The reason BeOS and AmigaOS died is because they didn't offer the business community anything. If you want to succeed in the desktop OS market, you have to give *business* users something better than what they've already got. And it would have to include looking and acting just like Windows (so they don't have to retrain anyone) and running all the old Windows (and maybe even DOS) applications as fast or faster than they run natively. More or less, Microsoft is going to continue to own the desktop market until they do something so monumentally stupid that they die in the eyes of business users.
As a musician, I understand the glory of NeXTSTEP, BeOS, and AmigaOS; but catering to the artistic community is not going to be successful economically. The segment of the market that Microsoft doesn't have belongs to Apple; and probably always will.
Now, since Apple bought NeXT, there's at least *some* "trickle down" of decent technology to the artistic community. But pure, fine, newly-engineered, beautiful technology will never survive as a commercial desktop OS venture. Only Free Software can afford to take the time to do this.
Apple has made no moves to standardize it or open it up, so it is Mac only.
Evidently, you have never heard of OpenStep, which NeXT and Sun released as an open standard in 1994. From which, of course, GNUstep was derived. GNUstep, being a GPL'd implementation of OpenStep (and tracking changes with Cocoa), offers a Free set of Cocoa frameworks for UNIX systems (Linux, BSD, and so on) and even Windows.
Letting all the new Cocoa developers know about GNUstep. It's a GPL'd implementation of Cocoa, and runs on all UNIX platforms (Linux, BSD, etc.) and Windows (the Application Kit graphics backend is in an alpha state). We have several applications written (including Interface Builder and Project Builder clones), some of which are completely portable to Mac OS X (like, GNUmail.app). It's fun and cool.
As the self-appointed GNUstep evangelist, I'd like to let you know that you can develop your Cocoa/Objective C applications with Linux (or *BSD, or HP-UX, or Solaris, or...) using GNUstep's Interface Builder and Project Builder clones (Gorm.app and ProjectCenter.app, respectively) and have cross-platform OpenStep goodness.
The more that we can get new Cocoa developers to become aware of the project, the more nifty cross-platform applications we'll have. Oh, and there's a Windows graphical backend in an alpha state too. So, your Cocoa work should be easily portable to Windows soon too.
And one more reason: OmniNetworking has been set up to build with GNUstep. Write your Cocoa app in Objective C, write some makefiles for GNUstep, run your Cocoa app on Linux, BSD, HP-UX, etc. You might want to use GNUstep's IB and PB clones for development, however, since it's easier to go from GNUstep to OS X, than vice-versa.
There is a good reason: cross platform applications.
Objective C and Cocoa are cross-platform as well: GNUstep. Runs on UNIX platforms, alpha state under Windows, graphics backend can be easily ported to BeOS or anything else.
Exactly, if you are already familliar with Carbon-stype API (read: MacOS 9), it is a good way to go and will get anything done which Cocoa would do, although certian issues won't have quite as suave a solution as Cocoa would provide.
Part of the operating system is (Darwin). But all the graphical stuff you see is not. It is not related to Linux, it *is* related to Mach and BSD. Darwin already runs on x86. Furthermore, if you need to have your Mac OS X applications run on other platforms, you can use GNUstep, but you'll have to avoid QuickTime (patent issues) and some things that are only partly implemented in GNUstep currently. After that, you can run Cocoa applications on other UNIX systems (like Linux, *BSD, HP-UX) and in the future, Windows (there is a Windows graphics backend, but it's in an alpha state).
I don't remember who it was who suggested it; all I remember is that it was a woman and hence couldn't have been Scott Fahlman.
Not to cast aspersions on Mr. Fahlman, but how sure are you? I mean, Wendy Carlos was once Walter Carlos, y'know. Damn, this post can't go without a:-) or I'll be in court for slander.
Do they ever ask what Repetitive fawning crap goes here... means?
Re:may god forgive him for what he has unleashed
on
The First Smiley :-)
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes. For instance, when a girl I was interested in (who had told me that she *wasn't* interested) didn't answer an email, and I gently reminded her, I used a smiley to show that I wasn't a bitter psychopath who was going to stalk her and bash her head in with a tire-iron. It's easy for good old JWZ to sit up there in his high tower and pontificate but he isn't staring down a restraining order.
No, I wasn't implying that you were envious. Sorry if that was confusing. I was referring to some of the rhetoric that gets thrown around these days by politicians. Some people really get consumed by this stuff and go around with these caricatures of wealthy people in their heads. When you can pull back from the situation and listen to the stuff some people out there are saying, it's really quite shocking. Especially when you know some wealthy people and understand that they're just ordinary human beings like everyone else. There's nothing unusual or evil about them. And all the one's I've ever met were quite generous people too--not misers the way the politicians would like us to think.
As to the government, I have some extremely serious moral objections to most of what they do. I think they're doing far more harm than good. At any rate, the attempt of politicians to pit us against each other for their own political gain is disgusting; and that's largely what this whole thing is about anyway.
Muggers take a little, but most of my cash goes to white men in suits who won't even show me their face.
I find your description to be quite disturbing. Now, I'm absolutely certain that there are some real stinkers out there. But I can't believe that all or even most of the wealthy and middle class in this country are evil. I think your statement that they "won't even show you their face" belies paranoia and fear. And that is what all politicians build their political capital on: fear, mistrust, and paranoia. I believe most of it is completely unfounded and is quite unfair. Just don't forget that it cuts both ways--there are politicians making a career out of fear-mongering about you and me as well.
When someone is displeased with the good fortune of others, we call this envy. What I'm curious about is why people are so envious. That's where the cultural differences thing came in.
I'm happy to pay more taxes (both monetarily and as a percentage of income) than my collegues in the next cubicle who earn less than half my salary
I don't come from a wealthy family by any means and don't have a lot of money now (I'm just out of school and am trying to figure out how to make a living) but when I hear that a tax cut benefits someone other than me, I'm happy! The rich aren't the enemy--the government is the enemy. And anytime someone gets some of their own money back from the government, I'm happy because it's a little victory for all of us.
Now, I would certainly like to have *bigger* victories; to wit, seeing *everyone's* taxes reduced. But I seriously doubt that anyone in Washington shares my opinion on that--Republican or Democrat.:-)
And what are you talking about? Remember "Read my lips--no new taxes"? Immediately followed by a huge tax increase, of course. And Clinton's policies were far more conservative than Bush's policies.
And while we're on the topic, what is with the whole tax cuts "for the rich"? Why is everyone always so concerned with the rich? I think it has very little to do with economic differences and a lot to do with cultural differences.
Where I live, we have rich people and poor people who get along just fine and tend to appreciate each other as human beings. I believe that this is because the rich and the poor here have the same culture. They all like to do the same things, eat the same food, read the same books, and all have similar religious beliefs. There's little or no resentment or mistrust on either side.
In places like England or certain urban segments of the United States, where the rich and the poor are separated by culture, resentment and hatred are rampant. Seems sad to me. Just a thought.
The next time the FBI says that these powers are necessary in order to combat terrorism, just point to this example.
Whoa, don't use that one--wiretapping and other forms of espionage very probably is necessary in the prevention of terrorism. Just stick with your first argument.
Sorry, you gotta earn my trust! and you haven't been doing a very good job (referring to this administration).
I don't care who's in office: *none* of them have earned my trust. And I seriously doubt that any of them ever will.
Yeah. I guess it's kind of like the speech/beer debate. Damn, the English language sucks. The problem is that it's a RISC language--we have a small number of words that each can have many different shades of meaning; then there are CISC languages like Greek--each shade of meaning has its own word.
I certainly do. But at any rate, administrations always blame their predecessors for everything. Remember Clinton blaming "12 years of Reagan-Bush" for the economic disaster? What happened? Bush(41) dismantled Reagan's economic policies (so there's no point, other than party politics, for connecting Reagan and Bush) and Clinton put them back in place (while screaming the whole time that they were "evil"). Politics is a game that I find disgusting--but it's still a game.
Slashdot Mirror
As a musician, I understand the glory of NeXTSTEP, BeOS, and AmigaOS; but catering to the artistic community is not going to be successful economically. The segment of the market that Microsoft doesn't have belongs to Apple; and probably always will.
Now, since Apple bought NeXT, there's at least *some* "trickle down" of decent technology to the artistic community. But pure, fine, newly-engineered, beautiful technology will never survive as a commercial desktop OS venture. Only Free Software can afford to take the time to do this.
Be was the NeXT of the 90s. Great technology, bad business decisions, terrible marketing, and consumer lock-in killed Be and severely wounded NeXT.
True enough. OS X is OPENSTEP/Mach. :-) As the entire NeXT community *wishes* all the Apple freaks would realize every now and then.
Evidently, you have never heard of OpenStep, which NeXT and Sun released as an open standard in 1994. From which, of course, GNUstep was derived. GNUstep, being a GPL'd implementation of OpenStep (and tracking changes with Cocoa), offers a Free set of Cocoa frameworks for UNIX systems (Linux, BSD, and so on) and even Windows.
Letting all the new Cocoa developers know about GNUstep. It's a GPL'd implementation of Cocoa, and runs on all UNIX platforms (Linux, BSD, etc.) and Windows (the Application Kit graphics backend is in an alpha state). We have several applications written (including Interface Builder and Project Builder clones), some of which are completely portable to Mac OS X (like, GNUmail.app). It's fun and cool.
The more that we can get new Cocoa developers to become aware of the project, the more nifty cross-platform applications we'll have. Oh, and there's a Windows graphical backend in an alpha state too. So, your Cocoa work should be easily portable to Windows soon too.
And one more reason: OmniNetworking has been set up to build with GNUstep. Write your Cocoa app in Objective C, write some makefiles for GNUstep, run your Cocoa app on Linux, BSD, HP-UX, etc. You might want to use GNUstep's IB and PB clones for development, however, since it's easier to go from GNUstep to OS X, than vice-versa.
You do realize that Cocoa is portable, right?
Objective C and Cocoa are cross-platform as well: GNUstep. Runs on UNIX platforms, alpha state under Windows, graphics backend can be easily ported to BeOS or anything else.
And your code also won't be portable to GNUstep.
Cocoa is portable and ported. See GNUstep
Part of the operating system is (Darwin). But all the graphical stuff you see is not. It is not related to Linux, it *is* related to Mach and BSD. Darwin already runs on x86. Furthermore, if you need to have your Mac OS X applications run on other platforms, you can use GNUstep, but you'll have to avoid QuickTime (patent issues) and some things that are only partly implemented in GNUstep currently. After that, you can run Cocoa applications on other UNIX systems (like Linux, *BSD, HP-UX) and in the future, Windows (there is a Windows graphics backend, but it's in an alpha state).
Not to cast aspersions on Mr. Fahlman, but how sure are you? I mean, Wendy Carlos was once Walter Carlos, y'know. Damn, this post can't go without a :-) or I'll be in court for slander.
Do they ever ask what Repetitive fawning crap goes here... means?
Yes. For instance, when a girl I was interested in (who had told me that she *wasn't* interested) didn't answer an email, and I gently reminded her, I used a smiley to show that I wasn't a bitter psychopath who was going to stalk her and bash her head in with a tire-iron. It's easy for good old JWZ to sit up there in his high tower and pontificate but he isn't staring down a restraining order.
The question is, are UI designs protected in the first place? I would say no.
No, I wasn't implying that you were envious. Sorry if that was confusing. I was referring to some of the rhetoric that gets thrown around these days by politicians. Some people really get consumed by this stuff and go around with these caricatures of wealthy people in their heads. When you can pull back from the situation and listen to the stuff some people out there are saying, it's really quite shocking. Especially when you know some wealthy people and understand that they're just ordinary human beings like everyone else. There's nothing unusual or evil about them. And all the one's I've ever met were quite generous people too--not misers the way the politicians would like us to think.
As to the government, I have some extremely serious moral objections to most of what they do. I think they're doing far more harm than good. At any rate, the attempt of politicians to pit us against each other for their own political gain is disgusting; and that's largely what this whole thing is about anyway.
I find your description to be quite disturbing. Now, I'm absolutely certain that there are some real stinkers out there. But I can't believe that all or even most of the wealthy and middle class in this country are evil. I think your statement that they "won't even show you their face" belies paranoia and fear. And that is what all politicians build their political capital on: fear, mistrust, and paranoia. I believe most of it is completely unfounded and is quite unfair. Just don't forget that it cuts both ways--there are politicians making a career out of fear-mongering about you and me as well.
When someone is displeased with the good fortune of others, we call this envy. What I'm curious about is why people are so envious. That's where the cultural differences thing came in.
I'm happy to pay more taxes (both monetarily and as a percentage of income) than my collegues in the next cubicle who earn less than half my salary
I don't come from a wealthy family by any means and don't have a lot of money now (I'm just out of school and am trying to figure out how to make a living) but when I hear that a tax cut benefits someone other than me, I'm happy! The rich aren't the enemy--the government is the enemy. And anytime someone gets some of their own money back from the government, I'm happy because it's a little victory for all of us.
Now, I would certainly like to have *bigger* victories; to wit, seeing *everyone's* taxes reduced. But I seriously doubt that anyone in Washington shares my opinion on that--Republican or Democrat. :-)
In effect, however, our language *is* limited in the way you describe.
And while we're on the topic, what is with the whole tax cuts "for the rich"? Why is everyone always so concerned with the rich? I think it has very little to do with economic differences and a lot to do with cultural differences.
Where I live, we have rich people and poor people who get along just fine and tend to appreciate each other as human beings. I believe that this is because the rich and the poor here have the same culture. They all like to do the same things, eat the same food, read the same books, and all have similar religious beliefs. There's little or no resentment or mistrust on either side.
In places like England or certain urban segments of the United States, where the rich and the poor are separated by culture, resentment and hatred are rampant. Seems sad to me. Just a thought.
Whoa, don't use that one--wiretapping and other forms of espionage very probably is necessary in the prevention of terrorism. Just stick with your first argument.
Sorry, you gotta earn my trust! and you haven't been doing a very good job (referring to this administration).
I don't care who's in office: *none* of them have earned my trust. And I seriously doubt that any of them ever will.
Yeah. I guess it's kind of like the speech/beer debate. Damn, the English language sucks. The problem is that it's a RISC language--we have a small number of words that each can have many different shades of meaning; then there are CISC languages like Greek--each shade of meaning has its own word.
And what of Kennedy's war in Vietnam without a declaration of war from Congress?
I certainly do. But at any rate, administrations always blame their predecessors for everything. Remember Clinton blaming "12 years of Reagan-Bush" for the economic disaster? What happened? Bush(41) dismantled Reagan's economic policies (so there's no point, other than party politics, for connecting Reagan and Bush) and Clinton put them back in place (while screaming the whole time that they were "evil"). Politics is a game that I find disgusting--but it's still a game.