In my earlier post I wrote about Apple being the true innovator in the IT world now. And said that, while I admire Linux, it seems to get stuck in perpetually inferior state. Well, I want to clarify my current view of Apple and the FOSS (free and opensource software) world.
In fact, I was a little exaggerating and dramatizing – of course, the opensource movement has undoubtedly got very high speed of development, and quality keeps getting better. Yes, for now in some areas, Linux is still inferior. But I’m sure it’s temporarily, and probably in the near future this situation will change greatly to the better. Ubuntu is much better at the desktop as were almost any of its predecessors. It raised the level of quality in FOSS community. Now actually some average users can use Linux (but it depends on their needs). It showed that quality and usability of free software can improve greatly over time. So, while for now Mac OS X is (arguably) better than competition at the desktop computing, it doesn’t mean that Linux can’t catch up and lead the way! In fact, I’m looking forward to exactly this. Linux has a strong technological basement, it just needs to streamline its interface and improve usability and accessibility, in my mind! And it will surely deliver that, but it needs some time to achieve that. And during that time, it needs some additional support and protection from the newly arising dangers (like proliferation of proprietary “standards”, and software patents issues). Recently released GPLv3 license provides protection against Microsoft and other evils (hopefully). But actually some other entity also helps to ensure thriving of Linux in the future. You’ll be surprised, but this helpful entity is… Apple, Inc.!
As I’ve seen in many blogs and other dark corners of the World Wide Web, some FOSS people tend to think of Apple as the evil proprietary company, like Micro$oft (or even more evil!). In my view of the world, this isn’t true. In fact, Apple is actually helping FOSS community in a war against proprietary Microsoft. Here’s why.
Apple is quite successfully fighting with Microsoft in some areas – Multimedia for example, with iPod and their iTunes store – first with a least restrictive DRM possible (temporarily – a wise move, actually, to convince RIAA), and later, when they hold the majority of the market – so they can set the rules – and they do now – they now offer tracks without DRM in their store! It seemed impossible just a few years ago!!!
Most importantly, their software is based mostly on open standards, and they successfully fight Microsoft’s proprietary vendor lock-in “standards” (Apple’s standardized MPEG4 AAC vs Microsoft’s WMA and PlaysForSure aggressive DRM; OpenGL vs Direct3D, etc). In the next version of Mac OS X (Leopard) Apple will adopt another open standard – CalDAV, to fight the proprietary Microsoft’s Exchange Server + Outlook calendaring and messaging protocols. Even their much hyped iPhone promotes the use of the free Web, based only on free and open standards like AJAX, completely ignoring proprietary technologies like Adobe’s Flash, Microsoft’s SilverLight and even Sun’s Java. Enough food for thought, huh?
Thus, they are essentially helping the entire FOSS world! They are establishing the solid foundation of open standards across the IT industry, on which Linux and FOSS will thrive! I see it that way, and to me Apple looks like the ally to the FOSS community, NOT an enemy like some aggressive opensourcers tend to think!
I’ve just bought an Apple’s Mac computer to support their push for open standards and interoperability, really! I don’t believe that they are a proprietary evil company like Microsoft. Their actions mostly prove my thinking. Just think about that!
Microsoft is essentially surrounded right now – by Google (taking away the web), Apple (with their computer market share growth outpacing PC market growth, and iPod/iTunes/Apple TV media dominance) and FOSS, mostly represented by Linux and OpenOffice, aimed to kill Microsoft’s precious cash cows (Windows & Office), their last hope, because their attempts in other markets usually failed miserably (WMA, Zune, Xbox – all were a commercial disaster)!
What Microsoft is going to do now? It gotta think about the situation, and think hard. They should change their strategy soon, because otherwise their huge empire will soon fall. We all know what happened to Titanic, or Roman Empire… Obviously, FOSS and Apple are now in a winning position.
Long live the FOSS revolution and open standards! Peace, brothers and sisters!
With respect to all of the written above, I think it’s too early for us to write Microsoft off… It’s market share is quite sizeable and although maybe it’s not rising, but it surely is very stable at the present time. And I want to emphasize that Windows is not making up the greater part of Microsoft’s income. The main product of Microsoft is MS Office (yeah, that’s true). And when Office 2003 is still wide-spread, Office 2007 is starting to prevail.
The second important product of MS is MS SQL Server (both 2000 and 2005). Try to disapprove me, but you can’t imagine modern production system (be it MRP, ERP, CRM or any simple accounting system) without fast, stable and reliable SQL Server… Real systems involve hundreds (maybe thousands or even more) clients, and they must stay stable and provide satisfactory response time. The size of databases could be quite impressive – it varies from some Gigabytes to some Terabytes. And tiny MySQL could not help much in this case (it’s features are very scanty, and it’s power is enough just for tiny databases). Of course Oracle is the unsurpassed leader in this sphere, but it’s products are really _very_ expensive, overwhelmed and reqiure _very_ high qualificatioin of DBA’s (Database Administrators) and developers. So, IMHO, MS SQL Server is the golden mean among present-day SQL Servers. It has a lot of advanced features, which makes it very attractive for users (very effective query optimizer, full-text indexing, indexed views, transaction savepoints, easy administration and much more).
And really, what do you think, when will this war of FOSS and commercial software stop??? You say: free – good, commercial – bad. For you, a software developer, commercial software is your daily bread
. Why don’t you value your mental work and mental work of other software developers? Why don’t you want to make a good money from software?! I want to offer a simple way of co-existence for free and commercial software. Free software should be a method for developers to exchange their experience. It should be a field, where developers can freely discuss their ideas, ask their questions on how to implement some special features (MSDN is something like that, and although it’s dedicated to closed-source sofware, it’s very effective way of experience interchange). Closed source software should stay commercial classified information. It should drive IT world to the future in the manner of strong competition among the leading IT-companies. And, IMHO, not FOSS but the commercial products should set the heading in the growing world of IT-industry 
Thoughts?