Path: csiph.com!xmission!news.alt.net!not-for-mail From: owl Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: An example of how/why commercial linux desktop fails! Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:54:25 +0000 (UTC) Organization: ok by me, so long as it doesn't get out of hand Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: boom.rooftop.invalid Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.advocacy:321348 A.M <.m@nsn.s> wrote: > On 2015-09-17 10:05 AM, owl wrote: >> -hh wrote: >>>> >> >>> Overall, the bottom line remains the same: human societal >>> structure has mechanisms to recognize and reward individual >>> innovation such as through IP laws, which embraces commerce >>> and income as a motivator. Because FOSS is purposefully >>> contrary to this structure, it has a hard time participating >>> within that structure's set of rules, which manifests itself >>> as not being able to compete in the same way. >>> >> >> Without FOSS, there would be no OS X. > I hope you don't actually believe that. Had they not ended up using > NeXTStep as the base for their operating system (most of which was not > free software), they would have used BeOS instead. In fact, I believe > that the Mac would have been a better multimedia operating system had it > done so and as far as I know, none of BeOS was free software. It would have been even worse than it is now. BeOS never even had a multi-user mode as far as I know. I know when I ran it it was single-user only. Kept waiting for it to be viable, then it died. > In fact, Apple had already been creating a proprietary replacement for > their original OS with Copland. Adopting NeXTStep was simply a quicker, > less expensive and more beneficial solution as it brought Steve Jobs > along for the ride as well. > However, what makes OS X special is not the free software at its base > but the proprietary elements at the top. Remove those and OS X becomes > uninteresting. Remove the FOSS parts and it's just a window manager.