Overview of Linux on Macintosh Hardware

1millionmhz writes "Upside Today is running a piece on the relationship between Apple and the various groups creating Linux distributions for the PowerPC platform, including MkLinux, LinuxPPC and Yellow Dog Linux. Interviews with main figures from each company and covers how open source development model does an end-around on Apple's efforts to "keep Linux at arm's length." "

Comments

Apple isn't quite sure what to do

[jht]

On the one hand, they have a pretty solid, Mach/BSD-based server OS (MacOS X Server) that includes all the essentials for Internet operation, runs MacOS apps, and has a client version on the way. And they've released significant portions of it as pseudo-Open Source. They hope all this will sell more Macs, and give them a free development team for additional services.

Then again, they sell a proprietary, single-tasking (Any system that stops processing when the mouse is held down is single-tasking, AFAIC) OS with loads of chrome on proprietary hardware.

People often forget that the only way (technically) to legally buy a copy of the MacOS is to have a Mac to run it on. And every Mac includes the MacOS, like it or not. Apple doesn't lose any sales up-front when a user buys Linux for their Mac, but they do lose the upgrade revenue stream. This obviously concerns them more than a little: Apple has made quite a bit of revenue off their more frequent MacOS upgrades since they started charging for them. It's quite profitable.

In the end, Apple has to decide whether Open Source is something to embrace fully or shy away from. They seem, in fits and starts, to be heading towards it - ultimately I think they'll open up more of the OS in an effort to wedge into as much software market share as possible. They may even plunge back into the clone market now that Apple has the ability to churn higher-performance designs quickly. One of the reasons they bailed out of cloning was that Apple took so long to design system in the old days that clone makers could easily beat them to market with the super high-performance systems that generate all the revenue. Power Computing did very nicely for a while on that model. Now Apple can ship the fastest systems as the CPUs are ready, and they make an increasing percentage of profit from software. The process is interesting to watch.

What is saving the Linux/PowerPC vendors right now is that a Mac is far from an ideal Linux platform - it's relatively expensive and non-expandable for the MIPS compared to a cheap PIII system that'll run the same OS. For the most part, Macs lose as a Linux platform, so Apple isn't losing too much software profit to the Linux vendors (remember, the upgrades cost money now!). If they were losing more, Apple would squash them like bugs.

- -Josh Turiel