I feel your pain. I think its a tactical error to charge the same price to people who bought 10 and people who never did.
The problem is, I don't think there's a practical way for Apple to give a discount to people who bought 10 already.
Because Apple doesn't go thru the license torture that windows boxes do, 10 can be installed on a wiped hard drive, etc. (Imagine trying to reinstall from the Upgrade CD and it refusing because your drive is corrupted and it can't find a previous version.)
Also, I don't think the cupons really work for this large of an upgrade.
Personally, I think they should have priced it at $99 and made it an annual thing-- every year you pay $99. Then it would have been more popular and the price would have been a side issue.
That and the fact that most people don't really realize what tehy are getting with 10.2-- quartz extreme alone is enough to pay the price.
There is a program where you can just pay something like $200 and get the next three years of software upgrades for free. They might do a better job of promoting that as well.
You bring up a good point-- it is Open source and free--- the Jaguar version of Darwin will be released when Jaguar shipps for free to everyone who wants it.
It IS open source, remember.
What you're really paying for is the UI Application, Finder, and all the other applications.
The OS is really open source-- you want to run it with xwindows you can, and jaguar you get to as well.
Interestingly , though, the real value apple's added is in the UI and the applications and all that. So aonyone complaining that 10.2 is not free is just someone who wants all their software for free-- someone who wants something for nothing.
You don't have to pay $129 every six months. Apple has NEVER in its history charged for an OS upgrade inside of a year.
10.1 was FREE.
And the Apple software update is FREE. giving regular updates for the OS and many of your applications.
If the fact that you have to buy it is stopping you from using OS X, that just means you're cheap-- if your time is worht anything, you'll make that $100 back inside of 3 months by switching.
(I love linux, believe in it, have gotten paid developing java applications for it, but when it comes to home, I never boot the linux box and have been migrating OS 10 to all the machines. Even the 9500 which is so old its not supported. Linux just takes too much maintenance and hassle cost to manage-- I'd rather spend that time tinkering with code.)
Your bash against apple is annoying-- NeXT shipped NeXT step the late 80s-- if there was a beta it was arround then. None of the shipping OS X versions have been beta quality-- and Apple has given dozens of free updates since 10.0 came out.
That they are charging for a new release is to be expected. That Linux zeolots will whine about paying for software is to be expected as well.
That they never answer the question "If you don't want to pay, why do you expect to get paid when you go to work? Shouldn't your boss be saying "I'm paying you again for another two weeks? You spent most of the last two weeks reading slashdot!"":-)
How is Amazon sellign software at a loss going to "send a message" to Apple?
As if somehow Jaguar is "supposed" to be $79 and Amazon is "just showing Apple!"
The fact is Jaguar is worth the upgrade price. Apple has charged for its software for half a decade now and charging for Jaguar is to be expected-- and STILL a good deal.
I've been running the 6C106 developers release and this has to be one of the biggests upgrades in apple history in terms of big and little things that are different. I'm not goign to violate my NDA, but I will say that Jaguar is worth paying for.
that the company that invented the concept of "We don't see a need to ever turn a profit" is using it as a loss leader means nothing-- just that they want more people aware of the fact that they sell Apple computers.... and that they realize (even if most people don't) that these "rebates" are more often than not never redeemed. Either because they are too hard, or people are lazy or both.
I can guarantee you that Amazon is not getting jaguar for less than $100. They are taking a loss to get your business, and knoing that they won't really have to take the loss because most of you will eat the $50, leaving their average selling price around $100.
This has nothing to do with Apple. The only thing this issue brings up is that Apple users are apparently rather cheap, just as Linux users are. Or at least the people who whine online are cheap. So it goes.
IF you don't want to upgrade, then don't. Wait a year and Jaguar will be on sale for $10. If you do upgrade you'll find the value is there in the product and it was worth it. But its a free country and its your choice. Just don't expect something for nothing-- that is not a right you have.
Easy. The person who initiates violence is morally wrong. The person who responds with violence is not morally wrong, if the violence is within proportion of self defense.
Its clear that those executing a DOS attack on the RIAA are responding to the RIAA's initiation of force thru the legislature.
One company who make wonderful product management software is Welcom-- www.wst.com.
I don't know if it fits your specific access requirements, but I do believe they have web browser access.
MS Project is "project for dummies". Its sorta a project management program, but not a real one-- not flexible, not standards based, and not used by professional project managers.
The WST software is really well done, really scalable, and really libertating, especially if you've been forced to use MS Project in the past.
Yes, I am a happy past customer, but not a paid spokesmodel.
Well, Apple did something to protect itself and now everyones goign to go screaming about how "its just this type of stuff that keeps macs costing $10,000 and rquiring a refrigerator compresser to cool them" or some equivilent nonesense.
Think about it.
This company was taking new machines, modifying them, and selling them.
How is apple supposed to provide warrantee work for them? How is apple supposed to deal with the damage to its brand when these machines don't work and the warrantee is violated?
If you're going to sell apple technology-- and this is true of Dell, and other brands, and any seller from TechData down to CompUSA you HAVE To have a license. No license, you don't get to sell.
Just as I can't go out and start selling high end Sony car stereos -- a license they only give to their biggest volume dealers-- Apple protecting its brand in this way is exactly what every hardware manufacturer in the world does as well.
Course this won't mean anything to the bigots that see apple as evil and don't understand business at all so they conjecture up some moral law that this supposedly violates. "SEE! This is what happens when you don't sell yourh ardware under GPL! You're a SLAVE TO STEVE JOBS!!!!"
Its very interesting, and revealing that your support for the elimination of private property comes from a misunderstanding of history. This seems common.
To whit, the idea that Microsoft "won" because thier hardware was cheaper-- a "fact" that has never been true.
but a necessary conciet in order to support the agenda of hating apple for producing excellence.
Remember the FSF called for a boycott of apple when they tried to enforce their copyrights when Microsoft violated them. Patents would have protected them.
That is proof right there that patents are necessary.
Its quite ironic that Stallman advocates the monopoly stranglehold that Microsoft has over the software industry while claiming the opposite.
One of those "actions speak louder than words"... just like the totalitarian "freedom" that existed in communist russia.
That was an excellent post. Thanks for calling my attention to it.
I am startign to think that the best strategy is to call the FSF ideology for what it is.
"Free as in totalitariansim" is what I've been saying lately.
Communism is another great example. Marx had this great idea a centuray ago, and haven't we learned what happens when its tried in the interim?
You can never get productivity from people by imposing your will on them-- and taking away their incentive for excellence.
Those that *use* the GPL do not do this-- they are expressing their rights when they choose the GPL for their software.
However, those who ADVOCATE the GPL are advocating force-- when Stallman says "All software should be free"--- he's talking about guns just as much as Marx was when he said "from each acording to his ability, to each acording to his need".
It wasn't goodwill that cause those with ability to give up their food for the incompetants. It was guns.
Fortunately, the rest of the country seems to knwo this lesson on one level or another, and I don't think Stallman will get the guns he needs to create the regime he desires.
But his minions deserve to have their noses rubbed in the ugly stench of the ideology they are espousing.
If this was true, Apple could have just cut them off from whatever subsidies may have existed.
Which is exactly what Apple proposed. The response was a bunch of Powercomputing people storming the apple booth at macworld demannding that apple not cancel licensing.
When the cloners weren't willing to continue without subsidies, apple cancelled the program (Which included the subsidies.)
The cloners refuesed to negotiate a replacement licensing scheme.
By the way, I've never seen a comparison of a Mac and a PC where the PC is faster and costs significantly less money. I do see a lot of PC weenies running around claiming "Why pay $2,000 for a Mac when you can get an XBox for $200???" Or the equivilent.
Your ignorance of the history of the licenisng business is not surprising-- its seems most PC weenies have no clue about the history of apple buy repeat (over and over) these myths as if they were fact.
Let people say macs are overpriced, it just means you wont' have idiots buying them and bitching because they're too stupid to go out and buy their own two-button mouse instead of bitching about how one isn't included.
Sure, if you cook your figures and find people who are speedy on two button mice and slow on one button mice you can produce a study that says what you want.
But the fact still remains that even "proficient" three and two button mice users are slower than they would be using a one button mouse.
You just assume the study is flawed and take that as a fact-- I'm sorry, you're going to have to SHOW the flaw in the study.
IE for the mac is slow because its a half assed carbon port.
Chimera, and OpenWeb and other OSX Browsers are rather fast... in fast, Chimera is the fastest browser I've seen on any platfrom, ever.
OS X is not "Slow" it performs well on my 9500 -- an unsupported PowerPC 60x processor running at 132MHz.
132MHz. No graphics accelleration, etc, and it runs ok. Its not zippy, like it is on modern macs, but it runs ok.
So, cut the "OS X is slow" FUD. ITs speedy, and soon it will be the fastest UI on the planet. (using the texture capabilities of 3D hardware is a brilliant innovation that puts it a couple years ahead of Windows and Linux et al.) This under advertised feature of Jaguar is rather spectacular.
Talk about FUD. Apple doesn't want to make money hand over fist because they are arrogant?
Sheesh.
Apple killed the clone program because they were not innovating, and Apple was SUBSIDIZING them financially, technologically, etc. they subsidized the clones to get the clone market going, but the cloners couldn't live without the subsidy-- they didn't try to become independant, they just tried to get as much money and market share from apple as they could.
This pretty much prove the falshood of the myth that mac clones would grow the market... been there, tried that, they didn't even try to grow the market.
And as I said before, there's no reason to even want to run OS X on an x86. What could you possibly gain:? The hardware is slower, less reliable and more expensive. Better to just buy a Mac.
PS- Don't start with the bullshit that Macs are more expensive, they aren't, they never will be. The PowerPC by design is more effective and less costly to sell, and the rest of the computer is commodity hardware, except for the cases and they don't cost that much. Yes you can get an Xbox for $200 but that is not the same as a PowerMac G4, and making the comparison is like saying Toyotas are overpriced cause you got a used Yugo for $50.
You can get that quality of a system on your computer. Just buy a mac.
Plus you get a better set of hardware for less money.
I see no reason for Apple to port OS X to the more expensive, less useful, x86 platform. There's nothing to be gained by it nad it would be awfully confusing to the marketplace -- plus create binary incompatibility in the OS X platform.
Funny that Quicktime is an ISO standard now and everybody and their brother is going to be using it.
What do you think MPEG4 is? Its quicktime with standardized codecs.
All quicktime has ever been was a file format and set of APIs for manipulating codecs. There's nothing to stop others from creating their own apis to manipulate codecs (and they have) and the file format is now and OPEN STANDARD. (Since its not software "open source" is not the appropriate term).
So when you say Quicktime is closed,you're quite simply, factually, wrong.
When you say that tehy could "close up darwin" then you're true. But I could close up FreeBSD as well, and have Bitgeeks own distribution and charge thousands upon thousands of dollars for it.
Funny that I haven't done that-- after all, I want thousands and thousands of dollars. What am I thinking?
This "Apple wants to be a monopolist" fud is offensive. And stupid.
Its unfortunate that we haven't dissuaded the FSF from using the word "Free" since they want "Free as in communism" not "Free as in Freedom".
Hell, the whole Open Source movement was formed to get away from this "free as in totalitarian" ideology.
Want to relase stuff under GPL? Great. But stop bashing open source licenses-- or we'll all discover that you don't want freedom, you want a dictatorship where NOBODY can own code and NOBODY can profit from it.
We have all seen (unless we turn a blind eye to history) what happens when you eliminate property ownership.
Such silly ideas may survive in the rarified air of Cambridge Massachusetts, but the rest of the country isn't falling for it.
If you really can't tell the difference between Apple-- the largest seller of Free Software in the country-- and Microsoft-- then you are an idiot.
Apple MUST file patents for everything they can. And this is a GOOD THING.
Apple learned its lesson by having its competitive advantage taken away from it by Microsoft copying its technology. Apple was refuesed a patent for the Mac UI (and this is a LEGITIMATE PATENT CLAIM) and thus lost their ability to protect it when windows ripped it off.
Now that the patent office is once again allowing patents for novel processes (the definition of what's patentable) apple should patent all of their novel processes.
Not being allowed to do so is what led to the Microsoft monopoly in the first place.
The thing is, Apple, by nature is not a draconian company. All this fearmongering is silly.
XWindows runs fine under OSX. Apple has consistently gone to significant lengths to support the Darwin project--- hell the branch was created so that darwin can get "more wild" not so that Apple has more control. Sheesh, the point was to let darwin get more expirmental and go in directions that would undermine the stability of OS X, while still sharing code back and forth. This was a movement for MORE FREEDOM, not LESS.
Only Apple could release the first commercial OS into Open Source, go to great lengths to support it, support it in competition with *itself* and be accused of not supporting open source by open source "advocates".
To quote from "The Patriot": "Your sense of freedom is as pale as your skin."
(Free as in open source, not free as in GNU/totalitarian)
You can run X windows, or any of the apps you like on it. you can configure it as much as you like.
You have the freedom, flexibility and choice you do with linux-- install whatever you wish, however you wish.
Never even use the Aqua UI if you don't want. Plus, on top of all that, you get to run it on those really cool, innovative Mac hardware- IF YOU WANT. If you don't want, run it on x86 Hardware.
Supporting Darwin is supporting FREE SOFTWARE, to the detriment of Microsoft.
There is no such thing as an "Apple Tax". Darwin is Open Source and so it could never be a "Tax" that you have to pay against your will. IF you want to buy apple software too, like the Aqua UI, or.Mac, then you can-- but you don't have too.
It is disingenuous to compare this to a company that charges people for its software whether they want it, use it or buy it, or not. Apple only charges people who freely choose to buy its software. Calling it an "apple tax" only undermines your creditability.
And the important point is that by charghing for their UI and their software, and by making hardware, Apple is able to fund desktop unix in a way that nobody has been able to for Linux. Rad Hat has done an admirable job-- and most of their work and apple work compliments each other.
The battle is between Free Software (eg. Darwin/Linux/BSD/GNU) and totalitarian software that you have to use whether you want it or not.
Therefore, if you really believe in choice and freedom, you MUST support Apple and Darwin. Doesn't mean you have to buy their software or hardware-- but opposing it is opposing freedom.
Hell, they could just copy apple's research and recommend a one button mouse.... Imagine the uproar!
The other thing is, that if someone were to do this for Linux, they'd have to really think it out and come up with a rather new UI.
Apple learned the hard way that if it doesn't defend its trade secret and copy rights everywhere it won't be able to defend them anywhere (they learned this when the Windows violations of Apple's rights were thrown out of court.) That is why Apple goes after everyone that copies its look and feel- not because they are evil, but because if they don't they loose the right to.
So, any Linux UI will have to be new and novel.
And innovation is extremely expensive. Look at how little of it comes from redmon given the cash they have! ( They have the cash, just don't want to spend it there.)
So, I'm not holding out much hope for a really integrated linux desktop.
Oh, really? Os OSF/1 is not running unix either? FreeBSD isn't Unix? If free bsd isn't unix-- based on the first branch of the original Unix tree, then Linux certainly isn't.
It is a great development box. And as a long time Java fan and C-hater, I've been surprised that objective-C is so easy to learn and Javalike. It makes me appreciate how stupid C++ is
The larger point, though, is not that Mac OS is better than Linux-- that's a personal choice. I think that Mac OS will be drawing a LOT of new people to the platform from the ranks of linux users because if you hated MS, Linux was the obvious choice for the platform to choose. Now that OSX is out there, its going to get a lot of those people to switch.
But the important thing to recognize is that the battle is between quality (eg: Unix) and fraud (eg: windows). Linux, BSD, Darwin, Gnu, are all on the same side, and should be united against this common enemy.
Microsoft is going to bring out the guns you have never seen-- the people with their hands on nuclear weapons and attack helicopters, the US federal government, to try and mandate that all computers only run "secure" eg. Windows software to thwart Terrorism, dead puppies and spoiled apple pies.
That's the real battle. and any time spend quibbling over Linux vs. MacOS is time not spent keeping MS honest. Its time to start writing your congressman, probably monthly.
For they are the next set of PHBs that MS is going to try to convert. Only when they are converted, it isn't a tyrannical control over the office they exert, but over the country.
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Charging for point releases is an insult to your customer base. Charging $130 for a point release is rubbing salt in the wound.
I see. Your problem is with the name. Apple should have called it Mac OS XP and then it would have been ok.
To think that XP isn't a "point release" is just silly.
You're making an argument based on naming, not the value of the product. Silly.
I feel your pain. I think its a tactical error to charge the same price to people who bought 10 and people who never did.
The problem is, I don't think there's a practical way for Apple to give a discount to people who bought 10 already.
Because Apple doesn't go thru the license torture that windows boxes do, 10 can be installed on a wiped hard drive, etc. (Imagine trying to reinstall from the Upgrade CD and it refusing because your drive is corrupted and it can't find a previous version.)
Also, I don't think the cupons really work for this large of an upgrade.
Personally, I think they should have priced it at $99 and made it an annual thing-- every year you pay $99. Then it would have been more popular and the price would have been a side issue.
That and the fact that most people don't really realize what tehy are getting with 10.2-- quartz extreme alone is enough to pay the price.
There is a program where you can just pay something like $200 and get the next three years of software upgrades for free. They might do a better job of promoting that as well.
You bring up a good point-- it is Open source and free--- the Jaguar version of Darwin will be released when Jaguar shipps for free to everyone who wants it.
It IS open source, remember.
What you're really paying for is the UI Application, Finder, and all the other applications.
The OS is really open source-- you want to run it with xwindows you can, and jaguar you get to as well.
Interestingly , though, the real value apple's added is in the UI and the applications and all that. So aonyone complaining that 10.2 is not free is just someone who wants all their software for free-- someone who wants something for nothing.
You don't have to pay $129 every six months. Apple has NEVER in its history charged for an OS upgrade inside of a year.
10.1 was FREE.
And the Apple software update is FREE. giving regular updates for the OS and many of your applications.
If the fact that you have to buy it is stopping you from using OS X, that just means you're cheap-- if your time is worht anything, you'll make that $100 back inside of 3 months by switching.
(I love linux, believe in it, have gotten paid developing java applications for it, but when it comes to home, I never boot the linux box and have been migrating OS 10 to all the machines. Even the 9500 which is so old its not supported. Linux just takes too much maintenance and hassle cost to manage-- I'd rather spend that time tinkering with code.)
Your bash against apple is annoying-- NeXT shipped NeXT step the late 80s-- if there was a beta it was arround then. None of the shipping OS X versions have been beta quality-- and Apple has given dozens of free updates since 10.0 came out.
That they are charging for a new release is to be expected. That Linux zeolots will whine about paying for software is to be expected as well.
That they never answer the question "If you don't want to pay, why do you expect to get paid when you go to work? Shouldn't your boss be saying "I'm paying you again for another two weeks? You spent most of the last two weeks reading slashdot!""
How is Amazon sellign software at a loss going to "send a message" to Apple?
As if somehow Jaguar is "supposed" to be $79 and Amazon is "just showing Apple!"
The fact is Jaguar is worth the upgrade price. Apple has charged for its software for half a decade now and charging for Jaguar is to be expected-- and STILL a good deal.
I've been running the 6C106 developers release and this has to be one of the biggests upgrades in apple history in terms of big and little things that are different. I'm not goign to violate my NDA, but I will say that Jaguar is worth paying for.
that the company that invented the concept of "We don't see a need to ever turn a profit" is using it as a loss leader means nothing-- just that they want more people aware of the fact that they sell Apple computers.... and that they realize (even if most people don't) that these "rebates" are more often than not never redeemed. Either because they are too hard, or people are lazy or both.
I can guarantee you that Amazon is not getting jaguar for less than $100. They are taking a loss to get your business, and knoing that they won't really have to take the loss because most of you will eat the $50, leaving their average selling price around $100.
This has nothing to do with Apple. The only thing this issue brings up is that Apple users are apparently rather cheap, just as Linux users are. Or at least the people who whine online are cheap. So it goes.
IF you don't want to upgrade, then don't. Wait a year and Jaguar will be on sale for $10. If you do upgrade you'll find the value is there in the product and it was worth it. But its a free country and its your choice. Just don't expect something for nothing-- that is not a right you have.
Easy. The person who initiates violence is morally wrong. The person who responds with violence is not morally wrong, if the violence is within proportion of self defense.
Its clear that those executing a DOS attack on the RIAA are responding to the RIAA's initiation of force thru the legislature.
They *are* morally correct.
One company who make wonderful product management software is Welcom-- www.wst.com.
I don't know if it fits your specific access requirements, but I do believe they have web browser access.
MS Project is "project for dummies". Its sorta a project management program, but not a real one-- not flexible, not standards based, and not used by professional project managers.
The WST software is really well done, really scalable, and really libertating, especially if you've been forced to use MS Project in the past.
Yes, I am a happy past customer, but not a paid spokesmodel.
Well, Apple did something to protect itself and now everyones goign to go screaming about how "its just this type of stuff that keeps macs costing $10,000 and rquiring a refrigerator compresser to cool them" or some equivilent nonesense.
Think about it.
This company was taking new machines, modifying them, and selling them.
How is apple supposed to provide warrantee work for them? How is apple supposed to deal with the damage to its brand when these machines don't work and the warrantee is violated?
If you're going to sell apple technology-- and this is true of Dell, and other brands, and any seller from TechData down to CompUSA you HAVE To have a license. No license, you don't get to sell.
Just as I can't go out and start selling high end Sony car stereos -- a license they only give to their biggest volume dealers-- Apple protecting its brand in this way is exactly what every hardware manufacturer in the world does as well.
Course this won't mean anything to the bigots that see apple as evil and don't understand business at all so they conjecture up some moral law that this supposedly violates. "SEE! This is what happens when you don't sell yourh ardware under GPL! You're a SLAVE TO STEVE JOBS!!!!"
Even the GPL is a *license*!
Its very interesting, and revealing that your support for the elimination of private property comes from a misunderstanding of history. This seems common.
To whit, the idea that Microsoft "won" because thier hardware was cheaper-- a "fact" that has never been true.
but a necessary conciet in order to support the agenda of hating apple for producing excellence.
Remember the FSF called for a boycott of apple when they tried to enforce their copyrights when Microsoft violated them. Patents would have protected them.
That is proof right there that patents are necessary.
Its quite ironic that Stallman advocates the monopoly stranglehold that Microsoft has over the software industry while claiming the opposite.
One of those "actions speak louder than words"... just like the totalitarian "freedom" that existed in communist russia.
Yeah, I've read stallman. Have you?
That was an excellent post. Thanks for calling my attention to it.
I am startign to think that the best strategy is to call the FSF ideology for what it is.
"Free as in totalitariansim" is what I've been saying lately.
Communism is another great example. Marx had this great idea a centuray ago, and haven't we learned what happens when its tried in the interim?
You can never get productivity from people by imposing your will on them-- and taking away their incentive for excellence.
Those that *use* the GPL do not do this-- they are expressing their rights when they choose the GPL for their software.
However, those who ADVOCATE the GPL are advocating force-- when Stallman says "All software should be free"--- he's talking about guns just as much as Marx was when he said "from each acording to his ability, to each acording to his need".
It wasn't goodwill that cause those with ability to give up their food for the incompetants. It was guns.
Fortunately, the rest of the country seems to knwo this lesson on one level or another, and I don't think Stallman will get the guns he needs to create the regime he desires.
But his minions deserve to have their noses rubbed in the ugly stench of the ideology they are espousing.
The only trolls I see around here are those who like a particular license and INSIST that everyone else be FORCED to use it as well.
Now THAT's offensive.
Oh, you don't want to force others? then why do you take the position that anything that doesn't use GPL is evil and a monopolist?
Hell, I have monopoly on my body. And my car. So unfair, isn't it?
Move to russia-- you deserve to live in the aftermath of the ideology you advocate.
If this was true, Apple could have just cut them off from whatever subsidies may have existed.
Which is exactly what Apple proposed. The response was a bunch of Powercomputing people storming the apple booth at macworld demannding that apple not cancel licensing.
When the cloners weren't willing to continue without subsidies, apple cancelled the program (Which included the subsidies.)
The cloners refuesed to negotiate a replacement licensing scheme.
By the way, I've never seen a comparison of a Mac and a PC where the PC is faster and costs significantly less money. I do see a lot of PC weenies running around claiming "Why pay $2,000 for a Mac when you can get an XBox for $200???" Or the equivilent.
Your ignorance of the history of the licenisng business is not surprising-- its seems most PC weenies have no clue about the history of apple buy repeat (over and over) these myths as if they were fact.
Let people say macs are overpriced, it just means you wont' have idiots buying them and bitching because they're too stupid to go out and buy their own two-button mouse instead of bitching about how one isn't included.
:-)
Well you got me there!
Sure, if you cook your figures and find people who are speedy on two button mice and slow on one button mice you can produce a study that says what you want.
But the fact still remains that even "proficient" three and two button mice users are slower than they would be using a one button mouse.
You just assume the study is flawed and take that as a fact-- I'm sorry, you're going to have to SHOW the flaw in the study.
IE for the mac is slow because its a half assed carbon port.
Chimera, and OpenWeb and other OSX Browsers are rather fast... in fast, Chimera is the fastest browser I've seen on any platfrom, ever.
OS X is not "Slow" it performs well on my 9500 -- an unsupported PowerPC 60x processor running at 132MHz.
132MHz. No graphics accelleration, etc, and it runs ok. Its not zippy, like it is on modern macs, but it runs ok.
So, cut the "OS X is slow" FUD. ITs speedy, and soon it will be the fastest UI on the planet. (using the texture capabilities of 3D hardware is a brilliant innovation that puts it a couple years ahead of Windows and Linux et al.) This under advertised feature of Jaguar is rather spectacular.
Macs are made of quality commodity hardware.
They just don't sell the motherboards to people.
But you can guy a G4 and upgrade the hell out of it over the years...
there is no advantage to changing your PC motherboard every 6 months... its a disadvantage.
Talk about FUD. Apple doesn't want to make money hand over fist because they are arrogant?
Sheesh.
Apple killed the clone program because they were not innovating, and Apple was SUBSIDIZING them financially, technologically, etc. they subsidized the clones to get the clone market going, but the cloners couldn't live without the subsidy-- they didn't try to become independant, they just tried to get as much money and market share from apple as they could.
This pretty much prove the falshood of the myth that mac clones would grow the market... been there, tried that, they didn't even try to grow the market.
And as I said before, there's no reason to even want to run OS X on an x86. What could you possibly gain:? The hardware is slower, less reliable and more expensive. Better to just buy a Mac.
PS- Don't start with the bullshit that Macs are more expensive, they aren't, they never will be. The PowerPC by design is more effective and less costly to sell, and the rest of the computer is commodity hardware, except for the cases and they don't cost that much. Yes you can get an Xbox for $200 but that is not the same as a PowerMac G4, and making the comparison is like saying Toyotas are overpriced cause you got a used Yugo for $50.
You can get that quality of a system on your computer. Just buy a mac.
Plus you get a better set of hardware for less money.
I see no reason for Apple to port OS X to the more expensive, less useful, x86 platform. There's nothing to be gained by it nad it would be awfully confusing to the marketplace -- plus create binary incompatibility in the OS X platform.
Funny that Quicktime is an ISO standard now and everybody and their brother is going to be using it.
What do you think MPEG4 is? Its quicktime with standardized codecs.
All quicktime has ever been was a file format and set of APIs for manipulating codecs. There's nothing to stop others from creating their own apis to manipulate codecs (and they have) and the file format is now and OPEN STANDARD. (Since its not software "open source" is not the appropriate term).
So when you say Quicktime is closed
When you say that tehy could "close up darwin" then you're true. But I could close up FreeBSD as well, and have Bitgeeks own distribution and charge thousands upon thousands of dollars for it.
Funny that I haven't done that-- after all, I want thousands and thousands of dollars. What am I thinking?
Sheesh.
This "Apple wants to be a monopolist" fud is offensive. And stupid.
Its unfortunate that we haven't dissuaded the FSF from using the word "Free" since they want "Free as in communism" not "Free as in Freedom".
Hell, the whole Open Source movement was formed to get away from this "free as in totalitarian" ideology.
Want to relase stuff under GPL? Great. But stop bashing open source licenses-- or we'll all discover that you don't want freedom, you want a dictatorship where NOBODY can own code and NOBODY can profit from it.
We have all seen (unless we turn a blind eye to history) what happens when you eliminate property ownership.
Such silly ideas may survive in the rarified air of Cambridge Massachusetts, but the rest of the country isn't falling for it.
If you really can't tell the difference between Apple-- the largest seller of Free Software in the country-- and Microsoft-- then you are an idiot.
Apple MUST file patents for everything they can. And this is a GOOD THING.
Apple learned its lesson by having its competitive advantage taken away from it by Microsoft copying its technology. Apple was refuesed a patent for the Mac UI (and this is a LEGITIMATE PATENT CLAIM) and thus lost their ability to protect it when windows ripped it off.
Now that the patent office is once again allowing patents for novel processes (the definition of what's patentable) apple should patent all of their novel processes.
Not being allowed to do so is what led to the Microsoft monopoly in the first place.
The thing is, Apple, by nature is not a draconian company. All this fearmongering is silly.
XWindows runs fine under OSX. Apple has consistently gone to significant lengths to support the Darwin project--- hell the branch was created so that darwin can get "more wild" not so that Apple has more control. Sheesh, the point was to let darwin get more expirmental and go in directions that would undermine the stability of OS X, while still sharing code back and forth. This was a movement for MORE FREEDOM, not LESS.
Only Apple could release the first commercial OS into Open Source, go to great lengths to support it, support it in competition with *itself* and be accused of not supporting open source by open source "advocates".
To quote from "The Patriot": "Your sense of freedom is as pale as your skin."
Darwin IS a Free Software platform.
(Free as in open source, not free as in GNU/totalitarian)
You can run X windows, or any of the apps you like on it. you can configure it as much as you like.
You have the freedom, flexibility and choice you do with linux-- install whatever you wish, however you wish.
Never even use the Aqua UI if you don't want. Plus, on top of all that, you get to run it on those really cool, innovative Mac hardware- IF YOU WANT. If you don't want, run it on x86 Hardware.
Supporting Darwin is supporting FREE SOFTWARE, to the detriment of Microsoft.
There is no such thing as an "Apple Tax". Darwin is Open Source and so it could never be a "Tax" that you have to pay against your will. IF you want to buy apple software too, like the Aqua UI, or
It is disingenuous to compare this to a company that charges people for its software whether they want it, use it or buy it, or not. Apple only charges people who freely choose to buy its software. Calling it an "apple tax" only undermines your creditability.
And the important point is that by charghing for their UI and their software, and by making hardware, Apple is able to fund desktop unix in a way that nobody has been able to for Linux. Rad Hat has done an admirable job-- and most of their work and apple work compliments each other.
The battle is between Free Software (eg. Darwin/Linux/BSD/GNU) and totalitarian software that you have to use whether you want it or not.
Therefore, if you really believe in choice and freedom, you MUST support Apple and Darwin. Doesn't mean you have to buy their software or hardware-- but opposing it is opposing freedom.
Hell, they could just copy apple's research and recommend a one button mouse.... Imagine the uproar!
The other thing is, that if someone were to do this for Linux, they'd have to really think it out and come up with a rather new UI.
Apple learned the hard way that if it doesn't defend its trade secret and copy rights everywhere it won't be able to defend them anywhere (they learned this when the Windows violations of Apple's rights were thrown out of court.) That is why Apple goes after everyone that copies its look and feel- not because they are evil, but because if they don't they loose the right to.
So, any Linux UI will have to be new and novel.
And innovation is extremely expensive. Look at how little of it comes from redmon given the cash they have! ( They have the cash, just don't want to spend it there.)
So, I'm not holding out much hope for a really integrated linux desktop.
OS X IS NOT UNIX! GET A GRIP!
Oh, really? Os OSF/1 is not running unix either? FreeBSD isn't Unix? If free bsd isn't unix-- based on the first branch of the original Unix tree, then Linux certainly isn't.
Is SVR4 the only Unix in your book?
Sheesh.
It is a great development box. And as a long time Java fan and C-hater, I've been surprised that objective-C is so easy to learn and Javalike. It makes me appreciate how stupid C++ is
The larger point, though, is not that Mac OS is better than Linux-- that's a personal choice. I think that Mac OS will be drawing a LOT of new people to the platform from the ranks of linux users because if you hated MS, Linux was the obvious choice for the platform to choose. Now that OSX is out there, its going to get a lot of those people to switch.
But the important thing to recognize is that the battle is between quality (eg: Unix) and fraud (eg: windows). Linux, BSD, Darwin, Gnu, are all on the same side, and should be united against this common enemy.
Microsoft is going to bring out the guns you have never seen-- the people with their hands on nuclear weapons and attack helicopters, the US federal government, to try and mandate that all computers only run "secure" eg. Windows software to thwart Terrorism, dead puppies and spoiled apple pies.
That's the real battle. and any time spend quibbling over Linux vs. MacOS is time not spent keeping MS honest. Its time to start writing your congressman, probably monthly.
For they are the next set of PHBs that MS is going to try to convert. Only when they are converted, it isn't a tyrannical control over the office they exert, but over the country.