It also strikes me as a clever way of imploding fissile material in order to achieve a critical mass for a nuclear detonation, perhaps with more control over some of the critical variables? Or maybe for more ease of long-term maintenance of the device. . .
Saying that it's okay becauseother nations are "worse" or that McCarthyism was worse, is pretty much saying that "two wrongs make a right".
Either you support Essential Liberties or you don't. Either you think trading Liberty for Security is a nifty idea or you don't. Either Liberty is a Luxury or a Necessity. Thousands of years of human history have demonstrated how well the philosophy of authoritarianism works. But we're about to re-learn that lesson here, in America.
This sounds like investment house pump and dump, stuff we saw at the end of the 90s with the Internet boom.
. . . thanks to the PLSR Act, graciously given to us by the Republican congress (overriding Clintons one and only Veto). It makes it nearly impossible to sue companies for the kind of fraud Enron committed, and more importantly, the kind of fraud that pumped up the stock market in the late 90's.
It's still with us today.
And now, the SEC is going to be run by the guy who WROTE this vile law.
New York Stock Exchange? Try Wild West Stock Exchange.
- divorce of pre G3 architechure from os x support.
- no support for quartz extreme for earlier ATI chipsets which actually do support it.
- no support for external firewire dvd drives in idvd.
- for a good long time, no support for legacy hardware with 6 pci slots, until a third party stepped in with an external chassis (which is not as elegant a solution) for pro-audio user niche.
etc.
I understand that along the way standards have to be pushed forward. Notice that I have no bitter feelings about, and don't mention, the death of 68k support. That was a change that was long overdue.
But in two of the cases, above, Apple actually made commitments for support to customers, and reneged on those commitments, an those customers were able to successfully sue Apple. While I, personally don't agree with that kind of thing, it does support my argument that Apple shits on legacy hardware customers, in a way that's unnecessary for the goal of "progressive standards". I agree that Apple has done great things as far as ditching some backwards compatability, and pushing the platform forward. But the forced-hardware-upgrade treadmill has left some customers behind, and Apple should have done more to include those loyal, paying customers.
Now, with the switch to Intel - Apple will be bringing on a supertanker-load of backwards compatability inspired ugly hacks from the x86 world. And forcing their customers to downgrade. There's been no indication from them to believe that they're going to do anything to make this a transparent transition for legacy hardware owners. (like me - with a dual 2GHz G5). If this transition truly IS motivated by a need to incorporate DRM for the music industry, I fear that iTunes support on PPC macs will be the first thing to drop. Just as it was the FIRST Classic iApp to be de-supported. By sucking up to the RIAA, and transitioning their Systems user-base to an inferior technology, Apple is demonstrating, that they care only about their iTunes Music Store revenue stream, (and the cheap-ass Celeron Mac Mini systems they're going to have to sell to support the downloads) and not at all about pushing the state of the art for their high-end Workstations and Servers.
If they continue with a dual-platform strategy, like Sun, then I'll be somewhat comforted. But right now, I'm feeling a tad left-out-to-dry.
better still, Machines of Loving Grace's song "Trigger for Happiness" has the line:
And if I could kill without guilt or sin there'd soon be a few less record executives and if I could kill and recieve forgiveness there'd sure as hell be one less president
Man, you really live in a fantasy world, don't you?
The "it just needs some tweaks and a recompile" story has been told before. If this were all Java, I'd feel a little better, but not totally reassurred. In the history of computing this has never ever, not once, been pulled off without a huge pain in the ass. If any company can do it, of course, it's Apple.
Hardware is more of an issue for people who want to hold on to it for long time
One of Apple's historic selling points has been this particular one. Check out eBay - look at the prices that G4 iMacs sell at (if they haven't already been sandbagged by the news).
Now check out VersionTracker, and look at the huge list of shareware/freeware apps available for Mac OS X, which now will need to be "just tweaked and recompiled" - none of that's going to happen. Especially for the buttload of old apps that are no longer seeing any development. This can't be anything but a disaster for current Apple customers, except for people looking for an Apple Laptop that has kept up with the CPU growth curve.
I forgot about Darwin. Another poster's comments about Rosetta seem to indicate that there won't be any Open Firmware on x86 Macs.
But there ARE some facilities in the OS that use Open Firmware after it's booted.
Anyway, my fondest dream now is that Apple is really just calling IBM's bluff, and maybe IBM will pull a miracle out of it's fat ass, and give Apple some better PPC chips, and then Apple can continue supporting both platforms; x86 for the low-end, and PPC for high-end workstations and servers. That way, ISV's will be compelled to support both platforms, and it will be in Apple's best interest to keep the hardware as convergent as possible, and to provide the best tools to support that effort. Sun seems to be executing this strategy. . . but not very well. Microsoft also tried and failed. Cross-platform development seems to get the development effort needed, but almost NEVER gets the testing support required to ensure a quality port. (even in the games industry, where testing is virtually a profit-center).
This is all probably false-hope though, and likely this spells the doom of all competition for System CPU chips. Apple is a HUGE vendor, systems wise, and this is a HUGE win for intel (over AMD).
He predicted the shift, yes, but it didn't happen for the reasons he cites. Dvorak was overall ignorant to the inner workings of the Apple-IBM relationship that prompted this decision over the last year. Dvorak's reasoning is that he believes that Intel is a titan, and that monopolies are good, and that the market should reward them. Steve Jobs switched because he's playing hardball with is suppliers.
I think that this move will be more likely to help Linux than to hurt it. For one thing, this move makes x86-compiled Linux binaries more compatible with the x86-compiled OS X - therefore puts more Linux apps in reach of "casual" open source dabblers who are Mac-heads. Ultimately, this will more closely tie Linux with Mac Users, and vice versa. (not the non-technical subset of Mac users, but the hobbyist/power-user set). I *do* believe that cultivating WiNE for OS X, and other Linux x86 apps, are secretly part of this strategy. Partially to backfill the applications that the platform WILL lose, when it goes x86 - because face it, Adobe and Microsoft may be buying into this bullshit, but the reality is, most other ISV's are not going to recompile or put in the effort to port to x86. Particularly a lot of the shareware/freeware games and utilities (you may as well delete them now, and get used to their absence, they're gone).
I don't think that a whole lot of Linux users are switching to Apple because of the CPU. They're doing it because Apple supports Unix tools they're familliar with, in a much more powerful sensible and workable User Environment (OS X compared to Windows+SFU). This hardware change won't impact that AT ALL, unless there's a real price/performance difference betweem PPC Macs and Intel Macs (and I seriously doubt that, if anything, there will be a penalty in certain areas where the PPC Macs currently exel, like CD ripping, and MPEG encoding).
Above all, I doubt VERY MUCH that the PPC->Intel switch is intended to have an impact on the street-price of Apple systems. Jobs says this is purely about MHz ramping, and heat/power/performance capabilities. He's not going to put a celeron in the Mac Mini, and suddenly drop the price $200.
Linux-heads who are in love with cheap hardware, will stick with Wintel-compatible hardware, and run Linux.
And NO ONE, will run Linux on Apple-intel hardware. Because Apple-intel hardware will cost more than other brands of intel systems, and the features that make it WORTH more (nifty volume controls, sleep/wake/variable power/cooling management, color management etc) are tied into Mac OS X, and won't likely work as well with Unix.
The LOSERS here are Apple Customers who have legacy systems. Over the past 5 years or so, Apple has readily demonstrated their utter contempt for people not running the latest and greatest Apple hardware, by cutting off support for older hardware. Us PPC owners are going to be shit on a lot over the next few years.
Our only solace may be PPC Linux. That helps, not hurts Linux.
Perhaps the Mac crowd will become the ultimate DRM apologists, claiming, with some credibility, that Mac couldn't survive if it didn't have TC/DRM involved.
This former Mac zealot sure as hell will not.
I'm guessing though, that OS X/x86 will require Open Firmware, so you'll need a motherboard(logic board?) that at least supports it.
Possibly not - the new version of XCode builds universal binaries for both Intel and PPC. So, what's the problem again?
IN THEORY.
The problem is when reality sneaks up behind theory, bends it over, rips off it's frilly dress, and has it's way with her.
Or, to put it another way. . . you must not have lived through some of these other cross-platform transitions, and come to appreciate how not everything that was supposed to "work just fine" actually worked just fine, or just fine but, much much slower. . .
Just in case this is true, and Steve Jobs is reading this Slashdot post, while doing some soul searching prior to delivering the keynote:
DON'T DO IT! It's the craziest most fucking foolish thing most of us on this web site have ever heard of. I mean really, did some Intel marketing guy insert a brain parasite into your rectum or something? What the fuck are you thinking?!
On the other hand, if Steve Jobs *is* reading this post, and the rumor is not true. . . um. . . sorry Mister Jobs. Good work on the dual G5 Power Mac, by the way. It's the most ass-kickingly awesome desktop machine I've ever used.
It could be that IBM (recent massive layoffs announced, and has sold their PC line) - is struggling worse than they've let on, and is about to sever the PPC agreement with Apple, leaving them high and dry.
(I don't think this is likely, I'm just suggesting it as a possible explanation).
Such an event would send shock waves through the entire IT industry, of course. I'm sure that long term, it would at long last, mean the final demise of Apple as a systems manufacturer (they'd live on, perhaps, solely on the iPod and related music business).
As a long time Mac user, I have just two words to describe the snatching of Victory from the Jaws of Defeat that switching from the G5 to x86 would represent: The horror. . .
Well, for me, anything that lends Dvorak credibility can't possibly be true. It would be like Darth Sideous retiring from politics in the middle of Episode III, and opening up "The Republic's Largest Cuddly, Fuzzy, Puppy-Farm".
Slashdot Mirror
It also strikes me as a clever way of imploding fissile material in order to achieve a critical mass for a nuclear detonation, perhaps with more control over some of the critical variables? Or maybe for more ease of long-term maintenance of the device. . .
Fat lot of good it does him NOW.
iTunes already munged his hierarchy.
(happened to me first time too. LUCKY I HAD BACKUPS!!!)
No, because when files are stored by one user's metadata, then they're still forcing their filing method on everyone else.
Saying that it's okay becauseother nations are "worse" or that McCarthyism was worse, is pretty much saying that "two wrongs make a right".
Either you support Essential Liberties or you don't. Either you think trading Liberty for Security is a nifty idea or you don't. Either Liberty is a Luxury or a Necessity. Thousands of years of human history have demonstrated how well the philosophy of authoritarianism works. But we're about to re-learn that lesson here, in America.
PSLR = Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
This sounds like investment house pump and dump, stuff we saw at the end of the 90s with the Internet boom.
. . . thanks to the PLSR Act, graciously given to us by the Republican congress (overriding Clintons one and only Veto). It makes it nearly impossible to sue companies for the kind of fraud Enron committed, and more importantly, the kind of fraud that pumped up the stock market in the late 90's.
It's still with us today.
And now, the SEC is going to be run by the guy who WROTE this vile law.
New York Stock Exchange? Try Wild West Stock Exchange.
from the late 1990's.
examples:
- divorce of pre G3 architechure from os x support.
- no support for quartz extreme for earlier ATI chipsets which actually do support it.
- no support for external firewire dvd drives in idvd.
- for a good long time, no support for legacy hardware with 6 pci slots, until a third party stepped in with an external chassis (which is not as elegant a solution) for pro-audio user niche.
etc.
I understand that along the way standards have to be pushed forward. Notice that I have no bitter feelings about, and don't mention, the death of 68k support. That was a change that was long overdue.
But in two of the cases, above, Apple actually made commitments for support to customers, and reneged on those commitments, an those customers were able to successfully sue Apple. While I, personally don't agree with that kind of thing, it does support my argument that Apple shits on legacy hardware customers, in a way that's unnecessary for the goal of "progressive standards". I agree that Apple has done great things as far as ditching some backwards compatability, and pushing the platform forward. But the forced-hardware-upgrade treadmill has left some customers behind, and Apple should have done more to include those loyal, paying customers.
Now, with the switch to Intel - Apple will be bringing on a supertanker-load of backwards compatability inspired ugly hacks from the x86 world. And forcing their customers to downgrade. There's been no indication from them to believe that they're going to do anything to make this a transparent transition for legacy hardware owners. (like me - with a dual 2GHz G5). If this transition truly IS motivated by a need to incorporate DRM for the music industry, I fear that iTunes support on PPC macs will be the first thing to drop. Just as it was the FIRST Classic iApp to be de-supported. By sucking up to the RIAA, and transitioning their Systems user-base to an inferior technology, Apple is demonstrating, that they care only about their iTunes Music Store revenue stream, (and the cheap-ass Celeron Mac Mini systems they're going to have to sell to support the downloads) and not at all about pushing the state of the art for their high-end Workstations and Servers.
If they continue with a dual-platform strategy, like Sun, then I'll be somewhat comforted. But right now, I'm feeling a tad left-out-to-dry.
The Intel switch:
x86 has DRM/Trusted Computing.
PPC does not.
I don't think this was so much a case of Steve Jobs playing hardball with IBM, as it is a case of Sony playing hardball with Steve Jobs.
One alternate theory of why this switch happened has been bubbling around, and I think it's the most credible theory yet.
Intel chips will have DRM/Trusted Computing support built in.
The record companies must be pressuring Jobs on this.
. . . after all, the Constitution says that Patent is "to promote the useful arts and sciences".
Letting someone retire after one invention doesn't promote anything other than greed and laziness.
better still, Machines of Loving Grace's song "Trigger for Happiness" has the line:
And if I could kill without guilt or sin
there'd soon be a few less record executives
and if I could kill and recieve forgiveness
there'd sure as hell be one less president
Man, you really live in a fantasy world, don't you?
The "it just needs some tweaks and a recompile" story has been told before. If this were all Java, I'd feel a little better, but not totally reassurred. In the history of computing this has never ever, not once, been pulled off without a huge pain in the ass. If any company can do it, of course, it's Apple.
Hardware is more of an issue for people who want to hold on to it for long time
One of Apple's historic selling points has been this particular one. Check out eBay - look at the prices that G4 iMacs sell at (if they haven't already been sandbagged by the news).
Now check out VersionTracker, and look at the huge list of shareware/freeware apps available for Mac OS X, which now will need to be "just tweaked and recompiled" - none of that's going to happen. Especially for the buttload of old apps that are no longer seeing any development. This can't be anything but a disaster for current Apple customers, except for people looking for an Apple Laptop that has kept up with the CPU growth curve.
I forgot about Darwin.
Another poster's comments about Rosetta seem to indicate that there won't be any Open Firmware on x86 Macs.
But there ARE some facilities in the OS that use Open Firmware after it's booted.
Anyway, my fondest dream now is that Apple is really just calling IBM's bluff, and maybe IBM will pull a miracle out of it's fat ass, and give Apple some better PPC chips, and then Apple can continue supporting both platforms; x86 for the low-end, and PPC for high-end workstations and servers. That way, ISV's will be compelled to support both platforms, and it will be in Apple's best interest to keep the hardware as convergent as possible, and to provide the best tools to support that effort. Sun seems to be executing this strategy. . . but not very well. Microsoft also tried and failed. Cross-platform development seems to get the development effort needed, but almost NEVER gets the testing support required to ensure a quality port. (even in the games industry, where testing is virtually a profit-center).
This is all probably false-hope though, and likely this spells the doom of all competition for System CPU chips. Apple is a HUGE vendor, systems wise, and this is a HUGE win for intel (over AMD).
It all just makes me feel sick.
Dvorak did NOT call this correctly.
He predicted the shift, yes, but it didn't happen for the reasons he cites. Dvorak was overall ignorant to the inner workings of the Apple-IBM relationship that prompted this decision over the last year. Dvorak's reasoning is that he believes that Intel is a titan, and that monopolies are good, and that the market should reward them. Steve Jobs switched because he's playing hardball with is suppliers.
I think that this move will be more likely to help Linux than to hurt it. For one thing, this move makes x86-compiled Linux binaries more compatible with the x86-compiled OS X - therefore puts more Linux apps in reach of "casual" open source dabblers who are Mac-heads. Ultimately, this will more closely tie Linux with Mac Users, and vice versa. (not the non-technical subset of Mac users, but the hobbyist/power-user set). I *do* believe that cultivating WiNE for OS X, and other Linux x86 apps, are secretly part of this strategy. Partially to backfill the applications that the platform WILL lose, when it goes x86 - because face it, Adobe and Microsoft may be buying into this bullshit, but the reality is, most other ISV's are not going to recompile or put in the effort to port to x86. Particularly a lot of the shareware/freeware games and utilities (you may as well delete them now, and get used to their absence, they're gone).
I don't think that a whole lot of Linux users are switching to Apple because of the CPU. They're doing it because Apple supports Unix tools they're familliar with, in a much more powerful sensible and workable User Environment (OS X compared to Windows+SFU). This hardware change won't impact that AT ALL, unless there's a real price/performance difference betweem PPC Macs and Intel Macs (and I seriously doubt that, if anything, there will be a penalty in certain areas where the PPC Macs currently exel, like CD ripping, and MPEG encoding).
Above all, I doubt VERY MUCH that the PPC->Intel switch is intended to have an impact on the street-price of Apple systems. Jobs says this is purely about MHz ramping, and heat/power/performance capabilities. He's not going to put a celeron in the Mac Mini, and suddenly drop the price $200.
Linux-heads who are in love with cheap hardware, will stick with Wintel-compatible hardware, and run Linux.
And NO ONE, will run Linux on Apple-intel hardware. Because Apple-intel hardware will cost more than other brands of intel systems, and the features that make it WORTH more (nifty volume controls, sleep/wake/variable power/cooling management, color management etc) are tied into Mac OS X, and won't likely work as well with Unix.
The LOSERS here are Apple Customers who have legacy systems. Over the past 5 years or so, Apple has readily demonstrated their utter contempt for people not running the latest and greatest Apple hardware, by cutting off support for older hardware. Us PPC owners are going to be shit on a lot over the next few years.
Our only solace may be PPC Linux. That helps, not hurts Linux.
One thing I can say with my LIMITED dabbling in video production on my dual G5:
3 GHz+ ain't enough. 10 GHz probably would not be enough.
It's a niche market, to be sure. But then again, so was audio, 10 years ago.
Perhaps the Mac crowd will become the ultimate DRM apologists, claiming, with some credibility, that Mac couldn't survive if it didn't have TC/DRM involved.
This former Mac zealot sure as hell will not.
I'm guessing though, that OS X/x86 will require Open Firmware, so you'll need a motherboard(logic board?) that at least supports it.
Step one:
Rip a CD on a Power Mac G5.
Step two:
Rip a CD on an x86 machine, Windows or Linux, I don't give a crap.
Step three:
Compare the numbers, and realize that SSE2 ain't AltiVec.
Possibly not - the new version of XCode builds universal binaries for both Intel and PPC. So, what's the problem again?
IN THEORY.
The problem is when reality sneaks up behind theory, bends it over, rips off it's frilly dress, and has it's way with her.
Or, to put it another way. . . you must not have lived through some of these other cross-platform transitions, and come to appreciate how not everything that was supposed to "work just fine" actually worked just fine, or just fine but, much much slower. . .
one thing's for sure - the Mac Fix It sites will be VERY BUSY in the next few years. . .
. . . I think I'm going to be sick.
Just in case this is true, and Steve Jobs is reading this Slashdot post, while doing some soul searching prior to delivering the keynote:
DON'T DO IT! It's the craziest most fucking foolish thing most of us on this web site have ever heard of. I mean really, did some Intel marketing guy insert a brain parasite into your rectum or something? What the fuck are you thinking?!
On the other hand, if Steve Jobs *is* reading this post, and the rumor is not true. . . um. . . sorry Mister Jobs. Good work on the dual G5 Power Mac, by the way. It's the most ass-kickingly awesome desktop machine I've ever used.
Bottom line is, neither of these theories make any damn sense at all:
1) Macs=PPC->x86
2) Intel Mfg=(PPC->Apple) + (x86->everyone else)
and:
3) Karl Rove has been hired on as an Apple PR rep and this is all a bizzarre reverse-psychology publicity stunt of some kind.
. . . is also a bit far fetched, because Rove's already got a gig (though he's rumored to be stepping down soon).
All I know is - if this turns out to be not true, or:
4) Apples making x86-based non-computer devices, like settop boxes or portable media players.
Then a whole lot of Main Stream Media outlets are going to look really fucking foolish by COB today.
It could be that IBM (recent massive layoffs announced, and has sold their PC line) - is struggling worse than they've let on, and is about to sever the PPC agreement with Apple, leaving them high and dry.
(I don't think this is likely, I'm just suggesting it as a possible explanation).
Such an event would send shock waves through the entire IT industry, of course. I'm sure that long term, it would at long last, mean the final demise of Apple as a systems manufacturer (they'd live on, perhaps, solely on the iPod and related music business).
As a long time Mac user, I have just two words to describe the snatching of Victory from the Jaws of Defeat that switching from the G5 to x86 would represent: The horror. . .
Well, for me, anything that lends Dvorak credibility can't possibly be true. It would be like Darth Sideous retiring from politics in the middle of Episode III, and opening up "The Republic's Largest Cuddly, Fuzzy, Puppy-Farm".