[TriLUG] MacOS X and free software

Bill Vinson billvinson at nc.rr.com
Fri Sep 6 12:48:31 EDT 2002


On Friday, September 6, 2002, at 10:03 AM, John Matthews wrote:

[snip]

> I think MacOS X could well be seriously damaging the advancement of
> other UNIX-workalike operating systems, including Linux and *BSD.

[snip]

> The number of MacOS X users on this list makes me feel that perhaps the
> uptake of MacOS X will displace interest in Linux and *BSD systems.
> That, in itself, may not be inherently bad, but I do see Linux and *BSD
> as the very heart of the free software movement, and damage to their
> progress I see as also damaging to the spread of free software.

[snip]

> I'm not sure that that is likely to happen with MacOS X, and I fear 
> that
> the effect could be more parasitic on the free software world than
> helpful. That is, lots and lots of users with almost no feedback, no
> growth of the community, and potential exploitation of the codebase
> (which is allowed for *BSD, I realize). Perhaps these are already
> happening on Linux (that is, poor community citizens exist everywhere,
> regardless of their system of choice) but in general, the Linux users I
> meet are much more mindful of being part of the system.
>
> And those from our current community who may be good citizens puzzle me
> when they want to give their money to Apple. It seems to be trading
> freedom for convenience or apps that are pleasing to the eye, and at
> some level that makes me uneasy.

[snip]

> Perhaps I'm the only one that's uneasy, but I'd sure like to hear what
> other people think.
>
> I hope I've not offended anyone, but there you go.
>
> matt

Hmmm...I believe I will step into the fray here, but as you said, this 
is my
opinion and YMMV. These are only my opinions and I am not intending to
offend any person or software project, but I will call it like I see it 
:)

Mac OS X is in a way damaging Linux and to a lesser extent the BSDs.

There, I said it.  Mac OS X is better in a lot of ways that any of the 
free options.
However, it still has a way to go in others.  If you do require that 
all your software
is open source then maybe it is not for you. Interestingly enough, 
Being a Mac OS X
user for the past year or so has brought me closer to the other BSDs 
than before.  I
have also begun to favor BSD style licensing over the GPL.
As a workstation, I believe Mac OS X is the better choice as it can do 
just about
everything Linux can and then some things that Linux can't.  The GUI is 
well designed
and very efficient from a productivity standpoint (at least for me). 
GNOME and KDE are
both severely lacking in this department by my measure and don't feel 
very well organized.
I don''t have to tinker with things to get them to work, but I can if I 
want, thanks to fink
(fink.sourceforge.net) which has ported most of the Linux software that 
I care about.  Things
such as power management, just work. No hassle and thus more time to 
spend on items I do
care about tinkering with.
At a server level the advantages are less clear as usually servers do 
not have as much
hands-on time so a well designed gui is of less importance.  I still 
prefer my OpenBSD-based
servers for the time being.

Not going to go into too much detail as I know it is subjective, but I 
run Linux at work. I have
a Linux workstation at home, but all of my other systems have now been 
migrated to
OpenBSD.  And of course my one iBook running OS X.  I plan on adding 
more Mac OS X
systems in the future, I hope.

Anyway, that was my take, but have no problem with damage to the 
Linux/BSD market if the
products Linux/BSD offer can't compare to the OS X software in the 
individual's mind who is
making that determination.  I love open source software, but only when 
it is the best choice as
my prime desire is to have options and restricting myself to GPL 
operating systems would not
give me much of that.

Bill




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