Randall Shimizu wrote:
The key is how much does profit does Apple make from it's hardware. So I am not certain at price it becomes feasible for Apple to sell it'OS and other software. I doubt it's feasible for Apple OS X to become a OSS at this time since so much of their revenue is derived from desktops.
s/desktops/iPods/
That is the thing that really saved Apple.
-john
That might make some sense if Apple had been failing prior to the iPod. It wasn't. In fact, Apple's (more specifically, Mac's) share of the PC market has been steadily increasing for several years. It's presence on the desktop is increasing faster than Linux.
IPod certainly has added to Apple's increasing good fortune, but it is not solely responsible. I think from a future and wider perspective, OS X will be seen as a bigger contributing factor to Apple's recent success.
It's likely iPod sales will flatten out when the digital music player market saturates, as other manufacturers counter with their own offerings. Most of the big consumer electronics players have already announced competing products, including the likes of Sony.
And I don't see Apple converting much if any of its significant software (read OS) to Open Source (Free or otherwise) any time in the foreseeable future. There's a reason it picked BSD as the basis of OS X. I've never seen any indications anywhere that the thought has ever even crossed its mind.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
-- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
