On Nov 5, 2011, at 5:21 PM, LuKreme wrote: > On Nov 5, 2011, at 11:57, Chris Murphy <[email protected]> wrote: >> All you have to do is connect the dots on the decisions they've already >> made. It's not unreasonable to draw a line from where they've gone recently >> to estimate where they are going. > > If they wanted to stop developing OS X Server, 10.7 would have been the > perfect time to do it. The fact that they released Server for 10.7 tells me > they are planning on keeping it for awhile.
I think the substantial price change is an excellent summary of the paradigm shift in OS X Server. >> It wouldn't have hurt Apple to allow virtualization of SL on foreign >> hardware one bit. But they don't care to put in any effort to make that >> happen. And it doesn't appear to hurt Apple to support UEFI and yet thus far >> they continue to use a non-standard implementation that makes it difficult >> to impossible to support other OS's on Apple hardware. > > Um.. what other OSes? Most linux and Windows work just fine in virtualization. Because of Apple's restrictive licensing that OS X can only but run as host or guest on Apple hardware, it obligates those who follow EULAs to buy Apple hardware if they want to run Apple's operating system. But Apple's operating system is not a great choice as a host operating system for virtualization. Linux is a vastly better choice for the host operating system, but because of Apple's non-standard EFI there is no (and never will be) official support by any linux distribution, or Windows, on Apple hardware for native EFI mode booting. Thus Apple is actively withholding best practices from their customers. It's absolutely worse than Microsoft's position on UEFI Secure Boot. Apple does not support UEFI 2.x, even on brand new 2011 hardware it is based on Intel EFI 1.10 which I find pretty much chickenshi*. And only UEFI 2.x is supported firmware for Linux distros and Windows 7 and 8. Apple's firmware is effectively proprietary and closed to outsiders. Their position is that users do not have a right to dual-boot. They are stuck with the CSM for foreign OS's. And on XServer hardware, customers don't even have that. >> So for anyone looking for even remotely serious server solutions it totally >> means abandoning Apple hardware and OS. > > I think that where Apple is headed is actually open-sourcing OS X under a > somewhat restrictive license, the only thing I can't figure out is when it > makes most sense to do this, but I'm reasonably sure that in the next 5 years > it will happen. I don't see how this helps them sell more iOS products, or more Mac OS products. If Apple is going to decouple Mac OS from Apple hardware, that would be a significant shift in strategy. But if they were going to do that, why maintain a proprietary EFI implementation instead of fully embracing UEFI and the right to dual boot? Why not relax the license for Snow Leopard Server to allow VM on non-Apple hardware? I just don't see them getting less restrictive than they are. The trend with iOS is in every possible way more restrictive, closed, and monopolistic than Microsoft ever was, and Apple has ever been in the past. So you think they're going to go the way of Open Solaris with Mac OS? It's an interesting idea but I don't see any indicators in other areas that they are interested in doing this. And if they don't relax the licensing, there's zero incentive for the market to engage in improving the code base for what would remain a closed platform. I sooner see confluence of Mac OS and iOS as CPUs get faster, and eventually the end of the desktop computer and OS, as soon as Mac OS 10.9 being the last of that distinction. Chris Murphy _______________________________________________ MacOSX-admin mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-admin
