Most people switching to Linux aren’t switching because of the ease of use, or the shiny graphics, or the pretty interface. They switch for a variety of reasons, some would say it lowers the operating cost, some do it to support Free Software, others may do it because of its technical capabilities, etc.But it is strikingly clear that Apple and Linux aren’t fighting for the same set of market. On June 6, 2006, the first x86-based Mac comes out – after general interests dies down, Macs would be no different from the marketing standpoint then as it would now.
Macs would still be a niche market. Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller confirmed, “We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac.” Nothing has change. In fact, the sole Apple advantage gained by moving to an Intel-based platform is that new users could use Windows along with Mac OS X – however Schiller also confirmed that Apple wouldn’t sell nor support Windows on their Macs.
As such, Mac OS X would continue to be doomed to be the operating system for a shrinking, in terms of market share, market. Unlike Linux, it is unlikely much corporations would mass-deploy Macs starting June 6, 2005 for non-design related uses. Hardly anyone that wouldn’t forking out for today’s Macs would fork out for Macs next year. Having a better user interface than Linux would make not much of a difference.
Could Apple gain more market share for Mac OS X? Perhaps. But it wouldn’t be by the virtue of changing platforms. They could start stealing market share from Microsoft should they start licensing out Mac OS X to non-Apple hardware. But they could already have done that with on the PowerPC platform. In fact, by licensing Mac OS X licenses out, it could perhaps have ‘saved’ PowerPC in the sense that IBM and Freescale have more of a market and economic reason to churn out better and faster processors.
But of course, in such a scenario, Apple’s profit would be severely undermined, and that’s why it is unlikely Mac OS X would be sold for non-Apple hardware and thus be an actual threat to Microsoft Windows anytime soon, be it on PowerPC or Pentium. And because of that, desktop Linux developers need not worry that Linux would be pushed off the market.
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I really don’t think Linux has to worry about Apple switching (hehe). You still have to buy a Mac to use Mac OS X.
Linux will always be the platform of choice for many technical people and Windows switchers.
If Apple was licensing their OS…then Linux would have to worry.
Linux runs on many architectures, no biggie, they want Linux to work on different architectures. Heck, Linux even works on Apple hardware today, why not next years x86-Apples?
MacOS (X, XI, etc) on the other hand should only work on Apple branded hardware. But that isn’t really true is it? I have ran MacOS X on my AMD based machines using pearpc. And what is stopping someone from porting pearpc from internally using ppc to x86? Darwin is open source as well, making it even easier to make a “generic-x86” mapping to “apple-x86”.
For Linux it doesn’t matter who makes the best hardware, as Linux is interested in running on it. It doesn’t matter if it is IBM, Sun, PPC, iNTEL, AMD, home-made, DELL, or whatever on and in the box. It’s the same thing with Windows really. Make the hardware and if it sells well and is fast, you bet Microsoft wants Windows to run on it.
Apple on the other hand now has to explain why you will have to pay more for their x86 hardware than you will have for a Dell with the same hardware (CPU, GFX, Memory, etc), and why you can’t run all that Windows specific software on it, when it has all the same crap in it as the Dell.
The only thing that would change Linux’s fate (be it what it may) is another OS that 1. Also is free. 2. Is better. 3. Becomes more popular.
Ah, nice to read some words of common sense from the same site that gives us Eugenia and the never-ending tale of superior desktop “experience” of Mac OS X, that for some reason, now that the processor architecture has shifted (and nothing more in terms of marketing or politics) will take all of the people formerly interested in Desktop Linux. The sole advantage gained from the switch in terms of gaining new users (otherwise than improved performance and so on) has been laid out in this article. No need to make more fuzz about it, than it’s worth.
I’m worried about Skyos, Syllable, and Haiku (aka OpenBeOS)
Not so much as who will develop them but who will use them if they had OS X as an alternative. Now they can’t be the next to say they are mac os for the x86.
Even linux looks grim for the Desktop if OS X is a cheap choice.
With the availability (late) of Mac OS X86, we will get to see how much pent-up demand there was for a viable Windows alternative on the desktop.
Unfortunately we will get to see in a year, give or take. What happens in the industry in a year will be hard to say.
With the ability to run your Windows apps and your Mac apps side by side together at full speed, Mac will be a real choice for many companies whereas with PowerPC, it really wasn’t.
How an aging Tiger will compare to Longhorn remains to be seen. If Apple had never picked IBM in the first place and had been on Intel for the past 5 years, they’d be in a much stronger position today.
The developer entry price is as always, steep. $500 membership + $1000 machine is a lot of money just to participate. It will be interesting to see how many Apple developers there are at the 2006 Apple developer’s show.
If Apple is first with “a viable Windows alternative” it may capture the bulk of this market. OS X is BSD UNIX and offers all the benefits of Linux provided Apple tunes up its code a bit more. So if this is the case, it will take Linux longer to establish a serious desktop presence, especially if Apple decides later on to broaden OS X to certain approved OEM’s…
All in all, it gives Linux developers something to think about. Apple’s “transition” is a move forward for the “Windows alternative” market and that will be good for Linux in the long term.
I think Apple has more to worry about from GNU/Linux than vice versa, especially since they will now be competing in the x86/AMD64 arena. Apple makes “luxury” computers in the same way that Lexus makes “luxury” automobiles. Too expensive for most people, but a sign of status and a functional piece of driveway (or office, as it were) jewelry. Inside the colorful chassis, it’s a similar computer to what most Intel/AMD users will have paid less for.
Those who enjoy software freedom won’t be fooled by Apple’s OS X. It’s proprietary, restrictive, and overpriced. Yes, overpriced — you might buy a Windows upgrade once every five years, and OS X twice as often.
Those who like Windows software won’t switch — just because it’s on x86 now doesn’t mean that Windows binaries will work. They don’t work in GNU/Linux and they won’t work in OS X for x86. In effect, software selection will still be anemic for Apple computers.
People are not buying GNU/Linux computers in quantity. They’re taking Windows computers and putting GNU/Linux on them, or building their own. How on earth is Apple going to affect this? If anything, Apple computer owners will switch to GNU/Linux in small numbers… any rationale that suggests that GNU/Linux will suffer because of Apple is purely ridiculous. It’s Apple zealots ranting about how their favorite proprietary computer corporation will succeed. Reality distorion field, engage!
As long as its rivals stay proprietary GNU/Linux has nothing to worry. A non-free software can never be a full replacement for a free one.
“MacOS (X, XI, etc) on the other hand should only work on Apple branded hardware. But that isn’t really true is it? I have ran MacOS X on my AMD based machines using pearpc. And what is stopping someone from porting pearpc from internally using ppc to x86?”
This is the only thing right now, that makes me really go on and think about what will happen a bit.
Actually I think Apple might just include in their ‘EULA’ that you simply are not allowed to run Mac OS X anywhere else than on an Apple branded Macintosh Computer*.
This would (legally – kind of) prevent people from using Mac OS X on non-Apple Hardware, because I do not think they will be able or willing to really force technical limitations here.
* Maybe (I did not read them) the current Apple EULA already does this, I do not know.
Anyway my point is, something like that would go extremely against one of the most important principles of ‘free software’ (which Apple based some parts of their OS on), where you should always be allowed to run the software anywhere you like, under any circumstances.
So basically any user switching form any OSS System / Software to this (so I guess they know what Free Software is and kind of ‘believed’ in it) would earn my deepest distrust – not that that means anything though.
They switch for a variety of reasons, some would say it lowers the operating cost, some do it to support Free Software, others may do it because of its technical capabilities, etc.
Most users I know switch because of:
a) stability
b) viruses
c) spyware
d) the ability to beware nomal clueless users (parents, grandparents, etc) from thrashing their os
with b) and c) being the most important.
I forsee that once x86 Macs have been in production for a while and the market has grown, MacOS will probably open up and be a full replacement for Windows. Sure, this will take 5 – 10 years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if MacOS XI works everywhere.
Quote: “This would (legally – kind of) prevent people from using Mac OS X on non-Apple Hardware, because I do not think they will be able or willing to really force technical limitations here.”
I doubt that most EULAs are legally enforceable. None have ever went to caught, and i’d suspect that many would be arguing that they’re not constitutional and breach freedom of rights by being overly restrictive. EULAs should be made illegal imho, general copyright laws protect software well enough without shit like that.
Just my 2.2c (inc. GST) worth.
Dave
Didn’t you read? OS X will not run on your regular Dell or other white box PC, which means you still need to buy a P.remium P.riced P.C. from Apple, so in effect nothing realy changed.
-fooks
Mainly, Apple feels confident to announce the move to Intel precisely becuase Mac marketshare is INCREASING. That doesn’t mean Apple is going to overtake Dell anytime soon, but this talk of “Mac marketshare is declining” is just tripe that, for the last two quarters, have shown to be wrong. Sure, Mac marketshare is still niche status, but as Steve Jobs pointed out so succinctly, Mac sales have been growing at 3 times the industry average and all indications are that it will continue to grow robustly for now.
Basing an analysis on “Apple dwindling marketshare” sounds likes so much reality-free FUD from Creative or Napster talking about how iPod sales are shrinking (not) or how iTunes will fail (news – iTunes has GAINED marketshare from 70% to 82% since Napster and Yahoo hit the scene).
Yes, even with the iBook and PowerBooks stuck with the G4, Apple is still selling tons of them because they can offer a superior user experience. You don’t just by a CPU, you buy an entire system.
Apple just has to keep updating PowerPC system as much as it can until the Intel Macs come out, and combine it with attractive design, good pricing, and strong marketing. Anyone who thinks a 1.5 Ghz iBook won’t sell tomorrow if Apple prices it at, say, $799 because Intel Macs will be out in June 2006 doesn’t know the Mac market enough to post an analysis.
The legality of EULAs is not clear in the USA, where the law is very permissive to the corporations. In Europe they are downright meaningless, generally.
EULAs are full of limitations about what you as a customer can and cannot do AFTER your purchase. This varies from illegal to “must be signed individually” in most EU countries.
In italy Microsoft EULAs have been proven unenforceable in tribunals several times. But MS and others continue to write them, ’cause people don’t really know…
> Actually I think Apple might just include in their ‘EULA’ that you simply are not allowed to run Mac OS X anywhere else than on an Apple branded Macintosh Computer*.
Yeah, I’m sure Apple like to think that that is actually how it works but it isn’t. You bought the software, you own it and you can do whatever the hell you want with it as long as what you do doesnt’ infringe on Apple’s copyrights (ie, redistributing or some such).
And no, dont even start on the “you’re only leasing/licensing the software” because that is, quite frankly, also total bullcrap. It’s as absurd as if you didnt own CD’s you buy in the store (but i’m sure the RIAA would *love* that).
With the news of the switch of processor from PowerPC to Intel x86 chips, and the fact that the switch will be a complete one, who is going to buy a PowerPC Mac in the next 12 months? The sensible option would be to hold off for a year and wait for the new systems running on Intel chips.
Maybe OS News could do a survey and find out who intends to buy PowerPC Mac computers in the next year.
If it does survive that long I still can’t really see it having that much of an impact on Linux or Windows. Apple Mac computers will still carry a price premium because they will be designed and produced to a superior quality level as usual. So I find it hard to imagine any difference in the market as a result of the processor switch over.
Yellowdog Linux has got to be hurting now – they need a new business plan pronto. IBM’s going nowhere with Linux on POWER either, because Linux/PPC is about as useful as Linux on PARISC or Linux on Sparc.
As for LinuxPPC, welcome to graveyard of Linux/Alpha, Linux/PARISC, Linux/MIPS, Linux/SPARC!
“But of course, in such a scenario, Apple’s profit would be severely undermined, and that’s why it is unlikely Mac OS X would be sold for non-Apple hardware and thus be an actual threat to Microsoft Windows anytime soon, be it on PowerPC or Pentium. And because of that, desktop Linux developers need not worry that Linux would be pushed off the market.”
I think the author misses the point of Apple’s move to Intel chips.
1. Being able to run OS X, Windows & Linux on 1 computer without emulation would entice many to buy an Intel based Mac.
Flexibility is the under the table feature here. It also represents a change in strategy for Apple. The effort here appears to be to increase market penetration by having people use Mac OS X without necessarily giving up Windows or Linux. Even though macs typically cost more, being able to run all apps. natively makes buying a Mac an option where it may not have been before. Adapting this strategy would probably meet with quiet approval if not support from MS or Linux as this may not affect their market penetration. Apple may see more hardware sales because of this new found combination of performance & flexibility, but MS & Linux may be sharing space with OS X on the hard drive. Like it or not there still seems to be a need for MS apps. in the workplace to ensure compatibility. If you can’t beat them, join them or get them to join you.
I guess that’s all for now.
The main advantage OSX has over Linux is Quartz. Linux should adopt something similar, X11 is slow, impossible to configure, cut&paste doesn’t work very well, and it is bloat because most apps use toolkits anyway.
And maybe that’s a good thing. A lot of effort is required to maintain developments of Linux for various platforms. Consolidation with Intel chips might not be good for hardware competation, but it’s great for software.
Just to be sure:
Personally, from all that I know, I consider ‘EULAs’ (the after-buy kind of Software crap) illegal – but in the US they seem to be considered ‘kinda ok’, so companies keep on delivering EULAs and “Accept” buttons. This is what i think *will* happen, no matter if it will stop users or not (it won’t) it will Apple give the ‘right’ to say; “oh come on, we told you, you shouldn’t do, that so don’t come to us if it breaks… over and over again”
I guess the technical measures will be there, but it won’t be too hard to circumvent them with some kind of pearpc generic -> apple system, as described above.
Apple has more to worry about. It was from the humble open source projects such as FreeBSD and subsequently DarwinBSD that Apple got there kernel. It is also open source projects that fuels Apple’s servers and underlying framework for OSX. Apple is merely becoming a GUI ontop of Open Source. Nothing really has changed it’s just that now it all runs on x86, so welcome to the club.
Macs will get faster – after all this is what the move to x86 is partially about – isn’t it?
And my prediction: Linux and Macs will slowly erode Window’s market share. Linux users love Linux. Mac users love Macs. Virtually everyone is indifferent to Windows.
Nothing stop you to build a Linux system that use Quartz.
The main advantage OSX has over Linux is Quartz.
Depends of the distros. I would say that is subjective point of view because you haven’t specify the system benchmark to validate your statement.
Linux should adopt something similar, X11 is slow, impossible to configure, cut&paste doesn’t work very well, and it is bloat because most apps use toolkits anyway.
I guess you haven’t tried Enlightement, Fluxbox, IceWmn. Those environment desktops are the example that contradict your argument. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Desktops
well Apple is doomed and even the best add campaign wont save them. I really thought that they were out to get a larger piece of the pie and respected them for that but now I am not so sure. First of all Windows probably won’t install on Macs and if it does then there is a way that OS X can be installed on a regular x86. I am pretty sure that this won’t happen. However what WILL happen is that Sony will become the new Apple with desktops and workstations based on cell architecture. Only this means that there is huge chance for some linux distro to quickly gain more user base than Apple has ever had. Also linux is a very much acceptable OS in Japan and there Sharp still sells Zaurus PDA and Linux computers and makes pretty good proffit from them. So I won’t be surprised if Sony backs linux up as well. Then you have IBM and they have been pouring money into linux for quite some time now and seem to be one of the best alies that linux has at the moment. After all most developers are conservative and need a lot of convincing and the same goes for large companies. So back to the question I really don’t think that linux has anything to fear and Apple probably waited too long to join the x86 party … that’s sad because it is a nice OS.
The Mac market share is RISING, not shrinking. Maybe it will shrink now that Apple has announced PPCs are kind of obsolete. But to this day, the market share was rising.
Errrrm last time I looked, OSX used Apple’s Mach Microkernel called XNU not BSD’s
BSD is there purely to provide user level processes running on mach.
“Linux should adopt something similar, X11 is slow, impossible to configure, cut&paste doesn’t work very well, and it is bloat because most apps use toolkits anyway.”
*sigh* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11
“It is the standard toolkit and protocol to build graphical user interfaces on Unix…”
Educate yourself! X is not slow. If something is slow, it’s XFree or X.org. How many times do we have to go this through before people understand?
Once ATI or Nvidia makes a driver for OSX x86 would it be a snap to release that driver for FreeBSD x86?
Even if they are only binary drivers instead of open source, it will be a great gain for FreeBSD.
Also OSX x86 would get easily the linux binary compatibility FreeBSD has been using for some time. isn’t it?
Of course not only videocard drivers but all kind of stuff that requires a driver.
X11 is slow. It is even dog-slow compared to what a display system could be. I recently implemented a Quartz-like system to act as a display layer for some research based on Xen, and it is almost trivial with modern hardware to outperform X11.
For some reason critizing X11 is a taboo in Linux circles. I don’t care if in theory X11 is a great protocol (it is not, it was designed in a different age, and even back then lots of people hated it) and it is just xfree86 that sucks (which it does, in almost every respect, down to the dreadful build system), X11 as currently implemented on Linux is a dog. Quartz has shown how UNIX can do this better. Apple could have chosen to go with X11, instead they invested in developing their own and better system, and they did so for a good reason.
If you don’t have money, it’s clear that you don’t support Macs at all.
Now, considering that you have money, Macs would be a great choice. Windows are a nightmare; and the other Unixes aren’t as sexy as they could be.
No money = no support for Macs.
No money = support for (pirated) Windows.
Enthusiasm = support for Unixes.
Enthusiasm is not about oneself. If you look around, entire communities are built with enthusiasm.
http://www.linuxtag.org/typo3site/freecongress-details.html?talkid=…
“…the first Cell Processor based workstation computer, which premieres at Linuxtag 2005”
No wonder Apple switched! Pressure from Intel, indifference from IBM, and now we know why….welcome back innovation!
I want a Cell-based Desktop!
“For some reason critizing X11 is a taboo in Linux circles.”
Since when? Almost every single OSNews/Slashdot article about Linux on the desktop has anti-X11 posts, most of which are modded up to +5 Insightful. Is that how you define “taboo”?
But really, a lot of complaints about X are based on ignorance. People say “get rid of the network layer” all the time, but X uses Unix Domain Sockets on localhost, which are extremely fast, and don’t use TCP/IP at all. For transporting pixmaps, shared memory is used. Yet it doesn’t matter how many times people point this out – others keep yelling “get rid of the network” pretending that the usage of unix sockets/shared memory doesn’t exist.
Plus, almost everything performance-related that I’ve seen is the fault of the toolkit (or driver), not X. I wrote an OpenGL test app, and the framerate on Windows is equal to the framerate on Linux (both using the vendor Nvidia drivers). I wrote an SDL test app, which blits a bitmap on screen. Again – the framerate in Windows and Linux is identical.
You can’t fix the problem if you blame the wrong thing! It won’t do you any good.
The various OpenGL accelerated X Servers will soon bring Quartz performance to the linux desktop. Watch the RedHat / Novell space.
My experience with apple computers goes back to the late 70’s. This experience was always indirect- I never actually owned an apple computer, although I did use on occassion and was always interested in their tech. I remember seeing the apple Lisa in fall 1982 and how that turned my whole picture of computers upside down- it blew me away. During the course of the 80’s I always wanted to own a mac but they were so ungodly expensive at that time that it was never even an option. By the time mac’s became affordable I had switched to Linux.
Parallel to this story was my experience with windows. When the first IBM PC came out and I had exposure to it I was totally unimpressed. I bought my first PC clone in 1987 and I can’t even remeber having ever even really used it. When I did use Microsoft software I prefered to use DOS due to 3.1 being so damned unstable and unreliable. Amipro was the first Windows application I ever used which actually got me hooked into the Windows GUI up until that time I had always used Wordstar. In 1995 I made the transition to using Linux although I dual booted for many, many years always wanting to have a copy of Windows 95, then win98, the 2000 and finally XP-but in 2001 I simply stopped dual booting and since then have used Linux exclusively.
During the time when I was dual booting I had a simple rule: If someone wrote a small, powerfull and usefull program and offered it for sale for less than $100 I felt obligated to pay the developers for the work they had done. But anything that costed more or came from large multi-nationals was free game. I had stacks and stacks of cd’s filled to the rim with cracked software. I never bought winXP or the apps I used while running it. As I started making the transition to using Linux full time I was quite irked by the lack of propietary software. Although I never payed money for it it was so easy to get stolen software that I never even had to think about it.
Reflecting back on my experiences it was obvious that I had no respect for the computer content industry, content understood as propietary IP. For me it was simply a racket with incredibly large multi-national companies who didn’t blink an eye charging more money for their software than I had paid for my hardware. My disdain was based in large part due to my own programming experience. The amount of money involved in the production of PC’s makes any software development costs seem trivial.
It costs in excess of 2 Billion Dollars to build a chip fabrication plant which produces exctly one component of a modern PC- Microsoft has never invested anywhere near that kind of money in any infrastructure costs -probably not even a decent sized fraction thereof. I felt obligated to help the little people- the small time software developers who produced odd utility software for specific purposes…Time and Chaos was one of my favorite windows programs.
But when I look at the software which I currently use I can thankfully say that I don’t have any stolen software at all. In fact I have 3 propietary pieces of software one being the driver for my video card, one being the driver for my wifi card and finally adobe which I occcassionaly use when evince/gpdf fails to render a pdf correctly. On one level I miss being able to directly support the small time software developers-there has been very little in the way of commercial Linux software as regards the kinds of applications I use- and the availability of source code and being able to compile it myself has become one of my topmost criteria for using software.
And in fact the situation is rather difficult- the little bit of commercial software available for Linux ussually does not include the source code and by extension does not form the kinds of communities which surround Free Software projects. And these communities are extremely important to me nowadays-often more important than the software in and of itself. I don’t see any kind of fundamental incompatibility between commerial software and Linux- but I do see a fundamental incompatiblity between propietary software and communities and it’s the communites for me personally which create the value of software.
Perhaps someday new models will emerge where small time software developers can engage themselves in forming communities of developer and users and still find a way of directly commercializing the activity-from my vantage point Free Software is still very, very young and noone can say what it will look like in 10, 20, 50 or even 100 years from now. I know that I would have no problem paying up to $100 for soemthing I found trully usefull backed by a community of users and devlopers that I appreciate-this is why I was so happy to support SuSE for so many years-that is until I discovered a far, far superior community- Gentoo.
If Gentoo had cost money when I first discovered it I would probably have gone to Debian-but if Gentoo were to now charge some nominal fee I would gladly pay it-but I suspect that with such costs comes relative exclusivity and that this conflicts with the open nature of the community. I don’t really know the answer to this-
But apple making the switch to intel microprocessors leaves me rather cold. Firstly I could only ever use it If I bought one of their computers and their platform is simply closed-certainly the platform is more open that it was in the earliers days of the macintosh but it’s not as if just any hardware is going to work with it-which is the case, moreso everyday, for Linux.
Secondly even if I could run the new intel based OS X using something like pearpc I would still not gain access to the really demanind audio/video/image software for which the macintosh is known- just because it is intel based doesn’t mean that sofwate which pushes the hardware hard is actually going to work in an emulated OS environment.
Thirdly I don’t have the money to afford apple computers even thoug they are much cheaper nowadys – I reuse hardware and make piecemeal upgrades-I have only bought a new machine 3 times in the past 12 years. And finally -even if I could afford an apple machine I would be forced to either buy all the great software for that platform or resort to copying stolen software.
And I really enjoy not having having a single piece of stolen software anymore.
I simply don’t have any respect for the massive software prodcution houses and moreover I don’t have any respect for the system of laws and regulations which enables this parasitc biosphere to persist.
The community is the source of value in the Free Software world. And as time goes by this will simply become even more obvious. I sincerely hope those that made thier living from producing shareware-like applications can find their way, financially speaking, in the changing context of IT. I guess I just enjoy not being a consumer anymore.
hmmmmm
no
see, linux is not a single entity, and thats what corporations need to realise.
Linux is an ideal, that once it had been released cannot be put back in the bag
let me explain…..
company A release a version of linux, does well, then company B releases a new OS that everyone wants…
company a realises they are wasting their time, so they discontinue their linux, the users are not happy with this, so they take up the development.
company C notices the shortfall in the market, and they release their version.
Apple cannot destroy linux, the same way Microsoft cannot destroy linux.
You cannot destroy a thought, someone spmewhere will have another.
Could you please tell us how you plan to use terminals and thin clients with Quartz?
Xorg does this out of the box and without configuring practically anything (apart for saying “accept XDCMP connections” to gdm/xdm).
I use it at home with an ancient P100 laptop connected to my main athlon machine.
Two PCs at the price of one.
Quartz is nothing magic. Far from it.
The underpinnings of Quartz are nothing more but a (very clean, I’ll give you that) graphics API. The renderer is very good, but nothing that hasn’t been implemented elsewhere, either. Basically, it should be possible to implement all Quartz drawing functionality in GNUstep; in fact, there are the beginnings of an implementation of the necessary functions in GNUstep cvs (only simple stuff, thought… seems like somebody needed it to port a specific Cocoa app). Look for GSFusedSilica.m.
well, i’m a bit confused: ms released windows for ppc (xbox) and apple is going to switch to intel…
and i hoped there’s going to be new powerbook :/
i don’t care about OSX (though i like it) and i could use linux on apple notebook however i lack some non-free sofware like java for linux/ppc and ati/nvidia drivers. however since apple is going to switch to intel i’m affarid that user-base of linux/ppc is going to be even smaller so now i’m thinking about intel based notebook (though i really like apple notebooks)
Christoph Wiesen:
I have a different view as Eugenia. Doesn’t make her a bumbling idiot. In a sense what she says is completely true – Mac OS X is much better as a desktop operating system than Linux. My point was better doesn’t necessary wins, in particular if Apple maintains its business model. And I provided a rationale on why Apple wouldn’t change its business model.
But then again, Apple just might next year announce it is licensing out Mac OS X to OEMs. Unlikely, but it might happen.
NewType: My mistake on the shrinking market share. But there is little reason to show that the market share growth would be a more permanent trend.
Anonymous (IP: 194.243.125.—): I can’t speak for Europe’s or Italy’s legal system regarding trade, but do remember the product you are buying isn’t the software. The product you are buying is the license. You may have a license of, say, Windows XP Home. And just say you go out and buy a pirated copu of Windows XP Home and install it on the licensed computer, it is still a legal installation because you already have the license.
Lars Hansson: “You bought the software, you own it and you can do whatever the hell you want with it as long as what you do doesnt’ infringe on Apple’s copyrights (ie, redistributing or some such).”
No, you didn’t buy it. You bought a license to Apple’s software, not the software itself. Buying the software means you own the intellectual property behind the software and you can license it out to others.
Cye Maxwell: “1. Being able to run OS X, Windows & Linux on 1 computer without emulation would entice many to buy an Intel based Mac.”
The ability to dual-boot Mac and Linux is definite, PowerPC or x86. The ability to dual-boot Windows and Mac OS? Unlikely, unless for some reason Microsoft makes a new edition. Why? Most likely Apple is going to use OpenFirmware over BIOS (why would anyone with a choice use BIOS?), it gives them more control.
And I don’t think Apple is that keen on having too many users dual-booting – it would undermine their business: fewer ISVs would make software for Mac OS (“Well, most of Mac users have Windows anyway”)
Finalzone: “Linux should adopt something similar, X11 is slow, impossible to configure, cut&paste doesn’t work very well, and it is bloat because most apps use toolkits anyway.
I guess you haven’t tried Enlightement, Fluxbox, IceWmn. Those environment desktops are the example that contradict your argument. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Desktops“
E and Fluxbox may be good (I’m rather indifferent to IceWM), but they are no competitors to Aqua and Quartz. They may look pretty, but that isn’t the only strenght Aqua has (and perhaps, if Apple engineers didn’t focus so much on the eye-candy, it would be better; more consistent and less annoying)
Blip: “Once ATI or Nvidia makes a driver for OSX x86 would it be a snap to release that driver for FreeBSD x86?”
*Very* unlikely. Darwin is *very* different from FreeBSD.
raver31: If there is no more users wanting Linux anymore in significant quantities, there won’t be a Company C.
Now people can run both Windows and MacOS X on the same machine. That’s great for Apple because most people don’t switch due to then needing some kind of Windows only application. Now, they can dual boot their systems and have the best of both worlds.
About Linux: Today, the great advantage of MacOS over Linux is Aqua, but by the time a MacOS x86 is out we will have KDE 4.0 and maybe GNOME 3.0. I don’t think they are going to change much from their actual state, but the developers have great expectations in it. Let’s see how they develop while we can have the first MacOS.
Anyway. X11 is a big problem for Linux. It was designed when nobody had a graphic card to draw a window, but today, 99% of the users have graphic cards almost as powerful as their main processor. X11 is not valid anymore and has to be changed for something that adapts to the current situation, not a situation that was 20 years ago. Something like Quartz or DirectFB should work, they need more developers and help from card manufacturers but trying to adapt X11 is a big mistake. It was not designed to make use of the 3D acceleration possibilities of the current hardware, so “patches” like composite and DRI are not a good idea. They are full of bugs and are making XOrg a nightmare to maintain. Once other proyects are mature enough and the main toolkits (QT and GTK) are ported, maybe we can have something like Aqua or Aero. But with X11 we are not going to get even closer of that.
seriously, how does this get through?
I am a Linux user and for the past 4 years I have been predicting that Apple would switch to intel Architecture. Everytime I was shutdown in blogs by Mac zealots who appeared to have all the “superior” technical arguments. Today they all have eggs on their faces.
Here is another prediction: After 1 year Apple will discover that Microsoft is more vulnerable than they appear. They will discover that they could potentially sell to 100million users instead of 1 million users every year. They will release a download version for $39.95. Email support only. They will also release another fully supported download version for $89.95. They will continue to make superior Apple boxes and all versions will be sold side by side. Before they do this they will either copy, buy or steal hardware support technology from a Linux distribution like Xandros(Debian based) which on this planet is the easiest OS to install and which supports more hardware than Windows XP.
My next prediction is that Linux desktop use will suffer but
Linux server sales will continue to increase exponentially and Apple will make sure that the binary compatibility between BSD and Linux will grow and extend to the Macintosh so every Linux application will run on the Mac.
My next prediction is that I will finally buy a Mac for desktop use but will keep my Linux boxes for server duties.
My last prediction is that Microsoft will panic and throw everything they have at both Apple and Linux vendors but it will be too late . Many people will already have tasted the beauty of the OS X blended with the stabibility of Unix. Microsoft will make many errors that will shrink them down to a reasonable size but still keep them a major OS player with 50% of desktop sales over the next 7 years.
In a word….no. We’ve now got a lot of extremely stupid people who don’t know what is happening assuming that Mac OS X will run on any Intel box you can find. Fortunately, the author seems to have twigged on to that one.
What’s going to happen is that Apple is going to sell you a Mac PC for a far, far higher price than a white-box for no performance gain whatsoever, they’re going to lock Mac OS X to that hardware and they’re going to sue the arse off anyone that tries to run it on anything else. Doesn’t sound much of a competitor to me.
The only way in which they can grow their market supply is by supporting the many, many pieces of PC hardware out there on their Mac PCs. If they can do that then they may have a chance. Apple is a very dead company unless they manage this well. All evidence and history says they won’t manage this well, nor even be aware of what it actually means.
I was the anonymous (forgot to put the name in): the fact that you are buying a license means close to nothing. In italian and german law (and I am sure in other EU countries as well) you (as a seller) cannot impose what is called a “vexatory clause” on a buyer, unless the buyer signs and/or agrees specifically to THAT clause (separate sign/click/whatever).
Nobody does this with software licenses. But practically all the clauses in MS EULAs are to be considered vexatory, so they are void.
Notice that even if the customer signs to the specific clauses you STILL can appeal to an administrative court and have the clauses voided, if unfair.
> No, you didn’t buy it. You bought a license to Apple’s software, not the software itself. Buying the software means you own the intellectual property behind the software and you can license it out to others.
No, look into copyright law. You *own* the copy you bought and with that you can do anything you want. It’s exactly like buying a book or a CD. What you *can’t* do is redistribute it (ie selling copies) or anything else that infringe’s on Apple’s copyright. Apple cant do a damn thing legally to prevent you from running OSX on whatever computer you like. What they can do is of fource making it very costly (in terms of time,money or otherwise) to do this but that’s an entirely different matter.
And they have said they are not going to stop Windows from installing in a Mac machine, so dual boot may be possible in a Mac.
About MacOS not working in custom PCs: How many time do you think it will be until MacOS X gets hacked to install in every available machine? Maybe it may not work as if it were a real mac machine, but for some people with a similar configuration, they may be able to run MacOS X without Mac Hardware.
I think that’s exactly the way Mac pretends things going.
Linux lacks of something: A big company rear the system. Not that I think we need it, but lots of not linux users/corporations think so.
Mac lacks of something: Software, big group of developers.
You cannot move to x86 if you don’t feel your system is clearly superior to M$ one. So here it comes the strategy: Developers and technicians are moving to Linux. Windows is going to loose ground in this aspect. Mac is going to fund wine so it runs Windows software over Mac. And is going to continue Safari strategy to integrate Open SOurce software into their system.
But that’s not against Linux. In fact, Mac will give stability to Linux. In front of Windows you’ll have two different *NIX flawors: Bleeding edge, full of programs, all devices, moldeable Linux/*BSD or Beautiful, resistant, propietary integrated MacOSX.
That is a Win-Win relationship.
But really, a lot of complaints about X are based on ignorance. People say “get rid of the network layer” all the time, but X uses Unix Domain Sockets on localhost, which are extremely fast, and don’t use TCP/IP at all.
Function calls would still be faster though. No need to switch processes, no need to copy data from one process to the other.
The problem people have with X is that it’s designed for the unusual case of using it over a network rather than the usual case of using it locally.
Xlib could directly access the graphics drivers without intervening client-server stuff. You could still have network functionality by dynamically linking to a different Xlib implementation that acts as a network proxy.
But you’re right, the overhead due to that is small compared to toolkit issues.
Normally I don’t like responding in such a fashion but upon reading your last post my initinal reaction is simply to say-come back again when you have a clue about what you are talking about.
X11 is *NOT* a problem, big or small, for Linux, or *NIX implementations in general. You write as if nothing has happened in the past 2 years. You cold not be more wrong. The changes currently taking place in xorg dwarf most other developments in X that have taken place in the past 10-15 years-but are being done with an eye towards backwards compatibility.
Since XFree86 came into existence the primary means of achieving hardware accleration under X was and is the XAA subsystem(X Acceleration Architecure). The XAA has been a kind of lowest common denominator of accleration support enabling X to run on virtually all production graphics cards for many, many years. Each of the supported video cards has varying levels of XAA implementation and in fact most of the supported cards are not particularly well supported. This is due primarily to a lack of sufficent documentation to the hardware registers of said video cards.
Certain video cards, namely, NVIDIA and ATI, have had reamrkably good support on Linux(as opposed to other *NIX implmentations) for many years now. Yet up until now graphics API’s that trully make use of the hardware capabilites of the video cards has not been forthcoming due to the fact that sofwtare written for X11 is designed for use on all supported video cards and most of these cards have not had high levels of hardware support.
This is now changing. Currently development is focusing on on small set of massive changes to the entire underlying architecture, albeit in a backwards compatible way, and these ongoing changes render your statements basically meaningless.
Broadly, development is now focused upon the following:
KAA- the new acceleration architecture which Keith Packard developed for his tinyX server.
Cairo/Glitz- Cairo is state of the art graphics API, under development for the past 3 years, which is rapidly approaching API freeze and will be the basis for many of the next generation toolkits starting with Gtk+-2.8. Glitz is a backend for cairo which alternately makes use of software of opengl-hardware acclerated rendering depending on the availability of said drivers.
Xgl/Xegl-Xgl along with luminocity are currently technology demonstrations which use opengl-hardware accleration for complete rendering of the X11 display. These currently require 2 X servers running and as such will be superceded by Xegl which ultimately-and we are talking about a timeframe fo 12-18 months, will completely transform the xorg architecture. Xegl will offer something similiar to Opengl ES as a common graphics API for application developers under X.
and externally to xorg development there is also:
EFL- The Enlightenment Foundation Libraires. Rasterman and co. have developed an unbelievably powerful set of API’s which exploit heretofore unknown capabilities of the existing XFree86/xorg architecture. These API’s can today deliver graphics capaiblites which makes Aqua seem quaint.
Qt/Arthur- Somewhat simliar to Cairo it offers a modern graphics API for all applications written in Qt and makes use of opengl-hardware acceleration where available.
Right now the focus is on modularizing X, breaking up the huge and vastly complex monolithic system which X currently is. Part of this transition is focused on eventually moving the hardware support for video cards out of X-together Xegl this development will result in a situation where the kernel provides sufficient access to next-gen framebuffer device which offers greatly enhanced hardware accleration as ompared to the existing X11 video card drivers.
Cairo and Glitz, which are actually Freedesktop.org projects, are rapidly approaching completion. Gtk-2.8 will be based on cairo and allow for opengl hardware acceleration via Glitz for all applications which use this toolkit. In all likelihood we will first see the cairo/glitz combination being fully realized in Gtk-2.10-but that is less than a year from now.
Work is currently ongoing on both the KAA and Xegl fronts -much to the consternation of Jon Smirl
. Although still quite young KAA provides far superior render performance and far superior use of hardware accleration as compared to XAA and this without additional access to non-existant hardware codumentation. 2 of the guys from Trolltech(Zack and ???) hae been working signinficantly improving Render performance-as of xorg 7.0 (August) end users should start to see significant speed improvements reconciling many of the current complaints about redrawing speed.
Apparently KAA simply more effectively uses a small set of hardware accelerable functions and enables better use of existing hardware. Composite will perform quite well with all of the KAA supported cards -and work is ongoing right now to extend KAA support to cover the entire gambit of legacy supported video cards. Currently composite support on cards lacking opengl drivers has been rather useless-but exactly this will change in the next release of xorg.
The transition to Xegl is more slow in the comming, but is likely to have a more far reaching impact than the other developments. The idea is that the the OS(Kernel) will provide access to a framebuffer device and all rendering will be performed in a variant of opengl simliar to OPENGL ES. Moving hardware support out of X will radically simply the X architecture and tremendously improve stability.
Gltiz is being developed to wrap virtually all of X in opengl and can use either hardware of software accleration. Opengl software rendering has always been very lacking-but when Glitz makes use of KAA structures it should be able to provide far more graphical power than what has hitherto been exposed in desktop settings(ie. more than Aqua demands)-and this in *software*. So we have a situation where we provide total backwards compatibility -not only to the software but also to the hardware used in X.
No one is being left behind. Yet at the same time the path is is being paved for users to make the transition to better supported 3d-hardware enabled graphics cards which are now becoming ubiquitous. One consequence of Smirl’s work in Xegl is radically simplyifying the development of closed-source opengl drivers for video cards-ie. making it easier for companies to provide opengl support for their hardware under X.
The next 2 years will be without a doubt the most exciting time in the recent history of X developement. I fully expect, as do most of the developers (to whom I do not belong), that xorg will deliver a superset of Aqua capability prior to the phasing out of Apple PowerPC and prior to the introduction of Longhorn. Now I would love for somebody who actually is a developer to come in and rain on my parade…but this is what I have gleamed from following the developments of the past 2 years…..
Having a specification (Apple’s) for only a few models of PC:s (x86 Macs) will be great for Linux (and other FOSS OS:es) developers and users.
At the end of the day, Apple has by far the best hardware and software currently available. I’ve never regretted paying slightly more to use it. XP is junk, Linux was never good enough to switch to by choice (until now, when I must.)
Apple will sell some machines. It even makes sense from a “personal” computer standpoint: iLife plus their internet suite, etc, will fill a lot of users’ needs. Unfortunately, I don’t think that will be enough to keep them in business. I won’t pay their price for a machine from a company that probably won’t be around to update its OS again. And waiting to see if it looks like Apple will pull it off, if done by enough people, assures it won’t.
The problem is that most of the big software makers aren’t going to jump in like Apple thinks. They didn’t for PPC, they didn’t for OSX, they won’t for this. It will cost Adobe millions (their roadmap is not “recompile”: it’s switch to XCode (MAJOR productivity hit, if it works at all), port their ALL CARBON programs (like all other major players, they don’t use Cocoa), the x86 versions of which appear to be hacks layered on to their original Mac codebase, judging by the PS Windows plugin SDK. Then they have to maintain 2 versions for a few years, the less mature and and more complex of which will sell to a few million early adopters (much < 10% of the current base.) If they wait a year to even start, there’ll be no early sales to professional users, resulting in even less reason to bother. If they let the Mac go and put their effort into making PS for Windows much better than it currently is, they’ll make more from professional switchers than they can hope to from Mac shops, at much reduced cost to them. (and Adobe likes Apple, compared to Quark.)
Linux stands to gain big from this. A lot of Mac refugees will never move to Windows; those who move to Linux will have a lot more impact on % there than the ones who switch to Windows.
No, look into copyright law. You *own* the copy you bought and with that you can do anything you want
Anything you want except copying it, that is.
And when you install an operating system, you are making a copy it.
There may be clauses in EULAs that aren’t enforceable because they don’t have anything to do with copyright.
But this clause from the MacOS license certainly is about copyright:
This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
Apple has been slowly dying for 20 years. It is now capitalised less in inflation-adjusted terms than it was in 1984. Since 1984 it has lost approximately 85-90% of its market share.
The original Mac was a spectacular failure until a stroke of good luck combined the laser printer and Aldus Pagemaker to make desktop publishing feasible.
NeXT was a miserable financial failure.
IBM dumped Apple because it considers Apple an unprofitable niche seller.
Steve Jobs is simply putting spin on what is an unmitigated disaster. Apple is now forced to sell commodity Intel based PCs at a much higher price than its competitors. Who will pay 30-40% more for an Apple than an almost identical spec Dell or HP?
Expect a glut of very cheap, super fast, cell based PCs from IBM, Toshiba, Sony etc running Liux/BSD within 12-24 months.
Except for a few specialist users no one needs a Mac.
Outside the US and Japan the Mac is irrelevant.
> This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
Sure, the part about using one copy on one machine is valid, specifying the exact machine and make is not. Of course, you’ll probably not get any warranty or supported on non-Apple systems but Apple cant legally (at least not in any sane country) specify that you must not install it on non-Apple machines since that in no way relates to their copyright.
It’s as absurd as if Sony would specify that you can only play CD’s from their record label on Sony CD players.
I know about the Xorg changes. I know about Cairo and QT4. I’ve said that I’d like KDE4 and GNOME3 to be as good as Aqua or even better, but I doubt it.
I’ve seen KDE developmen since 1.0 and every time a major version cames out I’m dissapointed. Aqua is out since MacOS 10.0 and mature enough to be usable since MacOS 10.2 and that was SOME YEARS ago. Meanwhile not Linux desktop nor Windows desktop has been able to be closer of Aqua even if they have tried with skins and some other stuff. For years, since Aqua was released nothing has moved in the Linux world except maybe Enlightenment, that was in developmen even before MacOS X was known. A year ago, with the change from XFree to XOrg something seems to be moving in Linux but, as I see, it’s too late. We are approaching to Aqua but by the time we can get to it, maybe Aero will make XOrg/Cairo/QT/Glitz obsolete.
My complain isn’t XOrg not being adapted, is that the use of a obsolete technology, makes Linux arrive LATER to the state of technology in other OS’s.
Also, the fragmentation of proyects and the null collaboration makes developmen slower than it should be. Take for example Enlightenment. It’s in a state of eternal development. Even if one day we have a stable E17, Who will use it? Who will use EVAS? NOBODY, because all developers will make applications for QT/GTK, so, even if Enlightenment becomes something better than Aqua/Aero, it will be nothing but a “demo” to show to your friends to let them see what Linux Desktop could be. Meanwhile, QT and GTK will be developing EXACTLY the same in two different ways. It’s a waste of time. Double the work to get the same, while if they collaborate to make a common implementation, we could have it in half the time.
Legacy and Null collaboration will make Linux always the third system in Desktop Appearance, since Apple and Microsoft will be always ahead.
This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
Sure, the part about using one copy on one machine is valid, specifying the exact machine and make is not.
Why not?
It’s Apple’s copyright, of course they can decide how often and onto what licensees can copy it.
What they can’t prescribe is how people actually use such a copy. E.g. they couldn’t forbid posting anti-Apple flames using a Mac browser.
I don’t quite see what all the fuss about MacOS threatening Linux in any way. Hell, the only reason I’d buy a Mac is to run Linux on a fancy design hardware, nothing more. But as things stand, I can customize my pc’s looks to fit my taste well below the costs of a fancy Mac. Other than that there’s nothing in which a double G5 can give _me_ more than my 3k+ barton or my next target 4400+ amdx2.
It’s as absurd as if Sony would specify that you can only play CD’s from their record label on Sony CD players.
Different situation. The CD is only played, not copied, so copyright law wouldn’t apply.
Now, Longhorn and OS X will implement DRM and TCPA in their OSes (Apple NEEDS this in order to prevent users from using OS X in common X86 hardware and they’re totally dependend on Intel’s wishes now).
Intel and AMD processors will soon all be ready for TCPA and they’ll probably also implement DRM facilities in hardware.
The next step may be to require the integration of TCPA and DRM into every OS in order to be able to run on upcoming Intel and AMD hardware. Then Linux would also be forced to join.
Are there any hardware alternatives left for free (which means, the users has full control over his own PC) OSes in the long term?
Karl repost this comment in submit story ( I hope the mods dont block it ) and include some links to the projects you mention. Please its very well written and tought out.
Good Tiitle : Gnu/Linux and Open Source : the incomming Video Driver
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10770&offset=45&rows=60#3…
>>I’m worried about Skyos, Syllable, and Haiku (aka OpenBeOS)
why? those are hobby level OS’s they weren’t planning in the first place of becoming the next Mac, Windows or *nix.
Once you’ve tried open source and linux, it’s very difficult to accept that your machine’s functionality is driven by the commercial whim and financial planning of any company.
Had linux been a commercial success, then their would have been a potential impact, since buyers may not be as loyal as choosers. But Linux users chose it for a variety of reasons, and the absence of Intel processor in Mac machines is not one of them.
Well, there’s the new C7 CPU from VIA which isn’t supposed to incorporate any restricting tech inside like DRM and TCPA.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7/
For those not familiar with these tech, see here
http://www.againsttcpa.com/tcpa-faq-en.html
If you want to use Linux on yout Mac, you can. If you want to use OSX on any arbitrary device, you can’t — though chances are you can use Linux. To use OSX, you need an Apple Macintosh.^
This situation has not changed with Apple’s switch to Intel processors.
Will some current Linux users switch to OSX? Sure, why not. Some already have. It’s Unix/unix based, after all. I can see getting an Apple laptop with x86-64 hardware next year as long as the quality is high…just as I have purchased Windows systems and removed Windows in the past.
The same situation goes for the *BSDs, also Unix/unix based.
(^ – Yes, there are ways to use OSX on non-Apple hardware, though these aren’t at all simple technically and are limited to specific systems. That, and Apple does not licence OSX for these platforms.)
Perhaps, it’s time to linux exploits this lack on PowerPC Systems left by Apple. It’s known x86 technology can’t compete to PowerPC levels of perform. So, if linux comunity are enought capable, it could take advantge of new situation. I think.
Only people who are really interested in news like this are geeks like the people reading this site… Even most Mac/Apple users don’t much care what runs inside their boxes as long as it does the job well enough.
In other words: I don’t think that this switch changes almost anything, except inside Apple and its close companies, of course.
Please read up on copyright law.
What you copy something *to* is of no concern for copyright, only *that* you copy it.
Those who would consider buying an expensive, branded laptop from Apple would have probably already done so. There would be very few Linux enthusiast who would jump ship just because PowerBooks uses Intel instead of G4 processors.
Renato, Lars Hansson: I don’t really feel like getting into a whole debate on the law and intellectual property, however consider this: Apple couldn’t care less if any geek decides to buy an $129 operating system from them and installed it on a non-Mac.
They wouldn’t go out hunting for that geek.
Apple, however, would not anytime soon license (oh, sorry, *sell*) OS X to any other OEMs. So OEMs that dare to build brandless Macs risk lawsuits – and Apple has more staying power and money than most small-fry OEMs. Furthermore, at $129 a license, it doesn’t really make any sense (Microsoft sells Windows at a discount to small OEMs at around $40 for the Home Edition).
So in other words, there would be, whether or not it’s legal, those who would install OS X on a non-Apple PC – but nobody would care. Because the amount of people that would actually do that is too insignificant.
Maybe there will be a MINE trying to mimic Apple’s API’s so non-Apple *nix’s can run Apple applications on common x86 hardware. I’m gonna guess mimmicing Apple’s API is more difficult than Microsoft’s though :/.
Maybe while Adobe’s porting apple stuff to x86 they’ll decide to just port it to Free *nix? Yea, I’m dreaming I know.
Would Section 117 of the US Copyright Act impact the enforceability of the “hardware tying” provision of the Apple EULA?:
Sec. 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.–
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
Come On. Some common sense here?
– Of Course, only PowerPC linux will be hurt.
Why? Because IBM doesn’t sell a PowerPc Laptop or desktop.
Only a server.
An Apple on Intel dual-core Laptop is great for some folks.
I can’t wait to get mine.
Having all my personal data under OS X, and NEVER under Linux or WinXP, and running Virtual PC allows me to Not Fear the inevitable crashes with beta software, and windows, I don’t fear viruses because I run behind a firewall, don’t connect to the network except for updates( under windows ), and don’t have ANY Personal data on windows. Just work.
That’s the Apple Advantage.
IBM BLUNDERED by dropping the Only customer delivering a PowerPC solution. Every Dollar going to Power was one less dollar going to Intel and was spreading the cost of the Power R&D across more UNITS.
A really STUPID SHORTSIGHTED MANAGEMENT DECISION.
So, Power takes a hit.
Unless IBM starts to sell a Power Linux Laptop and desktop.
Why aren’t they already selling Power solutions?
I don’t fear viruses because I run behind a firewall
A firewall doesn’t protect you against a virus infection now does it? Once infected the the rogue instance may as well use just about any port that’s open on you PC ,most likely udp 53 (dns) and tcp 80 (http).
IBM BLUNDERED by dropping the Only customer delivering a PowerPC solution.
IBM is like any other company,they want to make profit.I don’t know wether you have a job or not but if you do your company has to make profit in order to pay all the salaries.Somebody in one of the threads hit the nail on the head by saying:”MS will need more power CPU’s for the x-box in a month than Apple in a whole year”.So with which of the two do you think you will make more revenue?
Unless IBM starts to sell a Power Linux Laptop and desktop.
Why aren’t they already selling Power solutions?
IBM sold it’s desktop and laptop branch ro a chinese firm called Lenovo.
Has someone thought of this: that they are admitting that people will attempt, and likely succeed in running windows on x86 Macs. Now I’m no expert, but I was certainly under the understanding that windows NEEDS a PC bios to boot. Also, considering that Darwin x86 is “supposed” to be the underpinnings of OSX, well, it too boots very nicely off a PC bios (which btw boots with the exact same apple logo on your x86). So I’m guessing that this talk of them using OpenFirmware on their x86 Mac’s is crap. I’m pretty confident that x86 Macs will be using a PC bios, but I’m not discounting the possibility of another method of prevention (to install OSX on non-macs).
“Those who would consider buying an expensive, branded laptop from Apple would have probably already done so. There would be very few Linux enthusiast who would jump ship just because PowerBooks uses Intel instead of G4 processors.”
True. In my case, if Apple makes some sweet hardware I’ll be glad to get an Apple over (say) a Dell or an Averatec. I won’t consider either an HP/Compaq or one of the cheap Toshibas (higher end are OK). Of all systems, I am considering an IBM because they are getting to be reasonably priced.
I don’t fear viruses because I run behind a firewall
Firewalls are just tools. Used wisely, they can be quite helpful.
Firewalls aren’t solutions to problems such as viruses, though, so don’t elevate them to the status of a cureall.
VMWare, for example, has its own bios, I think.
So you could run window under MacOS, as you are running Windows under Linux, if VMWare was available for it.
That Apple switches to Intel-based PCs, in this scenario, really has no effect on Linux. If you were looking to buy a Mac, you were either looking to purchase the PPC-based hardware (the minority), or you were looking to buy OSX and its way of doing things (the majority). All things being equal, for the majority of people the underlying processor won’t matter so long as the end-product is same or better performance.
The move may disenfranchise some Mac users because of the inevitable waning of support for their current generation of Macs, but it appears Apple weighed that risk versus their processor sourcing issues with IBM and decided going with Intel is worth it (personally, I’d have suggested AMD, but there again you might have sourcing issues).
As far as Linux is concerned, you’ll still be able to run it on an Intel-based Mac (unlike Windows), and also on commodity hardware that can run Windows. It will also still run on PowerPC, if you want. I’ve really seen no persuasive argument that Apple’s move is in anyway relevent to any other OS than its own.
Linux isn’t fighting. It lives and exists. That’s all. People use Linux to make money (ie RedHat et al.), but Linux itself isn’t fighting. It evolves and if people like it, they use it and contribute. I don’t care if people switch to or from Linux, as long as what they use is what they prefer.
Another pointless article on the subject. What you’re not getting is running THE three os’ natively (Mac, Win, Linux) on one machine is going to up the sales of macs. It’s not going to kill linux, it’s going to help it a little bit.
This tranistion is a logical move for Apple. The questions that remain are what logic remains on the mohterboard vs. OS X. Apple’s OpenFirmware is not BIOS found on many of today’s x86 systems.. Will Apple change OS X Intel to support BIOS’s and other system chips found in today’s x86 systems.
This has not been said and I believe the answer is really a “No”. This would allos OS X Intel to run on any x86 box with the right chipsets and drivers. As in 3rd party drivers and etc. for cards well PCI has been a standard and Linux has been out there on Intel for years and look back at OS/2 for example s of how well drivers moved to these OS’s.
What is needed in my mind is for Vmware to move to OS X. If Vmware or somehting similar to what Apple introduced for OS X PowerPC compability was released it could make people purchase Mac systems. I would be able to run my Windows Apps at native (ok maybe minus 5-10% not much at all) speeds and run my Mac Apps as well as other open source and etc.
I was planning to buy one in the next year anyway … now I won’t have to keep a PC around for those few PC games I play. (You know someone will get Cedega or VPC running perfectly fine on it.) Thanks Apple!
Crosspost from /., but worth an argument
How about a commitment from Apple/Steve that the entire MacOS codebase will be GPL-ed if Apple is unable to maintain it _themselves_?
This makes their x86 plan a little more credible. Do they really believe it will work? If it does, they’re out nothing and they can keep the commercial rights in any case (it does belong to their stockholders, after all.)
This kind of move worked for TrollTech (different circumstances, I know.) It may not ever actually do anything, but it gives some assurance that Apple’s wonderful technology won’t either vanish forever or be looted and locked up in Redmond.
I truly don’t expect Apple to survive, and I’m not happy about that. This would be a wonderful parting gift after the last 19 years.
Agreed, another chip maker, but they will still have hardware locked OS. No big deal.
i did it for 2 reasons.
i dont really trust microsoft.
AND Ubuntu is pretty looking.
besides you will still have to buy a mac to use mac os.
Even if one day we have a stable E17, Who will use it? Who will use EVAS? NOBODY, because all developers will make applications for QT/GTK, so, even if Enlightenment becomes something better than Aqua/Aero, it will be nothing but a “demo” to show to your friends to let them see what Linux Desktop could be.
What are you talking about? You can run QT/GTK apps in enlightment, and since the eye candy is mostly managed by the WM, then you’ll still get the nifty effects (if that’s your thing).
Your off-hand dismissal of the recent dramatic improvements coming for X.org seems to indicate that your criticism is based more on perception and opinion than fact. There’s a reason why DirectFB isn’t going anywhere (and Berlin is dead): that’s because it’s a lot more efficient to redesign X.org than to throw the baby out with the bath water, which seems to be what you’re advocating.
Finally, regarding your “disappointment” with new KDE/Gnome releases. As someone who sometimes uses OSX, I really can’t see where its UI is superior to KDE 3.4. Some extra eye candy, perhaps, but that doesn’t make me any more productive. There are things missing from a OSX base installation (virtual desktops being one) that actually make it less productive for me. Of course, it’s all a matter of personal tastes (for example, I can’t stand to have the menu bar at the top of the screen).
What I’m trying to say is that the “best desktop experience” is very subjective. As such, it’s not solid grounds to make predictions about the future…
I was thinking about getting a Mac Mini, but now I might wait for a new Intel Mac.
Sort of disappointing that they did not mention AMD, but there’s no reason to assume that AMD is out of the picture. When the hardware comes out, there will be a rush to install Windows on it, and then we’ll get direct Apples to Apples performance comparisons.
The main reason I would want an Intel Mac would be to run Linux and use XEN to run the Mac on top of the virtualization layer. At some point, a person should be able to run Linux, Windows, and OS X on one box under XEN and have great real time switching between all OSs. If you could run the BSDs plus Solaris x86, you could run all major operating systems on one box at the same time. That would be very cool.
As for Intel, the message is that “they have a new plan”. If they don’t address the FSB issues, they will never catch AMD. A dual core dual opteron Mac would be a very cool item, even if it costs $10,000 from Apple. Somehow Intel has convinced Apple that they have the best power versus performance roadmap. If this is indeed true, AMD is going to be under fire. The plan is clearly for multicore Dothan processors to take the center stage for Apple.
One other note: the Rosetta software also supports Itanium. Will we see XServe boxes running VLIW?
And that Windows needs a BIOS (as we’ve all come to know and love…er, loathe) as the old standard PC compatible has always had?
This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the history and design of Windows NT, of which XP/2000 are just newere versions with a fancy name. Windows NT has the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and has had it since NT 3.1, which has allowed Microsoft to port it to the PPC platform, MIPS, and DEC Alpha in the past. Don’t tell me all those other platforms with non-x86 compatible CPU’s had a PC compatible BIOS!
All Microsoft really needs to do is modify how things are booted in terms of firmware handling, etc. but this doesn’t require making major changes to Windows. Once the system has discovered all the hardware characteristics at boot time, the boot code is left behind, and the system goes on like it would on any other identical type of CPU it was compiled for. It may require some more/different drivers for supporting hardware that the platform has unique to it, but that’s no big deal.
All that’s required, really, is Microsoft is willing to create a version of Windows that boots on the IntelMac, because it isn’t about ability. Barring all that, you could do the sick thing of using Virtual PC for the PPC Mac to emulate the PC (ok, so running PPC software in emulation to run x86 code in emulation will be REALLY slow) but without question, you will have some manner to run Windows on an IntelMac.
The problem with Mac is that it’s image sells it. People buy it to be different from everyone else. In essence, Apple is selling to the same crowd Starbucks sells latte to. While this is a great business to be in and very profitable, the problem with this business model is that you have to be a niche. If everyone starts buying Apples and they gain 20% or greater marketshare, people are no longer going to be interested in it. They will realize it is just an OS, like Windows, but not nearly as well supported. To summarize, Microsoft sells to the average joe an operating system, Apple sells to the sophisticated an image, and Linux sells to technical perfectionists a OS that has to get everything technically right.
Why would anyone want to? Why wouldn’t you just buy a Dell when the “advantage” of PPC is already gone and you know damn well the parts that Apple uses aren’t that special?
Why would anyone want to?
I can only imagine one sane explanation. You buy a mac, but find out that you hate it for some reason. (Too patronizing, too much handholding, too different, whatever.) That way you could still have an escape-route, that permits you to keep your box instead of selling it.
What are you talking about? You can run QT/GTK apps in enlightment, and since the eye candy is mostly managed by the WM, then you’ll still get the nifty effects (if that’s your thing).
Your off-hand dismissal of the recent dramatic improvements coming for X.org seems to indicate that your criticism is based more on perception and opinion than fact. There’s a reason why DirectFB isn’t going anywhere (and Berlin is dead): that’s because it’s a lot more efficient to redesign X.org than to throw the baby out with the bath water, which seems to be what you’re advocating.
Finally, regarding your “disappointment” with new KDE/Gnome releases. As someone who sometimes uses OSX, I really can’t see where its UI is superior to KDE 3.4. Some extra eye candy, perhaps, but that doesn’t make me any more productive. There are things missing from a OSX base installation (virtual desktops being one) that actually make it less productive for me. Of course, it’s all a matter of personal tastes (for example, I can’t stand to have the menu bar at the top of the screen).
What I’m trying to say is that the “best desktop experience” is very subjective. As such, it’s not solid grounds to make predictions about the future…
If you run QT/GTK apps, you have a boring application in a fancy window, and that don’t make any good. EVAS could be used to draw QT and GTK just like Cairo or Arthur but they chose to ignore it and use something else reinventing the wheel. With EVAS drawing widgets you could apply effects to widgets like buttons and checkboxes (some aplications like evidence and entrance uses it) but with QT on Enlightenment you get some mixture that doesn’t make well.
Maybe DirectFB is dead because no major toolkits are working with it. GTK works with problems and so does QT. None of them support actively DirectFB so it’s doomed just like Enlightenment is, due to lack of interest. They both are good projects with null support.
KDE as a framework IS superior to OSX. OSX doesn’t have Konqueror filemanager, it doesn’t have kio_slaves, it doesn’t have DCOP. But I’m talking of Eye Candy. I’m talking to have something like Dashboard or Komposé effects. Actually, they are impossible to have in Linux. Have you looked at iPhoto? They have semitransparent widgets for the photo effects, so you don’t need a separate window. You are seeing all the photo while applying effects. Have you seen Dashboard or Konfabulator? They have REAL transparency. In fact, Windows and OSX has REAL transparency since 2000, while KDE and GNOME have FAKE transparency in 2005 and some kind of HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL real transparency. We need 6 years only to develop something that’s on other systems since 6 years ago. Why? Because it’s very difficult to integrate it in the X clien/server paradigm. Not impossible, but very very difficult, so now, 6 years later we have found a way to “paste” it on our old system. We have called it Composite and we are testing it now. By 2007, when it’s really stable, we may have a feature that was stable 7 years ago in other systems. GLX? Glitz? Luminocity? They are ALL experimental, highly unstable, without a stable launch date. Will they get after or before Longhorn? I don’t know, but even if they become stable befor Longhorn’s launch, KDE and GNOME won’t use it until a couple of versions have passed, so, again, we will be the third in the race.
I don’t know, but even if they become stable befor Longhorn’s launch, KDE and GNOME won’t use it until a couple of versions have passed, so, again, we will be the third in the race.
You can use real transparency right now with both Gnome and KDE (as of 3.4). Of course you need good video hardware but it’s quite functional.
The problem is that you’re equating eye candy with a better desktop. But a better desktop is one that makes people more productive, and there’s no indication that eye candy such as transparency achieves that (in fact, it may even have the opposite effect).
Someone already made the comment that your evaluation of X ignores the fact that, until the X.org coup last year, development was very slow on XFree86. In two years, X.org has caught up with those 5 years of headstart Windows and Apple had. What this tells me is that in 2 more years, there’s a very good chance that the X desktop will in fact have more eye candy than either Windows or OSX, just because the new X development is so dynamic.
Usability is not just candy, though it seems that this is all some so-called “analysts” see. This is why I take all this doomsaying with a very large grain of salt…
“Yes, overpriced — you might buy a Windows upgrade once every five years, and OS X twice as often.”
Erm, you most likely mean 3-5 times @ $120 a pop. Dunno about you, but between M$ discounts for upgrading & various online retailers I’ve NEVER paid more than $75 for Windows 95 and up, and many times closer to $40. (Of course Windows GUI/UI are garbage, but everything worth running plus GAMES(!) run on it…)
BTW Apple has NO discounts any longer unless you purchased an older version of OSX 1 picosecond before they release the next iteration. The upside is that major(i.e. M$, Adobe, etc) vendors generally support several years worth of OSX, while MANY shareware(i.e. most of the good “filler” software) only support the latest & “greatest” iteration.)
PearPC: That’s a good one, and I’d suspect it’d be not too terribly difficult to do, and additionally since the proc arch would be the same(and rpesumably a great deal of support chips) that direct passtrhoughs to hardware could be made(e.g. GPU).
Heh, the more I think about this, the more idiotic this move is. Ok. Who spiked Jobs coolaid coninuously for the time that this was being decided? (The only way that I could see Apple to make this really work would have been to a) license enough of M$ libraries such that windoze sw/games could run directly under OSX or a souped up version of WINE shipping with OSX x86, o.w. allaround this is truly an idiotic move, no net change sw wise, potential HUGE loss in hw…)
Stop with this american vision of world !! Americans have a different vision of world. They prefer buy music full of DRM for your iPODs from the only one vendor (Apple). People in Latin America, Asia, several european countries (Spain, Italy and many other I saw when I am using amule or bittorrent to download music) prefer to download mp3 and ogg files for free (as beer) to play in your no-brand computers and electronic devices.
Reasons:
1- Apple market share outside of USA (and perhaps Japan). Most of people will not learn a NEW (yes, for them) operating system if they are using windows, specially pirated copies of windows running on cheap PC computers
2- Intel Macs will remain a proprietary hardware sold by only one vendor (monopoly -> high prices). Even if Intel processors are cheaper for apple, this will not change apple prices
3- Development countries are not only switching to linux, but to FREE (as freedom) SOFTWARE. This means that they will not want change from windows to MacOS X. This would imply acquisition of expensive and proprietary softwares and move to trash all proprietary softwares already acquired.
Linux is unstopable. Stop with these idiotic articles. And Eugenia, BeOS is DEAD, Amiga is Dead and Macs are agonizing (change to Intel processor is your last trial)
Wait for IBM… IBM will begin to license projects of Cell-powered mainboards to chinese companies. We will can run linux BOTH in cheap Intel/AMD PCs and Cell/PowerPC computers.
And with linux you can use AMD.
So I guess you should be very proud of stealing other people’s work. I applaud you.
It would be nice if your boss came to you some day and said you were doing great work, but people were stealing the product, so while they were happy having you work there they won’t be able to pay you for it.
Great! It should make you feel better.
Other countries aren’t moving to Linux as fast as you think they are. What happens in these third world countries is that a pc is sold with Linux so that they don’t have to pay MS. On the street right next to the store is a guy selling a set of disks for $1 with XP and Office on it. You go home or to your office and install it. Even the governments are doing that.
Linux is taking over-you wish!
> Other countries aren’t moving to Linux as fast as you think they are.
And you know this from your own experience from living in such a third world country, right?
> What happens in these third world countries is that a pc is sold with Linux so that they don’t have to pay MS.
Nice, but that’s not how it works. When you buy a new PC it already has a pirated Windows on it.