Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Independent Developers
Corleone writes "We've seen a realization recently that Microsoft isn't standing still with Longhorn, and countering Longhorn has been pushed to the forefront. That is why I found the concept of Apple being the larger danger in Rhapsody in Yellow so ironic. The author skirts the scary question: would Apple porting their frameworks to Linux give them undue influence over the direction of the free operating system movement? This is after recent reports saying missing programs are the biggest thing holding Linux back on the desktop. Macromedia has interest in their tools on Linux, surely many others are too. This would seem to allow thousands of companies a simple path to the Linux market but with Apple as the gateway. If not Apple, what of Microsoft porting their engine?"
as a java/perl/php/web developer, and linux screwer arounder in C, using linux since '97 (honestly) and a recovering VB luser, i noticed that apple deveopment sits in between the two big models. one, the pure commercial, big shop model with apps like dreamweaver, photoshop, and the movie stuff, and the open source and *nix model. look around at some mac apps from small developers. they all wnat $5 or $10 and they're not very good. since they won't be boxed item software, they could but don't take advantage fo the open source model. while macs have probably more pure desktop share than linux (it's close at least), there ar 100X more linux developers, and the real movement in OS X dev is on the BSD front, the fink and darwin projects. i came to the conclusion that small mac developers don't "get it". i have played with cocoa/obj-c a it is an unbelievable combo. it is truly phenomenal. anyways, the problem isn't apple's developer programs, it's mac developers. at least with linux, if i have a really shitty app, 1) it's open source and 2) there are 20 other like apps that are open source.
although windows doesn't have huge open source legions, it has 90%+ of the desktop market, so 90% + of the developers will target it, and, the tools ar not that expensive, really. plus, there has been nothing like VB to amke us all think we're uber hackers!!! the only thing that would have sustained a huge mac deevlopment process is open source, and it never happened.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
The vast majority of people who use Linux do so only because it is free, not because of any technical/useability advantage.
Millions of pirated Windows copies prove you wrong. If people can pirate a free Windows or they can install a free Linux.. and they choose Linux, then obviously price isn't the distinguishing factor.
Most of the application developers I know who used to develop for Linux have agreed with me that OS X is light years ahead of Linux in every aspect: performance, design, security, everything. Apple putting their framework on Linux would be akin to putting a Ferrari body around a Lada engine.
I don't really understand what you mean at all. Most of the stuff you're praising is just framework-level stuff anyway, not OS level.
In case this is disguised bitching about X and the toolkits (GTK, Qt etc.).. if they wanted, Apple could ditch X and use their own display code, no problems.
Well, AC so probably trolling, but feel free to reread my comment. Nowhere did I mention that the Windows version wasn't free. Furthermore, the post I was replying to never mentioned that he was doing GPL development. Please understand that there are other licenses than the GPL and not all software is open source.
I'm well aware there are free solutions, but wxWidgets, FLTK, etc. don't come close to the quality and completeness of Qt.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
You forgot such usability innovations such as one button mice, non-standard keyboard, and pretty bright colors. The teletubbies called. they want their torsos back.