If you disagree come up with some rationale criteria for distinguishing the two, as I have given you plenty of examples where SuSe contributed interface improvments as well as integration of filesystems into the kernel that SuSE has done.

E_f

If you agree that Aqua is not part of the Operating System, then we aren’t arguing about much.

SuSE added more to linux than you are giving them credit for–they wrote much of the original code for the Reiser FS. ReiserFS was availble with SuSE before it was available as part of the stable linux kernel, for example. And if you want to talk about interfaces, SuSE contributed much to KDE.

So what I am saying is that Apple has gotten out of the ‘OS’ business in a major way, since they started using Free BSD code.

And also there is no legitimate reason to say, just because a firm uses code from the GPL commons, that they don’t produce an OS.

Try running the software for MacOS X without Quartz, Aqua, OpenSTEP, Core***, etc. if you think that it is just that simple.

The GUI is not even part of the Mach OS kernel, as is the case with nearly all modern OS’s…

I never said it was. You said that it is just FreeBSD warmed over, which is pure bovine excrement. It doesn’t use the same kernel or the same windowing system, hell, even most of the APIs are at least practically OS X-exclusive if not excusive. I don’t deny that they started from FreeBSD, but to call OS X a FreeBSD rip off is absurd since it is so radically different.

Try running the software for MacOS X without Quartz, Aqua, OpenSTEP, Core***, etc. if you think that it is just that simple.

The GUI is not even part of the Mach OS kernel, as is the case with nearly all modern OS’s…

I never said it was. You said that it is just FreeBSD warmed over, which is pure bovine excrement. It doesn’t use the same kernel or the same windowing system, hell, even most of the APIs are at least practically OS X-exclusive if not excusive. I don’t deny that they started from FreeBSD, but to call OS X a FreeBSD rip off is absurd since it is so radically different.

The part that Apple plays with, the gui, and to some extent the filesystems, but that’s a holdover from when they had their own OS.

Every indication is that Apple is less and less interested in OS parts other than the GUI, such as filesytems and scheduler etc.

The GUI is not even part of the Mach OS kernel, as is the case with nearly all modern OS’s…

We might be seeing the same kind of effect as we do with bloggers who are also published authors, or musicians who make a sample track available for download, or football players who show what they can do in their college careers. Signaling behavior. But that kind of moderate approach wouldn’t be nearly as quotable as either the hardcore Stallmanista or Randroid factions of the debate, so it’s likely to get lost in the noise.

Aple does not make an OS anymore-they repackage FREEBSD. Yes, they do tweak the interface–but so does SuSE.

Tweak? Enigma_factory, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are speaking from a point of ignorance on this subject if you actually think that. OS X’s entire GUI is different from what FreeBSD users have from the ground up. The kernel is a completely different one. It’s built on Mach with extensions such as the propriety IOKit API. Do you know about other OSX APIs like CoreData and CoreImage?

Aple does not make an OS anymore-they repackage FREEBSD. Yes, they do tweak the interface–but so does SuSE.

Tweak? Enigma_factory, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are speaking from a point of ignorance on this subject if you actually think that. OS X’s entire GUI is different from what FreeBSD users have from the ground up. The kernel is a completely different one. It’s built on Mach with extensions such as the propriety IOKit API. Do you know about other OSX APIs like CoreData and CoreImage?

Aple does not make an OS anymore-they repackage FREEBSD. Yes, they do tweak the interface–but so does SuSE.

SuSE, with the effort they put forth for multiple disk partition formats — XFS, ext3, ReiserFS and (until recently) JFS, does more kernel level Os work than Apple does.

Yes, they do produce an OS–because the GPL gives them the power to use an immense amount of code, in the GPL commons. MS has to license and pay for the code they use, because they elect not to use GPL code.

My point is that using GPL commons is an immense competitive advantage. You can call it ‘repackaging’ if you want, but that is just a semantic distinction, in my book.

The benefits to the consumer are never mentioned, and the fact that a very small firm, like Mandriva or SuSE, can produce an OS superior to MS is seen as a bug. The fact is the business model that open source supports is necessarily extremely lean but that is to everyone else’s benefit.

Those companies don’t produce an OS. They repackage and release a modified OS. There are no open source companies that I know of that do the sort of pure, original development work that Microsoft, Apple, Sun and others do on operating systems they sell to the public. The reason is very simple. No open source company today could afford the costs of making an OS that sophisticated on its own. Even Red Hat does not have the resources to plunk down $1.9 billion of its own money to build an OS from scratch capable of matching even Debian 3.0.

It is dishonest to suggest that these companies are OS producers in the same sense that Apple and Microsoft are. They don’t put anywhere near that much original effort into their products. Most of their “product” is in fact the work of others outside the company.

Mike, Apple makes extensive use of free software under a BSD-style license. While it’s certainly true that they spend more than most Linux vendors on Mac OS X (and probably spend more even than Red Hat), that seems like a difference of degree.

MikeT, a good percentage of Microsoft and Apple technologies are developed outside the firm. These companies license intellectual property from others; specialist firms that excel in niche areas of technology. These outside firms are merely “inputs” for Apple and Microsoft; and they are paid for their intellectual property. FOSS development on the other hand, where volunteer developers are merely inputs for Red Hat and IBM business lines, have no formalized process of integrated external inputs. I wonder what would happen if Red Hat and IBM had to pay these developers.

The benefits to the consumer are never mentioned, and the fact that a very small firm, like Mandriva or SuSE, can produce an OS superior to MS is seen as a bug. The fact is the business model that open source supports is necessarily extremely lean but that is to everyone else’s benefit.

Those companies don’t produce an OS. They repackage and release a modified OS. There are no open source companies that I know of that do the sort of pure, original development work that Microsoft, Apple, Sun and others do on operating systems they sell to the public. The reason is very simple. No open source company today could afford the costs of making an OS that sophisticated on its own. Even Red Hat does not have the resources to plunk down $1.9 billion of its own money to build an OS from scratch capable of matching even Debian 3.0.

It is dishonest to suggest that these companies are OS producers in the same sense that Apple and Microsoft are. They don’t put anywhere near that much original effort into their products. Most of their “product” is in fact the work of others outside the company.