Workingmac.com Interview With Jordan Hubbard

LiquidPC writes: "workingmac.com has an interview with Jordan Hubbard (one of the founders of the FreeBSD project, and currently works for Apple on development of OS X). Questions range from 'How do open-source operating systems compare to closed-source operating systems?' to 'What does the future hold for FreeBSD?'" It's a quick interview, but a good read. Interesting that to talk about the Mac OS now is to talk about UNIX.

Comments

Because he's being paid to WORK ON FREEBSD also...

[keepper]

Damn, you would figure you guys would read a bit more before you post ( but heck, this IS slashdot ).

Part of his duties, besides being involved in dariwn, are to keep working on FreeBSD.

Why you ask?

Because apple is source syncing many parts of Darwin with FreeBSD and there's soon to be a move to start syncing it with the 4.x branch.

Besides, that was the numero uno premise jkh had before he went to work at apple. According to his emails to the freebsd mailing lists, we wanted to assure everyone that his role in freebsd would not be compromised by his work at apple. If anything, freebsd is gonna get more benefits out ot it.

PowerPC port anyone?

"FreeBSD... because a pc is a terrible thing to waste."

Some Numbers...

[TheInternet]

care to back that up with some fact? there are ALOT of Solaris boxes out there.

Apple did $19 million in sales of Mac OS X the first weekend it was out. Assuming everyone in that number paid the full $129 price, you get about 150,000 right out of the gate. This doesn't take into account all the beta testers (100,000 in all) that got a $30 discount. Then you tally the developers, educators, and Apple specialists that get it for substanially less or free outright (this revenue might not even been counted in the $19m since it's through special channels).

Then add in that every machine Apple ships now comes with Mac OS X, and that they shipped 827,000 machines last quarter (which ended June 30). And they've certainly sold some copies of OS X off the shelf in the last 5 months. And none of that counts burned copies of Mac OS X or Darwin users.

I suspect it's a relatively big number, probably over 1 million at this point. I'm guessing that it will be at least 2 million year's end. And note that all of this happens despite the fact Apple has run zero TV or magazine advertisements for Mac OS X at this point. They are certainly holding off on marketing campaign until at least until 10.1, and very likely until Office 10 comes out (sometime this fall). I'm not clear on whether the measurement for largest Unix vendor is the number of units sold in a particular period of time (which I suspect Apple is kicking ass on), or the total installed base.

- Scott

BZZZT! Nope rebutted

[maggard]

Ex Machina wrote:

That is completely wrong!!

Man did I hit a soft-spot with you.

First of all, Mac OS X uses the BSD Mach Microkernel (developed by Rick Rashid.. now VP of research for MS) instead of the a traditional monolithic UNIX kernel! It has a lot of the GNU and BSD tools included with it, but after all, GNU's not UNIX!

MacOS X is unix, at least insofar as anyone cares. It's certified to use the Unix trademark, it's listed in unix family tree, it walks and talks and quacks like a unix so yeah, it's a unix. There are pendants out there who will argue this-or-that "isn't unix" and the rest of usinix just ignores them and gets on with life.

As to your various other claims there is no "BSD Mach Microkernel" though MacOS X is based on a derivative of the Mach microkernel originally developed at CMU (I know - those three letter school acronyms all sound alike..)

Mach's " Principal Investigator " was Rick Rashid, with Avadis "Avie" Tevanian who was " principal designer and engineer of the Mach operating system. BTW Avie Tevanian left CMU to continue the development of Mach at Next and is now Sr. VP of SW Engineering at Apple.

Not to sound rude, but clueless mac evangelists should check their facts!

First of all I'm neither clueless nor a Mac evangelist, second off... Just where is your "second of all?