Linux and Mac OS X

William J writes "Here is an article with an interesting slant on the relationship between the Mac OS and Linux. The author suggests that Gnome and KDE developers can learn from the Mac GUI. Worth quoting: 'It is amazing to me that an OS which was developed largely by volunteers (and which is essentially free) can run with unprecedented stability on the same hodgepodge of PC hardware on which another company has spent billions of dollars in R&D costs and is still unable to produce a product which can run for more than a few days without crashing -- and it costs hundreds of dollars.'"

Comments

People accomplish things

[Drone-X]

Worth quoting: 'It is amazing to me that an OS which was developed largely by volunteers (and which is essentially free) can run with unprecedented stability on the same hodgepodge of PC hardware on which another company has spent billions of dollars in R&D costs and is still unable to produce a product which can run for more than a few days without crashing -- and it costs hundreds of dollars.'"

For software development you only need some brains, time and a computer. Because of this and also thanks to a certain global communication tool, it's hardly suprising people accomplish grand things without coorporations backing them.

Really, people don't need management to accomplish something. Given the resources (money and time) people can and will do productive things for society.

Re:Porting Aqua

[pressman]

What the /. Linux crowd fails to see is that Apple customers don't mind paying a little extra money for the time and care put into developing Macintosh systems. Most Mac users don't want to get into the guts of their computer except to maybe install an extra harddrive or some extra RAM. We generally don't care about getting under the hood because the people who made the computer engineered it so we don't have to do that if we don't want to.

For Linux users I can understand why getting to the guts of the computer and the OS is so important. It's part of the computing experience for that market. Linux users LIKE getting to the very core of their computers. I don't understand why they have to bash Apple and it's users just because Apple doesn't consider them part of their target market demographic. Why would Apple market to people who don't want to spend money on anything? They are a company whose goal is to make money and they can't make money off a free OS and low margin computer components.

I don't go around bashing Linux because it doesn't meet all of my computing needs. It's a good OS for what it's intended to do, but it doesn;t come close to meeting my needs or the needs of millions and millions of other computer users... users being the operative word.

Macs just work out of the box. Ceratin people want that.

Linux only works if you configure it to work the way you want it to and have the technical knowledge to do that. Certain people want and need that from their OS and computer.
Windows has lots of games and is ubiquitous. Very few people really want Windows but it is the only option they know. It seems to meet their needs reasonably, but then again their standards and expectations of a computer might be a bit lower than Mac or *NIX users.

So, if the macintosh doesn't fit your criteria for a computing environment, DON'T BUY ONE OR USE MAC OS! Stop complaining about the price of their hardware and buy the system you need. You're just wasting energy and the time of other people.