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Hey, need some clarification here.<div><br><div><div>On Jun 29, 2008, at 11:23 AM, David L. Willson wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:56:48 -0700, Louis Miller wrote</div> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Hey folks,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If anyone didn't get their 2c in about how the Linux community feels about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Macs and Apple and any of you are the same folks from the clue-tech list, then<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I guess this is the appropriate venue. Sorry, for posting to the wrong e-mail list.</div> </blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">MacOS is not free.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>1. Free as in beer, it's Linux, Mac, and Windows, in that order. We're not talking about illegal copies here either.</div><div>2. Free as in changes to make to the OS, Linux, Mac, and Windows, in that order again.</div><div>3. Free as in the number of choices and solutions for users, Windows, Mac, Linux.</div><div>4. Free as in getting support for the average person, Windows, Mac, Linux.</div><div>5. Free as in ease of use, usability, it goes Mac, Windows, Linux. The last two can be debatable.</div><div>6. Free as in trouble free use, Mac, Linux, Windows.</div><div>7. Free as in getting good documentation to develop for, Windows take this, but Linux and Mac are tied for second place.</div><div>8. Free as in cheap parts, Windows, Linux, Mac</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I prefer freedom.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I also resent how little Mac contributes back to</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the community.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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 <a href="http://www.macforge.com/">Macforge.com</a> for free Mac ports of OSS apps to it. Some of the more polished apps are at Apple's web site at the <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/">UNIX and Open Source</a> web page. As developers, you can visit the <a href="http://developer.apple.com/opensource/">Developer Connection</a> to get some more info about developing for Mac as well as porting <a href="http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/intro/chapter_1_section_1.html">Linux apps to Mac</a>. And lastly, how about <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisemac/archives/2007/07/leopard_gets_un.html">UNIX 03 Certification</a> of Leopard Mac.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">OTOH, the machines are reputed to be easy to use.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(The strength of</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">which reputation leads me to believe that mine must be an exception.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">but every time someone buys a Mac, rather</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">than a Windows box, I am happy because the industry becomes a little less stale and</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">monolithic.</div></blockquote><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>Kevin</div></div></body></html>