Mac OS X v. Linux

[Eric Dunbar]

> Apple may yet have to realize the mistake they made with deciding
> for proprietary, again -- it's their family mistake since around
> day 1 I believe, "we'll do the software ourselves" and through
> the redux of the move to open the hardware platform and let the
> competition in (PowerCurve and friends) finally to OSX being free
> software based to a large extent -- but being "stolen" that
> (DISCLAIMER: perfectly according to the licenses TTBOMK, so it's
> purely emotional, just like of TCP/IP in win2k), not
> co-developed.

Huh?

> The cloud already has a silver lining since KHTML/Safari news
> became thoughtful again though, so maybe some 12.x will have real
> chance to be free software in its core -- I mean, core *being*
> _free_ software, not "buried under the hood and NDA" one.

That's simply your bias coming through. To me (and, certainly most
people) what really matters in my daily life is whether something
works (with certain caveats) given what I'm willing to spend. I am
willing to spend the money for an OS that works, and works without
*any* head aches. Apple will automagically update my bugs and they
provide slick software that I use (Safari (web browser... on par with
FireFox), iTunes, iPhoto... no FOSS alternatives for the latter two
that even come close).

> That's just my personal opinion, time will tell.  If Apple stays
> Apple, it may just happen either during the next "revolution" or
> be the one after the next for you. :)

Of course, Apple keeps having revolution after revolution and it's
still a viable company and still has an OS that is one of only two
commercial OSes with any penetration. I trust their business analysts
to guide the company and their software analysts to keep the business
analysts honest.

But, that also doesn't mean that I won't use Linux or, if not Linux
directly, FOSS indirectly.

> > It's the show case of what *can* be done with Linux, if only
> > there was some will to abandon the Windows paradigm.
> 
> Uh-oh.  Thre are people who like it (Windows paradigm) as is,
> there are people who find a lot of sane decisions when analyzing
> them.  Still many of them realize that a lot of decisions there
> are imperfect for backwards/bug [[in]experience] compatibility
> or "silly" reasons like that... folks from Samba team once lend
> me a bunch of links to interesting stories on that matter.
> 
> To recap, people who like MacOS have done much to reinvent it in
> free software -- be it K/G projects, AfterStep or WindowMaker,
> and so on.  So it's no use of handwaving there.

Reinventing Mac OS in Linux is not the point. Taking the *good* design
ideas from both Windows and Mac OS (X) is!

> > I don't think being a Windows clone (which is what Linux really
> > feels like nowadays)
> 
> BS (and overgeneralizing). (DISCLAIMER: ...uh, not backspace)

GNOME and KDE *ARE* Windows clones.

They have virtually the same window widgets, same task bar, same Start
menu, all the same *bad* usage concepts. When I sit down before my
Windows XP machine at work I notice little difference from the Ubuntu
GNOME that I have at home.

That was the one real disappointment I had when I first started
experimenting with Linux because it meant that Linux wasn't living up
to their potential! FOSS has the potential to go BEYOND Windows and
Mac but it hasn't, yet!!!

Eric.