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Apple and Linux Beneficial to Each Other?
viewstyle writes "There is an interesting commentary on eWEEK discussing the 'synergies' between Apple and Linux after visiting LinuxWorld. It makes a good point that advancement of Linux is good for Mac OS X and vice versa, because of the ease of porting across the platforms (soon to get easier with the X11 on Mac OS X)." Next thing you know, most of the Slashdot editors and programmers will be using Macs ...
I'm sure Apple gets a lot of aid from the community (not just Linux), but what do we see in return? Sure we got darwin (But it's horribly outdated) and where is the updates for freebsd?!
... as microsoft wont share it with us.
Also we give them X11 support but would they ever give us Aqua support? I dont think so. Apple is in it for money, as long as they get money they'd be happy, they wont share it with us
Tell me in what ways Apple has been beneficial to the opensource movement (not just Linux).
Apple has proprietary hardware AND software. They've been taking from OSS community. Apple even used the OSS name/reputation to sell OS X!
Key parts of OS X are still proprietary. Until they are free (or at least open), I still consider Apple an enemy. However, since we have a common stronger enemy, Microsoft, I'm willing to work together for now.
Luke-Jr
Yeah, it's been a long time since the horrid M$ office interface has bothered me. Auto-indent, auto -listing, auto-spelling, and all those other nasty auto-make your work take forever and look horrible stuff are fading from memory. That's because it has been about 8 months since I learned how to wade through the forrest of tabs required to turn those "features" off, and four months since I've been forced to use Office. I don't even want to think about what a terrible bug ridden easy to crash, no transaction "database" access was. Excell was OK, but the data format, like all M$ junk, kept changing and it's very dificult to get your work back out. It's good to be free of that.
Please, please, please keep that junk away from me and do not design interfaces like that. Ah the beauty of not seeing red and green squigly underlines beneath the repeated please above. When I need to spell check, I will. When I need a typesetter, I'll get one. When I want to hurt someone, I'll give them Word. There are so many superior free alternative, you have to wonder why people use Office.
What do the Apple people use these days, I wonder. I remember filemaker Pro was a very nice database. I can only imagine they had reasonable word processors and what not. M$ did not poison them too much when they bought so much of them in the deapest darkest days of Pepsi style Apple ruid, did they?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Apple hardware. Very sexy, reliable, very intruiging, none of the crap of x86. Linux and Apple hardware seem a nice blend.
In fact, I will buy a Powerbook right now. Fortunately Apple has seen the light, and I can buy one to run Linux without paying the MacOS X tax.
What? The new Powerbooks have soft modems? No problem! Apple "gets it"! I'll just ask for the specs and write my own driver!
Oh wait, I can't do either of these things. And more! Apple doesn't "get it" at all! I've been deceived by the people telling me that they Thunk Differently.
Long live closed source and empty promises!
Fuck you retard. Everything I've said here is absolutely correct.
When KDE merges the changes from Apple is not the point. It was never the point.
Why didn't Apple just release the code? That's what is done with open source, yes? Just release the code.
And of course, the larger point is that Apple makes prolific use of open source while taking liberties with the licenses they are released under, while open source efforts that make even tangential reference to Apple's work merits legal action.
I think that sucks.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
"Next thing you know, most of the Slashdot editors and programmers will be using Macs" ..and the readers would rater spend $200 on a box from Wal-Mart running Ark, Debian, or Red Hat then a WAY OVERPRICED, incompatable with most applications, and propretary format.
/. even carries a Mac section.
I still cannot believe
Twirling on many Fists,
You're not addressing anything I've said here.
Guess you couldn't respond to my last reply to you.
Oh, that's right, because you were completely full of shit.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
You're right, you can't build a Mac using non-Apple guts, at least when it comes to the motherboard
:) And if you wish to continue this debate... I welcome your comments and look forward to reading them.
By non-Apple guts, I hope you are referring to guts that are not manufactured by Apple but still mac compliant (which are nonexistant) versus pc-guts. Because my point has absolutely nothing to do with being able to use PC guts to build a Mac. In no way was I, nor am I suggesting that Apple should be building their machines with PC (intel/x86) hardware. My whole point from the beginning is that Mac hardware is a closed standard. There are not hundreds of companies making Apple compatible or Apple compliant hardware. This is because Apple refuses to open their standards. This results in three key things:
1) Higher prices
2) Lesser quality
3) Proprietary Support (not just anyone can work on or fix deficient hardware... usually takes a service center to fix things).
You see, heterogenius competition can only drive these points so far. Only homogenius competition would truly improve these.
I like external devices for their portability and interchangeability
I was attempting to mitigate this as a factor to my initial claim. And it holds. It is nice and dandy if you prefer external devices, but external devices only go so far. I haven't seen anyone build a computer completely out of external devices (which is kind of what you were saying). However, using your argument FOR external devices... by the time you remove those such devices from both a PC and a Mac and compare what's left, the comparison is even more lopsided. For instance... lets say you buy a Mac for $800 US, and all it has is a hard drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor, video, and standard connector ports. Let's say I build a PC that is exactly equal in features. Mine cost me $50 for a HD, $50 for a mobo, $100 for a processor, $30 for a case, $5 for a keyboard, $2 for a mouse, $50 for memory, $38 for a video card $75 for a monitor... Grand total: $400 US. Now if one of the parts of my machine fails, I can fix it in a matter of minutes, if something fails on your mac, you could be talking, hours, days, or even weeks of downtime. And mine cost me 50% of what yours cost you. And, my $400 estimate is being generous because I personally wouldn't need to purchase a monitor as I can re-use an old monitor (whereas all of the latest mac's I've seen have the monitor built-in in one way or another).
OK OK, maybe my attack on Mac's isn't fair. Let me broaden my statement you are a fool for wasting your money on this crap. While I still believe this holds especially true for owners of Mac computers, let me rephrase it this way... you are a fool for wasting your money on ANY NAME BRAND computer. However, I must place an exception on this. Some people are fortunate enough, or aren't patient enough to know how to build their own machines. For these particular people, I exempt them from my claim... however these same people are NOT exempt from this claim as it pertains to Macintosh computers.
IF Apple had the greatest market share of personal computers, they would be the Microsoft of computer hardware. And if this were the case, you could forget about Microsoft windows, you could forget about Linux, and I'd bet you could forget about Darwin (osX), as we'd all be using Mac OS 9 (or some derivitive) right now.
Thanks for the debate... I've enjoyed it