Slashdot Mirror
CmdrTaco Speaking at MacHack in June
Apparently I'm Speaking at MacHack
somewhere during the show- June 20-22. No clue what I'm speaking about yet.
Never even been invited to speak at an Apple focused show, so it's certain
to be interesting. It's in Dearborn, MI (near Detroit) if you feel the
need to show up and flame me in person. I'm sure there will be time for Q&A
about Slashdot stuff.
Linux and Mac OS X have in common that they both caused a major shift in the widespread perception of UNIX.
Linux changed the way developers saw UNIX. Instead of being exclusively a thing of the massive, expensive, big-iron world, UNIX became accessible -- an essential rite of passage for programmers, a domain for tinkerers, and a tool of professionals and hobbyists at all scales. And, perhaps for the first time, "UNIX" came vaguely onto the radar of the general public.
OS X changed the way the general public saw UNIX. Instead of being exclusively a mysterious thing of the geek elite, it was suddenly the foundation of a major consumer OS. Check the records, and you can see the wave of consumer tech columnists praticing saying "UNIX" without flinching. And it changed public perception about Linux, too -- suddenly, UNIX (and thus Linux) on the desktop is not just a pipe dream in the public eye. While Microsoft is trying to discredit UNIX in general and Linux in particular, both have more credibility than ever before.
Who would have imagined the current state of UNIX 20 years ago?
As both a Linux proponent, a developer walking all these lines of professional/hobbyist small, shop/big iron, etc. -- and as somebody at the center of the biggest geek watering hole -- it seems like you (CmdrTaco that is) might have some special insight into the changing public perception of UNIX, and how Apple fits in to it all.