ha, being an OSX user and a Linux user, I'll have to throw in my 2 cents worth....
>From the marketing POV, Linux (& other FOSS OS) has a few problem, it is still very much a 'geek' tool. Many noobs still have problems installing Linux and getting it to work properly on their own... (yes the new NVidia drivers help). Altho there has been great strides, the Linux desktop is not quite there yet. Also the many 'wars' (not unfriendly) such as the many distos wars (20+ distros or more? and having more doesn't help), the various Windows Manager (GNOME, KDE, XFCE,...), and even the way different Apps do their UI does lead to confusion for the noobs. Case in point, can you config a Linux box for your mother to use....? So Linux has problem attracting new (desktop) users, let alone developers. Don't get me wrong, I like Linux, Google as much as Apple. I use a MacBook (have Xubuntu virtualised on it), a Linux desktop box running Debian, and iPhone, I admin both OSX and Linux servers.... and am typing this on GMail, but for my desktop and phone I prefer something that "just works", without having to spend time frigging around with config files, compilers, make, package managers etc... For servers, yes I do still compile stuff from source, because I want my apps to be just so, but for servers, I do it once and it runs for months and years, and I dont have to bother with it again, unless its a security update. And as a server OS, Linux sometimes win over OSX on some points.. Linux also lacks (or lost it) a "cool factor", like what OSX on both desktop and iPhones (and soon iPad) have. Something, I guess you need a commercial vendor to push for.... Ubuntu comes close, for a consumer Linux, but they have a long way to go before catching up to Apple. And Apple design and builds their own pretty cool HW, which few can beat! Then you have Android, by Google, its OK but again not as polished. I have no doubt that Android is technically capable and in fact it wins over OSX on iPhone for a few things, but I don't see Android phones beating iPhone anywhere in the near future. Google is a very technically capable company, but like someone else commented, Google lacks "right brain" capabilities! But if I were to develop a end-user app (as opposed to a server based app), I would choose to work on OSX over Android & Linux. This is where the "cool factor" comes in, and I think it'll be more fun. But also there are some technical reasons: I have not programmed in C for a very long time, and between learning Obj-C/Cocoa and C++/Qt, I think the Apple's choice is easier. 2ndly, developing for OSX allows me to deploy my app over 2 platforms, desktop, phone and soon iPad. Also, I'd like to add, OSX is after all a Unix, and Apple is now the largest Unix vendor!. Skills that you learn, especially on the core OS, anything aside from the UI, such as to the networking, memory management, API to devices are easily transferable between OSX and Linus/BSD etc... So any noob learning to program the iPhone is a win for us in the Unix community as opposed to them going over to the "dark side" of MS/.Net/Windows! Furthermore, if you really follow the stories of the iPhone app developers, its definitely not kids developing those apps. Most of those developers are already programmers, although not on OSX platforms. I remember one of the stories where this guy is a developer for a telco, and he got the iPhone, downloaded the SDK, designed & built a game using the motion-sensor, in his free time over a period of 2-3 weeks, launched it on the App store and became a great success, financially as well. (after re-reading the thread, I realise that the issue is attracting 'new' developers, NOT 'young' developers, a slight difference here, but the above pt is still relevant) But when that iPhone developer wants to do something on the server end, like build an aggregator for twitter feeds & do analytics, then he/she may very well do so on Linux. Why? well ppl develop on what HW/SW they have or easily get hold of. OS X Server is not easily available, and you have to run it on a Mac, or hack it to run on a Intel box.... too much trouble for most. And finding hosting is so much easier for Linux. So getting a developer started on OS X is not neccesary a bad thing for the FOSS community. And to correct another point, OSX is a sophisticated product, even the minimal version on the iPhone. And it IS COMPARABLE to Linux. I was doing a bit of hacking on it, on ver1.0 (its now v3.0) before Apple released the SDK, and it is basically a complete Unix running on a mobile device. It runs FTP, SSH, Appleshare etc.. and other services & daemons. I even installed a stripped down Apache on it, and it ran! (didn't try mod-php though, but I suspect it'll probably run!). So it seems pretty 'configurable' to me. OSX uses a microkernel architecture, compared to Linux's monolithic kernel, which is considered more advanced. That is what GNU's Hurd kernel is based on which somehow never got off the ground, then Linux came along.... That micro-kernel (Mach, a FOSS project as well) is what allows OS X to be so flexible, ported from PPC, to Intel then ARM. With Snow Leopard, they have enhanced that further to work more efficiently with SMP multi-processors. And I find that on my dual core Macs, OSX load balances the CPU pretty evenly, better than Linux. It'll be interesting to compare iPhone OS vs Android (Googles OS for mobile devices) which is based on Linux, ( I have not played with that... anyone?) Furthermore development in XNU (Darwin), Apples OSS version of some of their technology, has found its way back into the FOSS world. a prominent example is WebKit (originally based on KDE Konqueror), which is the browser engine for Safari, Chrome and a few others.... And the Darwin project allows you to download 'most' of OSX, the kernel, the BSD utilities except for the Aqua GUI... And you might probably notice, many Unix geeks and even FOSS developers are using Macs, for their normal use... but they still continue developing for Linux/FOSS, simply because all the GNU tools (GCC, make, libtool,...) are all there. On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 9:14 PM, simpleLinux <[email protected]> wrote: > Linux is so customizable. You want it THAT WAY, you design it and the Linux > system just work. Drivers from nvidia, AC97, Network cards is now developing > drivers for Linux. That is SOOOOOOOOOOOO unfair to judge such inequalities > as being said: > >> this is grossly inequal comparison >> >> cuba compare linux vs the iphone operating system ! > > Linux is a standalone operating system(for phone is rarely seen), while Mac > OS X (iphone) is for mobile phone which is attracting already (ada kompas > la.... boleh shaking2 la... etc), nak develop software untuk IPhone jauh > lebih mudah juga... > > jangan lah membuat perbandingan melampau > > > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 6:19 PM, sweemeng ng <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> it is more like the linux not hip enough, and also >> partly because a sad state of computer education down to it courses >> university >> >> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Muhammad Najmi Ahmad Zabidi >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> I guess he just mentioned out his worries :) >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 5:39 PM, Raja Iskandar Shah >>> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> > this is grossly inequal comparison >>> > >>> > cuba compare linux vs the iphone operating system ! >>> > >>> > bodoh punya mat salleh ! >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 5:16 PM, Muhammad Najmi Ahmad Zabidi >>> > <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >> >>> >> >>> >> http://www.jfplayhouse.com/2010/04/why-linux-is-not-attracting-young.html >>> >> >>> >> "Because of these reasons I don’t think it as a surprise that the >>> >> iPhone has been much better at attracting young developers than Linux. >>> >> And forget about the money aspect, just look at how many free apps >>> >> there are in the iTunes store. With a free iTunes app a hobby >>> >> developer can have complete control over the entire project and take >>> >> complete credit for the work" >>> >> >>> >> -- >>> >> Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/ >>> >> >>> >> Facebook Fan page >>> >> >>> >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577 >>> >> >>> >> http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my >>> >> >>> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> >> >>> >> Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group. >>> >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >>> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> >> [email protected] >>> >> For more options, visit this group at >>> >> http://groups.google.com/group/osdcmy-list?hl=en >>> > >>> > -- >>> > Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/ >>> > >>> > Facebook Fan page >>> > >>> > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577 >>> > >>> > http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my >>> > >>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> > >>> > Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group. >>> > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >>> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> > [email protected] >>> > For more options, visit this group at >>> > http://groups.google.com/group/osdcmy-list?hl=en >>> >>> -- >>> Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/ >>> >>> Facebook Fan page >>> >>> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577 >>> >>> http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my >>> >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> >>> Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> [email protected] >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/osdcmy-list?hl=en >> >> -- >> Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/ >> >> Facebook Fan page >> >> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577 >> >> http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> >> Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/osdcmy-list?hl=en > > > -- > ------ > Fariz Luqman > The Chairman of SimpleLinux > Visit: http://www.simplelinuxdistro.co.cc > > -- > Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/ > > Facebook Fan page > > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577 > > http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/osdcmy-list?hl=en -- #------- regds, Boh Heong, Yap -- Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/ Facebook Fan page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577 http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group. 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