[nycbug-talk] lame...real lame Andy

[Bob Ippolito]

On Jan 12, 2005, at 0:59, Pete Wright wrote:

>> From the news.com.com interview with Andy Hertzfeld:
> http://news.com.com/How+the+Mac+was+born%2C+and+other+tales/2008 
> -1082_3-5529081.html?tag=st.num
>
> How would things be different for Apple if they switched to Linux from  
> FreeBSD?
>
> Technically that doesn't make much of a difference at all.  
> Commercially...
> The more free software on the system, the more alliances it would  
> allow them
> to make with companies like IBM, and some of the other open-source  
> systems.

The question's premise is kinda bogus to begin with.  "... they took  
FreeBSD and layered their proprietary OS on top of it to get some of  
the benefits of open source."  Originally it didn't have FreeBSD at  
all, it was BSD code they inherited from NeXT.  There is a lot of  
FreeBSD code shoved into the Darwin kernel and userland, but it's  
nothing anyone who knows what they're talking about would actually call  
FreeBSD.  Linux has *BSD code in it too, and we don't call that FreeBSD  
either.

I think that buying G5s as fast as IBM can make them gives them better  
footing than switching to Linux ever could... If they wanted to use  
Linux, they would have.  The microkernel they developed for Darwin  
derives from the work they did for MkLinux, after all.  IBM does  
support Mac OS X, especially their compilers and the Java stuff.

> <rant>
> ok since when does linux == free software...and more importantly isn't  
> linux
> just a fscking kernel?!?  and finally i really have no friggin' idea  
> how he
> makes the leap of a vendor *not* using the GPL preventing them from  
> working
> with vendors...aside from the marketing perspective.

The example he gave in another question is that HP and Sun both  
announced to use a particular standard related to Eazel, and he  
insinuates the reason for this is that it was GPL licensed.  Bogus,  
because they've done this before on things that weren't similarly  
licensed, but that's what he thinks.

> sigh...who would have thought the guy behind such "great" firms as
> Eazel would completely not misunderstand such basic concepts...

Great companies don't flop in less than 18 months :)

> anyway it's an interesting read if anyone feels like getting worked up  
> for
> no good reason.
> </rant>

I dunno, it seemed as good a response as any if you're going to dumb it  
down for the press.  Having cofounded a company that wrote GPL  
software, he's obviously biased in that direction and will see what he  
wants to see.

-bob