RE: [MLUG] what is IBM's linux?

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> > Th'ain't much reason not to go Linux really since Linux lets them change
> > anything they need to while offloading a lot of the development and upkeep
> > burden to others. Probably eventually all the old Unix OS's will fold into
> > Linux or FreeBSD or some opensource Unix variant. There just isn't a lot
> > of money to be made by keeping your own OS unless you have the #1 OS and
> > don't mind fscking your customers.
>
> AIX is losing support in the IBM world, Solaris is being replaced by Linux
> in the Sun world, Mac is BSD now. I don't think this is an "eventually"
> situation, I think this is now. Not sure if the old Mac had anything
> unix-esque in it, I'm just thinking back to the old NeXT crap.

IBM gives me the impression that AIX is pretty much dead.

Sun's still not admitting they're beaten but they're behavior pretty much
shows it but they're smart enough to catch the Linux wave before things
are to late so I think they'll do well.

How long before MacOS goes fully opensourced or gets eatten by it's
*BSD/Linux cousins? MacOS X is a major improvement over older versions but
I still can't see it doing well commercially pinched between Windows and
Linux. It's survived up to now because M$ was pouring little bits of money
into it to keep it afloat so as not to look like a total monopoly. Since
they now have a viable alternative I can't see them needing to keep Apple
alive. With their own hardware that is often more expensive than their x86
rivals I can't see them converting a large enough segment of the
population to keep their stock up. Also OS X makes their users somewhat
more Unix friendly and obviously *BSD and Linux can run on existing Mac
hardware. Somehow I see MacOS going the way of BeOS (the wannabe MacOS).
They'll likely be to stubborn to opensource the rest so fans will write
their own clones that run on top of *BSD/Linux which of course will
devalue Apple's IP without letting them have control of the opensourced
versions projects. The hardware is always a tough thing to make $ from but
I really can't see them dropping it. I do think they'll put more effort
into portable media players and into media manipulating software.. things
they are great at but I wonder if those will earn them enough $$$ to keep
the MacPC/MacOS alive.

Microsoft is the only real poser I think. You can see the Linux effect in
their products and it is helping them a lot. XP is much more stable than
Win9x, it comes with better networking support, they are finally starting
to make some effort towards patching major security holes, they are
working on adding a decent console shell with POSIX-like scripting
abilities, etc. Somehow I don't think Windows would be where it is today
if it wasn't for renewed competition. Their licenses are horrible though.
They obviously are aware that the opensource licenses interest people.
Their push to look like they are opening more of their source up and their
quieting of bashing opensource licenses are good indications of that. Do
you think they'll try to kidnap opensource or will they 'get it' and jump
to the head of the parade? I'd suspect they want to do both but doing the
first could hurt their chances at the second. Like Apple I think they are
to much of control freaks to make such a change smoothly but they have the
resources to survive several major fsck up's as they adjust.
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