[clue-talk] the cult of mac

[Kevin Cullis]

Hey, need some clarification here.

On Jun 29, 2008, at 11:23 AM, David L. Willson wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:56:48 -0700, Louis Miller wrote
>> Hey folks,
>>
>>  If anyone didn't get their 2c in about how the Linux community  
>> feels about
>> Macs and Apple and any of you are the same folks from the clue- 
>> tech list, then
>> I guess this is the appropriate venue. Sorry, for posting to the  
>> wrong e-mail list.
>
> MacOS is not free.

As in beer, I'd agree, but let's talk differences between Windows,  
Mac, and Linux here. There are many uses of freedom here, not just  
free in price and free to use as you see fit. Let's take a look at  
the computer industry as a whole.

1. Free as in beer, it's Linux, Mac, and Windows, in that order.  
We're not talking about illegal copies here either.
2. Free as in changes to make to the OS, Linux, Mac, and Windows, in  
that order again.
3. Free as in the number of choices and solutions for users, Windows,  
Mac, Linux.
4. Free as in getting support for the average person, Windows, Mac,  
Linux.
5. Free as in ease of use, usability, it goes Mac, Windows, Linux.  
The last two can be debatable.
6. Free as in trouble free use, Mac, Linux, Windows.
7. Free as in getting good documentation to develop for, Windows take  
this, but Linux and Mac are tied for second place.
8. Free as in cheap parts, Windows, Linux, Mac

So you can see, it depends on which "part of the elephant" you are  
looking at which will give you the degrees of freedom that you want.

> I prefer freedom.  I also resent how little Mac contributes back to
> the community.

Says who? The OS is based on FreeBSD and it gives back in terms of  
improvements to certain aspects of the OS, but not everything is  
going to be given away, and that is to be expected. See Macforge.com  
for free Mac ports of OSS apps to it. Some of the more polished apps  
are at Apple's web site at the UNIX and Open Source web page. As  
developers, you can visit the Developer Connection to get some more  
info about developing for Mac as well as porting Linux apps to Mac.  
And lastly, how about UNIX 03 Certification of Leopard Mac.

As I tell computer geeks and friends, computers are tools, may the  
best tool be used for the job that is needed. But I'll put a  
challenge to you and the rest of the Linux users: how about making  
cross platform apps that run on Linux and Mac? You'd be surprised at  
the number of people that are switching to Mac from Windows BECAUSE  
they have solutions to using Macs now, especially cross platform apps  
AND VMWare's Fusion. Imagine if you had an app that ran on Windows,  
Mac, and Linux, how many more would leave Windows for Linux? Of all  
of the computer users, 95% are not geeks, but they do want things "to  
just work" for them, and a Mac does just that for them.

> OTOH, the machines are reputed to be easy to use.  (The strength of
> which reputation leads me to believe that mine must be an exception.)

Yes, there are exceptions to everything, it's called degrees of  
exception, or in the manufacturing or quality assurance world,  
percentages of defects or variation You can't get away from problems,  
but they can be reduced.

> but every time someone buys a Mac, rather
> than a Windows box, I am happy because the industry becomes a  
> little less stale and
> monolithic.

Hear, hear!! Can Apple do better? You bet, and I wish I had a direct  
connection to those that make those decisions, but I don't. But I can  
be hopeful though.

Kevin
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