I've been a/. reader for a while now. I am very interested in the Open Source movement, and I'm even going to install LinuxPPC one of these days (I've already partitioned). I have great respect for the Linux community.
Yet, not an Apple-related thread goes by without Linuxers ranting about the company. First the complaints were about Apple being a closed, proprietary company. Then they released Darwin, and many complained that it was not going far enough. Then they made a usable system out of it, and there were complaints that it's inferior to Linux. They open-sourced the QuickTime Streaming Server, something they could have made money from, and now many are complaining that they don't make a Linux client. It does not seem to matter to anyone that the server has already been ported to Linux (and integrated into Apple's source tree), effectively creating competition that Apple did not need to have. All some people care about is what they don't have.
As someone who follows Apple very closely, I believe that QuickTime is the most important technology the company has. It is vital to the company's continued resurgence that QuickTime do better than RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. The company makes tools for creating content and devices for viewing and interacting with it. Therefore as Linux becomes more viable on the desktop, it is essential that they support it. It does not take an insider connection to infer that they will do so for that reason (although it helps...;-)).
Before they can do this however, they need to give themselves a head start (they ARE a company, after all). Right now they must give QuickTime for MacOS X 100% parity with the traditional MacOS and Win32 versions. Not to mention any other new features they might be working on...
So just for once, I ask you all to give Apple a chance to prove itself. They are not the evil company you think they are. I won't get into why they were a "closed" company in the first place (has a lot to do with history and the way companies used to be organized), but the fact is that they're trying to be open now. So don't discourage them, ok?
The media never ceases to amaze me with its publication of blatant rumors. For the record, neither Apple nor Palm have made any announcement saying that they were even developing such a device - let alone that it has been postponed! ABCnews and CNET are irresponsible in reporting this. What kind of research did they do? A visit to MacOS Rumors perhaps? Please.
I'm not saying that this Apple/Palm thing isn't possible - in an interview a while ago, Steve Jobs did say that he had wanted to buy Palm but they wouldn't sell. But this pure rumor has no place on Slashdot and especially not on ABCnews.
To everyone who is worried that Apple will and this mythical buyer will become another AOL or Microsoft: Calm down. It's not going to happen. If a company wanted to buy Apple, they should've done it over a year ago when it was cheap. These days there's no way anyone could afford it.
Is Apple "allied" with Disney? You betcha. But Disney does entertainment, and Apple makes computers. If Disney bought Apple, its competitors wouldn't use Quicktime - which is the most valuabe product they have.
Shame on Don Crabb for writing such rubbish, and shame on Yahoo for taking rumors as news.
So let's review here: AOL has "content solutions" via its software and WinAMP. Apple has "content solutions" via Quicktime (which plays MP3s, btw). Microsoft has "content solutions" via Windows Media Player (or whatever their latest attempt is called) and Microsoft Audio (which DOESN'T play MP3s). AOL has the Sun/Java platform behind it, Apple has MacOS/MacOS X behind it, and Microsoft has Windows behind it.
A Bunch of pplz are wondering about the Mac version of m6 - I got it from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/last-bui lt/ before m6 was even announced. And the creation date seems to be a while ago. I guess they just didn't post it to the m6 directory. It's not that great actually, it still can't replace 4.6 (and I REALLY would like it replaced). And I had to rename my hard dive before using it b/c of some obscure bug that prevents it from running when your hard drive has a name that uses weird characters - and this bug has been around for a long time. It is making progress though, albeit very slowly.
With Sun and IBM's OSes able to run Linux binaries out of the box, in addition to BSD, MacOS X, and (I think) BeOS able to run them with a recompile, it seems to me that Linux has suddenly become the cross-platform standard. Developers can truly "write once, run anywhere," and as more developers realize this, Linux will gain more applications. Once that happens, commercial OSes will have to be better than Linux to sell - after all, why buy what you can get for free? This will keep commercial vendors innovating, and Microsoft out of the picture unless it gets compatible real soon.
Actually, that might not be so farfetched. AIX isn't only for supercomputers. Linux runs on the iMac, so does OpenBSD and MacOS X (obviously). There's really no reason that AIX couldn't run with some modifications.
These drives are much slower than they could be over FireWire. Methinks they were designed with portability in mind, not speed. There are much faster FireWire drives available (there are links in pervious messages). Relatively long time reader, first time writer btw...
Slashdot Mirror
Yet, not an Apple-related thread goes by without Linuxers ranting about the company. First the complaints were about Apple being a closed, proprietary company. Then they released Darwin, and many complained that it was not going far enough. Then they made a usable system out of it, and there were complaints that it's inferior to Linux. They open-sourced the QuickTime Streaming Server, something they could have made money from, and now many are complaining that they don't make a Linux client. It does not seem to matter to anyone that the server has already been ported to Linux (and integrated into Apple's source tree), effectively creating competition that Apple did not need to have. All some people care about is what they don't have.
As someone who follows Apple very closely, I believe that QuickTime is the most important technology the company has. It is vital to the company's continued resurgence that QuickTime do better than RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. The company makes tools for creating content and devices for viewing and interacting with it. Therefore as Linux becomes more viable on the desktop, it is essential that they support it. It does not take an insider connection to infer that they will do so for that reason (although it helps... ;-)).
Before they can do this however, they need to give themselves a head start (they ARE a company, after all). Right now they must give QuickTime for MacOS X 100% parity with the traditional MacOS and Win32 versions. Not to mention any other new features they might be working on...
So just for once, I ask you all to give Apple a chance to prove itself. They are not the evil company you think they are. I won't get into why they were a "closed" company in the first place (has a lot to do with history and the way companies used to be organized), but the fact is that they're trying to be open now. So don't discourage them, ok?
I'm not saying that this Apple/Palm thing isn't possible - in an interview a while ago, Steve Jobs did say that he had wanted to buy Palm but they wouldn't sell. But this pure rumor has no place on Slashdot and especially not on ABCnews.
It took them so long to get R5 working, and they ship it with a worm? That's gotta hurt.
Anyway, I hope it was caught before too many people were exposed (although it appears to be dormant).
Is Apple "allied" with Disney? You betcha. But Disney does entertainment, and Apple makes computers. If Disney bought Apple, its competitors wouldn't use Quicktime - which is the most valuabe product they have.
Shame on Don Crabb for writing such rubbish, and shame on Yahoo for taking rumors as news.
So let's review here: AOL has "content solutions" via its software and WinAMP. Apple has "content solutions" via Quicktime (which plays MP3s, btw). Microsoft has "content solutions" via Windows Media Player (or whatever their latest attempt is called) and Microsoft Audio (which DOESN'T play MP3s). AOL has the Sun/Java platform behind it, Apple has MacOS/MacOS X behind it, and Microsoft has Windows behind it.
Looks like the convergence wars have 3 sides.
A Bunch of pplz are wondering about the Mac version of m6 - I got it from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/last-bui lt/ before m6 was even announced. And the creation date seems to be a while ago. I guess they just didn't post it to the m6 directory.
It's not that great actually, it still can't replace 4.6 (and I REALLY would like it replaced). And I had to rename my hard dive before using it b/c of some obscure bug that prevents it from running when your hard drive has a name that uses weird characters - and this bug has been around for a long time. It is making progress though, albeit very slowly.
With Sun and IBM's OSes able to run Linux binaries out of the box, in addition to BSD, MacOS X, and (I think) BeOS able to run them with a recompile, it seems to me that Linux has suddenly become the cross-platform standard. Developers can truly "write once, run anywhere," and as more developers realize this, Linux will gain more applications. Once that happens, commercial OSes will have to be better than Linux to sell - after all, why buy what you can get for free? This will keep commercial vendors innovating, and Microsoft out of the picture unless it gets compatible real soon.
Actually, that might not be so farfetched. AIX isn't only for supercomputers. Linux runs on the iMac, so does OpenBSD and MacOS X (obviously). There's really no reason that AIX couldn't run with some modifications.
These drives are much slower than they could be over FireWire. Methinks they were designed with portability in mind, not speed. There are much faster FireWire drives available (there are links in pervious messages).
Relatively long time reader, first time writer btw...
-Rafi