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Compare and Contrast: Linux and Apple
egwene wrote to us with the latest Salon Linux piece regarding Apple and Linux and the passing of the advocacy torch. The article gets into some of the...intense feelings our compatriots have for their operating system.
"Unix was very important for computing, and so was Apple's GUI."
Still are. No need for the past tense, here.
"But in the same way that the Windows GUI is not innovative but rather based on Apple's, isn't Linux based on Unix?"
A couple of key points need to be asserted here.. 1) Ambiguous usage of the term "based on" can get one into a lot of semantic trouble.. 2) Yeah, the Windows GUI is a MacOS GUI clone AFAIK, but there's a problem.. it was reinvented.. quite poorly..
To elaborate on point 1: NetBSD is "based on" BSD, which is "based on" Unix. The Windows GUI is a clone of the MacOS GUI, and GNU/Linux is a Unix clone. They are clones and not "based on" because they are not derived from the original source code. They are different implementations that attempt to achieve the same goals as what they are "cloning".
"Windows market share dwarfs that of the MacOS and it's quite possible that Linux will dwarf the market share of Unix, but Linux will never be innovative in the revolutionary sense that Unix was."
The idea behind GNU/Linux is /quite/ innovative for this day and age. Your comment basically implies to me that you don't believe GNU/Linux will be any significant change from Unix. I would like to differ. Most operating systems I know of were either created by a company, or derived from one that was. GNU/Linux is neither. And it's turning the software community on its head. Not in the way Java did, either. Java had hype, but no punch. GNU/Linux is a serious sock to your jaw, and doesn't even have a focused marketing campaign.. yet it has caught fire and now everyone's eyes are on it as it edges closer and closer to being friendly enough to Joe Public that he will want to install it on his desktop.
Besides, GNU/Linux only truly aimed to be compatible with Unix. POSIX helps us to play nice with each other. Now the software being written for GNU/Linux is taking off in every direction imaginable. Soon the differences between Unix and GNU/Linux will dwarf the similarities for many. Most of its base components that were designed as free alternatives to the more traditional ones are already a bit more powerful. GZIP, anyone? Besides, most clones are poor reinventions of the wheel. And stay that way. This one evolves. And never sat still for anyone or anything trying to force it to play the "poor cousin" to anything else, least of all Unix. Personally, I can't wait until Berlin is ready for some serious action.
~ Kish
In fact, to some people, those statements might seem self-evident. But they miss an important point -- it's the learning curve.
Linux/Unix has a steep learning curve; the MacOS has almost none. But once you've mastered the paradigm of each, you'll find that both are extremely simple to use. And the added flexibilty of Unix allows you to more easily do things that you can't even begin to do on a more closed platform.
Linux isn't hard to use; it just takes more effort to learn. For me, that effort is worth it. For my grandmother (as the cliche goes), it's probably not. But any efforts to "fix" Linux that take away power just to shorten the learning curve are making a mistake.
--
also, as wonderful as linux is, it does not allow me to do my daily work.
;-)
if i cannot run: framemaker, photoshop, filemaker, acrobat distiller,
soundedit16pro, cubase, visionDSP, and illustrator on linux -- then
linux is less than useless for me for getting my work done instead of
tinkering!
right now the only daily app that i need for work that linux actually
provides is NETSCAPE, and say what you like - the GIMP is not photoshop.
you can not do complex high-quality four colour (CMYK) work for prepress
on linux! that is simply a fact of the current state of linux.
so -- during the day, i must use macOS (or windoze) if i want to use my work to actually do something productive. at night, linux (ppc) is fun to tinker with, but still lacking in any consistent elegant ease-of-use or productivity applications. i give it another two years before linux becomes anywhere close to the mac for useful productivity applications. but by that time OS-X should be able run linux binaries anyways...
Great Quote! Our battle is not about unrestricted "free" software, it is about software that can never be made proprietary. It is about saying "no". Not the way proprietary saftware says "no", though.
Actually I agree with you and RMS completely. Everyone should use the GPL, Kaffe is an example why. But everyone won't. Some people just don't want to say no. :) But by doing so, they are hurting themselves, but the only people who benefit from not saying no, are those who don't want to give up the source. They don't want return what they've done for the good of the community.
Free software, open source, good software, copyleft, they're all fine by me. Everyone should use the GPL. But I have no problems if others choose to use a different license, especially if it's more "free". That's their choice. We should accept diversity, not cut down people who don't agree with us on particulars.
-Brent--
There's just not much real configurability with either OS. And at times, it can be downright insulting. "File extensions? You don't need to bother with those, because you'll only be dealing with other Macs and they'll know what file you're talking about." "Long file names? Sure, Windows has them -- Windows is really 32-bit!" It's ultimately a decision between Sherlock and the paper clip. Either OS lets anybody's mother -- no offense, Mom -- start using the computer as soon as it powers on. And that may be fine for some people. But not for me. I don't need to be insulted by my OS, and I like a learning experience.
I want an OS that is stable, powerful and configurable (free is good too). I want an OS that lets me tune it and tweak it to just where I want it for just the reasons I want. I want an OS that makes zero attempts at thinking for me. An OS that gives me plenty of tools -- that gives me a fishing pole instead of a fish, so to speak. And an OS that does all that and still lets you peek under the hood at your heart's content is icing on the cake.
For me, that's Linux. And it's why I've been moving to Linux as my desktop OS for the past couple years ("Linux: It's not just for servers anymore."). Linux is not insulting. Linux doesn't coddle me, or pretend to know what I want. It doesn't try to be everything to everyone, or try to be insultingly cute in the name of "useability" (has anyone got MS Bob to run on NT Server yet?). Sure, FreeBSD fits the bill too; hell, so does OpenDOS for that matter. And if you want to go that direction, more power to you.
No matter which way you go, you'll start "thinking different" (adverb intentionally ommitted), because you'll actually have to start thinking once you start using. In contrast to the Mac, in which case no thinking -- different or otherwise -- is required at all.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Naw, it's not flamebait as far as I'm concerned - I mainly agree with you. Just keep in mind that there is a big difference between "buzz" between those who have the Geek Nature, and the rest of the world (affectionately known as the "room-temperature" crowd).
The average non-geek heard about Macs in the '80s as The Cool Thing. That doesn't mean they bought them, mind you, it just means that they were prominent in the culture. Linux occupies that niche in the general culture today. That doesn't necessarily have any bearing on whether Linux will thrive or not, but it does help visibility among the Suits (which, after many years in the biz, I, too, now am). I've been using Linux for one thing or another for about five years, but now that it's on the cultural radar screen, justifying it's use on my network is much easier.
As far as the core geek community goes, you're completely right. Macs were never truly "cool" - all the "in-the-know" crowd waited eagerly for Amiga or hacked up their Apple II (or anything other than a DOS system). These people have been all over Linux for years, though. That said, a truly heavyweight core of geeks do use Macs, but not as enthusiasts - they just use them as real simple tools to get their net activity and home-based work done. Why? Because it's real easy to turn on a Mac and just Get Stuff Done, without brains required. And for all the people who hack at work and like to hack at home, there's probably an equivalent number of people who want to leave their brains at the office.
To the truly aware, Linux isn't "hot" or buzz-worthy - Linux just Is.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Rather doubtful. Changing the world is a silly notion at best. The most you can hope for is changing your own little part of it, or making your own contribution to making it a better place. It's the sum of all of these little contributions from each individual that shapes the future of our world. Everything about each individual shapes this future. Each in their own, very small way, but since we have so many very small contributions to the world, unwitting or not (you simply can't help but affect your surroundings.. even with inaction), the world is constantly evolving. As do all things. And of course the world is more than just the sum of its parts. ;)
By the way, if everyone contented themselves with whatever, and didn't care about changing the world for the better, the world would change. It would grow steadily worse. Without people to care about the world, the people in it, and how everything affects everything else, just where would we be? Someone has to take on some responsibility. Especially in an age where apathy is a more and more acceptable alternative to the average person every day..
~ Kish
Well, there are several dozen freeware and shareware tools to do this as well. I personally use IPNetMonitor and WhatRoute. With MacOS X, there will be a BSD layer underneath that you can force your users to use if you didn't give them the tools they needed to start with. I've been using Macs for 11 years, and I have two friends who do Mac consulting for a living. They don't seem to have these problems. Seems to me the failing is not with Apple, but with your techs or your company.
The mostly monochrome desktop is far from "elegant" and the interface is too damn illogical
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but most people would disagree with you. Believe it or not, Enlightenment with an undulating background and neon translucent windows is not what most people would consider an intuitive interface. The Mac GUI follows a simple set of rules that is consisitent between applications and the Finder. Windows hasn't even gotten this one down yet, let alone Linux.
how much you configure FVWM to do what you want (you mean you can actually define your OWN button menus? wow!).
That's just it -- the average user doesn't want to reconfigure their menus. They don't want the menus to vary from computer to computer doing the same tasks either. They want all the things that they need access to already be there for them in a logical fashion.
Sounds to me like the article was written by a mac advocate trying to get linux users to use macs.
As a Mac advocate (and a Linux advocate too), I have to disagree. If anything, this article was balanced, leaning towards Linux. Then again, I'm an advocate, not a zealot.
If Apple shipped a complete development environment with their OS and stopped sueing people I might consider it.
Well for one thing, the average user doesn't care about devlopment tools. It's just a bunch of useless, scary stuff that they will not be able to use. It does not belong in the distribution of a consumer OS.
Also, with Apple's server OS, MacOS X Server, Apple does ship a complete set of GNU compilers, linkers, etc. They also include the soure code for the Darwin kernel if you want to look at it.
Finally, as to Apple suing people, what does that have to do with you? They are just protecting their hard work and technology. Whether you agree with their legal proceedings should not be relevant to your thoughts on the relative merits of the OS. This is just some Apple-bashing you threw in at the end, but it exposes your true character and opinion better than the rest of your message.
- Vincit qui patitur.
Linux/Open Source advocacy and Apple advocacy are really two different animals. Right now, Linux has the "buzz" that Apple had in the years immediately following Macintosh, but the industry has matured to the point where Apple is part of the Establishment, albeit an interesting part.
The Linux community of today has more in common with the hardcore computing enthusiasts of days past (the folks who soldered their own mainboards) than they do with the Apple crowd - though, of course, there are obvious overlaps (the anybody-but-Microsoft people, for instance, often have a foot in both camps). What's interesting is what I've noticed among several of the uber-hacker old-timers that I've had the opportunity to meet and converse with over the years: people, there's a lot of Net.gods who fit this:
At work, they hack Unix, or Linux, or BSD, and produce Open Source code. At home, a lot of them have Macs.
But there's no urgent need for people to be Mac advocates anymore - Apple is safe and sound and inhabiting a moderate-sized, highly profitable niche in the market. Linux, though, needs their support.
Not one of my finest posts (for which I apologise), but I just figured I'd toss it out there.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I have always been confused by the zealots of our geeky little world...
How can you get that worked up just because someone says that they like to use a Mac? Or Windows? One the one hand you disdain someone that can use an "inferior" program(or OS, whatever, really), and on the other hand expect those products to improve to to suit your own needs and wants.
My dad uses AOL. I consider it a personal failure on my part. As much as AOL sucks, according to all of us, it does what he wants it to. It doesn't have the power of sendmail. It isn't open source. But it works.
Any moron can learn HTML. So why are there products like MS Frontpage? That mangle the code into something almost unrecognizable? Because it is easy. Our whole society is based on easy. TV, movies, fast food, and even software. Apple succeeds in the face of obsolecsence because it is easy to use. Windows exists because it's users don't have to know anything to type up a letter and print it out.
Linux is great, Linux is good, but it is a niche product (for now) that needs the dreaded "user friendliness" before it will ever become ubiquitous.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
Well, this is a little off topic. But no two movements/companies typify the split that I see all the time in computing. Ease of Use V. Power.
Apple is ALL about ease of use/learning (the two aren't always the same). Linux is ALL about power. Microsoft, after having begun in the power camp, is now focusing more on ease of use.
Which is more important? Well, that's for the market to decide. And the market has. Ease of use is more important. Why is would M$, the marketing genuises, focus on it. The interesting thing about Linux is that it isn't, up until now at least, been market driven, because it's not sold. Unix isn't really either, because even commercial *nix's aren't sold on the mass market.
Lesson for linux-heads: Want market share of the desktop ("world domination")? Do more ease-of-use stuff. The interesting challenge for linux: Keep the command-line power for those who want it, but a consumer user should NEVER have to see it. Period. End of conversation. My brothers and sisters aren't screwing with a CLI.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I simply don't want to see any more splits due to semantic differences. Otherwise I'll just refer to the free software movement as the copylefted software movement and /really/ confuse the media. ;) It is all about choice.. It just seems silly when people who make the same choice also choose to split into two different camps, thus becoming a mostly symbiotic yet mildly parasitic being to one another.
At least in this case. There really shouldn't have been any reason for a rift to occur in the free software movement, forking off into the open source software movement. People will always have differing opinions, however.. I don't care about all that, though. Not really. I just want to promote understanding. Hence my verbose, rapid-fire arguements against corrupting the use of the term "free software". ;)
I enjoyed the exchange, however, though I refuse to use the GPL with regards to highly stylized games (generic ones are cool, though). Other than, yeah, the GPL is damn nifty. Hee hee..
~ Kish
Unix was very important for computing, and so was Apple's GUI. But in the same way that the Windows GUI is not innovative but rather based on Apple's, isn't Linux based on Unix? Windows market share dwarfs that of the MacOS and it's quite possible that Linux will dwarf the market share of Unix, but Linux will never be innovative in the revolutionary sense that Unix was.
Part of that article struck me -- the apparent disdain of the Linux community for Apple's choice of BSD to base Mac OS X on. But having been a past and present Linux user professionally, and an exclusive FreeBSD user personally, I think I can see where Apple is looking.
Any professional OS that touts ease of configurability must have a consistent interface to everything underneath. The more I delve into Linux, the more I get confused by the different ways everything has to be done. I think this is a symptom of the "hack it till it just works" mentality.
I don't exclusively use FreeBSD because of its stability and security (although that was certainly the case when I switched a few years ago; Linux boxes were giving me and others unexplainable random problems left and right that an installation of FreeBSD remedied handily.) I continue to use FreeBSD today because things are done right and consistently. That might mean waiting a little longer for equivalent functionality, but I can trust said functionality.
The Linux systems I use seem to be able to do more, but I can't always find the correct way to do it. Perhaps that's more due to a lack of documentation, but when I do find the right way, it seems to be a hack that really doesn't fit into any consistent way of doing things. For example, getting my ATAPI CD-RW drive to work meant inserting a LILO flag. It seems to me that functionality should have been found elsewhere, perhaps in a kernel config file or by unloading one module and loading another. FreeBSD doesn't yet have IDE-SCSI support, but I bet when they do, it will be able to be enabled without rebooting and should also be easy to set up.
All in all, I can see the building of an organized, easily-setup, easily-administrated OS a lot more clearly on top of a BSD kernel. The tests of time have showed BSD to do well in those areas. I think Linux will get there, maybe on the next iteration of the kernel. 2.2 unloaded a lot of nasty old baggage that was around in 2.0, I have faith that 2.4 will be even better.
Of course, the rest of the story probably involves things like the GPL. Apple and other large companies who derive a huge bottom line from software licenses, I think, will continue to shy away from truly free licenses for some time. I think that is truly a shame for the forces of free software.
P.S. I have tried to be constructive here instead of being flamebait. I would appreciate replies that are in the same manner.
The Salon article makes it out to sound as if Apple might somehow be hoping it's choice of BSD would split the open-source development community, BSD vs. Linux.
Well, the general fact is that the hard-core BSD developers probably don't work on the Linux kernel, and vice versa (in effect, there is already a split).
So... I would suggest that Apple's choice of BSD came down to licensing, pure and simple. The BSD license is more "friendly" to use with proprietary software, ie. the Apple GUI.
However, licensing theories aside, any thoughts on this question: if Apple was choosing the *nix core for Mac OS X today, would it still be BSD, or would it be Linux, taking into account Linux's current popularity?
"How can you get that worked up just because someone says that they like to use a Mac? Or Windows?"
Personally, I could care less what anyone uses on their desktop. It's when people involve themselves in a holy war and introduce their slanted views as reasons why, say, Windows is "technically superior" to GNU/Linux that makes me whip out the beating stick (I'd say clue-by-four, but you know, most of those nuts couldn't get a clue if it were a sledgehammer caving in their skull). ;)
"Any moron can learn HTML."
Yes and no.. Sure, anyone can learn HTML.. sort of. I've yet to see /any/ Web site that structures HTML as well as I do (and no, I'm not being egotistical.. it's ridiculously easy to make perfectly compliant, legible HTML source.. the point is, few bother to either a) learn how or b) use what they learned effectively). Most "Web designers" think if you throw up a few Active Server Pages, Java applets, and JavaScript crap, you're "studly". I think it's pathetic. Keep it nice, keep it clean. I have, however, seen a few HTML compliant sites that were better than your average corporate or "home page" site (yeah, I lump those together because they usually suck just as bad as the other).
"Apple succeeds in the face of obsolecsence because it is easy to use. Windows exists because it's users don't have to know anything to type up a letter and print it out."
As someone pointed out in a previous discussion, these GUIs aren't precisely "intuitive". Sure, they may be a little easier for Joe Public to grasp than other interfaces, but you might be surprised at how many people can't even figure out how to use Windows. At all. Thus do I disagree. You have to know something about it to use it. It's just that many people have been conditioned by it and so /see/ it as being "intuitive".. I wasn't born knowing how to use Windows, I learned it. Of course, some people grasp these things easier than others.. But learn it they still have to do. ;)
~ Kish
"I love my Macs, but I can easily say that Macs will always be a niche product, and so will Linux."
I rather doubt GNU/Linux will be relagated to a "niche market". Considering the development model and its growing support, there's nothing it could not theoretically accomplish. However, it's becoming less of a "theory" every day.. What will actually happen is anybody's guess, but I seriously doubt GNU/Linux will incur the intense beating Java did after the hype settled down. ;)
~ Kish
If Apple shipped a complete development environment with their OS and stopped sueing people I might consider it.
Why ship a development environment with a consumer OS? When you buy a play station, to they send you everything you need to write games?
Anyway, Macintosh Programming Workshop (MPW) is Apple's FREE Programming environment. You can download it from their website, along with hundreds of other useful tools, code snippets, SDKs, and useful stuff. Plus you get MrC, one of the best PPC compilers for PowerPCs.
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
That still doesn't make MacOS intuitive. More consistent, perhaps.. But what /isn't/ more consistent than Windows? Besides, many Windows people find MacOS confusing, and vice versa. That just goes to show which OS said user is most familiar with, not which is most intuitive.
~ Kish
Wow, I can't believe this is an issue. Are Linux users really out to stifle other OSs?
Mac OS X is a grandson of NeXTstep, a BSD derivative OS. Under NeXTstep, we (users/developers) were actually pushing NeXT to stay on top of the changes being wrought by BSD 4.4 Lite, to allow the source code and libraries to be free of restrictions and to benefit of improvements.
So what is wrong with them continuing this trend of working closely with BSD?
Years ago, I bought a NeXT Colorstation to benefit from an improved Mac like GUI interface, a BSD based Unix with a GNU C compiler, an Object Development system that still impresses me, a Display Postscript environment "because it made sense". And the sum of all parts outweighed the individual pieces.
Now, those days are gone, but Mac OS X announces itself as a great "user Experience." I still own and use my NeXT and would pay $$$ to simply update the hardware under it to something current. Barring that, an iBook running OS X may just suite me fine.
My dual-Celeron Linux server, my Cobalt Qube and any other Linux boxes simply never matched the consistency of that old BSD Unix based NeXT. I think that is also the perception of the engineers at Apple (Nue NeXT).
"The interesting challenge for linux: Keep the command-line power for those who want it, but a consumer user should NEVER have to see it."
For one, there already is a lot of drive that has been pushed behind the "user-friendly desktop environment with pretty graphical interfaces and all the other things Joe Public has come to know and love, even point and click!" category. Joe Public will probably never try to custom install an OS on his own. He doesn't even have to do that with Windows. Whenever you buy a Windows computer, it's already pretty much set up and ready to go (well, except for those stupid "registration" things I've been seeing a lot of.. damn those are annoying), and they usually include a little disc that allows you to reinstall.. a real no-brainer reinstall. This would hardly be difficult to do for GNU/Linux. Preconfiguration is Joe Public's best friend. Once the GUI apps become more user-friendly, and the computer companies stop thinking that GNU/Linux is just a "server OS", then this "challenge" will have been accomplished. After all, it's not like you're condemned to spend your entire life in X. You can go to the command-line if you want to. Joe Public probably won't want to. Just like Joe Public doesn't switch out of the Windows GUI and play around in DOS, even though he could. Ha!
~ Kish
Because porting to additional platforms is much easier after porting to the second, the essential choice for vendors will be between supporting just MicroSoft or supporting multiple platforms. Thus, any reduction in MicroSoft's market share will make it more likely that vendors will support Linux. Linux wins when more people buy iMacs. All users wins when there is greater choice in the OS market.
Not only that, but a greater number of economically viable platforms will drive more companies to open source. Why? Because most companies can't afford to produce and support binary distributions for a wide range of platforms. While they could contract out such support, moving to Open Source will allow user of even obscure platforms to become customers.
Andrew Semprebon EQ Systems Inc.
"I think one of the major problems with tossing around the phrase "easy-to-use" is that no-one ever really defines who is supposed to find it easier."
Too true.
"Ultimately, if the "ease-of-use" factor strays too far below the user's skill/knowledge level, s/he's going to find the OS getting in their way with too many wizards and "are you sure?" dialogs. If "ease-of-use" was keyed to a more advanced user, the user's going to be intimidated by the system, and may never use it to the fullest."
I disagree. Having a GUI and a CLI on the same OS is hardly any kind of innovation. And it allows for precisely the paradoxical thing trying to be accomplished.
"Does the system get out of their way once they've learned these tasks? Or does it force them to continue to use the "easy-to-use" wizards and whatnot?"
Even in Windows you could switch over to DOS and avoid all that if you knew the system well. :) However, I would like to make a point that while the GNU/Linux overall GUI should make things simpler, it should /never/ be dumbed down to the level of Windows. That's just more annoying than.. useful.
"The real problem here is that there is no such thing as one-size-fits all. Personally, I think that is misguided and silly to try to do it. Look @ Windows. It tries to be all things to all people, and as a result, isn't. Is that what we want Linux to aspire to? I don't think so..."
As you pointed out earlier, there's no way for a computer to be immediately usable by someone with no aptitude for computing at all (and no experience). However, you can certainly design a system that allows for advanced users to "get at the computer" (unlike MacOS), yet appeal to those who do not wish to use the more advanced capabilities of their system (like [insert favorite "suck" OS with a pretty GUI here]). Hell, even advanced users find X to be useful as well as entertaining. ;)
Besides, when you come right down to it, Windows isn't really a good example for much of anything except what a really good marketing campaign will do for sales. There's certainly no true comparison between GNU/Linux and Windows. GNU/Linux is on a much higher level..
~ Kish
I believe the poster to whom you are replying to mentioned that /FreeBSD/ doesn't run on PPC. Not exactly the same thing as NetBSD. A la:
"As far as I know, FreeBSD doesn't yet run on PowerPC (a port is underway perhaps?)."
AFAIK: Unix is simply Unix. Classic. BSD is yet another fork in Unix development. A derivative. NetBSD is a derivative of BSD. FreeBSD and OpenBSD forked off from NetBSD. Thus are there three major flavors of BSD that are "free". Only only is called FreeBSD, however. ;)
~ Kish
You write:
The Salon article actually says:
Reality check, please.
"How would you ensure profitability by just building the hardware?"
That's paramount to asking how Dell makes money even though they don't build Windows or Red Hat. Besides, you don't exactly see people buying MacOS. They buy the computer. AFAIK, you are only allowed to put MacOS on a Mac anyway (not that it would be useful/desirable to stick it on a non-Mac in the first place). Thus they aren't really selling the software, they are selling the hardware. How do they make a profit? By not spending money building the software and just make the hardware. Same sales, less money to put up to get them. Perhaps even more sales.
"Obviously, the goals of free software are going to clash head-on with you if you try to make your hardware work "best" with the software that you're developing in the open."
Just build good hardware. Don't try to give yourself an "edge" a la Wintel. It's what we all want, anyway. Good hardware.
~ Kish
"I'm not a *nix person, but I will venture a guess anyway. :) I'd say that the BSD code is more mature than Linux. For example, as I understand, Linux doesn't work well in multiprocessor systems."
BSD and its derivatives are direct descendants of the original Unix. Thus they use a lot of tried and true code. However, they also suffer from a lot of really horribly archaic code. The Linux kernel advances a little slower than it could because Torvalds is seriously anal, and doesn't allow for any kind of kludge. In the end, this is going to pay off.. big time. Elegance is not to be underestimated, even if it takes a little time.
~ Kish
" "I see Linux as irrelevant from my perspective as an advocate for everyday computer users," says Joe Ragosta, maintainer of the Complete Macintosh Page. "It's a great geek OS for people who want to be cooler than everyone else ... As such, there's no way it can compete for the average user. Heck, I've dealt with enough average users who can't figure out where the 'start' menu is, much less how to install and manage a Linux system. While the newer versions are better in this regard, they're nowhere close to the ease of use of the Mac, or even Windows." "
This guy is a complete and utter tool (you saw it here first, Kish's first use of "format tags" on Slashdot). Who here actually uses GNU/Linux to be "cool"? And what makes this luser think that GNU/Linux isn't going to swiftly evolve into something for your average hacker /and/ Joe Public? And who else is getting sick of the "easy to use" card? I personally find GNU/Linux a /lot/ easier to use than either Windows or MacOS.. No OS is intuitive, and thus, "easy to use".. Some are simply easier for certain people to learn than others.
~ Kish
For the last time, the open source relese of darwin has little or nothing to do with a desire to proliferate or pose os x server against linix or any other server os really. It is about quicktime. now we all love our respective os's and what not and can go on forever flaming one another abotu our personal prefs and so forth, but the fact is we are all doing it through a website where what os you run don't matter a bit. in the end, if you take a properly internet-centric veiw of all this you can see what all the big ceo's have been saying for years, it's about whose standards are on the web. apple will be a reletivly large niche player for the forseeable future, i work at an ad agency in the creative dept. and i can tell you that these macs aint goin no where in this industry, as in publishing, or anything else where seemless creativity is the goal. apple knows this, it can grow it's consumer base to a cewrtain extent (imacs, etc.) but jobs knows in the end it is quicktime that will make or break apples long term success. so shut up about apple encrouching on linux or the authenticity of thir open source gestures and hurry up and port quicktime streaming server to linux!!
I was a little too vague, I imagine. At the time I wrote that post, I was thinking about an article I'd read previously where one of the members of one of the "port Linux to Mac" projects was saying that Apple should just make the hardware and let them make the OS. It would certainly save them time and money since they wouldn't have to develop anything in that area ("they" being Apple).
"If Apple were to GPL Mac OS X, they would still be the principal developers for, at the very least, quite some time (look at how Mozilla started) and would probably not make money from it."
At any rate.. Mozilla would have more support if it was GPL'ed rather than MPL'ed. The license sucks. Not as much as the NPL, but enough. So would most any GPL'ed project that had any worth to it at all.
"OTOH, Dell is not a principal developer of either RH or Windows."
Of course not. The point being, a lot of people might be more excited about the new PPC chips developed by IBM and Motorola if you could use them in a Mac without being subject to MacOS. I know of a few myself, at the very least. Personally, I'm still waiting for all of the promised architecture support that Debian is slated to have in the hopefully not-so-distant future. ;)
~ Kish
"You have to remember that Mac OS X is based off of a lot of NeXTstep code, and also a lot of NetBSD code (or possibly FreeBSD code, I'm not sure)."
..I was talking specifically about BSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. I guess I could have been a little more specific when I said "derivatives", but I was certainly not talking about NeXTstep or anything else, really. I'm not sure why I bothered with any derivatives, however, since the post I replied to only mentioned "BSD". :)
~ Kish
Isn't Windows as close to Apple as Apple is close to Xerox's (internal) system.
So technically, isn't everyone using the Xerox OS?
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
--
I was ready to agree with you until I recalled what most people do with computers: Web Browseing, E-mail, Word Processing, Printing, Spreadsheets, and perhaps some kind of checking program. I also have a friend who makes his own Web Page on the internet using some Page wizard thing on Trident.
I am already to agree with you. Just someone tell me how the command-line would help with the above task.
--
Then perhaps you want a way of disabling the tweakable knobs and buttons on machines that the IT folks are managing (I have the impression that Windows NT, at least, has ways of doing so, by setting the appropriate, well, knobs in the registry), or, at least, requiring people to forego centralized management if they want to tweak their boxes.
Unix, BSD, subsequent derivatives.. Their implementations (each one considered individually) would of course be rather consistent due to their heritage, and the fact that relatively small groups work on the OS proper. Thus, being consistent is relatively easy.
"The more I delve into Linux, the more I get confused by the different ways everything has to be done. I think this is a symptom of the "hack it till it just works" mentality."
Are you referring to the kernel proper? If so, I'm sure a lot of people would like to point out how incredibly anal Torvalds really is, and just how elegant anything suggested for inclusion in the kernel really has to be in order to "make the grade". ;)
At any rate, the "hack till it just works" seems to be an increasingly common misconception typically associated with GNU/Linux and its various advocates. Perhaps some day people will think of some more devious FUD to cater to the masses with.
~ Kish
Care to point to a good (re: specific) resource which tracks the entire history of BSD to, well, whatever was derived from it? Like Free/Net/Open.. The various project pages sure don't do the most exciting job of doing so. ;)
However, The History of the NetBSD Project might prove to be of some interest to a few.. Specifically the little graphic toward the bottom. Not the most precise thing in the world, but it certainly suggests that NetBSD and FreeBSD aren't based solely on 4.4 Lite..
It all goes back to that "promote understanding" thing, which I'm all for. I personally don't find tracking the history of *BSD to be the most exciting thing in the world, but it could prove.. useful.. in certain situations.
~ Kish
Yep
If the GPL were "free" in the way BSD fanatics think of the term, no one would give a damn about "free software"Yep
Because if you don't have the sledgehammer ready in case someone tries to take that free software and make it proprietary, someone is going to do just that. Every time. That's why *BSD isn't nearly as popular. The GPL is certainly less restrictive than most any other license. The BSD license is pretty much pointless. It might as well not even be a license.Right, the GPL restricts your rights to guarantee the rights of others. This, IMHO is the best way software can be "free". And you are right, this restriction as to what others can do with *your* code is the reason it is so popular. But I think that "Open Source" is more discriptive of the idea of the GPL then "free" does. The GPL ensures that the code will always be open source. "Free" implies the ability to do anything you want with it. The BSD allows this.
There are benefits to each. Don't forget that. We need them both. But they *do* serve different purposes.
-Brent--
The Mac OS has always been for me a tool of maximum efficiency - it's about as clean and fast a GUI as one could hope for, mostly thanks to its carefully thought out placement of icons, menus, buttons and so forth. Linux - tho' I've not been working on it for too long - is efficient as any unixesque system through the CLI (and I'm sure enjoying Enlightenment!)
I've been working on macs almost my whole life, and love them. But because the sort of work I do has been changing, I've found a text-based interface more efficient. My mac advocacy hasn't slackened though!
I thought the Salon article made a good point, though - that (and I am paraphrasing cruelly to make my point) people become advocates of the system they find the most efficient. Personally I wish that Alias | Wavefront would write a window manager - Maya is simply the best ``OS'' I've ever used. Irix is fun, too.
*N
I don't think the writer understands at all why we use Linux/UNIX..
... The geeks look at a computer as a sacred mystical ..."
"The design and elegance of the Mac operating system can affordany moron to get work done in an efficient way and, if necessary, figure
out what's wrong with it. This is contrary to all that the average Linux geek wants
tool, and use allegorical and mythical terms to describe it
1) If a mac isn't doing what you expect then it gives you NO debugging information to "figure out what's wrong with it" - trust me.. I work on a help desk. How do you ping something from a mac? erm. there's a COMMERCIAL PACKAGE that can do it.. sheesh. So if it says "can't connect to mail host smtp.foo.com" I have no idea if it's a DNS problem or a TCP problem or an IP problem, and I'm trying to work this out through some 'kwit down the phone who bought a mac fooled into thinking it would be easy to use. The mostly monochrome desktop is far from "elegant" and the interface is too damn illogical.
2) The mythical terms stuff is garbage. As a die-hard GNU advocate I'd still be the first person happy to rename 'grep' as 'regexp-filter' or even 'search'.
I was originally drawn to unix 5 years ago just by seeing a solaris box and how much you configure FVWM to do what you want (you mean you can actually define your OWN button menus? wow!). I have stayed with linux after seeing the power of opensource and its mass ability to protect good technology from being beaten by FUD.
Sounds to me like the article was written by a mac advocate trying to get linux users to use macs.
If Apple shipped a complete development environment with their OS and stopped sueing people I might consider it.
I don't understand why so many writers seem to think that the power of Linux and "ease of use" are mutually exclusive things? I guess it's because most of them new to the Linux bandwagon. There are a lot of projects that have been, and will continue to improve the ease of use of Linux for newbies.
Notice I said for newbies. For those who have bothered to learn how to use the keyboard as their primary input device, Unix shells are much easier to use than GUI interfaces for all but the most simple operations.
A pretty GUI interface simply does not define ease of use for everyone. I'm hoping that during the next year the "ease of use" arguement is going to become a non issue. By that point Linux should at least be caught up to Windows in the "ease of use for newbies" category. The idea that Linux may one day also be touted as "easier to configure and install than Windows" may be here sooner than you think.
numb
BSD- or X-style licenses are simply one step away from being public domain. Saying the GPL isn't free, no matter what else you say, is ludicrous. If the GPL were "free" in the way BSD fanatics think of the term, no one would give a damn about "free software" (or "open source" or whatever other even more ambiguous term you want to use instead of the correct one..).
Free software is all about making it free for everyone, and making damn sure that it stays that way.. Because if you don't have the sledgehammer ready in case someone tries to take that free software and make it proprietary, someone is going to do just that. Every time. That's why *BSD isn't nearly as popular. The GPL is certainly less restrictive than most any other license. The BSD license is pretty much pointless. It might as well not even be a license.
I'm not sure what you were aiming to accomplish by reiterating something all of us /should/ know, though you seemed to do a remarkable job of clouding the issue with some very odd semantic takes on things.
~ Kish
"Wow, I can't believe this is an issue. Are Linux users really out to stifle other OSs?"
There are fanatics who use utter deception, outright lies, and other misconceptions on /both/ sides of the *BSD vs. GNU/Linux fence. Personally, I despise them all. I'm all for choice. If you don't like the GPL, fine. Don't use it. If you don't like other licenses, fine, don't use them. If you don't like such and such OS, fine. Don't use it already! Just don't lie about any of the above just to "get more mindshare" as one FreeBSD drone who is a little too able to impress his opinions on the public once told me was ok. Just let the truth be known and let everyone decide for themselves. The free software movement isn't about coddling people, ok? It's about choice. Let's keep it that way.
~ Kish
..at least not on the scale you wrote about. ;) It's simply about choice. Some people seem to think it's just a popularity contest still, however.. It's just about providing an alternative in case someone wants it. It's not supposed to be about forcing that alternative down someone's throat.
~ Kish
Many of you already know this -- but I made a pretty stupid error in the Apple/Linux story. I said that Mac OS X is code-named Darwin. As I have been informed by numerous parties this morning, Darwin only refers to certain underlying layers of code in Mac OS X, mainly Mach and BSD. Corrections have been made to the story that bring it, I hope, into line.
Cheers!
Editor, Salon Business & Technology
Salon.com
The one that ran on the least-expensive hardware
The cheapest to buy (or steal)
Preferred by techies
Eventually, Windows became much easier to use and (perhaps) technically superior to the Mac. This only added to its dominance.
If Linux vs NT is Jihad II, Linux already has a massive lead on these 4 fronts.
I guess the biggest piece missing is 3rd-party support -- but that's definitely coming. Life is sweet.
Professionally, I am primarily a UNIX and VxWorks developer (I have a Linux box on my desk which I use for prototyping) and sysadmin who has used far too many flavors of unix to remain normal. I've also done quite a bit of Macintosh programming.
At home, I have both an iMac and a linux laptop to play with. Guess which one is used more? The iMac. And no I am not dumbing down off-hours... I do most of my home coding projects on the Mac these days. The Mac is just more fun to use, and when it's MY OWN time, the fun is really all that matters.
Is Linux "fun to use"? Yes. As a challenging and powerful environment to keep one's unix chops up to snuff. It's also the most pleasant of all the unices I've seen or used over the years.
Is the Macintosh "fun to use"? Also yes. As a tool that hardly ever gets between me and whatever it is I am trying to do.
I guess what I am trying to say is that linux is fun in the sense that, say, Rubik's Cube or a challenging puzzle is fun. My Mac is fun in the sense that my guitars are fun. There is plenty of room in my life for both.
I have as much "unix cred" as almost anyone, and I still have nothing but respect for the general design of the MacOS. It bothers me when (as happens all too often) I hear perfectly competent and intelligent linux advocates flaming MacOS by reflex.
I'm not really sure why it has to be one or the other. Why not both?
:Michael
..who are a little lazy. ;)
Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix. While it proves some points previously asserted by others, I'll state simply that even though *BSD has no Unix code left in it, it's still a rework of the Unix code (and members of the Unix family tree). I personally find it to be more elegant to start from scratch than a complete rework. And that's what was meant.
The rest of the book is pretty good, too, even though I was disappointed that the section on Stallman was a reprint of a page on the GNU site. Yeah, like I haven't read /that/ before.. It's /really/ funny what Torvalds has to say about GNU in his chapter, especially ebout Emacs. ;) Goes to further prove I don't care a whole lot about his views aside from kernel hacking. ;)
~ Kish
"Right, the GPL restricts your rights to guarantee the rights of others."
I'm not sure I follow. Even if this were true (the usual arguement is that the designer is then bereft of their rights, which are then dispersed into the community as a whole), the GPL only restricts what the designer of the software allows it to restrict. GPL'ed software is just as useless to proprietary people as proprietary software is to the rest of us, with regards to a certain point of view.
"But I think that "Open Source" is more discriptive of the idea of the GPL then "free" does."
Not really. Open source is an easily corruptible term. In fact, most businesses have already corrupted it (no thanks to people such as ESR and his followers). All open source means is that you get to look at the code. Thus, the NPL and SCSL are both "open source", but come nowhere close to doing what the GPL aims to achieve. Non-believers really should read the Philosophy section of the GNU Project's Web site.
For a more eclectic point of view, think about the Alamo. The defenders of the Alamo said they were free. Not free today, yesterday, or even tomorrow, but forever. They would not later be stripped of their freedom, and made into slaves due to someone else's whim. They would fight anyone who sought to take away their freedom. This is the kind of ideal that the GPL and the philosophy behind it represents. Sure, the defenders of the Alamo couldn't make the Mexican Army happy that way, but is that something they really wanted to do..? In order to stay free you have to stand up for yourself. BSD licensing.. does not do this.
To quote Stallman himself: "Non-copyleft licenses such as the XFree86 and BSD licenses are based on the idea of never saying no to anyone--not even to someone who seeks to use your work as the basis for restricting other people. Non-copyleft licensing does nothing wrong, but it misses the opportunity to actively protect our freedom to change and redistribute software. For that, we need copyleft." So, before you say that the GPL isn't "free", think again about what kind of "freedom" we are really talking about.
"The GPL ensures that the code will always be open source. "Free" implies the ability to do anything you want with it. The BSD allows this."
As I said, a usual BSD fanatic point of view. This isn't the kind of "freedom" Richard Stallman is advocating, however. Again, refer to the aforementioned section of the FSF site. And the BSD license does /not/ allow me to do whatever I want with it. The two licenses aren't precisely compatible, so I can't integrate GPL'ed and BSD'ed software freely (that is, mix the code in the same program). That's not entirely "free" based on the way you seem to define the term, now is it?
"There are benefits to each. Don't forget that. We need them both. But they *do* serve different purposes."
Yup. Of course not. Nope. Yup.
I much prefer the LGPL to the BSD flavor of licensing. Much much prefer. Of course, I'd rather the GPL, but sometimes you just /have/ to set a standard by using the LGPL because you need to succeed (and not because you just want to be popular).
In closing, I shall quote Stallman one last time: "Friends, free software developers, don't repeat a mistake. If we do not copyleft our software, we put its future at the mercy of anyone equipped with more resources than scruples. With copyleft, we can defend freedom, not just for ourselves, but for ourw hole community."
I shall also cite an example: "The spirit of both licenses is to allow users access to the source code of the programs they are running, so that they can make modifications to suit their needs, and that they can share this code with others. However, while the BSD license only encourages people to share the improvements they make, the GPL requires people to do so if they want to distribute their modifications. Since Tim felt that people were exploiting Kaffe without contributing their improvements back to the main code base, he decided to use the more restrictive GPL for versions of Kaffe that are more recent than 0.9.2." That's from the Kaffe home page.. The licensing FAQ, to be specific.
The now obligatory cheap shot: In short, there's a big difference between being liberal and being "someone's bitch" just because you want to be popular. ;)
~ Kish
And if using Linux is a way to prove I'm better than everybody else, why do I want more people to use it? Simple: I don't feel threatened by people ascending to my level, but I do think the world will be better off for it. And I cheer the arrival of easier-to-learn tools for installing and using Linux because they are not a threat to my status, but rather are an important step towards a world in which a powerful, stable operating system is ubiquitous.
Keep the command-line power for those who want it, but a consumer user should NEVER have to see it. Period
BeOS already does this. The GUI is very slick too. The multitasking is better than ANY other OS ive ever used (lots of threads and fine grained scheduling)
BeOS is nowhere close to linux or *nix as a server for one thing it doesn't (yet) have multiuser support, but it rocks as a desktop OS.
For this reason amongst others you and many other Slashdotters might not want to actually use BeOS, but if you want to see what your goal of a "user friendly linux" might look like take a look at BeOS!
Apple's choice of BSD for Mac OS X is entirely a a matter of legacy code. Mac OS X is meant to integrate the technology they acquired from the NeXT buyout into the Mac OS.
This is not an easy task, and they are trying to do this is fast as they can. BSD is what NeXT used, and since there is really no need to change that part of the OS (As opposed to integrating backwards compatibilty, and the dubious shift from an Object C API to a Java one), they stuck with it.
NeXT's choice of BSD is again a matter of legacy. When the Mach micorkernel was developed at CMU, they put BSD on top of it to show it off. It worked so well, no one felt the need to do anything else with Mach. NeXT used it as is, because it was the fastest way to get a shipping product.