[Tfug] Smoke detectors for the deaf > Developing apps for the Linux desktop.

[Bowie J. Poag]

Hmmmmm.....

http://theappleblog.com/2008/12/03/november-operating-system-share-numbers-should-microsoft-be-scared/

Like I said a few weeks ago...maybe it's time we start paying less 
attention to Linux, and more attention to Darwin/x86. We'll get more 
done, quicker, by putting pressure on Apple to open OS X up to non-Apple 
hardware than it would be to continue doing what we're doing 
collectively farting around with desktop Linux.

It should be pretty obvious by now that Linux on the desktop is dead. 
It's had 10+ years now to take root, grow, stabilize, and be truly 
competitive...and it simply hasn't.  Even worse, the whopping 0.83% of 
Linux's "world domination" marketshare is fragmented among more than one 
desktop. No mainstream software developer in their right mind is going 
to line up manpower and capital to develop for a target audience that 
small, and even worse, that target audience is generally adverse to 
spending money on software. You'd be better off getting out of the 
software business and starting a company that makes smoke detectors for 
the deaf at that point. 0.8% of the public > 0.8% of the public that use 
a desktop computer regularly.

It just seems like it would be easier to pressure Apple into conforming 
to what the public wants, via Darwin/x86, than it would be to continue 
trying to crowbar Linux into something acceptable to the mainstream. I 
mean, think about it... If the number of Hackintosh installs out there 
dwarfed the number of "legit" OS X installs, any move Apple would make 
would first need to appease the masses, else be considered 
broken...legal or not. If people are using a free kernel on commodity 
hardware, but *buying* OS X, Apple's bottom line would still increase. 
How is this a bad thing for anyone?

Cheers,
Bowie
CEO, Hellen Keller Pyrotronics, Inc.