[Tfug] The Joy of OSX, and the friction coefficient of goose droppings.

[Rich]

On Oct 28, 2008, at 1:05 pm, Joe Roberts wrote:

> What I wouldn't like about OS X is that, while freeware does exist,
> the sense of free software isn't as strong on the platform.

This is a commonly repeated fallacy.

First, it's Unix. All the popular Linux apps have been ported. If not  
natively, then running on X. Look up Fink and MacPorts. They work.

Then there's the strong freeware (as opposed to FOSS) community.  
There's some really neat stuff. Go looking on Mac Update or Version  
Tracker. Yes, there's crippleware and whatnot, but often there's a  
free version of something that's better.

In my experience, FOSS tends to be packaged better for OS X than for  
Linuxes, because fewer assumptions are made about what libraries will  
be available. For example, try getting VLC going on RHEL 4 without  
upgrading it to a point where Red Hat won't support it... Whereas it  
just works on OS X 10.4. Yes, the two OSs were released within a few  
months of each other, and you pay a heck of a lot more for RHEL.

And then you have the availability of the popular commercial apps.  
Unsurprisingly, Gimp and Inkscape don't cut it for some people. It's  
nice not to have to break out a VM just to run a single app.

(Nice work Bowie.)

R.