Of course, but the term UNIX doesn't stand for it's original Thompson implementation anymore. It has evolved to encompass a whole family of operating systems, and I'm sure you would find some old UNIX hackers to criticize *BSD, Linux, Solaris, or any other UNIX out there......
Well they're already giving AppleWorks with pretty much any computer these days, aren't they? But I'm afraid this won't be enough for the majority of people, who don't know the difference between "word processor" and M$ Word, and for whom Office is still the main way to communicate information to te other side of the force. Although I must admit that importing Word documents in Appleworks work very well. Completely sufficient for me, at least.
You may be right, but you have to remember that Apple is a company that probably doesn't know to do that effectively. It has never had to compete with the others PC makers for the absolute lowest price and would probably not be very good at it.
Nobody taught them how to only buy second-grade RAM, take that Airport port out, buy 10Base-T only Network card (who needs 100Base-T anyway?), forget FireWire, stop wasting time designing their boxes, and why the hell would you want a glowing power button for?
And I still think they would need M$ "approval" before taking more than 10% of the market, otherwise they could say good-bye to office, and THAT would hurt.
Apple's been bragging for some months now about their being the first company to put "the power and stability" of Unix in the hands of the average user and it seems that's what they did. What I'm wondering now is if this kind of stability put in the homes of millions of people will not change everybody's standard of stability. Five years ago, the standards of stability were Win95 and Mac OS 8 (I'm trying to speak for the general public there,OK? No flame, please). Neither was very stable (although I still remember 95 as being a true nightmare, whereas OS 8 was acceptable, as long as you didn't try anything fancy, such as developing on it), but since nobody had a better example, people were happy with it. Now we've got millions of mac users let loose among their friends and saying their computer (almost) never has to reboot! This could change the acceptable standards of stability, not only for Operating Systems, but also for the whole software industry.
Most people thought computers had to crash, because that's what they always did. If some start to be STABLE, where is the world going?
>I also don't think OSX, while being UNIX-compatible, should be called a version of UNIX
Well, if I remember, OS X has been recognized POSIX-compliant, and as such, is probably as close to the Unix throne as Linux is. It is amusing that talking about computer we should hear such arguments as "original source code" and "traditional architecture". If being Unix is running on 30 years old computers, I guess Mac OS X is far from it. But as far as I'm concerned, Mas OS X is as Unix as it gets, if only because any developer used to any Unix variant out there will master Mac OS X internals in 5 minutes time.
But I think you're right about Apple PR having completely changed its stance on Unix, and most of this change was brought by Copland's complete failure, prompting Apple to buy NeXT to get a memory-protected operating system.
I am all against Apple trying to take on M$ (I'm not saying they could). I think M$ as bigger teeth and claws, and Apple would be shredded in 5 secs. What a Machead like me really wants is Apple going on making it's 5% market share every year and earning enough money to invest enough back in R&D to still make the best hardware/software combination out there in the future. Plus I think the breakthroughs Apple makes would not be possible if they targeted commodity hardware, where you have to support everybody and his cousins graphic card, motherboard,... If Apple is a luxury brand (and it is), I'm fine with it, I'm ready to pay, and that as long as it is still worth it. Apple going for commodity hardware and big market share would have to scale back its innovation factories and would kill itself in the process.
I think you made a very interesting point here, and I think that's one of the things keeping Linux and the whole Open-Source development initiative behind. Apple is a company, and as such the CEO (and perhaps a few other people) can make decisions such as "We stop supporting this altogether because we need to do this to go ahead". I think this kind of thing is real hard to do in the Linux/Gnome/KDE case because it's almost impossible to prove that old hardware/software HAS to be abandoned. There will always be a lot of voices, and a lot of developer wanting to add a patch to support all those old boxes.That allows Apple to keep on with it's politic of hardware/software integration which is it's major technical advantage over everything else.
One guy making the decisions makes for a lot of bad decisions, but at least one choice is made, instead of all choices concurrently developed.
Hey, we're talking about MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), not just online games. Phantasy Star Online is in this category, OK. But you have to admit the genre has not had a lot of games ont the console side.
Enzo
It doesn't seem as if Germany or France were about to make a revolution about the new currency. The worst I've been hearing about on the radio is retailers complaining about not having enough "Euro-cash" to make change.
If the UK has a referendum to decide whether they want to be a part of their own future, that's allright.
The Euro is already accepted by a vast majority of the people living in the Euroland and also by a majority of person in each country of the Euroland .
I just wonder how long the rest of Europe will be able to look the UK waiting for the Brits to understand what's happening. It sure is good fun right now.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, but the term UNIX doesn't stand for it's original Thompson implementation anymore. It has evolved to encompass a whole family of operating systems, and I'm sure you would find some old UNIX hackers to criticize *BSD, Linux, Solaris, or any other UNIX out there......
Well they're already giving AppleWorks with pretty much any computer these days, aren't they? But I'm afraid this won't be enough for the majority of people, who don't know the difference between "word processor" and M$ Word, and for whom Office is still the main way to communicate information to te other side of the force.
Although I must admit that importing Word documents in Appleworks work very well. Completely sufficient for me, at least.
You may be right, but you have to remember that Apple is a company that probably doesn't know to do that effectively. It has never had to compete with the others PC makers for the absolute lowest price and would probably not be very good at it.
Nobody taught them how to only buy second-grade RAM, take that Airport port out, buy 10Base-T only Network card (who needs 100Base-T anyway?), forget FireWire, stop wasting time designing their boxes, and why the hell would you want a glowing power button for?
And I still think they would need M$ "approval" before taking more than 10% of the market, otherwise they could say good-bye to office, and THAT would hurt.
Apple's been bragging for some months now about their being the first company to put "the power and stability" of Unix in the hands of the average user and it seems that's what they did. What I'm wondering now is if this kind of stability put in the homes of millions of people will not change everybody's standard of stability. Five years ago, the standards of stability were Win95 and Mac OS 8 (I'm trying to speak for the general public there,OK? No flame, please). Neither was very stable (although I still remember 95 as being a true nightmare, whereas OS 8 was acceptable, as long as you didn't try anything fancy, such as developing on it), but since nobody had a better example, people were happy with it. Now we've got millions of mac users let loose among their friends and saying their computer (almost) never has to reboot! This could change the acceptable standards of stability, not only for Operating Systems, but also for the whole software industry.
Most people thought computers had to crash, because that's what they always did. If some start to be STABLE, where is the world going?
>I also don't think OSX, while being UNIX-compatible, should be called a version of UNIX
Well, if I remember, OS X has been recognized POSIX-compliant, and as such, is probably as close to the Unix throne as Linux is. It is amusing that talking about computer we should hear such arguments as "original source code" and "traditional architecture". If being Unix is running on 30 years old computers, I guess Mac OS X is far from it. But as far as I'm concerned, Mas OS X is as Unix as it gets, if only because any developer used to any Unix variant out there will master Mac OS X internals in 5 minutes time.
But I think you're right about Apple PR having completely changed its stance on Unix, and most of this change was brought by Copland's complete failure, prompting Apple to buy NeXT to get a memory-protected operating system.
I am all against Apple trying to take on M$ (I'm not saying they could). I think M$ as bigger teeth and claws, and Apple would be shredded in 5 secs. What a Machead like me really wants is Apple going on making it's 5% market share every year and earning enough money to invest enough back in R&D to still make the best hardware/software combination out there in the future. Plus I think the breakthroughs Apple makes would not be possible if they targeted commodity hardware, where you have to support everybody and his cousins graphic card, motherboard,... If Apple is a luxury brand (and it is), I'm fine with it, I'm ready to pay, and that as long as it is still worth it. Apple going for commodity hardware and big market share would have to scale back its innovation factories and would kill itself in the process.
I think you made a very interesting point here, and I think that's one of the things keeping Linux and the whole Open-Source development initiative behind. Apple is a company, and as such the CEO (and perhaps a few other people) can make decisions such as "We stop supporting this altogether because we need to do this to go ahead". I think this kind of thing is real hard to do in the Linux/Gnome/KDE case because it's almost impossible to prove that old hardware/software HAS to be abandoned. There will always be a lot of voices, and a lot of developer wanting to add a patch to support all those old boxes.That allows Apple to keep on with it's politic of hardware/software integration which is it's major technical advantage over everything else.
One guy making the decisions makes for a lot of bad decisions, but at least one choice is made, instead of all choices concurrently developed.
Hey, we're talking about MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), not just online games. Phantasy Star Online is in this category, OK. But you have to admit the genre has not had a lot of games ont the console side. Enzo
It doesn't seem as if Germany or France were about to make a revolution about the new currency. The worst I've been hearing about on the radio is retailers complaining about not having enough "Euro-cash" to make change.
If the UK has a referendum to decide whether they want to be a part of their own future, that's allright.
The Euro is already accepted by a vast majority of the people living in the Euroland and also by a majority of person in each country of the Euroland .
I just wonder how long the rest of Europe will be able to look the UK waiting for the Brits to understand what's happening. It sure is good fun right now.