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QuickTime 4 Streaming Server to be Open Source?
2megs writes "Apple Insider is reporting in their preview of expected MacWorld Expo announcements that QuickTime 4 will be unveiled at the show next week. As expected, streaming capabilities will be pushed hard, but what's perhaps more eyebrow-raising is that the new QT4 streaming server may be open source. "
It's great that Apple might be opening the source to QuickTime server, but I'm disappointed that we won't be seeing a QuickTime client. Server-only only serves to reinforce the popular media notion that Linux is only for the backroom.
Maybe I just missed the client-side announcement in that article, but color me disappointed.
I guess now we'll see an APL (Apple Public License). Great, we can always use more cool and mutually incompatible licenses! What a breakthrough for open source!
Basically, I feel that this is unlikely to come about, or if it does happen it won't be true Open Source. I'd bet there are patents on some of those QuickTime codecs, i.e. that there will be some way Apple can prevent others from turning around and cloning the QuickTime player.
In this scenario, the software's sewn up as tightly as ever. Releasing the software as "Open Source" is then just a marketing ploy. Of course, that's what Open Source(tm) is all about.
Ivan the Terrible makes more and more sense to me. Bah.
From Mac OS Rumors's report, I'd say that the server will include an API, just like the rest of Quicktime, and that Apple may release the source of a basic server as an example.
Apple's heart isn't in it...
I submit MkLinux as the example. Apple never shipped a computer with MkLinux and is in the process of dropping support for it.
...and for exhibit B, I submit the $11 million under the table footsie that went on with MicroSoft some 2 years ago (If I recollect correctly, that was about QuickTime as well). My personal opinion is that this little donation is the single reason that Apple is still alive (remember, they probably wouldn't have been around to do the imac or MacOS 8.x+1 if Bill hadn't coughed up some spare change for the shoe-shine boys at Apple. Smart move on Bill's part too..
Then again, if I were a down and out and had been whomped by MicroSoft over the last 10 years, my heart would be in anything other than making sure my retirement golden parachute was in good working order.
Apple...
The company the never could "get it".
The grokless company.
Infinite Loop indeed... of bad decisions.
The good idea but poor execution company.
The company that thinks software is a viable way to upgrade hardware.
The company featured as DEAD in Wired over a year ago.
The propriatary hardware company.
The list goes on and on... don't get your hopes up.
When someone is in the process of making a valid argument, and then, out of nowhere, they just let loose with a bunch of insults, which they don't bother to back up. C'mon, you were halfway to convincing me, but you couldn't just hold of on the bias for a couple more lines.
I don't trust those tech pubs much anymore. They
publish something at the slightest rumor. Remember
the Novell open source thing?
In fact I am willing to bet money that this rumor
is false! Why would I bet... no way to lose...
If this rumor is false I win money and if it is
true, Apple is embracing Linux!
Eh? Do you really think "$11 Million Dollars" would make or break Apple? They probably spend that much on soda a month!
For the record, the public figure that MS paid Apple was more to the tune of $150 Million (not $11 Million), which also is chump change for players this size. I don't think that the MS contribution saved Apple. I think it was more of a symbolic gesture than anything else.
Look at what this does. It will let people running websites serve up quicktime content with Linux. Instead of Windows NT. See the point? Sure, a player would be nice, but this is better than nothing.
I'm so sick of people whining when everything on the planet isn't open-source. I used to work for Apple, and I know the people who wrote QT-TV (the foundation of the streaming). In addition, Apple has invest literally over a hundered million dollars in research into QuickTime, including untold thousands of hours on their Cray... it's the crown jewels, people are more than willing ot pay for it, so charge them.
The server is a big step forward... if you want an OSS client, write all your own codecs, and don't try and trample on the hundereds of patents that are out there. I've been told flat out that a client on Linux has largely been hampered by lack of platform standardization (i.e. all the different distributions), and the fact that it's irrelevent (overall) as a CLIENT platform. I'ts an interesting server platform, but not a client platform yet.
QuickTime is not cross platform, only if you do have a Mac or use Windows. If you use SGI, Sun, AIX you probably know..
Actually - this is somewhat legit.
The QT file format is the basis of MPEG4.
Look hard enough on the web - you can confirm it yourself.
The quicktime file format is fully documented and public, any one can make a client, but its the codecs that are not public and some are.. but most codecs arent, but then again, only a few codecs are of any real value since most of em suck ass.
Personaly the only real important codecs for me are, JPEG, MPEG, MPEG2, and the format of QuickTimeVR which can use jpeg as its tiles.
All other codecs are hardly as impressive.
Everyone knows $150m doesnt save a $4b/year $100b company, get a clue!!!!!!!!!!
Apple always had 1.5 BILLION IN CASE in reserves as emergency!!! $150m is pocket change, token money, worth probly 3 weeks revenue. All it meant was MS saw value in APPL, the total of it was meaningless, it could have been $50.
Apple has been bashed by journals for years for now reason, just like some other non-ms people.
Geta clue lamer, and stop reading NYT/WSJ
Back in 1996, I saw apples Quicktime2.5 client running on an SGI IRIX machine, ie , it was 100%
unix, and it worked! in X, so why cant apple get
of their petty ego asses and admit other unix's are just as worthy, they are being microsoft, HELL, if MS can release NetShow for linux , why cant apple? All the distributions have NOTHING to do with dificulty, its all fucking Xwindows dude, you see netscape complaining? no they work in all linux distros... so get of your ass and code something that works instead of complaining, its too hard...
Apple may spend millions, but gee, anyone can if they got the dosh, but do they get their full moneys worth? Pay a bunch of students $30k/year, and they could have a linux client out in 6months, is that millions? no
APPLE IS A SLACK ASS!@,
its always politics, and NEVER technology, lawyers suck
THe biggest roadblock to technology breakthrus is politics!
Big whoop...open source'ing the server -- that is if they actually do it, they havent yet.
Will it be free, will they allow forking, will they accept patches from end users and developers?
(answers: maybe ; no way ; no indeed)
And Apple-cultists use bone-tossing like this as evidence that Apple is pro-open source?
Mac users (at least the ones I see here), and the
company that they worship love Linux's popularity.
They want so much to hitch a ride on Linux, but they really dont believe in OSS...
they dont believe that it works, that it produces high quality software.
Oh yes...the old Apple crutch...ease of use.
And let me guess, the only way to attain this
vaunted "usability" is to adopt the Macintosh
religion -- to embrace the Yellow Box in all its
proprietary-ness, and conform to the Mac GUI....
because after all, the Mac GUI is the only TRUE
GUI - The only one worth using. Never has a better
GUI been created - never has been, never will be.
Yeah right. KDE, GNOME and a few other GUI projects are
coming along just fine.
Excessive idiot-proofing ends up hurting users,
confusing them even more by isolating them from
what's really going on. You should want to engage
users in the details -- so that when they DO get
stuck -- and they will -- they'll at least know
what to look for in an answer...they'll have a
chance at solving it themselves.
The opportunity for learning is not something you
want to squeeze out of a product.
As the original poster, I will respond to this. My company supports 9 different UNIX platforms, and by far the most difficult portability problems we have are all the different Linux distributions, not the difference between HP-UX and Solaris. Why? Because of hte incremental piecemeal nature of the upgrades. You have to tell people they have to have the following 50 versions of libraries, and if they have anything different (they always do) it won't work, so they upgrade, which breaks something else... it's too brittle. Witness than many of the commercial packages only support ONE distribution (Redhat or Caldera usually), not everything. Someone then bitches that it doesn't support Debian, or SuSE, or (insert favorite distribution here).
I'm hardly a Microsoft "shill", I don't run a single piece of Microsoft code anywhere in my personal equipment (Mac, Sun, FreeBSD, NeXTstep and a few weird things), but Linux has too many ease-of-use and support problems right now to be a dominant platform for the clientside.
FWIW, my company does all of its internal development on FreeBSD (because it runs great on notebooks for demos), Solaris and NT (because we have to). We start with a FreeBSD implementation and port to the other platforms.
The problem, as I see it, with Linux is that it has too much religious ferver and not enough time spent accepting that it's not perfect, and that to make it more palatable to the commercial developers you have to FIX the problems which might nto be technical, but instead administrative/policy.
and make money, feh.
l
Unless Apple was to make money literaly selling the offer, actually supporting a customer with service solutions, instead of AppleService which is very mind babling at times at considerable high costs for 1 year.
How do you collect licensing fees?
Think Different
http://www.freebsdmall.com/support/offered.phtm
I agree we do not need more Emacs clone. I also see Apple sees no reason to support unix platforms like, take QuickTime for Java: it works on Windows and Mac. (wow, cross platform)
BSD, Irix, Linux, Solaris....isn't a platform?
is it a good idea for Microsoft to port NetShow to unix platforms?
Apple seems to have a real investment in Linux...
http://www.apple.com/publishing/internet/kai/
"Isn't that line about Linux being "interesting" as a Server but "overall irrelevant" as a Client a direct quote from the Microsoft flacks?"
Direct quote or not, the only non-linux organization or company i know of that actually USES linux as a client is Ralph Nader and his wacky group of cohorts. And were talking about what - 20 linux client total here? That's Diddly-Squat.
Biases are fine - just don't confuse them with reality.
What they'd be admitting if this comes to pass is that UNIX clones are where the server market is, and that writing a closed-source server for all of them is unfeasable. They need a UNIX server because UNIX is where the server market share is. Whether one needs UNIX or not to run those services is irrelevant.
Similarly, the reason the QuickTime "Media Layer" isn't on Linux/*BSD (aside from patent issues; if it were important enough, the patent issues would be resolved) is that those machines are a tiny part of the client base. The client/player market is on Macintosh and Windows because the client/player share is on Windows and the Mac. Whether one could run those services on UNIX is irrelevant.
- Mali, whose cookie is gone.
Yes, Apple will be unable to give away code for codecs. Apple doesn't own all of them; they've just licensed some, and some are patented. Take a look at Xanim support for things like Indeo and Cinepak and you'll see that there are intellectual property issues that have to be worked around.
But you don't have to worry about codecs when you're writing a streaming server. The server can be made OS without any problem.
Plus, the only reason that QT 3 works well on Windoze is that it brings along a goodly chunk of the Mac Toolbox with it.
MSFT invested in APPL because MSFT had invested two years developing a decent Macintosh Office 98 product and were not about to let Apple die before they could "let" the Mac users buy. Period. The investment has pure PR value only.
Also need I mention that IE4 is the "standard" MacOS 8.x web browser?
Ignore this flaming Mac Bigot. You can learn a lot from a Mac, for instance, today I learned that I'm glad he knows nothing about them.
Face it. Different Stokes for different folks, and linux isn't the "one true, open holy business." Many of the applications you will use to sell your friends on linux that are afraid to leave the windows platform aren't open source. Is that a news flash? Do you see the source code to applix's software or StarOffice anywhere? I don't.
And what of your other killer apps? Server apps. Well, that's nice to know that I can serve web pages fast, but if that's not my business, then what do I do with linux? Where's the office software, where's the games, where's the user friendlyness?
You talk of proprietary as if it were a completely bad thing. As if in a perfect society it wouldn't exist. News flash: Proprietary incentives are what you get when you get a patent. Why do you think people research cancer killing drugs, AIDS vaccines...for the good of humanity...give me a break? What are you, 13?
The Cathedral method can produce good, quality software. Why doesn't it do that with microsoft? Again, Economics. M$ can make so much money, it can freely live without a single person's business. You can find a bug in excel, and they can ignore it, because as far as they know, it only affects you, and they're on top.
On the otherhand, we've seen some quality software from this method...granted they take their gosh darn time, and do a lot of beta's...be they in house or open to the public.
I apologize for the ranting. I didn't mean to insult any linux user other then the Anon Coward who ranted and ranted against the mac platform. I love linux, and use it oftenly. But right now, its not be all, end all. I felt slighted by this person. No platform will ever be the best...we will always need more then one OS. Now I know what it feels like to be on the recieveing end of a religious rant. I, as a Mac-User, will never do those ever again, after seeing this person's zealotry. They're just computers.
I apologize. I misread the Apple pages on QuickTime. For that I am sorry, and I will try to be more careful in the future
Actually, that $150 million was paid on a court order. Little known fact: M$ lost the QuickTime Patent infringment. Pay more attention to the anti-trust trials, people!
When Microsoft made its investment in Apple in August 1997, that investment represented not more than 10% of Apple's total cash in hand, never mind recievables, etc. Microsoft's "spare change" was just that. It was a payment by Microsoft, as part of a larger package not publicized, to end a long-going intellectual property dispute involving QuickTime and other technologies, that Apple was set to file a complaint (lawsuit) about just before Amelio was ousted. Most observers familliar with this situation are of the opinion that Apple would have, more than likely, been successful in prosecuting this case and would have been awarded significant damages. The downside was that Microsoft was going to cease all Macintosh Office development, effectively killing the Macintosh line of computers. S. Jobs reached an agreement with Gates that MS would renew it's commitment to Macintosh software, invest money by purchasing non-voting shares of Apple stock esp. created for this purpose, and have a cross-licensing agreement with Apple on technology. In turn, Apple would cease its action against Microsoft. Since Microsoft had for the most part stolen the good technology, this technology sharing agreement gave Apple a chance to "license" some Microsoft technology it did not have, if such a case might arise, however unlikely.
Apple presently has over $3.5 billion (with a "b") in cash. Adding in recievables only raises that amount. So much for Dead.
Apple's poor management of the past 14 years is legendary and dispairing. It is also over. Jobs is the best CEO he's ever been, by all accounts.
But, most importantly...
Recently, I had high-level discussions with Apple management. I was assured at every turn that the QuickTime Server software would be Open Source. And I would bet that when OS X comes out, a Linux version of QT Server or Client would not be too hard for some of you to make.
No, I'm not an anonymous coward. I just want to keep my job.
When Microsoft made its investment in Apple in August 1997, that investment represented not more than 10% of Apple's total cash in hand, never mind recievables, etc. Microsoft's "spare change" was just that. It was a payment by Microsoft, as part of a larger package not publicized, to end a long-going intellectual property dispute involving QuickTime and other technologies, that Apple was set to file a complaint (lawsuit) about just before Amelio was ousted. Most observers familliar with this situation are of the opinion that Apple would have, more than likely, been successful in prosecuting this case and would have been awarded significant damages. The downside was that Microsoft was going to cease all Macintosh Office development, effectively killing the Macintosh line of computers. S. Jobs reached an agreement with Gates that MS would renew it's commitment to Macintosh software, invest money by purchasing non-voting shares of Apple stock esp. created for this purpose, and have a cross-licensing agreement with Apple on technology. In turn, Apple would cease its action against Microsoft. Since Microsoft had for the most part stolen the good technology, this technology sharing agreement gave Apple a chance to "license" some Microsoft technology it did not have, if such a case might arise, however unlikely.
Apple presently has over $3.5 billion (with a "b") in cash. Adding in recievables only raises that amount. So much for Dead.
Apple's poor management of the past 14 years is legendary and dispairing. It is also over. Jobs is the best CEO he's ever been, by all accounts.
But, most importantly...
Recently, I was recently a part of some discussions with Apple management. Assurances were made at every turn that the QuickTime Server software would be Open Source. And I would bet that when OS X comes out, a Linux version of QT Server or Client would not be too hard for some of you to make.
No, I'm not an anonymous coward. I just want to keep my job.
To all those who are proposing reverse engineering the sample server to get a QuickTime client for Linux...
I don't think it will be possible. It has been stated (somewhere else) that to stream existing QuickTime files, they would NOT need to be converted. This says that the server is only interested in moving the raw data to the client. No knowledge of the client format should be needed.
I read somewhere else that this streaming stuff is based on MBONE multicasting, so it won't be a proprietary format.
It seems that Apple has found a good tranport method already and doesn't see the need of developing a new one.
Interesting point.
:-)
It's possible that the public server code will only support pre-recorded files. It's also possible that a platform that *does* have QuickTime ported (Mac, Win) will be used for the encoding and, as demonstrated at WWDC, the server simply acts as a reflector for the Multicast or Unicast stream.
I don't know, I'm just excercising my imagination here
If the QT4 streaming server and possibly the QT format were open source, you can forget about Real Networks. Maybe Apple is pulling a Microsoft--except they bundle source code with their product :-)
Anyway, I'm sick of having to wait for the new RealPlayer G2 to be available for Linux.
Posted by oNZeNeMo:
This chance that apple might make the server OSS is great...for Windows and Macintosh users. Perhaps they're admitting to the fact that one needs a real OS (read unix or a clone thereof) to run such services. This is yet another example of Apple's too-little-too-late disease.
Don't worry about specs being open; QuickTime 4 is going to be the next MPEG standard.
And Real's bloated G2 server can rot. Has anyone used one of these? It starts up a half dozen processes each allocating ~270meg of RAM. Of course it isn't all swapped in, but when traffic goes up on these things, it can get ugly.
Since the server is going to require the Quicktime library it won't be much use on Linux. How can it not require the library if it is to read Quicktime files? Apple is never going to release the Quicktime source because Linux runs on the same hardware as MacOS and Quicktime is the only thing keeping MacOS alive.
If someone does write a QuickTime library for Linux, they should also follow the QuickTime API. It would be a great draw to Macintosh developers if they knew they could at least port QuickTime-dependent code with a minimum of effort.
Rumors have been floating about a QuickTime port for Linux; I wouldn't be too surprised if Apple Open-Sourced that (anyone noticed how it seems to have been getting more and more friendly to the OSS community lately?)
However, it might just be the server for now. And it reinforces a view which most Linux users refuse to see; at least right now Linux is only for the backroom; a fact which will not change until it's got the one thing it still lacks: usability. Gnome and KDE are making great strides towards this, but neither is there yet (and if you look at the two, despite their version numbers they're actually about equal; each focuses on different aspects at different times but overall it's a draw at this point). Certain Slashdotters who I won't name here can rant their techno-fascist babble about "the idiots will ruin Linux" all they want, but Linux needs usability. I'd say that, given what is out there and where it appears to be going, that it has about two years left before it reaches it. In other words, we'll have that last key piece of the puzzle about the release date of Windows 2000... um... 2001... wait... I mean 2002.
The predecessor to this, the original QT Streaming stuff, required a unix-based reflector to be of any use at all. They provided a few binaries and also the source code. Pretty much the same thing here. Any client-side issues (such as no QT for Linux) should be resolved by the Java QT client.
QT itself could never be open sourced (or at least not as it is and not easily) because of all the 3rd party codecs and such contained within.
'Nature's got a way, brothers, of scraping the bowl'
I notice here as I have before in previous stories that Linux/Open source fans focus on the player.
;-)).
The Movie Player application is unimportant. It just accesses the Quicktime layer - many applications can play quicktime movies, since all they do is call on the Quicktime extensions. This is one of the reasons that so much video work is done on macs: it's part of the system. In theory you could edit video using MS Word (but I wouldn't advise it; you always get those messy cuts
And having support like this for video on Linux would be crucial in getting it accepted in video editing work, which Linux would in theory be very good for (good video editing software and a stable user interface wouldn't hurt either).
So what gets in the way of having Quicktime support on Linux is Apple porting it. They aren't going to make it Open Source, because the patents on it are crucial to Apple (witness the lawsuits against MS - it may have been with AVI) and they want to have control over it. And they do make money with it. It doesn't need to be Open Source for Linux users to get the benefits from it. That's just a control thing.
And as someone noted above, Apple doesn't own the patents on a lot of the codecs and file formats (and it supports a lot of those) that are part of Quicktime - it's too complicated to try to make it open source software. Just having the libraries available on Linux is enough, and they will do it if there is a need for it, and when that happens some high end commercial video editing software might be ported in a couple of years time, which would be great.
Even if the streaming server software is open source the quicktime libraries (if they are needed) won't be, but it would be great for Linux if they were ported anyhow. Bringing standards like this to Linux is good for Linux.
And again...
Quicktime is more than a movie player.
--- Just make it crash, I want to see.
and yet...
they are still here.
In a year's time this kind of comment will still show up. While a year and a half ago I would have said yeah, you're right, and not bought my mac, I did anyway. And I'm still happy with it. And Apple is still here, doing nicely, and unlike some other companies it's not trying to stiff Linux.
As for that proprietary hardware, I guess Apple and Motorola should move to an open standard like, say, Slot 1 maybe... ?
And damn those PCI slots, SCSI, USB, Firewire, ATA, zip drives, etc.
I think grok is about the only standard they don't support. You were right about that. But I never use it except to hook up beezkels.
as I say, yawn
--- Just make it crash, I want to see.
Weren't there rumors swirling around on /. (and elsewhere) not too long ago that the $150 mil stock thing was a secret resolution to Apple's lawsuit against Micro$oft asserting that M$ had stolen Quicktime code and deliberately fucked w/ Windows 95 so Quicktime wouldn't work?
There was nothing "under the table" about it. Settlement of outstanding lawsuits was mentioned in the news at the time.
I miss Meept.
Could not one be deduced from the other? I have always thought RealNetworks stunk (stank? smelled!) because the protocol is proprietary and secret. If so, then releasing the source for a server would make it easy enough to write a client, right? I expect there could be some fun trying to guess the inverse algorithm, but it shouyld be possible, methinks with too little true knowledge.
--
Infuriate left and right
A Few Of Apple's Good Decisions (possibly in conjuction with other groups):
a)QuickTime
b)TrueType
c)ATSUI technology (another font tech. sometimes called stroke font technology)
d)FireWire (IEEE 1394)
e)Embracing USB and PCI fully before the x86 crowd
f)iMAC (as much as you hate it, its selling well)
As for your example, apple is in fact going to be shipping a PPC with some form of open *nix installed soon, MkLinux being the prime canidate.
As for exibit B, it was $150 Million + stock + patent swap + unspecified other monatary (presumed to be for the lawsuits Apple dropped against MS) Just consider how silly it is to even think that $150 million can save a four billion dollar company. Really, please get a handle on how large these corporations are. And no, it wasn't about QuickTime, it was about MS Office, hence Office 98 for the MacOS. Apple thumbed its nose at MS over threats to QuickTime.
Sure Apple may be the underdog, but remember every team but one is the underdog in all sporting events. I would really like to see your experience on golden parachutes. Could you be the hachet CEO of Bun corporation that recently got fired for cutting over half the jobs and still not turning the company around? He sure knows about golden parachutes. Or did you read the ghost written "autobiography" of Gil Amelio? There's a guy that sky dives with yellow silk for a living.
Apple...
The company that got the PC before there were PCs
The company few can grok
Infinite Loop indeed... when your in the groov, busta move
The good idea company that gets everything ripped-off
The company that made up over 50% of the computers at Wired, over a year ago (cuz Wired is no more)
The no IRQ/DipSwitch/Plug&Pray hardware company. just like Sony Playstation!
*RANT ON* I would love to take to take my BIG ASS BOOT and do some concusive maintenance on anyones crainium that calls Apple a propriatary hardware company. BAM! That's for the Dell BIOSes. BAM! That's for the Compaq's chipset. BAM! That's for SGI. BAM! that's for any and all Intel chipsets ever made. Every one of them propriatary BAM! BAM! BAM! *RAND OFF* - this view doesn't necc. reflect my opinion tomorrow, but I'm real sure it will.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
As much as I'd like to see a QT$ client for Linux, I'd really like to see a streaming media server that doesn't pork you for each feature. the Real Basic Server G2 gives you crap. And if you want Flash get ready to shell out $295 extra. Now if I can get my hands on an free, Just as good or Better than Real or "Net Blow" server, I'm all over it. From what I know of QT4's Streaming capabilites, it's not going be teh bandwidth hog that Real is. But then again, well see this week.
Linux is also unix-like but not unix-based. So is the BSD kernel, which NeXTStep/Rhapsody are built on top of.
I listened to a guy who worked on Rhapsody speak at USENIX this year, and he promised that all of the standard UNIX tools (the Bourne shell, ls, tar, grep, etc.) would be on the Rhapsody CD.
So it sounds unix-like enough for me...
My Web Page
Weren't there rumors swirling around on /. (and elsewhere) not too long ago that the $150 mil stock thing was a secret resolution to Apple's lawsuit against Micro$oft asserting that M$ had stolen Quicktime code and deliberately fucked w/ Windows 95 so Quicktime wouldn't work?
Someone clear this up for me cuz I've always wondered what happened with that story...
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
... Excessive idiot-proofing ends up hurting users, confusing them even more by isolating them from what's really going on. You should want to engage users in the details ...
/.? Or another example, how many people listen to CDs? How many people have component stereo systems? The fact is the majority don't care about, nor are they interested in the details. Their interest is not in the computer, but in what they can do with the computer (i.e. games, word processing, browsing the internet, etc.). Again think of the phone system. Most people don't care about the network or the switch, they just want to talk.
NOT!
You do not want to engage users in the details! You want to make the system transparent. The fact that the system crashes is a flaw in the system, not an "opportunaty for learning". Think of the phone system or television.
Think about it, how many people use computers? How many read
One last example, how many people own cars? How many people change their own oil? Some people enjoy working on cars and some people enjoy working on computers. Most people don't, and never will. They are interested not in the tool, but in using it.
Steve M
Um I think that's more like $150 million + (as a people have already pointed out, along with elucidations of the correct causes of the stock-purchase & etc) but anyway
"My personal opinion is that this little donation is the single reason that Apple is still alive (remember, they probably wouldn't have been around to do the imac or MacOS 8.x+1 if Bill hadn't coughed up some spare change for the shoe-shine boys at Apple. Smart move on Bill's part too.."
may be based a upon a common misconception. Apple was already turning the corner financially and showing a profit when Microsoft made the "investment" you refer to. And anyhow Microsoft and Uncle Billy aren't in the habit of throwing their money into companies that look like they are about to choke, though they have pulled out of companies (i.e. Real) that are doing well in order to give their own products (of the same nature as said company's) an extra advantage . . . among other business tactics.
Of course there's no crime in eliminating conflicts of interest . . . I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft didn't sell off its non-voting shares in Apple using this line of reason sometime in the next year. It hardly matters--Apple doesn't, nor did it ever, need Microsoft's money, and it probably could do just fine without any of Microsoft's products, despite Steve Job's fears about losing Office (and remember that Microsoft is contractually obliged to keep Office available for the Mac platform for another two or three years, so there's a security blanket still).
Whether Apple truly embraces open source or no, the fact that they are not dependant upon Microsoft products for their well-being is clearly evident in a software economy that is obviously shifting towards open source models in an irreversable way, nurturing an environment wherein businesses and execs are less apt to fall for Microsoft FUD about application compatability and maintaining business software "standards" ruled and governed by Microsoft. Open source will play in Apple's favor, at least in the shorter term.
Anyway I hope Apple does more to embrace open source. It would be a step in the right direction for the company, what with past debacles.
I should have said "I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft DID sell off its non-voting shares in Apple sometime in the next year using this same line of reasoning" or something to that effect, which is what I meant. Damned double negatives. (Of course, Microsoft is likely to make money off of that investment, so maybe not . . . .)
MacOS X is NOT NextStep. MacOS X is built on top of BSD Unix. It will be fully POSIX compliant. Porting from BSD will be easy. Sheesh...Some people go to any lengths...
I submit that they are dropping MkLinux because it will be competing with Mac OS X (Rhapsody) which is unix-based. Mac OS X sounds pretty cool, but I'll take the GPLed Linux OS over the proprietary OS any day.
Lack of platform standardization? Supply the source and we'll compile it!! It's irrelevant as a client platform? I do all of my computing in Linux now...I only boot into Win95 when my roomates need to use their programs, and that's once in a blue moon. I've never seen a Win95 client with 55 days of uptime, either.
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