"uselib" is a Linux-specific extension, and, as a result, has received much less real-world testing than traditional UNIX system calls. Keep in mind that the traditional UNIX system calls have received millions of man-years of real-world testing in large user communities likely to attempt both remote and local exploits. It is not surprising that Linux-specific extensions are at a much greater risk of containing serious security problems.
It's a digital video recorder, not rocket science. It's trivial and cheap to put together hardware that works like TiVo, and the program information is widely available. Altogether, that means that there just is no business model there: TiVo-like functionality just becomes an add-on to PCs, cable boxes, and other devices.
A $499 multimedia machine running Unix and an impressive UI really WOULD be an innovation, I think.
You have been able to get really nice multimedia machines running UNIX for less money for several years. They also give me a wider choice of excellent cases, different operating systems, better UIs, and they are even available fanless. Oh, and I don't have to pay some company $100/year to upgrade the OS.
Dude. You have no clue what this thing will be like. Maybe wait until you see it first?
Dude, it runs OS X, it is based on standard PC components, and it is manufactured by the same contract manufacturers that manufacture PCs. We can pretty much tell what Apple can ship at that pricepoint and what functionality it will have. And, of course, the ThinkSecret article actually tells us.
So the next time I have roadrage going about 70mph I can just shine a "low-powered" laser pointer in your eye and you're OK with that?
Be my guest--you'll find that it is pretty much impossible to hit anybody's eye that way, and even if, by pure chance, you succeeded, the effect would be negligible (as I can tell you from first hand experience).
Now, the thing that does bother me is tailgating by high center of gravity vehicles with their lights on (SUVs, pickup trucks), often poorly adjusted. That really does dazzle people and is actually dangerous. It is also illegal, but nobody bothers enforcing that.
What he did was clearly wrong. Bitch about the severity of his crime if you must, but at the end of the day, what he did was wrong and you know it.
Bullshit. He appears to have been aiming a class 1 or 2 into the sky. Whether that was because he was doing astronomy, laser-based communications, or just fooling around doesn't matter: those devices are harmless and you used to be free to point them skywards wherever, whenever, and for whatever purpose you liked. And people did.
The thing that is "clearly wrong" here is that people face 25 years in jail because of hysterical reactions by pilots, police, and people like you, against all practical evidence. The problem is people like you, not some guy waving a laser pointer.
This sounds much better than, say, the Oqo or other palmtop computers: it has a longer battery life, it's much cheaper, and it has video I/O. If they don't screw up in some way and if it is actually an open device, this could be a huge success.
are finding their game behaving oddly: espresso machines mysteriously satisfy all the Sims needs, Sims are suddenly comfortable with open relationships, and the social worker no longer cares how they treat their children.
And what's so odd about that? If the game didn't work that way before, maybe it's just a patch.
Apple has failed to become a desktop monopoly not for want of trying but for their inability to pull it off. Proprietary and monopolistic practices are in their genes. The FSF and LPF were boycotting Apple for several years because of it.
Whether Apple can overcome their tradition remains to be seen. Their use of open source in a few places is a good sign, but they have not exactly been giving much of anything back that's actually useful. And Apple's business strategy still seems to be built firmly around keeping large parts of the platform proprietary.
"Apple's DNA is innovation, and the protection of our trade secrets is crucial to our success," the Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement.
Wow, they ship a sub $499 computer in a small case and call it "innovation".
That's plausible. If they actually did do that, however, and the courts found out about it, it would be quite bad for Apple: frivolous lawsuits file for marketing purposes are not looked kindly upon by the courts.
Apple claimed that the information posted on Think Secret in November and December of this year, and earlier, could only have been obtained by someone who had signed a confidentiality agreement with Apple.
It's not illegal per se to publish trade secrets; generally, the only people Apple actually has any claims against are those that have signed NDAs and have violated them.
However, there are lots of ways in which such information can get out without any NDA being violated. Apple will have to demonstrate that their employees didn't accidentally disclose the information and that they have always protected it properly.
If you truly believe that you have some sort of God-given/Constitutionally-mandated right to shine a high-powered laser into the cockpit of a 747, then you truly need a reality check.
There is no evidence that he was using a "high-powered laser". Even if he had, for commonly available high-powered lasers, it is highly implausible that it would have injured or even dazzled the pilot.
Yes, and if the government starts criminalizing stupid but harmless behavior, that is cause for concern.
It is particularly ironic that the guy was also subjected to a lie detector test. It seems like scientific illiteracy is rampant in the legal system.
Classic doesn't come with the OS by default any more,
Is it an Apple-supported GUI that you get with OS X? It is.
and carbon and cocoa have the same GUI unless there are bugs.
There are differences and inconsistencies between the two, and plenty of them. Key bindings and file system access are two major ones.
Bollocks! Why did they spend so much time developing an X11 window manager that runs alongside Aqua?
Apple's X11 server is a derivative of XFree86 and not a particularly good port; so, no, they did not spend much time on it. (Also, it's not an "X11 window manager", it's an "X11 server").
Also bollocks! Not on their own platform. Many programs fudge the Aqua display instead of using native widgets (lo SPSS!). Apple don't care - they'd rather you do things properly, but in the end more apps is only beneficial to Apple.
For FOSS applications, there is no such thing as "on their own platform". If OOo or the Gnome or KDE libraries were to get an Aqua LAF, that LAF would automatically be available on all platforms. So, if Apple prohibits use of its LAF on any platform, then it won't get done for Macintosh either.
Joel's assumption seems to be that every CS graduate wants to be a working programmer and a clone of Joel. Look at where Joel is in life and think twice about whether you want to be there yourself. He's running a software company producing bug tracking software, one of dozens such systems. And occasionally, he preaches his depressing philosophy of how to add more messy code to existing messy code. Sure, it may bring home the bacon, but it seems pretty meaningless to me.
Perhaps Joel's problem is that he doesn't see how exciting computer science can be. If all you do for a living is reimplement tired old ideas and trying to make the best out of inferior tools, I suppose that's not surprising. I'm sorry that a course on "dynamic logic" scared him away from grad school, but his poor choice of courses for his interests isn't the fault of grad school.
My advice is: do what excites you. Think about what you want to look back on in a few decades and say "this is what I accomplished". If you merely want to make a living, sure, just follow into Joel's footsteps and re-implement the wheel; that's a pretty safe bet for making money. But if you want to do something meaningful, you'll have to use your head and take risks. The choice is up to you. But you do have a choice--you don't have to become a little Joel clone.
Mac users pay for elegant boxes and a shiny theme, but not for consistency. Why else would Mac users choose a platform that, out of the box, comes with four different user interfaces (Classic, Carbon, Cocoa, and Metal)?
The problem with OpenOffice is, even in its guise as NeoOffice, it feels clunky, un-Mac-like and inconsistent.
Of course, it feels clunky: nobody has seriously tried making the X11-based OOo implementation look and feel like a native Mac version. And the reason why nobody has seriously tried is because Apple clearly doesn't want X11 applications on Macintosh and because Apple might even sue over look-and-feel, so for anybody to spend any time on that would be wasted. On the other hand, a Cocoa based port of OOo is a lot of work and there doesn't seem to be much point to that either. That's why OOo will remain clunky and inconsistent on the Mac, and that is therefore Apple's fault (see Subject).
So now with robotic surgery, both the doctor and the robot can liable for damages. Next thing you know, telecoms will be liable for medical malpractice if the network connections fail during remote robotic surgery.
Yes, and that's as it should be: if you bring a product or service to market and it causes harm because it doesn't work as promised, you should be responsible for the damages.
So, if your robot causes unnecessary harm to patients or if your high-availability comlink goes down too much, then you should have to pay.
These kinds of activities have been part of multimedia language courses for a long time. Some commercial computer-based language courses even include speech recognition and give you feedback.
However, while language learning by interacting in a game world may be more fun and keep students more motivated, it is unproven that it is actually faster than structured exercises. In fact, experience with existing language learning techniques suggests that it may well take more time to learn a language through interaction than through exercises.
It's like exercise machines vs. participating in a sport: the exercise machines will give you a more efficient and effective workout, but participating in a sport is more fun.
Of course! It's so simple! Why hasn't Apple realized this? Maybe there's just a little more to it than that, as Mike Paquette once said:
Mike Paquette's analysis is woefully out of date. Over the last few years, X11 has been extended to support a full PostScript imaging model. He also has some fundamental misunderstandings about what X11 is. Based on such outdated analysis and flawed assumptions, it's not surprising that he is reaching bad conclusions.
Oh, yeah. My mom can run an xterm session on her desktop now without downloading a shareware X server or buying a software package.
That kind of sarcasm is out of date, too. X11 probably has far more desktop applications available for it than Cocoa at this point. Furthermore, some of Apple's core markets, like education and research, care a great deal about seamless, out-of-the-box X11 support, which Apple still isn't providing.
It wouldn't feel indistinguishable from Cocoa. We've had this debate about Firefox many times. Firefox is the highest quality of app you could expect from that sort of approach\
Firefox is obviously not the "highest quality app you could expect from that sort of approach" because Firefox does indeed look and feel different.
In general, Mac users are far more picky about these things. That's why breaking into the Mac market is hard if you don't put the effort into understanding the philosophy behind the interface.
Well, I'm getting increasingly convinced that it is just not worth the effort for open source software to "break into the Mac market" because there are just too many whiners like you and too much politics. And that's what you are seeing with OOo and other software packages that are hard to port.
In my experience, most real-world users don't even notice the user interface differences between Firefox and other Macintosh applications. Apple has far more inconsistencies, for example, between Carbon and Cocoa or between their silver and glass apps.
Am I wrong that OS X is a well designed operating system, and that the apps Apple makes to go with it are well-integrated?
Yes, basically, you are wrong: you said the level of integration Macintosh offered was "amazing", which suggests that it is somehow better than one should expect, but it seems to be pretty much average.
Apple has done a great job of making this sort of thing easy for programmers, and they've given us a number of handy integration vectors, including services, scripting, and a well-designed API.
Again, "great" and "easy" relative to what? To me, Apple seems to be delivering roughly what Windows, KDE, and Gnome deliver in those areas as well.
If a third-party piece of software does a lousy job of getting through the door, it isn't because Apple didn't open it wide enough.
If your measure of platform consistency is "the platform is consistent and well-integrated, as long as you stick to the consistent and well-integrated applications", then every platform is consistent and well-integrated, they just differ in the amount of software available for them.
I don't know what KDE provides in this capacity, so I can't give you an example of what OS X + Apple apps provides that KDE doesn't.
Well, if you don't know what other common desktops provide, why do you go around beating the drums for OS X? None of the examples you give are particularly unusual.
Like I said, I can't speak to KDE specifically, but I'm constantly amazed at how well OS X does so many different things.
Unfortunately, most of that stuff only works well as long as you stick exactly to Apple's applications. Try using a different mail application, photo application, or music player, and all that slick integration goes out the window and you may actually have windows popping up inconsistently all over the place.
(And don't talk to me about Apple's external monitor connections--I have stood more than once in front of an audience trying to get a Powerbook to talk to some projector and only getting a blank screen or part of the whole scree, or other weird effects.)
a) The administrative database is by default openldap instead of local files although if you really want you can use local files.
As I was saying, the way OS X represents administrative information is non-standard and overly complex. The fact that it may use a standard database to do something in a non-standard way doesn't change that.
b) The filesystem is HFS+ or UFS (your choice) and on both unix file semantics are implemented.
HFS+ doesn't even come close to implementing UNIX file system semantics, and UFS is not a viable choice for OS X users because it fails to implement Macintosh semantics properly.
Have you actually used MacOSX or are you a Linux bigot?
I have a couple of OS X machines (as well as some Linux and Windows machines and a few Suns).
So I and any else that needs similar functionality should implement it ourselves instead of the OS providing this functionality? [...] In the case of the quota example, all I need is simple file services for PC and Mac clients (no shell access to the server (artist type; they don't do commandline).
So, you are saying that you expect your "artist types" to fiddle around with ACLs in Windows XP file properties, and that's the basis for your workflow? Oh, boy.
If you want workflow, get a workflow system. Workflow systems can be implemented easily on top of UNIX using the permission mechanisms that exist in UNIX today, using whatever interface (command line, GUI, web) your users prefer.
That level of component-based integration was done commercially by Microsoft and IBM first; Apple's OpenDoc was a late "me too" effort.
But neither OLE nor OpenDoc actually solve the problem: they are API-level efforts and far too fine-grained. That has made using them far too complex and unreliable. It's their complexity and lack of reliability that made developers shun them.
The failure of OLE and OpenDoc to become more widely used is a testament of Microsoft's and Apple's inability to develop good, simple, usable APIs and good implementations. But a good component standard will eventually be developed, you can be sure of that.
Apple most certainly doesn't want users confusing the abomination that is X11 with Aqua/Cocoa.
The DisplayPDF component of Cocoa is the abomination here: a 20 year old, messy, and ineffcient client-server graphics subsystem that only continues to exist because it was Jobs's pet project.
Similar logic applies to why Classic is so jarringly distinct from Aqua (hint: if the integration were seamless, why would developers ever do a native Mac OS X port?)
That's the wrong analogy: Classic is "jarringly distinct" from Aqua because it is a completely different platform. X11 is a client/server graphics and window server, like DisplayPDF. Apple could drop DisplayPDF entirely and replace it with X11, while keeping the rest of the platform identical; most users and developers would not even notice, except perhaps for the smaller memory footprint and better performance they'd be getting with X11.
X11 and the native Aqua GUI will remain noticeably separate for as long as Mac OS X computers are a key component of Apple's bottom line.
You're absolutely right there: financially, it may be the right choice for Apple to keep the OS X GUI proprietary, not because their software is any better (which it isn't), but simply because their brand name stands for being "different". The thing that isn't the right choice is for users to spend money on that sort of thing.
This should please the average Mac user that finds the current OOo interface terrible looking, not to mention very interesting to use.
This is really Apple's fault. If Apple made a firm commitment to supporting X11 transparently alongside Carbon and Cocoa, software like OOo would quickly have the necessary Macintosh hooks added to it to look and feel natively (even though they would continue to be mostly X11-based internally).
Slashdot Mirror
"uselib" is a Linux-specific extension, and, as a result, has received much less real-world testing than traditional UNIX system calls. Keep in mind that the traditional UNIX system calls have received millions of man-years of real-world testing in large user communities likely to attempt both remote and local exploits. It is not surprising that Linux-specific extensions are at a much greater risk of containing serious security problems.
It's a digital video recorder, not rocket science. It's trivial and cheap to put together hardware that works like TiVo, and the program information is widely available. Altogether, that means that there just is no business model there: TiVo-like functionality just becomes an add-on to PCs, cable boxes, and other devices.
A $499 multimedia machine running Unix and an impressive UI really WOULD be an innovation, I think.
You have been able to get really nice multimedia machines running UNIX for less money for several years. They also give me a wider choice of excellent cases, different operating systems, better UIs, and they are even available fanless. Oh, and I don't have to pay some company $100/year to upgrade the OS.
Dude. You have no clue what this thing will be like. Maybe wait until you see it first?
Dude, it runs OS X, it is based on standard PC components, and it is manufactured by the same contract manufacturers that manufacture PCs. We can pretty much tell what Apple can ship at that pricepoint and what functionality it will have. And, of course, the ThinkSecret article actually tells us.
So the next time I have roadrage going about 70mph I can just shine a "low-powered" laser pointer in your eye and you're OK with that?
Be my guest--you'll find that it is pretty much impossible to hit anybody's eye that way, and even if, by pure chance, you succeeded, the effect would be negligible (as I can tell you from first hand experience).
Now, the thing that does bother me is tailgating by high center of gravity vehicles with their lights on (SUVs, pickup trucks), often poorly adjusted. That really does dazzle people and is actually dangerous. It is also illegal, but nobody bothers enforcing that.
What he did was clearly wrong. Bitch about the severity of his crime if you must, but at the end of the day, what he did was wrong and you know it.
Bullshit. He appears to have been aiming a class 1 or 2 into the sky. Whether that was because he was doing astronomy, laser-based communications, or just fooling around doesn't matter: those devices are harmless and you used to be free to point them skywards wherever, whenever, and for whatever purpose you liked. And people did.
The thing that is "clearly wrong" here is that people face 25 years in jail because of hysterical reactions by pilots, police, and people like you, against all practical evidence. The problem is people like you, not some guy waving a laser pointer.
This sounds much better than, say, the Oqo or other palmtop computers: it has a longer battery life, it's much cheaper, and it has video I/O. If they don't screw up in some way and if it is actually an open device, this could be a huge success.
are finding their game behaving oddly: espresso machines mysteriously satisfy all the Sims needs, Sims are suddenly comfortable with open relationships, and the social worker no longer cares how they treat their children.
And what's so odd about that? If the game didn't work that way before, maybe it's just a patch.
Apple has failed to become a desktop monopoly not for want of trying but for their inability to pull it off. Proprietary and monopolistic practices are in their genes. The FSF and LPF were boycotting Apple for several years because of it.
Whether Apple can overcome their tradition remains to be seen. Their use of open source in a few places is a good sign, but they have not exactly been giving much of anything back that's actually useful. And Apple's business strategy still seems to be built firmly around keeping large parts of the platform proprietary.
"Apple's DNA is innovation, and the protection of our trade secrets is crucial to our success," the Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement.
Wow, they ship a sub $499 computer in a small case and call it "innovation".
That's plausible. If they actually did do that, however, and the courts found out about it, it would be quite bad for Apple: frivolous lawsuits file for marketing purposes are not looked kindly upon by the courts.
Apple claimed that the information posted on Think Secret in November and December of this year, and earlier, could only have been obtained by someone who had signed a confidentiality agreement with Apple.
It's not illegal per se to publish trade secrets; generally, the only people Apple actually has any claims against are those that have signed NDAs and have violated them.
However, there are lots of ways in which such information can get out without any NDA being violated. Apple will have to demonstrate that their employees didn't accidentally disclose the information and that they have always protected it properly.
It's a frickin' laser beam. It can blind people.
No, it can't.
It is actually a really dangerous choice in toys.
No, it isn't.
If you truly believe that you have some sort of God-given/Constitutionally-mandated right to shine a high-powered laser into the cockpit of a 747, then you truly need a reality check.
There is no evidence that he was using a "high-powered laser". Even if he had, for commonly available high-powered lasers, it is highly implausible that it would have injured or even dazzled the pilot.
Yes, and if the government starts criminalizing stupid but harmless behavior, that is cause for concern.
It is particularly ironic that the guy was also subjected to a lie detector test. It seems like scientific illiteracy is rampant in the legal system.
Classic doesn't come with the OS by default any more,
Is it an Apple-supported GUI that you get with OS X? It is.
and carbon and cocoa have the same GUI unless there are bugs.
There are differences and inconsistencies between the two, and plenty of them. Key bindings and file system access are two major ones.
Bollocks! Why did they spend so much time developing an X11 window manager that runs alongside Aqua?
Apple's X11 server is a derivative of XFree86 and not a particularly good port; so, no, they did not spend much time on it. (Also, it's not an "X11 window manager", it's an "X11 server").
Also bollocks! Not on their own platform. Many programs fudge the Aqua display instead of using native widgets (lo SPSS!). Apple don't care - they'd rather you do things properly, but in the end more apps is only beneficial to Apple.
For FOSS applications, there is no such thing as "on their own platform". If OOo or the Gnome or KDE libraries were to get an Aqua LAF, that LAF would automatically be available on all platforms. So, if Apple prohibits use of its LAF on any platform, then it won't get done for Macintosh either.
Joel's assumption seems to be that every CS graduate wants to be a working programmer and a clone of Joel. Look at where Joel is in life and think twice about whether you want to be there yourself. He's running a software company producing bug tracking software, one of dozens such systems. And occasionally, he preaches his depressing philosophy of how to add more messy code to existing messy code. Sure, it may bring home the bacon, but it seems pretty meaningless to me.
Perhaps Joel's problem is that he doesn't see how exciting computer science can be. If all you do for a living is reimplement tired old ideas and trying to make the best out of inferior tools, I suppose that's not surprising. I'm sorry that a course on "dynamic logic" scared him away from grad school, but his poor choice of courses for his interests isn't the fault of grad school.
My advice is: do what excites you. Think about what you want to look back on in a few decades and say "this is what I accomplished". If you merely want to make a living, sure, just follow into Joel's footsteps and re-implement the wheel; that's a pretty safe bet for making money. But if you want to do something meaningful, you'll have to use your head and take risks. The choice is up to you. But you do have a choice--you don't have to become a little Joel clone.
Mac users will pay for consistency
Mac users pay for elegant boxes and a shiny theme, but not for consistency. Why else would Mac users choose a platform that, out of the box, comes with four different user interfaces (Classic, Carbon, Cocoa, and Metal)?
The problem with OpenOffice is, even in its guise as NeoOffice, it feels clunky, un-Mac-like and inconsistent.
Of course, it feels clunky: nobody has seriously tried making the X11-based OOo implementation look and feel like a native Mac version. And the reason why nobody has seriously tried is because Apple clearly doesn't want X11 applications on Macintosh and because Apple might even sue over look-and-feel, so for anybody to spend any time on that would be wasted. On the other hand, a Cocoa based port of OOo is a lot of work and there doesn't seem to be much point to that either. That's why OOo will remain clunky and inconsistent on the Mac, and that is therefore Apple's fault (see Subject).
So now with robotic surgery, both the doctor and the robot can liable for damages. Next thing you know, telecoms will be liable for medical malpractice if the network connections fail during remote robotic surgery.
Yes, and that's as it should be: if you bring a product or service to market and it causes harm because it doesn't work as promised, you should be responsible for the damages.
So, if your robot causes unnecessary harm to patients or if your high-availability comlink goes down too much, then you should have to pay.
These kinds of activities have been part of multimedia language courses for a long time. Some commercial computer-based language courses even include speech recognition and give you feedback.
However, while language learning by interacting in a game world may be more fun and keep students more motivated, it is unproven that it is actually faster than structured exercises. In fact, experience with existing language learning techniques suggests that it may well take more time to learn a language through interaction than through exercises.
It's like exercise machines vs. participating in a sport: the exercise machines will give you a more efficient and effective workout, but participating in a sport is more fun.
Of course! It's so simple! Why hasn't Apple realized this? Maybe there's just a little more to it than that, as Mike Paquette once said:
Mike Paquette's analysis is woefully out of date. Over the last few years, X11 has been extended to support a full PostScript imaging model. He also has some fundamental misunderstandings about what X11 is. Based on such outdated analysis and flawed assumptions, it's not surprising that he is reaching bad conclusions.
Oh, yeah. My mom can run an xterm session on her desktop now
without downloading a shareware X server or buying a software package.
That kind of sarcasm is out of date, too. X11 probably has far more desktop applications available for it than Cocoa at this point. Furthermore, some of Apple's core markets, like education and research, care a great deal about seamless, out-of-the-box X11 support, which Apple still isn't providing.
It wouldn't feel indistinguishable from Cocoa. We've had this debate about Firefox many times. Firefox is the highest quality of app you could expect from that sort of approach\
Firefox is obviously not the "highest quality app you could expect from that sort of approach" because Firefox does indeed look and feel different.
In general, Mac users are far more picky about these things. That's why breaking into the Mac market is hard if you don't put the effort into understanding the philosophy behind the interface.
Well, I'm getting increasingly convinced that it is just not worth the effort for open source software to "break into the Mac market" because there are just too many whiners like you and too much politics. And that's what you are seeing with OOo and other software packages that are hard to port.
In my experience, most real-world users don't even notice the user interface differences between Firefox and other Macintosh applications. Apple has far more inconsistencies, for example, between Carbon and Cocoa or between their silver and glass apps.
Am I wrong that OS X is a well designed operating system, and that the apps Apple makes to go with it are well-integrated?
Yes, basically, you are wrong: you said the level of integration Macintosh offered was "amazing", which suggests that it is somehow better than one should expect, but it seems to be pretty much average.
Apple has done a great job of making this sort of thing easy for programmers, and they've given us a number of handy integration vectors, including services, scripting, and a well-designed API.
Again, "great" and "easy" relative to what? To me, Apple seems to be delivering roughly what Windows, KDE, and Gnome deliver in those areas as well.
If a third-party piece of software does a lousy job of getting through the door, it isn't because Apple didn't open it wide enough.
If your measure of platform consistency is "the platform is consistent and well-integrated, as long as you stick to the consistent and well-integrated applications", then every platform is consistent and well-integrated, they just differ in the amount of software available for them.
I don't know what KDE provides in this capacity, so I can't give you an example of what OS X + Apple apps provides that KDE doesn't.
Well, if you don't know what other common desktops provide, why do you go around beating the drums for OS X? None of the examples you give are particularly unusual.
Like I said, I can't speak to KDE specifically, but I'm constantly amazed at how well OS X does so many different things.
Unfortunately, most of that stuff only works well as long as you stick exactly to Apple's applications. Try using a different mail application, photo application, or music player, and all that slick integration goes out the window and you may actually have windows popping up inconsistently all over the place.
(And don't talk to me about Apple's external monitor connections--I have stood more than once in front of an audience trying to get a Powerbook to talk to some projector and only getting a blank screen or part of the whole scree, or other weird effects.)
a) The administrative database is by default openldap instead of local files although if you really want you can use local files.
As I was saying, the way OS X represents administrative information is non-standard and overly complex. The fact that it may use a standard database to do something in a non-standard way doesn't change that.
b) The filesystem is HFS+ or UFS (your choice) and on both unix file semantics are implemented.
HFS+ doesn't even come close to implementing UNIX file system semantics, and UFS is not a viable choice for OS X users because it fails to implement Macintosh semantics properly.
Have you actually used MacOSX or are you a Linux bigot?
I have a couple of OS X machines (as well as some Linux and Windows machines and a few Suns).
So I and any else that needs similar functionality should implement it ourselves instead of the OS providing this functionality? [...] In the case of the quota example, all I need is simple file services for PC and Mac clients (no shell access to the server (artist type; they don't do commandline).
So, you are saying that you expect your "artist types" to fiddle around with ACLs in Windows XP file properties, and that's the basis for your workflow? Oh, boy.
If you want workflow, get a workflow system. Workflow systems can be implemented easily on top of UNIX using the permission mechanisms that exist in UNIX today, using whatever interface (command line, GUI, web) your users prefer.
That level of component-based integration was done commercially by Microsoft and IBM first; Apple's OpenDoc was a late "me too" effort.
But neither OLE nor OpenDoc actually solve the problem: they are API-level efforts and far too fine-grained. That has made using them far too complex and unreliable. It's their complexity and lack of reliability that made developers shun them.
The failure of OLE and OpenDoc to become more widely used is a testament of Microsoft's and Apple's inability to develop good, simple, usable APIs and good implementations. But a good component standard will eventually be developed, you can be sure of that.
Apple most certainly doesn't want users confusing the abomination that is X11 with Aqua/Cocoa.
The DisplayPDF component of Cocoa is the abomination here: a 20 year old, messy, and ineffcient client-server graphics subsystem that only continues to exist because it was Jobs's pet project.
Similar logic applies to why Classic is so jarringly distinct from Aqua (hint: if the integration were seamless, why would developers ever do a native Mac OS X port?)
That's the wrong analogy: Classic is "jarringly distinct" from Aqua because it is a completely different platform. X11 is a client/server graphics and window server, like DisplayPDF. Apple could drop DisplayPDF entirely and replace it with X11, while keeping the rest of the platform identical; most users and developers would not even notice, except perhaps for the smaller memory footprint and better performance they'd be getting with X11.
X11 and the native Aqua GUI will remain noticeably separate for as long as Mac OS X computers are a key component of Apple's bottom line.
You're absolutely right there: financially, it may be the right choice for Apple to keep the OS X GUI proprietary, not because their software is any better (which it isn't), but simply because their brand name stands for being "different". The thing that isn't the right choice is for users to spend money on that sort of thing.
This should please the average Mac user that finds the current OOo interface terrible looking, not to mention very interesting to use.
This is really Apple's fault. If Apple made a firm commitment to supporting X11 transparently alongside Carbon and Cocoa, software like OOo would quickly have the necessary Macintosh hooks added to it to look and feel natively (even though they would continue to be mostly X11-based internally).