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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 ...
Not only Linux wins, but all platforms capable of running KDE win. Huzzah.
What happens when apple change their mind?
That's the great thing about open source: It doesn't matter.
Once something's been released to the community under an Open Source license, there's nothing Apple (or anyone else, for that matter) can do to prevent it being distributed or used by anybody.
Penguins like apples. They grow quite well in Antarctica.
It's funny, I've used Macs since I was a young'n in 1984, and I've used Linux since kernel 0.99. I've never used anything else, except for a couple years in college using Windows and Sun on and off.
;-).
Linux has power and flexibility, and the Mac always "just worked". Sometimes I was annoyed that Macs were so closed, and sometimes I was annoyed at the lack of polish on Linux. Between the two I could do anything.
It's amazing, almost *surreal*, that Unix and Mac merged together in Mac OS X. It's truly the best of both worlds.
Of course, I'm still wary of "depending" on Mac software, because of the proprietary lock-in and other evil stuff that companies do. But Apple's continual underdog status has been keeping them in check.
I look forward to more cool stuff from Apple...just getting ready to invest in a 12" powerbook (Mac #8 in my life) and a new Linux-based mini-itx PC to build a home gateway (Linux box #4).
Life is good (well, computer-wise
Well, but who cares? In the mean time, Apple cleans up KHTML, gives some credibility to Unix-on-the-desktop, and makes a bunch of pretty notebooks.
:)
What's the worst that could happen?
Imagine Jobs has a change of heart tomorrow and decides that open source sucks. So what then? They stop using KHTML. KDE will continue on without them, I guarantee it -- and they'll always have the work that Apple contributed. The xBSD crowd will probably be a little disappointed if Apple stops developing BSD stuff, but it's not going to shut them down or hurt them in any way. Maybe they won't get the benefit of some of Apple's work, if Apple chooses to keep it to themselves, but there's no real subtraction there. BSD software abounds in closed-source applications, yet BSD is still doing just fine (despite what the trolls will have you believe
See, that's the beauty of open source. Companies can -help- by improving the software, but they can't -hurt- by wrecking it for everyone. About the dirtiest trick they could pull would be to try a Microsoftian embrace-and-extend. We've dealt with those before, and they're not that big of a deal in the long run.
I dunno, I say we encourage Apple to do as much as they can with open source software. They're already discovering just how they CAN make money on OSS, and it's not even in the quasi-traditional "support" line of business that people seem fixated on. They take the best of what's out there, improve it, use it in their products, and contribute back to the community at large. It's win-win, as far as I can see.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
As I posted in another Mac article,
:
Here's what I'd like to see
User Mode Linux under OSX That would be interesting. Running a complete Linux distribution as a user process under OSX.
Based on the comments from the linked exchange above, Jeff Dike (UML developer) thinks it can be done.
I brought home my Ti OS X PowerBook from work one day. My Solaris/Linux loving spouse immediately downloaded OroborX (sp?), turned on the wireless networking, fired up iTunes and accessed remote Xterm apps for his job. I have asked him to stop greeting me at the door with "Hi Honey! Did you bring your PowerBook?", as it makes me feel he loves me only for my laptop.
Negotiations are currently underway for his own PowerBook, so that I might eventually recover mine.
bluesangria
The article makes a lot of good points, especially the fact that a lot of Linux users are picking up Apple portables. As a longtime Mac user I noticed this trend early last year on all the Mac boards I frequent. More and more Linux users were popping up talking not about how they "switched" but how they picked up an iBook to compliment their Linux desktop. The most common reasons for doing so seemed to be a combination of the stylish design of Apple's portable line, the slick GUI mixed with the familiar CLI and of course the long battery life.
:)
On the contrary, the adoption of OS X on the desktop by Linux users seems quite a bit lower in my experience. Perhaps this is a testament to the fact that Apple is losing the edge in price/performance in the desktop market (even among its own users) and that it's just so much geekier to build your own box.
Either way I agree that both systems compliment one another quite nicely. Then again, as a web developer I produce my sites on OS X, test them on XP and host them on Linux boxes so in my opinion all the OSes have something good to offer.
DigiSquid Design.
I could build an x86 box with the same power for 1/4 of the price.
Dual processors? DDR RAM? ATI Radeon 9000 (or GeForce 4 Ti) graphics? Audio I/O? Gigabit Ethernet? FireWire 800 and FireWire 400? DVD-RW burner? Built-in 802.11g and Bluetooth?
Maybe you could build a machine like that for $500. But it wouldn't be easy, no sir.
I write in my journal
Friend, WebCore includes KHTML and KJS with tons of fixes and optimizations-- all of which have been submitted back to the project, as per the LGPL-- Kwq, the QT adapter library, and the Objective-C SPI. Apple improved the hell out of KHTML and KJS, sent their changes back to the project maintainers, and then released the whole shebang in an OS X-style package. What more do you want, exactly?
I write in my journal
Macs are expensive, given, but I have to say that it is my prefered platform, and somthing that I am going to be spending so much time using, I won't use somthing that I don't prefer. It really is as simple as that
...And then see them driving a $30,000 car they spend less than an hour in each day.
I find it rather interesting to see techs whose main criticism of a mac is its price, quoting the difference between a top G4 and a top PC they've built themselves, with price differences in the low few thousands...
It's priorities. Occasionally I spend upwards of 10-14 hours a day in front of my mac. It gets -used-, it affects me, and I want to be comfortable with it.
As mentioned in other posts, if the file format had been open and documented there would not really be an issue. However, since legacy formats are starting to punish businesses with real costs, the issue can no longer be ignored, even by those that don't/can't plan ahead.
DMCA and EUCD are two additional reasons for migrating from legacy formats. These two could legally prevent businesses (and agencies) from accessing their own documents if encoded in undocumented, proprietary formats and the tools to manage these formats are no longer licensed.
Chip, yes, but it MS-Office revenue will collapse like a sand castle when it goes -- but that's a separate thread. Since Microsoft has alrady taken a publicly stated position against the open file formats, the collapse will only reduce the overhead costs of businesses, agencies and citizens.Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
1. Harrassing Aqua-ish theme makers. As Apple should know, you can't patent "look and feel" -- as their failed case against MS demonstrated.
The "harassment" was due to people copying and pasting widgets directly out of Mac OS X and passing them off as their own. And no, that's not what the failed "look and feel" case demonstrates - that case was lost due to the slack language Apple used in the contract they signed with MS. They gave MS more rights than they thought they had, and when they went to court this came out - hence they lost.
You most certainly can sue over "look and feel", due to a concept known as "trade dress". If I set up a MacDonalds fast food chain with a couple of golden-Ms, you can be I'd have a suit slapped on me within minutes.
Refusing to release a Sorenson codec enabled player or library for Linux, effectively locking Linux users out of an increasing majority of all Internet video content and thus making Linux unviable to end users
Mod -1, Boo Fucking Hoo. Apple signed a contract with Sorenson. Sorenson signed a contract with Apple. Those two companies entered into a deal whereby you're not going to get Sorenson's code for free on your platform. Get over it.
Instead of whining about it, why don't you get off your ass and write a better codec? What's that, it's hard? Well that's why people can and do build businesses around it...
3. Undercutting development of established Open Source projects, like Mozilla and XFree86, by pushing less open alternatives and thus both cutting their mindshare and draining developer talent.
Apple doesn't owe Mozilla anything - you've as much right to demand they use Mozilla as I've got to demand the Mozilla developers come over and paint my house. If an Open Source project can't stand on its own merits, why should it succeed?
And before someone replies 'but now it supports X11', the point is that they aren't the 'default' systems under MacOS -- which means "native" GUI MacOS X applications are useless to Linux
Yeah, and your average Gnome/KDE app won't run out of the box on a Mac either - your point is what? What Apple choses to make their default is their business - face it, X11 caters for a minority, and it's just not that useful to Apple's target market.
It's definitely a prudent move for Apple to ensure it runs reasonably well, since they want to see if they can expand their target market into the Unix workstation market (or what's left of it), but it's by no means their main focus.
In short: Apple is not Linux's friend, and these articles that claim otherwise are stupid and tiresome.
Apple is absolutely Linux's "friend" (in so far as a large company can be friends with a bunch of source files). For god's sake, it's Unix. On The Desktop.
Nae bother