[TriLUG] Open Source vs Closed Source

[Brian McCullough]

( Changing threads because, well it has. )


On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 12:44:44PM -0800, John Vaughters wrote:
> 
>  
> Brandon,
>  
> I think you are missing the point of open source vs not open source. Windows is pretty much the only one left not using world wide code dev. Back around 2000 Apple and IBM ditched their OS precisely because they realized they would not be able to keep up with the dev cycle of Open Source. Apple decided that it would be better to focus on the User Experience instead of mundane issues of an OS that are already improving with very little effort on their part to integrate into their OS. IBM had the same strategy. They were going to sell services and ditch the AIX OS for Red Hat. 

I'm afraid that I am going to have to join Brandon, and, I think, others,
by questioning your assumptions and assertions.


Open Source versus Closed Source is a very good distinction to make, but
some of your comparisons don't help.

Yes, Windows may be the most common example, in the consumer world, of a
closed-source operating system, but only on the Mac line of computers
does Apple use a Unix operating system.  On their phones, the story is
quite different.

IBM's AIX is alive and well, being sold and maintained by IBM to
corporate customers for their data centers world wide.

As far as I know, HP-UX is still being sold to the same market by HP and
earning money for consultants, too.


> So what this has done is get just about every OS available in the world on Open Source Dev except Microsoft. 

Yes, OpenBSD, the rest of the Open Source BSD Unixes, and all of the
different flavours of Linux are popular in our world, but the "PC"
market isn't everything.


> So when I can jump on an Apple and run GUI programs via SSH on my Linux Servers from any place in the world, I am thinking this is what we call standards. 

True, Unix and Linux Operating Systems can both execute applications
that are similar, and both have ways of executing the others'
applications, but they also have some distinct differences "under the
hood." In fact, you can not necessarily run applications that are
specific to one Unix on another.

I agree, standards are great, especially when people adhere to them, and
things like the X Windows communication that you describe make it easy
to interoperate, but that is X Windows that is communicating with itself
over your SSH pipe, not the two Operating Systems themselves,
necessarily.



> This is why I lump Apple and Linux, they are at the root very much alike. 

Only the User Interface is very much alike, and that is because the
current developers, particularly of the GNU suite of applications and
utilities which are becoming ubiquitous in both Unix and Linux, present
the same "user experience" to all users.

I am using these utilities and tools in an AIX machine that I work on.


> Don't expect Linux to take over this market anytime soon.

I agree.  As long as Microsoft is the pre-installed OS of choice for
most manufacturers, and as long as most people just accept that as being
the "best" for them, you are right.  There will not be a significant
change.


Brian