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Apple and the Open Source Community
Dozix007 writes "Sitepoint reports an interesting article on the increasing interconnection between Apple's recently released Tiger, and the open source community. Tiger includes improved releases of Apple's directory services (LDAP), secure authentication (Kerberos), mail server (Postfix), web server (Apache) and many more features, nearly all based on existing open source software. Most significant may be the release of Rendezvous for Java, Linux/Unix and Windows. This is a zero-configuration tool for networking that includes network protocols, identification and configuration of devices and services such as printers and local/remote servers, and was based on open source technology."
Apple has gained a great deal by levereging OSS in Mac OS X. They not only got a rock solid (especially in comparison to OS 9) base to build their proprietary GUI on top of, but they also have gotten a lot of traction in the serious computer geek user category (just look at all the Apple press on /.)
Their use of a solid, tested (open) base for OS X has allowed them to spend most of their developer time refining the user experience. They seem to be moving a lot faster with OS developement than Microsoft (or any other vendor), currently.
Apple seems to grok the spirt of the open source community, and has generally been a good citizen about giving back to the community technologies from OS X (from bug fixes to packages used in OS X, to Apple paid developer time on OSS projects, to release of Apple software under a open license (Darwin, Rendezvous, etc.)
This isn't really surprising because it just makes sense -- if an open source program is useful and does everything you want there's no reason not to include it. The real interesting thing about this is that Microsoft is not including these programs. I mean, it's not surprising that they don't given their antagonistic view towards F/OSS (and from the other side as well), but I really think this is one area where Apple's really got a leg up on Microsoft. Apple's willing to include useful open source unix tools, and so they've immediately got a huge pool of pre-written code to draw from.
According to Emerson, the nonconformists in the world are the ones that change the world (i.e. Galileo, Jesus, etc). Nonconformist players like Apple and the Open Source Community have contributed a lot to the computer industry. _ Apple gave us: -The first mass-marketed GUI operating system -The PDA -The iMac (which changed the way computers are made today i.e. NOT BEIGE) -The first personal supercomputer (it was inevitable, but they got it out first) _ Open source gave us: -The GPL -Operating systems for the rest of us -Countless open standards -Tux! _ Apple and Open Source belong together, and will probably continue to be major players in the computer industry as leaders, not followers.
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
"The argument I hear most in support of x86 over PPC is the price - the cheapest PC is a few hundred bucks cheaper than the cheapest Mac."
If you compare prices then compare value as well.
And in this case this not only aplies to the hardware but to the OS as well, because in order to get the same amout of functionality you get with your latest OSX release you'd have to buy quite a bit of extra Software to your WindowsXP Home edition.
And even if you were to just compare the hardware itself, you'd see that the g5 powermac is hardly any more expansive than a comparable PC (to the extend you can compare the two).
Macs aren't really so expansive, it's just that they don't offer the same half-assed systems a lot of other companies *cough* Dell *cough* do. This was btw. written on a Dell Inspiron8200 with broken USB Ports and a rich history of fucking itself up.
My point of view may be skewed because I finally bought a Mac a year ago and have been impressed ever since, but I think Apple has the potential to lead the mainstream charge for open source advocacy than Linux does.
To be honest, most people I know that use computers aren't really aware what Linux is. Then, when a penguin-head tries to tell them about it, they don't really understand it or even care. I've faced that problem multiple times when trying to explain linux to folks.
The thing is that the average user only cares about internet, email, instant messenging, pirated mp3s, and porn. While it's all fine and dandy that linux is more efficient, it still takes a lot more set-up to get it all working. To the average person, one major system crash a week is more tolerable than dealing with a whole new system from scratch.
On top of that, there's the nervous insecurity that comes with knowing they're mostly on their own. Nobody likes tech support, but it's still nice to know that they're there. Apple has handled open source wonderfully. Users feel secure with a Mac in their hands - at least moreso than Linux. On top of that, if they actually know what open source is, they feel like they're elite for using it.
The developers get more open access, the users get a sense of pride and security that comes from open source well handled, and Apple makes money.
I think they have the formula that will drive open source to the home user. Linux will be the better for it, too - while Windows will eventually fall further behind as "too restrictive."
But these are just my predictions being typed on a very efficient and dependable PowerBook. Writer bias, anyone?
Ironically, I thought to my self and to my friends 10 years ago that apple should just use unix as a core and port most of the traditional GUI layer/apis ontop of the unix layer. (yes 10 years ago when amiga was about to die). This was when Taligent was flying about the OS world, and when the new MacOS was in development that was dumped. But given that 90% of the OS was in pascal and some assembly with some programmers gone for good and with left over bad source codes, I could see why it was hard to do, but hey, the OS of 1994 was a lot smaller than today. The thing is, apple could have done this OSX stuff in 1984, all it needed to do was dedicate 5-8 programmers, give em some working unix on a high-end sun, and port the whole System 6 to it. Give em 5 years time frame and they could have been done by 1989. Sure their OS probly wouldnt run on any mac hardware, but by 93/94 it could have and been well ahead or at least ready for the big OSX, well before 1999.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Well, from my experience, Apple's service has been exemplary, The last time I sent my PowerBook in for repair (blown hinges on a TiBook), Apple also replaced everything except the hard drive, memory, bottom case and airport card cause they were a little out of spec. I also got the machine back in two days.
//e) is that its quality is well above the average, both in terms of quality and engineering.
The only time Apple took more than three days to get my machine back to me was when a part was out of stock. They gave me a $200.00 credit on the Apple Store as an apology.
As for the single processor, why would you want a single processor 1.6, when the new low end is a dual 1.8 for a couple of hundred bucks more? There is some evidence that the new 1.8 might not be quite as good as the old one, but it's still better than a single 1.6 and is cheaper than it was before.
My experience with Apple hardware (all the way back to the Apple
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They were good enough for the US Navy subs.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
No. Zeroconf came from Apple, developed by an Apple employee (Stuart Cheshire, whose job title is "Wizard without Portfolio") and was submitted to the IETF for standardization (not that much of the much of that work has succeeded yet. There are a bunch of drafts, but no official RFCs yet.) That is not leeching by any sense of the word. (or leaching either. Slightly different meanings, but I guess both would work.)
As others have said, using, improving, and returning your improvements back to the open source projects is hard to be considered leeching either. And this is what they are doing for gcc, FreeBSD, KHTML, and other projects.