however think that Apple royally screwed a lot of their loyal base with the hardware changes of the iMac and G3/4.
So we should continue to manufacture 386's today just because they do enough to let some people work.
No, but since the PII/3/Athlon still use the x86 ISA there is no reson to worry. When Apple made the transition from m68k to PPC, they at least had the decency to write a 68k emulator into the OS.
If you don't mind taking it in the pooper from Apple, all the better for you. They're not going to get any more of MY money.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What no one seems to realize is that computers are tools. If you are a first time user, the iMac is a perfect tool for you. It was never designed for a power user, and neither was the cube. So if you are a power user, do not complain about it.
You don't see racecar drivers whining about the 0-60 time on the new Gas/Electric hybrids right? Because that isn't the focus of the car. If you are a power user, get a powerful computer. Get a G4 tower. If Linux is so great, just throw it on there too.
Basically, many Linux users need to step back and take a deep breath. Linux is great, I run it on my machine. Linux has a lot of potential, but it isn't there yet. When any group of people are so focused on their one OS they seem to inflate it to more than it is. I've seen this before in the Mac camp too. But I see it a lot now with Linux.
Well, I guess you can say I'm just sick of the Linux zealots. Linux isn't a "my mom could use it" OS yet, not by a long shot. No matter what you think about Mac OS, or the Macintosh hardware (there is a difference) you should look at Mac OS X for an example of an elegant way to cover up the complicated internals of an OS for consumers.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies.h tml
---Lane
What's the point of moderating?!
I can well believe that Linux is poised to overtake MacOS in pure numbers of users - it runs on a _lot_ more hardware for a start.
However, this in no way condemns MacOS - there is room for both for different sorts of tasks. I use Linux at work and MacOS at home, and those are the environements that are best for me at each place.
Linux is great because it's main focus is power and configurability. However these very things detract from how easy it is to use. Great for hackers, servers, and command line stuff.
MacOS has the best interface I've ever used (I never used a NeXT box), and that is because this is the primary goal of its designers. Great for all that GUI stuff - graphics, writing, and getting not too complex things done as simply as possible (and I really like using an IDE for small to medium programming projects). There is a group of users that MacOS is not going to lose in a hurry.
I think the OSes currently have different audiences for the most part, such as people with different preferences about command-line/GUI.
Of course, I have great hopes for MacOS X combining the best of both worlds (I already run Darwin for tasks I can't use MacOS for), but it will invariably make some compromises because I don't think it is yet possible to combine the best possible power _and_ usability.
It would be really neat if Eazel does well, but that is a bit further down the track, and I don't think they have the resources to do the sort of things being done with MacOS X.
I really like a bit of diversity and choice is OSes - this helps make them all better.
believe it or not you aren't the smartest person in the world
this is what i used to do all the time when i had lots of free time (and interest) to spend hacking away on my computer.
i am bored out of my mind with computers now, and want to spend as little time on trivial things as possible (and as much time looking at pr0n and playing games as possible)..
so i let redhat auto-detect my hardware and i use the silly RPMs.. it has always worked for me so far, so i see no reason to complain. i'm well aware how much more efficient and secure my machine could be, but i also know i have no reason to worry about someone hacking in.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
So what? You run make a bunch of times how is that so different? It says right on the page that it is a fully functional distro that you have to compile, and comes with a step by step guide? Nothing all that different there, when you're done you have /etc /dev and the rest. You still are using Linux.
First we have Miguel proclaiming that Unix Sucks and has been built incorrectly from the ground up, after that came the latest KDE vs. GNOME war, and now we have ESR (does *anyone* remember the last time he even bothered to take part in a discussion around here?) claiming that the Mac is doomed?
Excuse me for picking nits here, but ever time someone says Mozilla is "too little too late" they're creamed with the ClueHammer(tm). What about OS X? I've never bought a Mac in my life, but everything that Apple seems to have accomplished looks really exciting to me. Even if I wasn't impressed by their merging of a slick GUI on top of a BSD base, I wouldn't go around shitting on their heads. Can somebody point ot me where it says that Apple's chief purpose is to attack Microsoft? I thought they were about creating great computer systems. Hell, I used to think that Linux was about the same thing. What happened?
I won't attempt to guess at anyone's motives in all this, but it seems that too much pride is beginning to overtake the "heads" of our little community. Enough of the pot-shots at Windows (it's too easy), enough attacking Unix (we still have a lot of ground to cover before we're on the same level as all of the other 'nixes), and let the Apple guys do their own thing.
This article is nothing but verbal wanking.
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
A fully featured, User (newbie) friendly system. With QuickTime, a few thousand apps from ye olde MacOS. And without too much delay it will be able to pick up the major [Ff]ree software too. The porting effort is already well underway and that's only with Developer's Previews and Darwin floating around. Perhaps penatration of a hundred or so people who can do porting and thousands of users. When it goes prime time it will be a major force.
Start Running Better Polls
"For one, Macs still have by far the easiest and most transparent GUI"
I don't know about the "easiest" front but I beleive the Berlin GUI is much more transparent.
;-)
To grossly overgeneralize, the main advantage of a Mac is it's GUI, while the main advantage of GNU/Linux is it's extensibility and stability. Mac's have been about making computers easy to use by making pretty widgets for people to click on, rather than making them remember dozens of commands. It almost seems as if Mac's *started* with the GUI, then built the OS around it. GNU/Linux started with the kernel, then the shell, and *now* is adding a consistent GUI on top of it. Entirely different approaches. However, don't forget that "Redmond" is trying to be a desktop OS, server OS, and underwear OS at the same time. It competes with GNU/Linux on the server level, and competes with Macs on the desktop level (not to even mention the game system or IA level). "Competition for Redmond" is more complicated than it seems.
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"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
Apple is setting the standard and always has. Did anybody notice how important 'transparency' has become since apple demoed Mac OS X?
Actually, the Enlightenment window manager has used transparency for some time, as has Eterm, whose functionality was duplicated in gnome-terminal. I suspect there are others, as well. Apple would be quite dumb if they hadn't stolen most of their ideas from others. TrueType text, as a further example, is largely a subset of Metafont from TeX, with some differences in the mathematical complexity required to draw characters.
If anyone has been setting a standard, it is the Redmond company running 90 percent of the world's desktop boxes.
The competitive desktop efforts of linux are exactly why they will become much stronger than Mac or Windows. If you have a Mac or Windows and you want a new desktop you need a new OS or a new computer.
If you have linux and you want a new desktop you need only change the pulldown menu in XDM. This creates an unprecedented ability on the part of the consumer to change his desktop. This creates competition without barriers, and that will only result in much stronger product lines. Besides, we can already see that human interface designers from Windows and Mac worlds are working on various aspects of GNOME and KDE.
With competition, we all win. It may not occur now or even in 6 more months, but it is coming, and it won't be too long.
The problem with the Mac is that by trying to remain as simple as possible, it appeals mostly to people who are not really computer litterate (I know I know there are exceptions... ). This is the market that they target and it is fine. Where it becomes a problem is that the next generation will learn to use computers really young, understand them more than any of us can because they will litterally be raised in an environment filled with computers.
I am just wondering what will be the appeal of the Mac for such a generation and what part of the market it will be able to hold on through the next 30 years of so...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
For one, Macs still have by far the easiest and most transparent GUI (though this could change for the worse with OS X -- though I'm keeping my mind open on that). No GUI currently comes close to the elegance of the Mac GUI in terms of how you can use it. For one thing, the Mac Clipboard, for example, works far more powerfully than any other comparable "clipboard" on any other OS that I have seen, given its ability to convert data on-the-fly, depending on what program you copied from and are pasting to (or, even better, are dragging and dropping from or to).
Another point is that, yes, the original Mac team in the form of Eazel is working on the GNOME desktop -- but they have a *long* way to go before it even comes close to the Mac GUI and desktop. There are many areas that have nothing to do with GNOME that also have to be improved -- colorspace models (and the ability to quickly and easily calibrate and configure them), fonts and font administration (installing fonts is still a pain on Windows and Linux, and previewing them on Linux is a *major* pain), transparent media format support (video, audio, pixel formats) and so on. In other words, much of what is tied to the Mac's old strengths -- desktop publishing, video and graphic design. Most of these weaknesses are tied more to XFree86 than they are to anything else.
Yet another major weakness of Linux is still the lack of desktop apps that match or exceed the quality of those on Mac OS and Windows. This is changing, of course, but you have to remember that that Mac OS community (and the Windows community) are moving targets. The lack of hardcore standards on the Linux platform also tends to hurt application development -- what libraries do I support? What desktop version? What kernel version? -- and I see no plausible solution for all that.
In the longer term -- some years down the road -- it would also be interesting to see if Linux continues its rapid upward climb. At the moment, this is taken as gospel, but remember that Linux is done mostly voluntarily -- it may be that someday the "coolness factor" wears off, and Linux withers into a twilight existence. I doubt that Linux will ever "die" -- in fact it's almost impossible, unless we have some titanic global catastrophe -- but OTOH it's not hard for me to imagine some scenario where the developers working on Linux simply lose interest someday, or a major fork happening (the GNOME vs. KDE war has the ability to cause that), enough to damage Linux's continued growth and development. I don't suggest that this *will* happen, but that it is a real possibility.
I use Linux, and do so quite happily. I use it mainly as a server OS, but sometimes also for gaming and website development. I also actively support Linux's development by working for various Linux companies (Loki, theKompany.com, LinuxPPC), mainly by doing website design, packaging, press releases and other promotional work.
And Linux has many, many strengths, and may indeed surpass Mac OS in many areas. It already has in stability and efficiency -- technical areas, in other words. The fact that Linux is a free OS (as in speech) also has a very strong appeal to me, though its weaknesses keep me from going to Linux entirely. The question is, will Linux -- given its divided approach -- ever have the singleness of vision that drove the Mac's development? For all the Mac's technical faults, that singleminded hardcore approach for the _overall_ vision of the OS is what makes it good at what it does (graphics, GUI, media).
So I would say that, even if Linux "overtakes" the Mac as the main "opponent" of Microsoft, it's not really a sign of the Mac's demise. True, anti-MS sentiment is a lot of what keeps many Mac fans true to their Macs -- but that's hardly the only reason they use their Macs so faithfully. Nor is it proven that Linux will indeed kill off MS _or_ Apple. I'm far more inclined the believe that all these OSes will continue to coexist -- indeed, I believe that they days of one-OS-fits-all (if they ever existed, in spite of what MS tries to claim) are over.
Sorry for the rambling, but that's a lotta stuff I had to say... ;-)
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
I have an iMac, dual-booting to OS 9 and Linux PPC. It's a decent piece of hardware, but I could have gotten better. However, I am not going to complain, because it was a present to me. I think you need to figure out what you're ranting about before you write.
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
They have to have the cheesiest theme song of all the cartoons that have ever existed.
Appetiser cheese and Dessert cheese.