Freshmeat Launches Mac OS X Section

Liedra writes "After announcing Mac OS X software surreptitiously within its main section for the past several months, freshmeat has now launched a section totally devoted to the platform. Read the article by scoop and visit the section directly." Since I switched my primary laptop to OS X, I'm glad to see scoop do this. (Note, Freshmeat & Slashdot are both owned by OSDN.)

Comments

Where's the software?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only find one piece of software listed in the section - HTML Converter 2.0.

OSDN ripening for Apple?

[Angron]

IIRC, someone here on slashdot speculated that OSDN was going to attempt to be bought out by Apple, hence the significant number of Mac-only topic icons here on slashdot, plus the dedicated apple.slashdot.org address.

Though it makes plenty of sense for freshmeat to have a dedicated Apple section, this certainly provides more fuel for the Sell-to-Apple hypothesis...

-A

Platform favouritism

[Ed Avis]

A Mac section but refusing to list Windows software? Why the bias towards one platform?

If Freshmeat isn't going to restrict itself to Unix OSes, they ought to allow submitted software for all platforms. Yes, Mac OS X does have a lot of Unix software you can run on it, but the same is true of Windows with or without Cygwin. Both platforms have their own weird microkernel and various layers on top, of which some provide a Unix-like API.

Allowing Windows software on Freshmeat would be very useful in practice - I don't just advocate it out of some sense of 'fairness'. There must be many Freshmeat users who have to use a Windows PC at work and would like somewhere to look up software. And the increasing number of Windows-based free software projects could do with somewhere to make announcements.

Re:Platform favouritism

[Ed Avis]

Replying to my own post, I think a better example than Mac OS X is PalmOS. There's no way that you could reasonably count PalmOS as a Unixlike operating system (or at least, any such definition would be so broad it would have to include almost any modern OS). Yet Freshmeat happily lists PalmOS-only software. Windows software? Oh no, we can't have that, this is a Unix site. Please, Freshmeat, consider ditching the Unix bias (particularly as a large chunk of Mac OS X applications will not run on any other Unix system) and accepting submissions for software running on all operating systems, even that one from Redmond we're not supposed to like.

Re:Platform favouritism

[otis wildflower]

MY definition of a 'Unix' system is a computer which I can SSH to and install software like this:

./configure && make && make install

And it works.

OS X qualifies. You don't need X-windows to be a Unix system: many of my Linux boxes have X explicitly removed, to save space and prevent sploits. All the tools are available. Jaguar even includes bash now, my earlier os x needed bash built from ports (yes, you could use FreeBSD ports on OS X, though I think that went away in favor of fink).

I've worked with AIX, SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital Unix, IRIX, OpenBSD, Linux, and FreeBSD. IMEAO OSX qualifies as a fully-fledged member of the Unix fraternity. Don't let the fact that it's easy to use and pretty fool you. It's kinda like IRIX without all the security flaws, frankly.

OS X Needs a Cocoa Evolution Project

[good soldier svejk]

That would be what I most want to see on freshmeat, a Cocoa port of Evolution. Increasingly that looks like OS X's only hope for native Exchange compatibility. MS doesn't seem to be budging on Outlook. If we users ported Evolution, Ximian would surely give us Connector. They can make money selling Exchange connectivity to Mac users.

I would start the project myself if I were competent.

Re:OS X Needs a Cocoa Evolution Project

[good soldier svejk]

Why? If you've got an Exchange server that you need to talk to, Microsoft gives Outlook for Mac away for free. And if you don't have an Exchange server, Mail, Address Book, and iCal make for a better set of personal information tools.

Outlook 2001 is gratis, but it is a MacOS app not an OS X app. As it stands it is the only Classic app we put on our standard OS X hard drive image. This is merely an adequate solution and Mac users are clamoring for a native Exchange client. It is quite possible MS will never provide one. They have shown no indication that they will ever port Outlook. On the contrary, they really push Entourage, which has little Exchange integration.

Re:OS X Needs a Cocoa Evolution Project

[Feral Bueller]

Yes it does. Don't assume that there aren't a few of us in Corporate I.T. land trying to use our Macs full-time instead of the crap Dells we're given. There is no Outlook Exchange Client for OS X. It's not looking too good either: the Mac Exchange Client for the Classic Mac OS, although advertised as feature-compatible isn't entirely: there is some core functionality, like the abiltity to search within Calendar items, that is missing in the Mac version.

Having said that, there are a number of other options available:
1. Web access - although you can only view entries you "own"- kills the shared calendar concept.
2. Virtual PC. Pricey. A bit of a hassle to get set up on an NT domain (our admins don't like adding it...).
3. Citrix. Works great (I use the Java client instead of the OS X client) if you've got a Citrix install and an admin who's not a dickhead.

I think a Cocoa Evolution project would be good for OS X and for Evolution: I know it would give OS X considerably more credibility in the workplace.