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O'Reilly Thinks Mac OS X May Be the 'Next Big Thing'

Posted by pudge on from the next-big-thing-in-a-nutshell dept.

Arkham writes "Tim O'Reilly gave a speech at WWDC called 'Watching the Alpha Geeks: Mac OS X and the next big thing', in which he suggested that Apple is doing the right things to be a big success. Specifically, Apple should continue to 1) adhere to standards, 2) keep things small and modular, and 3) document as you go -- man pages and RFCs. Anyone who has used Mac OS X can see that Apple is trying hard to be a good open-source citizen (for example, the new zero-config Rendezvous technology). The question is, at what point will these efforts pay off (more users, and thus more money)?" What is this "money" you speak of?

6 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. My problem with OS X by Hemi+Rodner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes, OS X has real multitasking, got a unix core, has transparent menus and it's nice and all, but unlike OS 9 and below, it does not support keyboard input of right-to-left languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi, any other languages?)

    As a result, it's uncommon to see people in the middle east who use OS X. Those people still use the now dead OS 9, or more likely, Windows.. (yes, how bad and evil MS are, I must admit they did a great thing when they forced everyone to use the unicode standard, which is harder to display, but makes sense in every other aspect - searching, sorting, etc)

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    hemi
    1. Re:My problem with OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can't put out my name for obvious reasons, but I can tell you that Jaguar will support Right to Left languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.

  2. Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi? by theolein · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know that Iran has no copyright laws, so MS doesn't earn a penny there. And although the major OS in the middle east is Windows, Linux is making good breakthroughs there. Companies like Hancom who develop explicitly with international users in mind (Asian, Middle east) are apparently quite popular.

  3. Apple, a good open source citizen ? by bug1 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Apple is trying hard to be a good open-source citizen"

    What projects do they contribute open source code to ?

    All ive heard is that they use *bsd code, do they improve and contribute the code upstream ?

    What other projects do they contribute to ?

  4. Tim O'Reilly on his WWDC talk by Idmat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In his blog today,(http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/1395)Tim says more about his WWDC keynote, including:

    Hackers push the envelope to make technologies do what they want before vendors and entrepreneurs package them for other people. My point is that a lot of the things that the hackers and other alpha geeks have been incorporating into their lifestyle for some time - wireless, chat, web services (even if only created by web spidering and screen scraping), peer-to-peer (rendezvous), etc. - are all starting to show up in a nice package with OS X.

    So to me, this is a good predictor that Apple is really on the right track with some big trends.

  5. No "but"... by ryochiji · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...for me, it's ALL about the OS. I guess it depends on what you do, but most people interact more with the OS and software than the hardware.

    Quite frankly, I could care less what the underlying architecture is, as long as it runs an OS and software I like working with.

    Sure, I know I can get faster, more expandable, and cheaper PCs. But I won't get a PC because none of them run MacOS X. It's not that I'm not famliar with anything else (I use Windows at work, tinkered with Linux+GNOME, and use a Solaris box at school), it's just that I prefer using a Mac over any other alternative.

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