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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.
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.
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
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
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...
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.
Yeah exactly. Sun make good hardware, but their software has been going backwards ever since they switched from SunOS 4.1.2 to Solaris, and made the c compiler an (expensive) optional extra. What difference does their endorsement of Gnome make to anything.
If I were a Gnome supporter I would be more worried than jubliant about getting sun's endorsement - look at the wondrous advancement in CDE and motif since sun got on board. And don't even get me started about java...
KDE2 on the other hand actually provides a browser that seriously competes with IE5.5. I wouldn't hold my breath looking for that in the GTK/mozilla world. I'm no great fan of MS, but they were right about one thing: netscape engineers *are* weenies. It'll be a long time before mozilla overcomes that background, and in the mean time, there will be no decent Gnome browser.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
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
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 !
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
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.