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Linux Kernel underneath OS X?
Kelly McNeill writes
"Here's a cool column that asks Why not use the Linux
kernel as the basis of OS X? I think Apple would ship way
more boxes running Linux than OS X server. " I've heard a lot
of rumor rumblings on this topic. I don't think its all that
far fetched.
Why? That's dumb.
when are you going to understand that there is more to
life than open source?
will you stop at nothing less than total domination when
all of the evil, closed-source, proprietary, software-
hoarding companies are out of business? god forbid they
try to make money in this world, rather than submit to
the collective.
Come on guys, Apple has proven time and again that they want to do everything their way to sell their own brand of their own OS on their own hardware. Shipping something that could even remotely ever run on something that isn't 100% Apple threatens their agenda. Examples: Killing all the Mac clone makers, killing CHRP, killing the x86 release of MaxOS X.
Well, if you are going to say its dumb, then perhaps you could at least list why it is so dumb, in your OPINION. Constructive criticism and all that.
:)
I think Apple uses the Mach kernel because of several reasons, one being that Avie Tevanian, their VP of Software ( I believe...but he is a VP of something) originally worked on the Mach kernel or maybe even made the thing itself.
In any case, Apple wants to be able to control the kernel themselves from a quality control perspective -- they need to be accountable to companies and businesses and individuals. Anyway, we'll have to see, won't we?
Linux kernal no. Apple's got something good on its own. We have Yellow box and Blue box coexisting peacefully, why not add MKLinux to the mix. It may not be the perfect solution to the linux crowd, but it wouldn't hurt. Got Mach, why not use it.
...is when will Apple kill OSX? They seem to be on track to kill it some time soon. Just like they killed their other OS projects. They have already killed it on Intel hardware, they "bumped-back" the release date. I tell you, it is smelling more and more like they are going to kill it. What is up with not seeding developers before the final version ships? These things make me think it will go the way of so many Apple technologies.
I guess there is afterstep.
Yeah that's a great idea. The company that brought sophisticated user interface design to the masses should switch to some hideous third-rate knock-off junk preferred by geeks with no visual design sense and an outright hostility towards ease of use. Where do I sign up?
MacOS X will not be an open source OS as a whole- parts of it will always be closed.
Given that, what would Apple, or anybody for that matter, gain with an open source kernel? Other than long delays as they redesigned the system to support an entirely different kernel, of course.
If you're only going to have a portion of the OS open sourced, it seems like the kernel is the least useful component...
So much of the rest of the system, custom stuff that will not be open sourced, will be extremely dependant on the kernel, so of oucrse kernel hacking will end up being very limited.
About the only benefit you could argue is that, if apple made some stupid mistakes then other people could fix them in the kernel. Other than that, really, I don't forsee countless people trying to optimize bits of the kernel for the last bit of extra performance, when many people have already been doing that with Mach, both inside and outside apple.
Having played with OSX Server, it looks a hell of a lot like UNIX underneeth, and the BSD4.4 interface layer is perfect (things from FreeBSD port with no effort at all, unless they depend on FreeBSD-specific things). The great thing about the Mach microkernel is it allows the OS to have multiple personalities at the same time...
MacOS X will have:
* MacOS
* MacOS Carbon (with full preemptive multitasking and threading)
* OpenStep (Yellow Box)
* POSIX/BSD4.4 (with full CLI)
There's no reason you couldn't take the MkLinux kernel and attach it to the existing one and run your MkLinux apps without recompile, someone just has to think it's worth the effort to do. One of the neat things is you can load/unload these pieces without rebooting the OS... if you don't need it, you don't load it.
One note on the CLI---Apple is not planning to ship MacOS X (the client version) with a CLI program, but that doesn't prevent anyone from compiling Bash in a jiffy against the POSIX side and posting it on the web. I've seen that done already with ultra-early OSX betas.
when every linux app supports some form of drag and drop I'll recant
Hell, I'd be thrilled if they all used the same scrollbar. This is what kills me about Enlightenment and all these other efforts. They put in a huge amount of effort to decorate the window frames and inside it's the same old 80s era xterm. Why bother?
ok, what would be the point of this?
first off there's the whole liscensing thing. i dont think apple could use linux for their main product even if they wanted to.
Second off there's no reason to. The only reason would be to impress the anti-MS media tide (ooh look apple is using linux for their kernel they are so 31337!)
Thirdly, and most importantly:: they have been gearing up to use Mach for a very long time. For instance: have you people ever heard of something called "MkLinux"? Mklinux is [free] linux running off the Mach microkernel. and because Mach supports kernel hosting, that means that you will be able to fire up mklinux and run linux right alongside the mac os x.
so what are you complaining about?
I love these vague predictions.
Give me some concrete explanations. If you are
saying a company can pay programmers to write
software so that the company can then give it
away, I'd love to hear how they're making money.
(And don't tell me "value added services" -- that
doesn't pull in near the amount of money that
selling the software does.)
-thomas
it's not going to dominate the industry-it will complement the proprietary model which still has sizable advantages over open source. Take games for example-I have yet to see a single open source game that is better than the worst commercial games. On the other hand, I think the best commercial games will use the open source cross platform Crystal Space engine.
You meant to say, "in theory," right? I mean,
unless you're working on the project, I find it
entirely laughable for you to say "all that needs
to be done is..."
-thomas
Let's see some points:
Apple does not appear to realize that it does not have the resources nor theÊ time to develop and launch a proprietary server OS to compete against NT or Solaris.
Sure they do! That's why they bought NeXT, with such a system ready, in the first place.
In addition, OS X server is a 1.0 version and it does not support SMP. Therefore at this point, it is clearly behind most Unixes, Linux, and NT.
Ok, he's right about SMP, but most people seem to forget that Mac OS X Server is, essentially, OPENSTEP 5.0 with some bells and whistles. A tried and true system, with a decade of development. It's not a "1.0" release in the traditional sense.
If you want an OS to succeed you have to port it to the most common platform which at this point is Intel.
I agree with him here. I've been waiting for Rhapsody/Intel, and I was badly burned.
Actually, most people think Apple is so hell-bent against Free software: Look at how much of it is in Mac OS X Server! There's Apache, tcsh, sendmail, and the whole BSD layer (which is, I'm told, a mixture of NetBSD and OpenBSD).
They even put the sources on the CD, folks!
They are using the power of Free software... And for them, due to licensing, it's better to use BSD.
I'm not entering the discussion of which is better technologically. I'm just saying it's easier for Apple to use the BSD source.
Pedro Ivo Tavares
I don't need an account...
hmm Dell is open and they're doing very well. Compaq is open and they're doing very well. Gateway is open and yes they're doing very well. Face it-the clones were simply better.
Apple used MkLinux to determine the feasability of the Linux kernel. Once they determined that the Linux kernel was feasable they turned MkLinux over to the users. Then they rewrote and optimized the Linux kernel to produce their own kernel w/ the necessary components that they needed.
There are plenty of companies making money from open source products. RedHat, IBM, Sendmail Inc (or whatever he calls it) come to mind immediately.
it's already based on an free kernel. it's based on the BSD kernel, which has a much less restrictive license than the GNU license.
There are also technical reasons. The wonderful (distributed) object oriented environment OS X got from the NeXT technology is tied to Mach messaging. How would that work in Linux? I wish more Linux folk would learn how extremely cool NeXTStep was, and support the GNUStep effort.
You complain aobut people not getting the facts straight well at least get your own facts straight before making blanket comments of which you have absolutely no clue as to what your talking about.
And the only company that could possibly get hurt by everyone moving to Linux is M$ and EVERYONE else (who is anyone worth mentioning) HATES M$.
Yes, there is merit to Apple releasing Mac X Server as Open Source or Freeware. They sell hardware.
At least take aim with some facts...
Apple has Hardware that is ahead of the X86 hardware. (and Intel has been trying to kill x86 for a couple of years now)
-> plug n Play, that apple from way back.
(and it even works)
-> Open Firmware (since 1995) You see x86
people hyping up the new technology..
it aint new folks..
-> RISC Processors, Apple has already jumped
from the CISC based to RISC based
processing model. It the same growing
pains Wintel is going through except
Apple went through it 5 years ago.
-> CHrP/PReP its mainly all PPC based
because those are the companies that have
participated.
-> the G-4 64-bit processor is right around
the corner sporting AltiVec
->because of the proprietary hardware its easier to port linux to.
-> Apple months before IBM's initial announcement and rumors had already committed to supporting Linux.
-> Apple basically got the Linux Port of PPC up and running well with MKLinux which although based on the Open Mach Kernel. for the most part is compatible with Linux Programs..
-> Apple also talked RedHat into getting Applixware ported to PPC Linux.
-> Apple HATES M$ (come on Board of Direcotrs consisting of Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, etc), M$ was trying to steal the NeXTStep code from Apple for creating office 98 and making IE runable on the MacOS.
-> Apple signs an agreement to co-patent all new patents with M$ for the next three years and it gets waved off as a 150 million dollar investment.
-> Apple garners industry support from people like Compaq, IBM, Sun, Intel (who also hate M$) and have the most to gain from its demise.
-> get M$ tied up in a lawsuit for trying to be a monopoly basically buying time to garner linux support and increase the public awareness about linux as a Free Viable alternative to windows. (Linux usage up 217%, all the major rags are talking about it. Newsweek, People, etc)
Put all this together especially the M$-Apple agreement and Apple unless they want to turn over patent rights to M$ they either have to buy patented technology and use it or they have to release it as GNU/Opensource. Umm not one person on that board of directors would be willing to share a patent right with M$.
Solanum
*yawn*
7 5+29661+/usr/local/www/db/text/1998/freebs d-newbies/19980405.freebsd-newbies
What part of GPL don't you get?
Apple UNDERSTANDS the GPL.
Hence Rhapsody^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMac OS X uses Net/Open/FreeBSD code.
wsanchez@apple.com
Is the man.
Go forth:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=240
search hackers when its up.
http://www.freebsd.org/search/search.html
I don't care what the kernel's called as long as it's stable and runs fast. It doesn't matter that MacOS X Server doesn't support SMP, because Apple SMP hardware is going to be incredibly expensive anyway (if it ever resurfaces).
Well the consumer's interests always comes first. Too bad Apple doesn't agree with me. That's why I don't buy em
Since Linux is GPL, why would Apple want to use
it? They are using FreeBSD and OpenBSD code because they are BSD licenced, and hence more
open and free.
GPL is a freedom hating virus.
Never happen, huh?
.. who's starting to use linux now? Windows geeks. I work in an organization that supports Windows 95 and 98, and there are an amazing number of people here using linux.
.gtkrc, .Xdefaults, and WindowMaker files, changing my SCREEN COLORS took about 45 minutes, at least if I wanted Netscape to match the GIMP to match WindowMaker. This is acceptable to old UNIX geeks (myself included), but not to someone who's used to Windows or the Mac.
I think the linux interface will only get better. Think about it
Know what they complain about? The interface.
I think of AfterStep/Enlightenment/FVWM as the old guard of Linux/UNIX UIs - customization is done almost completely by editing arcane (and sometimes undocumented) configuration files. Before I wrote a perl script to take the settings in my ~/.kderc and build
A lot of smart Windows users are starting to use Linux, and I'm sure that quite a few of them are contributing to GNOME and KDE. What this means, kids, is that Linux WILL become an environment in which point and click & drag and drop are the primary ways to get things done.
When can I get Linux to run on my TV?? What about my oven?? Can I?? If Whirlpool doesn't fuckin use Linux I refuse to buy another dishwasher from them!@
People, grow up. Same goes for Slashdot editors. The S/N ratio is piss poor right now and no one seems to care.
Pretty clueless. They've been working on this for years. The author never heard of Next, Inc. Or is the article blaming them for not reading tea leaves.
hmmm. At least the developer release of
Rhapsody that Apple demonstrated at our
University was using a modified gcc* and
gnu utilities. maybe thats really why they
canned it?
as for the SMP thing, given the retrograde
step of introducing the G-series PPC chips
and dont have SMP hardware any more, what would
be the point (It could be done, sort of,
porting OS X server to the RS6000 line,
but for historical reasons [errm, we "cant"
get our OS to run on CHRP so lets pull
that program] it seems unlikely)
* it actually said this when invoked....
the bsd they use is supposed to include the source.
using linux would be no different
the g3 supports multitasking. do you mean parallel processing?
Remember IBM and Molterola also use the PowerPC chip. What growing pains is the PowerPC going through? If merced is so good where is it.
Not every Windows app supports drag-and-drop; unless you know something about Minesweeper that I don't. There are a lot of programs for which drag-and-drop doesn't make sense.
That doesn't alter the fact (about which you are quite right) that there are a lot of Linux programs that don't support drag-and-drop, but ought to.
You'd be right if not for one thing: time. Apple waited too late to clue into the cloneing scheme. The impetus for which, remember, was wintel's fantastic success. By the time they started allowing clones, Apple had already substatially lost the broader general market to wintel --which had the IBM tie-in to business MIS going for it from its very start. Apple also clued-in to the preeminant importance of the business marketbase rather late, or maybe I should say that they were resistant to ideas about making MacOS more useful/manageable from a large business' point of view. Locking down the desktop? Server-centric network administration? These were ideas that ran counter to the Apple ideal of empowered creative individual users having control over their workspace.
Apple was almost destroyed by the cloning episode as their clones were willing to sell below breakeven in order to kill each other off (while still profiting from the sale of peripherals). But first victim looked to be Apple instead. So Apple has taken the necessary and rational step of withdrawing chrp support --and I guess prevailing upon their ppc consortium allies Moto and IBM to back them up. That leaves them back at their old model of closed hardware and software and it will be a very changed world if we ever hear of Apple clones again. You know, not every option is available to everyone all the time. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Apple took one fork --then tried to double back and take the other. Only in neurosis and RAM do we have such power of undoing.
Letting the clones live would have lead Apple like a selfdestructive misfit straight to bankruptcy court, and then what would happened with the clones? They would soon drop Apple like a warm turd as the software stream dried up and consumers balked at buying hardware and software that ran only on a 'dying platform'.
MS succeeded for a reason: IBM's business base. Apple lost this market --client and server--for a reason, too: their original business plan was almost religiously inconsistent with this market's needs. (Some would portray Linux this way, too --fortunately there's no ideological center to "Linux", just a kernel with a funny license.) It may have been the right plan for Apple at the time it was conceived. They got pretty far, after all, on the theme of the personal computer letting you do as you liked as opposed to "The Man's" mainframe that was out to run to your life and keep you under surveillance. But like most businesses, Apple only thought about changing that model when they got desperate.
I think they should stick with the microkernel route. Some people say Mach is slow - if that's the case, they should stick with the microkernel but just improve it. (From what I hear, that's what they are doing.) Or license some other kernel - maybe QnX like the Amiga people are doing.
It includes bsd so naturaly, it should.
To everybody who is making this rumor, in a compact form: Mach. For those of you who have read Apple's actual press releases (yeah, those things that they give to the press and are supposed to be accurate?) the new kernel will be a cross between Mach 3.x and 4.x, and NuKernel, which is the dead kernel that was used in the Copland project. It just would require too much work to readapt the kernel.
And, for anybody saying Apple is afraid of XP: what about YBW (Yellow Box/Windows)? Is that a mechanism to run your Mac apps under Windows, or did I miss something?
I will be delighted:
if I can telnet to the Mac to fix problems
Well, you can use Timbuktu, which allows you to do pretty much the same thing, except it's graphical. I use it almost daily to maintain several servers where I'm at.
============
The point of being able to telnet in is...you can telnet in from anything. VT100, Windows, etc.
CLIs don't suck nearly as much as people try to say they do.
There will still be plenty of work for programmers as opensource spreads -- work will shift from duplicated work on infrastructure software to the billion other applications that remain undone. You just won't have infrastructure companies able to sit on their collective butts on top of piles of code (supporting huge marketing organizations).
x
look at Corel
G-series? All PowerPC chips have been G-series. The G just denotes the generation. The downgrade you seem to be reffering to is no big deal. The MacOS didn't support SMP and very few apps could use multiple processors. So, where's the reason to sell the multiple CPU boxes? There is none, at least not until OS X gets going with SMP...
How about the fact that OpenStep already works on top of Mach? How about the fact that Next was working on a PPC port before Apple bought them (and before most people had heard of Linux)? How about the fact that Apple is already late in delivering the thing and moving Yellow Box to Linux would slow things even more? Why should Apple move to Linux now? Why not wait until OS X is established and expand to Linux then if it makes sense?
You're full of it. Look at Red Hat... they make money by packaging up someone else's work and shipping it off in a box. Is this an example of a new economic model? Hardly. This is the same old "industrial" type of shit that you people think is fading away, to be replaced by your open-source-is-God economy. Get real.
And another thing: How many times does Microsoft have to prove that it doesn't take technical superiority to win in the marketplace before people start to understand this?
Did you read the article? It sucks. There are a million reasons you could give to the question "why," but "that's dumb" is probably the stupidest of them.
First of all, the article is very poorly written. It is rife with misspellings, sentence fragments, punctuation errors, and reeks of "Red Hat Instant Expert" Linux bigotry.
The author even dared to suggest that Apple won't gain any market share if they don't port Mac OS X to x86.
Critical thinking skills, people: x86 is DEAD! The technology news sites are filled with stories about how PIII's suck, the new AMD chips are limited to 500mhz, and Intel is stuck in the mud. At the same time, they are filled with reports about SMP PowerPC ATX mobo's from Motorola, new chip advancements from IBM, standardization on IEEE 1394 at Apple, Alphas, Sparcs, and Linux being ported to new architectures faster than they can be designed.
The fading away of the x86 architecture is not going to take place overnight, of course, but surely the author of this editorial could have been a little less short-sighted and acknowledge that his little Celery-powered minitower Packard Bell simply sucks, and is the reference platform for--uh--absolutely nothing.
There are other reasons why this guy's article is stupid. He doesn't seem to understand the comparison of BSD 4.4 vs. Linux, or what Apple's plans are for the future, or why Mac OS X was designed the way it was. This guy is just plain ignorant.
Mach is the microkernel that just about ruins the entire idea of microkernels. Just about every other microkernel in existance is better than Mach. Mach is, however, the most popular and mature of the lot.
Mach isnt Unix, it isnt BSD, it isnt the basis for BSD.
As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't care if anyone actually _buys_ OS X Server. They're probably hoping the high price will discourage most people. That gives them more time to work out customer service and marketing for OS X. By releasing an early version of OS X under the "Server" name, they're building its credibility and making it available to Apple-centric places that have a real, right-now use for it. When OS X is released for real, it won't be as much of a "1.0" release.
"as for the SMP thing, given the retrograde step of introducing the G-series PPC chips and dont have SMP hardware any more"...
This is not true. The G3 (more properly the PowerPC 750) absolutely does support multiprocessing. It just doesn't do it as well as (say) the 604e. Like the 603e, the 750 implements only a subset of the normal PowerPC MESI 4-state cache coherency protocol needed for MP. Both of them leave out the "S" state, which is not required for correct operation but is a performance enhancement. Both of them also require a little bit of extra OS support to do MP not required on the 604e.
In the embedded world, several vendors make embedded computer boards with two PowerPC 750 CPUs in a shared memory configuration, so this isn't just theory.
I'm not saying that the Linux status-quo GUI is all that great (it's mostly ugly and inconsistent), but what do you really use DnD for? The only thing I've ever done with it is for moving files around. I usually just select/cut/paste under Windows or MacOS. Whereas I select/paste under X-- one less step. It is a pain when the selection goes away too soon because you accidentally click on something though, so I fully understand why the Macintosh doesn't use that model.
ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/macosxserver/Sources /
If you've programmed an equally complex (complex as in complex, not complex as in superior) OS (if you've even tried creating an OS, which is unlikely) like this, then your comments would be valid. Making assumptions that all they have to do is this and that, and their OS is doing what you want is ridiculous. Do you think they honestly do no improvements to the OS? Don't listen to what everyone wants when they want more customers? Just sit around on their asses? "Everyone wants preemptive multitasking, but pfft, let's watch TV."
I think many of these kids are using it because it's cool, or curiousity, or because they hate MS (for whatever reasons) and aren't contributing shit to any projects, and probably never plan to. They can say they use Linux and know how to do this and that and feel like geniuses, and help not help "Linux" in anyway but making the userbase larger.
I highly doubt GUI experts, research teams or whatever have decided to also become programmers and contribute their knowledge to these projects. From what I've seen so far, it's mainly a little bit of this and that from other GUIs in a collage (spelling?) like manner... similar to the way Windows 95s GUI seemed to be put together. Then some add fancy extra graphics to make it look pretty and advanced. For the general user, Windows 95 has some MAJOR design flaws (in the interface) and I complete some projects are copying some of these things.
Apple makes other computers besides the iMac. They aren't aiming (right now) for large servers or anything. As time goes on, and the OS progresses, who knows.
psst. He was talking about the clone wars. IBM got trounced by the clone makers back in the days of the microchannel bus. This was long before OS/2.
the point is:
you can still make money selling open source software
And what an extremely ignorant point it is...
You can only make money from open source if you keep the initial development low (e.g. zero).
If you need to pay for the entire development cycle of the software, you won't make any money, since the first person to buy the software can simply give it away to all his buddies (that's open source for ya) and pretty soon when you tell somebody how much the software costs, they will simply laugh in your face because they just downloaded it for free.
haha
.rc files etc. (which can be a bit of a time-waster) and basically make life more pleasant.
My gawd there are some pitiful arguments here. I cannot stand the patronising Mac and 95/98 "oh, you're just the user - you can't do _that_" interfaces. The GUIs of Linux are - in the most part - the window managers, also widget sets/ toolkits. This follows the unix/X ways of doing things. It makes sense. I much prefer it because I can get work done fast and configure the hell out of it, tuning it to my exact needs. I love Unix. You ppl complaining about the "crap linux guis" just have no clues about Unix and obviously are too lazy to work it out.
That said, the GUI interfaces are being dumbed down for us that choose to go down that path. That's fine (The GUI config tool econf is great!) as it will save you time editing
Not sure about the current status of kde... but it looks pretty good.... and I'm using gnome.
So... where's your pager again? Where's your "select with left mouse button, paste with middle?" function, where's your xkill?
AndyM
Value Added Services: Where IBM (the largest SW co in the world) MAKES MOST OF ITS REVENUES. Not from selling the SW, from supporting the software. IBM gets it...
If you have more money than is required to meet your needs and wants (including every conceivable luxury), when others do not have enough to meet their basic needs, then you have too much money.
If you have more wealth than the bottom 100 million Americans combined, then you have too much money.
And yes, that means the Witch Doctors, Huns, Second-Handers, Thugs, and every other epithet the Randroids use to describe the forces of social justice, have the moral right to come along and take it from you. Tough.
For the really nerdy types who don't care about social justice, how about this: If you have enough money to start your own space program, and yet you don't because you'd rather spend all your time earning more money, then you definitely have way too much money. That, and you're a sicko.
Oh, and the "money-machine" society we live in now isn't the worst sort of collective? Sheeyeah, right.
Anyhow, the last time I checked, most programmers don't work for software houses. They work in internal development at all kinds of companies. The death of the software house is not the death of the paid programmer.
Open source hurts Wall Street (which has hugely overinvested in technical stocks) and empowers Main Street. Silicon Valley will get the death it deserves but Joe Programmer may very well benefit from the deal as open source software brings more develpment in-house.
Open source hurts the suits, and that's what pisses off our Capitalist friends. It also proves that competition is not always the best way to achieve efficiency, which blows all kinds of economic religion out of the water.
Yeah, Apple should just stop all their present development - even pull MacOS X Server - and scrap ALL the work they've done, and start over with Linux. Push the date back another year or two, who'd care? Those stupid apple (l)users wouldn't care. All this on the say-so of some MORON who posted to slashdot? Are you MAD?
There's more to life than Linux. Linux is cool, but it doesn't need to be EVERYWHERE. The Mach kernel is more mature and stable than Linux. You (Kelly) provide no real reason why they should scrap everything and switch to Linux.
Who are we to decide what Apple should do? MacOS X will be far more solid and reliable than Win2K, and far friendlier to boot. It will also be friendlier than LinuxPPC (no matter which face they put on it).
And they say we Mac users are blindly fanatical...
Nice G3 300mhz processor.
128M's of ram.
128bit Graphics card.
And you STILL can't work on something while a
really big program is starting up?
blah blah blah....maybe you should check out why that is happening? this is actually a feature...the os suspends other jobs when first starting a program to cut launch time of huge things like (gasp) netscape, which takes forever to load whatever platform you use.....
Can you even "rebuild" the Registry in Windows. Nope. If it gets munged, you are screwed. And don't say that it doesn't happen. It does. The only escape is if you make regular backups of the Registry, and honestly, how many of us do that? I thought so. The Mac desktop can be rebuilt automatically by the system. No registry to get messed up.
come one people, I'm still not convinced that the clones were a better product. Yes, they were lower cost, but you allway's get what you paid for. . . the clones felt like a cheap peecee. Using screwdrivers etc. . ., just to open them up. inside they were clumsy and ackward to upgrade. Mac's allway's feel just right, and easy to work on, upgrade etc.Just get into a G3 and you'll see what I mean.
The PPC750 was designed to be a low end chip like the 603e. I guess the figured the speed was such that they didn't need to have a high end chip. The G4 on the other hand is supposed to be similar to the 604e with some major enhancements of course, such as multiple cores.
It's a done deal. Metrowerks, who were instrumental in the shift from 68K to PPC, acquired the Latitude libraries from a company named Latitude Co or something.
Bottom line: You can port Mac apps to Unix, including Rhapsody (of course) and possibly Linux.
After looking around, I can't find its official page on Metrowerks' site.
Jobs is too hung up on the Mach kernel to adopt a Linux kernel. Thankfully, Mach is good too :-)
----
Open mind, insert foot.
And we ALL know how well apple creates new architectural code (not very well at all).
Also, there are lots of GPL'd programs that are used for talking to the kernel... nfsd, mount, ipfwadm... and lots lots more that include data from the kernel headers... and all these programs have to be GPL'd. So apple couldn't use their own version of mount.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Many people said the same thing about rumors of Netscape opening their source, and look what happened there. Also, to be fair, you haven't given anyone any reason to believe your opinion is worth any more than the one you're disparaging. Not meant as an insult; just pointing it out.
That said, I agree with you (well, minus the personal remarks about the author, anyway).
Posted by tubeman:
There was an interesting artical by somebody within apple who argued that the open source movement could hurt apple much more than microsoft (it seemed like a good arguement). This guy also argued, well, that the core of OSX should be open source. Apple would retain control over the "blue box" which is the legacy compatibility side. I think they would also retain control over the next/apple carbon API's.
From what I've seen of OSX (A bootleg copy), it appears that the OS is very BSDish. Apparently they are running the mach microkernel as well, which I'm typing this to you on (MKLinux). It strikes me as a very easy thing for them to do to use a linux version (linuxPPC?) instead of their own mach based linux. Obvioulsy there would have to be a lot of changes to accomodate the blue box and the carbon API's.
I wouldn't be suprised if there is a lot of Linux intelectual property in that OS, after all apple was instrumental in development of MKLinux and they have all that AUX history. I'm not saying that they used linux directly and aren't disclosing it, but I'd bet some of the knowledge from the linux word migrated over.
Wouldn't that be GNUstep?
Disclaimer: I haven't had my coffee yet.
--
--
=8^
nooo, its Mach kernel, quite modified though
Arrrrgh!! Okay, MacOS X SERVER was killed on Intel because it wouldnt create a high enough profit margin to justify x86 support, but it WILL be out sometime this week(!). MacOS X THE CONSUMER VERSION will be out around Q3 1999. Both will have the MACH MICROKERNEL, a BSD 4.4 layer, YellowBox Framework layer (both Objective-C and Java), a Carbon layer (legacy MacOS API that will slowly be phased out) and a Good solid GUI. If you people bother to actually READ THINGS you might get your god damn facts STRAIGHT...SHEESH. Learn a little before you start you next flame war!
I ask you!!
-Jón
Correct me if I'm wrong... Wouldn't it be wiser to have FreeBSD as the kernel rather than Linux? I mean, if they wanted to have a BSD based kernel FreeBSD would be the way to go...
I guess it's a moot point though... Since they are using MACH...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Promoting Open Source projects is the issue.
Period.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Please, Apple, throw out all the good work that's been done on Mach, and replace it with the Linux kernal. I want to wait another 6 years for your "modern" OS. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That opinion piece on memory protection is a joke. It is like security through obscurity - it doesn't work.
/mill
Only reason Macs are perceived to be more stable than Win9x is because application programmers have been more careful on MacOS. The OS itself sucks.
Linux won't be under OS X, because Apple is hanging on to something called YellowBox, which they won't open up, and which seems to be quite good for them, and wouldn't be that easy to work up a connection to Linux with (licencing and coding wise). No?
Honestly, I don't see it happening. Anyone an expert on YellowBox here? Did I even spell that right, and is it correct that it's very closed technology, and it probably won't play well with a GPL layer above and below it?
No, Apple stands for big money, and it's naive, and even foolish, to suggest that they *SHOULD* or even *COULD* release a major product such as OS X with GPL'ed foundations... I cannot even IMAGINE their headaches results from trying to maintain proper licenses and seperation between the differently-licensed components within such a project.
don't get me wrong, I love the GPL, though I think there is a LOT more room in the world at this point for BSD-style licensing - while the big corps. still hold the lions share of markets the GPL will scare many away from full-swing implementations of Linux and Linux-based products.
In other words, as much as I like the rosy, hands-across-the-Internet vision of the post-proprietary computing world, occassionally I have to wake up and, *GASP*, produce on proprietary platforms because they run the tools that pay my bills.
Binary Boy
[sarcasm]And of course, IBM's ridiculous decision to allow a teensy bit of openness absolutely ruined them. How can anyone expect Apple to be forced into something as terrible as competing in a Free market? You nasty Apple critics are so unrealisitc.[/sarcasm]
----
----Daniel Pearson of the UMBC LUG
It's well known that OS X runs on top of NeXT, a Mach OS, and Mach is most like a "BSD 4.4" variant, not a "FreeBSD" variant. FreeBSD in fact most likely postdates Mach by several years.
Jobs is in charge now, and he wants to use his Baby. And whatever the Apple fans say, Apple *doesn't* like free source. The BSD license has the advantage for Apple that they don't have to give anything away.
> The difference between PCs/Macs/OS and so on is getting less well defined as we go on.
...that may be, but I don't think that Apple is keen on the progression. Even the workstation market is starting to use PCI, AGP and other "PC" architectures...have you ever seen the inside of one of the new, low end Sun's? This is a very real market pressure...PCI equipment is common and cheap, giving Intel a large advantage (as if they didn't have one already). The only way to combat that in the price sector is to use the same gear. PCI is alright, but it's not as good as what most workstations used to use. It is very cost conscious, however.
I agree with the above poster: Apple really doesn't like being open. They like controlling ALL aspects of their little universe. Many of my Mac-addict friends agree that Apple would have done much better by releasing MacOS on x86 back in the Windows 1.0/2.0 days. The software was vastly superior to the early Windows stuff, and they could have taken advantage of the more common hardware to make a killing. But they wanted to be in the software AND hardware businesses. And don't get me started about how they killed off all the Mac clones...
As visionary as they are in many ways, I think that Apple is very short-sighted and stubborn in the strict business sense.
--Lenny
As I stated, Apple could have done just fine as a software company, letting others produce hardware, but they wanted to control the WHOLE market. Think about how powerful/wealthy MS is right now because they make the unifying OS for disparate hardware clone makers (yes: I run Linux too, but that's not the point).
IBM wouldn't have lost out so much if they had written their own OS. As it stood, when the clones came along, they bought their chips from Intel, their OS from Microsoft and nothing from IBM. The Mac clones still bought Apple software, and, in general, built better hardware than Apple. Letting them live would have made Mac-like hardware much more attractive to consumers (look what's happened in the PC sector: more competition = more variety, lower cost). This may have decreased sales of Apple hardware, but could have led to a much LARGER market for Apple software. Again I state: look at MS...I think that we'll all agree that they've been financially successful.
--Lenny
Apparently someone inside Apple did it, and got his wrist slapped for it. It's not that technlogicly hard.
:)
It'd probably be Mac OS X server running a "Linux server" which is just like what MkLinux is: the mach microkernel running a "Linux server". For this reason, many (including Linus, apparently) don't consider Mklinux a "real" Linux.
Someone will probably hack it to get this to happen even if Apple never tells anyone how.
haaz, wadin' in the water and waitin' for the flames..
-- haaz.
Now that I've read the article, I can comment on it rather than the technology involved..
It states:
"After all, IBM just announced that its will be shipping and supporting Linux with its PPC server hardware."
IBM has made no announcements about Linux on PowerPC or RS/6000. There have been articles insinuating this, but there have been no announcements about it. IBM's only recent Linux announcement was about RedHat with their x86-based netfinity servers.
"If Apple ships Red Hat, it can benefit from the entire community of Linux programmers and of course Linux already has momentum in the server
market."
LinuxPPC Inc. already ships a version Red Hat Linux for PowerPC computers. While we know Apple uses LinuxPPC internally, the upper management seems resistant to any official dealings with us or with Linux.
"IBM and Apple could even work together to optimize Linux for the power PC since IBM is already doing this. Apple would also get to run lotus notes and IBM's web sphere."
Again, IBM has made no announcements or formal plans for work on Linux/PPC.
The guy's got a point, but it's already happened. Whether or not it sees the light of day is a whole 'nother thought altogether.
-- haaz.
Um. For the record, Apple didn't approach Applix about porting Applixware Office. Jeff Carr and I approached them at the 1998 Atlanta Linux Showcase, and a month and a half later, I was running a prerelease version of it on my PowerBook G3. Apple didn't have anything to do with it!
Their internal Linux development (MkLinux) was all but ended back when Apple bought NeXT. Almost everyone got moved onto the Rhapsody project. As for supporting Linux, they've debated it frequently but haven't settled on anything that I'm aware of.
-- haaz.
Don't forget PCI is also actually better in many ways then Sun's older SBus technology. The "low-end" 33Mhz 32 bit PCI bus has more bandwidth then the 25Mhz SBus (and the older 20Mhz SBus). It is just as easy to identify a PCI card as an SBus one. The only real downsides of PCI from a workstation point of view is that almost all the boot ROMs are Intel specific (the PCI spec defines FCode boot ROMs as well, even gives lipservice to them being "more standard" then x86 boot ROMs, but we all know the score), and the non-technical downside of being "just like a PC".
Yes, I know the PCI bus has no IOMMU like the SBus (not 100% true, AGP is basically a 66Mhz PCI bus with an IOMMU -- one that isn't tipically used). However I think it is at least as hard to keep the IOMMU and multiple-CPU MMUs in sync, as to force the OS to do scatter-gather IO. Unfortunitly that puts a little more burden on the expansion cards to do scatter gather, but high performance cards were going to have to do it anyway...
Let's give Intel their due credit, they finally made a good bus. Every bit as good as the SBus, or the NuBus, or pretty much every other non-mainframe bus that came before it. It may not be a visonary innovation, but it isn't crap either.
Exactly. It's already being built using the best parts of many different OS's. They're doing an amazing job creating a completely new and modern operating system, while keeping their developers happy by not requiring extensive re-writes of existing applications. There are many pages with complete details of what's in store for OS X.
www.mackido.com/Software/MacOSX_Files.html
www.mackido.com/Software/YellowBoxNAPIs.html
www.mackido.com/Software/whats_rhapsody.html
www.mackido.com/Software/rhapsody.html
www.macosrumors.com/osx.html
I get the feeling that some people need to do some research before making such broad and sweeping statement like many have done. And for the platform biggots, well, I'll just say I've gotten used to the ignorant rants and petty intolerance for anything even remotely associated with the MacOS.
I will be delighted:
t ml to read more.
if I can telnet to the Mac to fix problems
Well, you can use Timbuktu, which allows you to do pretty much the same thing, except it's graphical. I use it almost daily to maintain several servers where I'm at.
if I can keep one up for more than a week while doing hard stuff on it
I've gotten mine to do much better. My main server is running FTP/HTTP/POP/SMTP software with no problems. There are a few tricks you can apply to make it quite stable. My universities NT box that runs the POP/SMTP server for students is down at -least- 50% more than my MacOS server.
if it finally has preemtive multitasking
Agreed.
if it finally has protected memory
It does to a certain extent. From what I've experienced, it works about the same to slightly better than your average Windows box. ( I don't know about NT ) It's obviously no where near what unix/linux/etc people enjoy, but it's certainly there. Go to www.MacKiDo.com/Software/memprotect_MacOS_Win95.h
if user-level programs cannot affect priviledged areas and viruses become moot
Agreed. Although with the right software, you can lock a Mac up as tight as anything.
Linux is protected from asshole corporations like Apple and M$ due to the GPL. Apple CAN'T have linux. To hell with Apple, I don't care if they die out or what.
BSD is not protected, and has been raped by every greedy bastard out there.
support gun control: take guns from cops
This post is one of the many that emplies that Rhasody was killed. That just isn't the case, it was expanded, and had a new API added so that apps would become native more quickly. They didn't kill it they said "we are going to give you all we promised before, AND all you have to do to make you applications take advantage of this modern os, is type 'make'".
this took forever to type, as I started using a Kinesis KB today. errr.
Although MacOS X's kernel is hideously unstable, I don't think we should encourage Apple to take any more liberties with GPL'd code as they already have. They've taken large chunks of code from several GPL'd projects (Emacs, GCC, etcetera), made proprietary "improvements" and refused to re-release the source code.
I'm not a 'pure free software' zealot, but I do believe that if we are expected to respect the "rights" of defenders of intellectual property, that when a program is made GPL, it should stay GPL.
As they did when they copied code from EMACS to make the editor for Macintosh Common Lisp, and when NeXT took GCC and made their compiler with it, yet refused to provide their "improvements" in source code, claiming they were proprietary (read the license, people!)... I'm sure Apple would be more than happy to take a Linux kernel and GPL'd 'mount' command and make proprietary versions of both.
Who's supposed to sue when you violate the GPL, anyway? Apple doesn't have to provide their source, they can just claim that they didn't use GPL'd stuff...
Glyph Lefkowitz - Project leader, Twisted Matrix Labs
Writer, Programmer - Not a member of the TSU
is fine with me. We run Suns, SGIs, PC/Windows, PC/Linuxs, and Macs. Sorry, but Linux isn't ready for prime time. Hard to load, configure, and maintain, relative to Solaris and Irix. In the proper context, however, Bill's second rate Windoesn't is the worst. For desktop applications, the Mac is tops. In fact, we replaced one Linux box with an iMac after we spent more on consultants than the cost of the PC.
So, we'll stick with Steve's vision, it hasn't failed us yet.
> Something tells me he could get by, if he brought down the price of his software.. just a little
How much is too much money? More than a billion? A million? More than you make?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> Open Firmware
> RISC
> CHRP/PREP
> AltiVec
Not one single layman gives a damn about these. They want to drop in a half-life CD and start blasting away. For Apple to get the gamer market is going to be nigh impossible. SOHO might be a good target market, though that damn kiddie-sized mouse doesn't make a good impression on the sales floor.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
No, not mine, his!
Read the article - the writer is rambling on about things he seems to be slightly clued-out on. OSX is basically written - why on earth would anyone stop it in their tracks and start over again with linux as a kernel (even if it was a good idea?)?
Sorry Rob, but you're referencing an article here that has no authority, and unfortunately I think most Slashdot readers are going to take for gospel what is in fact uninformed, badly written rambling.
Sorry to make consecutive posts, but I think that the /. crew needs to start reading articles it links in.
This one is simply idiotic, has no basis in fact or reality, is poorly written, and is of dubious origin. It has nothing interesting to say on anything happening in reality. OS X is not going to be "rewritten" with linux, and no one should treat this as a possibility from reading this article.
Anyone can publish on the web - please don't mistake a domain name with legitimacy.
Ugggh, your response only reinforces my original point.
At least they can form sentences.
This article was simply some knob who has a colored background and a domain name.
At least that's my opinion on the matter.
You seem to be misinformed - according to Apple, it should ship within thirty days.
Yellow box is more or less the NextStep API. All the various objects still start with "NS," which is fairly amusing. I'd suspect that YellowBox is openstep compliant so, no, it's not closed, but it isn't really open either.
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
>It used Objective C when C++ was on it's way to
>becoming standard;
They used Objective C for several reasons:
1) There are things that you can do in Objective C that are tricky or impossible to do in C++
2) NextStep was designed for Academics and Academics already had knowledge of Real OO languages like SmallTalk
3) C++ isn't just an object orientated lanuage; it's just as the name implies, an extension to C. Objective C is a real OO lanuage
Besides, Objective-C just plain rocks. It's everything great about C, the managable OOness of SmallTalk, and the almost VM nature of java.
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
Actually, it's BSD*ish* with a Mach 3.0 base. Not quite the same as a traditional monolithic BSD kernel, though it'll look the same to most programmers.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
you can't even compare dell, compaq, et. al. with apple. compare apple with ibm or sun if you must- they're the only comparable companies with a stake in both the hardware and software side. apple makes their money off the hardware, but sells the software, so it makes perfect sense that they want the tightest possible control over the system as a whole. if the hardware isn't solid and 100% compatible, the os and the user experience sucks.
that's not to say they haven't shot themselves in the foot multiple times over the years on their hardware decisions, but overall, their systems are of the cohesion and quality that only similar vendors such as sun and ibm. dell, gateway, and the others are merely assemblers. they can make the hardware work with the m$ os, but they react, they can't lead.
As someone who actually USED Rhapsody (and NOT a pirated copy) as a desktop OS for several months, I feel more qualified to talk than most of you.
1) It's based on a Mach kernel. That's not gonna change. Of course, you CAN build Linux on top of a Mach kernel; Apple did that.
2) On top of that, it has a bunch of BSD utilities. The source for many of these WAS available on Apple's FTP site. Y'all should look before you gripe.
3) The core OS is simply not gonna be Open Source.
4) Imho, MacOS X Server is really a *light* server because it's not GUI-optional. With all that CPU sucked up in prettiness, it's simply going to nullify any difference (real or imagined) between a G3 and a Px at the same clock speed. Sorry Apple.
5) I think Apple's decision to kill Rhaptel was ill-advised and heinous. This *should* be a new Apple that isn't backstabbing its developer community.
6) Despite all this, it's cool, I want it, I will probably buy it anyway.
_Deirdre
That was a funny article. I'll tell you why it's not going to happen. Jobs. He's not gonna give up his dream, his baby, his wonderful little translucent-blue-goodness up to a bunch of hackers. Jobs' ego will keep linux far enough away from Macintosh. Look at the past. Apple threw Jobs out, so he said "fuck you, I'm going to go make me an os that kicks your OS' ass," and he did. NeXT rocks. Objective-C rocks. The NeXT UI rocks. Jobs has his agenda with macintosh - he has a plan for it, and I really dont think Linux is part of that plan. This does not necessarily mean that his plan for Mac is bad, but simply that it's his and his only.
-Laxative
Even the workstation market is starting to use PCI, AGP and other "PC" architectures...have you ever seen the inside of one of the new, low end Sun's?
Even the low-end AS/400s use PCI. To say that this makes them more "PC-like" is about like saying the addition of a standard power cord would make them more PC-like.
excpet for the fact its BSD, it is supposed to be Mac, it runs on PPC hardware which is too pricy, and its made by a company thaat calls different computers flavors.... and they mean flavors.
Ex Machina "From the Machine"
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
Linux could not be used for the OS X kernel because of the GPL license. The BSD license allows anyone to use the software.
The question should be, why won't Apple give out
the sources?
So what should be done about it to improve them?
Really, what is so bad about them (linux interfaces, mainly gnome and kde). There are standards for drag and drop, and other crap. The apps I use most support them, even though I don't much care for it. I drag files around the system. What else do I really need d&d for. Even if you do need more, most people don't.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
It's not FreeBSD--it's a Mach modified version of the Mac 2.x kernel with a BSD 4.4 Unix interface. Not quite the same thing, since it picks up some things like Mach messaging. Apple could port to Linux easily enough if they wanted to; YB runs on top of NT, after all. But they probably won't. If they wanted to play in the x86 market they would have released an x86 MOSXS version.
>Could you point me at a copy of the source code
> for NeXTSTEP's enhanced objective C compiler >(based on gcc)?
Sure; look in the gcc distribution. From the "contributors" section to the gcc distribution docs:
* NeXT, Inc. donated the front end that supports the Objective C language.
Also, NeXTStep benefitted tremendously by being written with very object oriented code, and libraries into that code. Some of the MacOS *DESIGN* that lets extensions easily slip into the path of many 'lower level' calls (eg, GUI pop-ups, scanning a disk when it's mounted, etc) were implemented better in NeXT Step. It was noted that Novell was able to port WordPerfect in a ridiculously small amount of time due to the OO structure underlying the OS.
Linux (and the *BSDs) are not written this way. It's been tough enough to get C++ to work correctly under Unix (hence the birth of EGCS).
OTOH, Since NeXTStep was guided by Jobs, there were a number of fatal gaffs made:
It used Objective C when C++ was on it's way to becoming standard; it used a PostScript Interface, when X was becoming a standard; it used "NetInfo" rather than the standard NIS (it could be an NIS client, but that wasted the beautiful interface that NI had).
All of these were arguably 'better' but the bottom line was that in my work env of 15 different Unix architectures, I could do everything one way for ALL of those others, but the NeXT's needed special treatment. (The easiest way to piss off NeXT marketing folks was to compare the Display PS to Sunview and ask how to run some GUI program on another display.)
So let us celebrate that the remarkably consistant MacOS interface which was obviously designed rather than hacked together in reaction to market pressures (ala Windows) finally has a decent kernel underneath it. I will be delighted:
if I can telnet to the Mac to fix problems
if I can keep one up for more than a week while doing hard stuff on it
if it finally has preemtive multitasking
if it finally has protected memory
if user-level programs cannot affect priviledged areas and viruses become moot
If it works well with the well documented 44BSD programming interface, then perhaps the Linux side of the world might start writing code that's a tad more Unix portable that it is now (/usr/include/linux/?!).
doesn't anyone remember that *apple* and osf ported mach to powermacs and linux to mach?
apple should sell redhat? redhat has never been interested in a ppc port. all the *.ppc.rpm's are created by [mk]linux[ppc] developers. debian, in contrast, is making a ppc port of it's .deb's.
That's good by me, as for Mac OS X, well, let them do what they want to do. I'd like to try it out, though I don't have the cash nor the computer to do so. For the moment, I will stick with my Linux on AMD.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
the intent is to for people to "pay" for it by contributing to it in some way, shape, or form.
Whether that be by actively developing Linux, by developing software for Linux, by supporting people that develop for Linux, or by submitting a bug report whenever something goes wrong, the idea is that you contribute something.
the point is:
you can still make money selling open source software.
remember, open source source software does not necessarily mean free software.
just because a company makes a program open source does not mean that they have to give the program away for free. it just means that they are distributing the source code with the program.
Apple won't move to a Linux Kernel because they already have a kernel (Mach) that is both very fast and very mature. Mach is the basis of BSD, NextStep, and now MacOS X Server. It's not going anywhere.
:)
Linux is good, obviously, but Apple will still have to bring it into it's own mold... making it closed, and who knows whether they'd release the changes they made. That would make the Linux community pissed-off... so why bother.
Apple already has Linux running on Mach (MkLinux) and if they continue to upgrade and improve Mach than perhaps they'll pass those improvements onto Linux... god forbid if MkLinux turns out to be better than LinuxPPC
People wake up!!! MS is huge based on the applications they sell. NOT windows. Windows makes them on every desktop, so everyone thinks MS and buys the applications. For the most part, the OS is a losing proposition.
Apple does not make software!!!
Yes, appleworks, but that is not their market, and never has been. The only real software they sell is the OS, and there is no way for that to be a big enough money maker to forgo the hardware sales.
Shipping something that could even remotely ever run on something that isn't 100% Apple threatens their agenda.
Yeah! when will they finally make Quicktime/Filemaker pro/ webobjects/ available for other platforms....
Oh yeah, they are.
Many of my Mac-addict friends agree that Apple would have done much better by releasing MacOS on x86 back in the Windows 1.0/2.0 days. The software was vastly superior to the early Windows stuff, and they could have taken advantage of the more common hardware to make a killing.
Well, maybe...
So Apple sells a bunch of OS, so what. It is not all that lucrative. MS follows up with various applications that make them the real money. Plus, part of the problem MS is having is dealing with so many different hardware combinations. That is why they finally gave hardware restrictions for NT. If Apple had gone x86, they would get to deal with the extra garbage also.
And don't get me started about how they killed off all the Mac clones...
C'mon people, lets get it straight. The clones were NOT increasing MacOS market share, all they were doing was taking away from Apple's markethshare. The clones did not have to pay for all of the R&D that they were benefiting from; for Apple to compete on the hardware front, they would have taken a bath on the R&D and development.
I am getting tired of seeing all of this OSX is sooooo late. C'mon people, it is what, a couple of months behind initial. Get over it. It is a totally new implementation of the OS, it may take a few weeks longer to get out than originally planned. Yet chicken little is running around "the OS is fallins..."
ElecMoHwk
ElecMoHwk
CEO / Founder Dashin.org
okay, let's look at this logically.
1. can apple use Linux in OSX? No. that whole license thing gets in the way. (yay opensource...or whatever.)
2. would it be timely for apple to use Linux in OSX? No. for one, they'd have to *stop and rewrite* the *entire os*...which would be foolish, because from what little i've seen of the mach microkernel, it's cool enough as it is. (that whole free/openBSD thing...which works for me.) so if apple felt like wasting time and jerking their customers around (something which stopped after Amelio lost his job)...then they could stop working on betas of a perfectly good os and start writing a new one.
3. does the author know what he's talking about? apparently not. it seems he lacks a clear understanding of the difference between 'rumor' and 'announcement' (the references to IBM's announcements of things they never mentioned publicly), and i doubt that this guy has 'inside sources' at IBM.
i, personally, see nothing wrong with opensourcing. (incidentally, yes, most of the source from OSX is gonna be on the CD, and they use all sorts of open source in the kernel.) i don't think it should take over the world, though...i mean, do we really want to be commies? ha. well, anyways, that seems to be the take of the author...that, and "linux is good." unfortunatley, he's wrong - mach is good, too, and OSX should stay the way it is.
1. Highlight with left mouse button.
:-/
2. Click middle button (or both if you only have 2) where you want the text to go.
Helluva lot faster than in Windoze.
Although for some reason it doesn't work with vi...
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Mac OS X is already built on top of a BSD kernel.
Personally... i don't like linux very much, so i'm glad apple is going with BSD.
I mean... Really guys... OS X better be a Biiiig improvement over OS 8.5.
Nice G3 300mhz processor.
128M's of ram.
128bit Graphics card.
And you STILL can't work on something while a
really big program is starting up?
And as for this ease of use you all keep talking
about?
I for one just don't see it. *shrug*
Ok.. so I've used M$ crap for years and just switched to Linux a few years ago.
I'm not a Guru of OS's....Yet I've a piece of junk
windoze box that I can use 15-25 programs at once on without freezing up... and it's only a 166mx cyrix with 64M's of ram... (course.. it's taken me a good year to get it stable)
I can't DO that on a new G3??? what's the deal here?
Anyway... (to get back on topic)
Apple is not going to use Linux as the base for it's servers... No.. I don't see OS X servers gaining any significant amount of market share. Mac's are graphics machines.. and mostly for non-technical computer users.
Can they possibly make their UI more obscure? C'mon a FOUR button combination to re-build the desktop? *sheesh*
(oooh.. we'll just use ctrl-openapple-esc-F1+F25 for THIS command That'll be easy to remember)
Just ramblin
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
It's progressing faster than you give it credit.
Who cares wether drag and drop is universally available
if the dumb OS keeps crashing. Mac OS is just as big of a bloated POS as 95/98/NT are.
When we want to cater to Mac simpleton's.. we will.
Until then... we're taking our own sweet time... why would we want you using a stable OS anyway? It would only allow you to post more often. *grin*
(the most often heard sound in the computer lab is Mac OS 8.5 rebooting)
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
It *is* based on BSD.
The kernel is a MACH kernel. Mach is based on 4.2BSD and Mach 2.5 is based on 4.3BSD. You need to read and study before you open your mouth.
Have a nice day!
Linux, and all the GNU stuff, is tainted with the GNU public license. That's why. Nobody likes distributing a commercial system as a set of kernel patches. OpenBSD and its derivatives, like Mach, are open source and NOT tainted with the GPL. Hence, commercial products have been, and will continue to be, derived from OpenBSD instead of Linux, like it or not.
MacOS X is based on a BSD kernel. Not Linux.
Gee, ya think there is a reason for this?
You linux users seem to think your "OS" can take over the world.
If I could get the media to tell you that the ocean was orange, you'd believe it.
Bzzz! Wrong! Before you start mocking me, why don't you check YOUR facts out, buddy.
I"m sure there are plenty of keen sites on mach out there. Try reading information from a web site without "linux" in the domain name -- You might find some unbiased information.