On Nov 6, 2011, at 12:44 AM, LuKreme wrote: > The advantages to Apple in making OS X into an open (or open-ish) product are > many. Apple has already abandoned OS X as a profit center ($30 for unlimited > licenses of Lion for personal use means they aren't interested in making > money from it). Opening up OS X means that a lot of Apple employees working > on OS X can shift focus to iOS. It will also mean a sharp increase in the > number of computers running OS X and it will make Windows systems, especially > for embedded systems like cash registers, ATMs, RedBox kiosks, etc, a lot > less attractive.
Mac OS X has next to no chance to take over any of those systems, none of which run Windows. Commonly they are running closed and proprietary systems. I have every reason to believe that will remain the same, maybe some potential for Linux to work its way into that world as it has VOIP and supplanted proprietary PBX systems. But not Mac OS X. Apple is inserting more iOS into Mac OS X. And iOS started out as a derivative of Mac OS. So I only see confluence at some future date. I don't see Apple extracting the bits of iOS from a future Mac OS so that it can be open source or nearly open source. I don't see Apple making Mac OS X open source while it contains portions of the golden egg laying hen either. > > >> If Apple is going to decouple Mac OS from Apple hardware, that would be a >> significant shift in strategy. > > It's a shift they started with 10.6 and continued with 10.7. Now I am not > saying OS X will be GPLed, but I do expect that it will be 1) Free 2) able to > run on non-Apple hardware, and 3) at least largely open. Key technologies may > be closed or may cost extra (maybe as part of an enhanced iLife sort of > package that adds iLife software, iCloud, maybe DVDPlayer), and developer > tools like Xcode and OS X Server may still cost money, but the fact is that > it is already trivial to run OS X on non-Apple hardware and that 10.7 is, if > anything, easier to get running than any previous versions were, though you > do still have to exercise some caution with choosing components. Apple has had a year to do the right thing and grant at least Snow Leopard Server license holders a revised license to run SL in VM on non-Apple hardware. They have not done the right thing. It could cost them zero hardware sales, and yet they persist in holding the keys and refusing VM on non-Apple hardware. Such VM support would be vastly easier than even non-support of but allowing installation on actual non-Apple hardware. Yet they aren't allowing it. > >> 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? > > I don't know why they've been slow to move to UEFI. Perhaps it means > rewriting their EFI boot managers, target disk mode, network boot, etc. > Perhaps there is some other reason. I don't know why either but it would appear to be rather incompatible with the suggestion the OS is going to be allowed to run on non-Apple hardware. > >> Why not relax the license for Snow Leopard Server to allow VM on non-Apple >> hardware? > > They DID relax the license on Snow Leopard to allow it to be run virtualized > under Lion (either Server or client) as I recall. But whether guest or host it MUST be run on Apple hardware. > >> and monopolistic than Microsoft ever was, > > Be careful with that word, it doesn't mean what you think it means. Apple > does not have a monopoly (or anything near a monopoly) in any market segment. Market segment is not part of the definition of monopoly. Apple controls the hardware, the OS and the online store. Microsoft never had that kind of market control. They never had that kind of end-user control even after the purchase of the hardware was complete. The iTunes Store is better called the Monostore. There is no other option except a web browser or jailbreaking the phone. Apple has extremely high percentage of control when it comes to mobile applications and even TV show downloads. I will agree that a debate on Apple's monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviors is out of scope for this list. Chris Murphy _______________________________________________ MacOSX-admin mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-admin
