Apple released OS X around 2000 and it's easily the best OS Apple ever released. Fundamental to the design was a Unix base on which the Apple OS was built. There was much dismay at the time regarding Apple's new dependence on open source code but OS X is now all over the world and remains one of the most difficult operating systems to crack whereas Windows remains one of the easiest.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced an open source arrangement with Red Hat to build a Unix base for them and, of course, this is a data processing revolution ... or would have been almost twenty years ago. (Wired: Microsoft Links Open-Source Arms with Linux Frenemy Red Hat)
Usually Wired is more progressive than that but the opening sentence tells it all:
Microsoft just inked a new deal with longtime rival Red Hat to support the company’s version of Linux on Microsoft’s cloud service Azure.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced an open source arrangement with Red Hat to build a Unix base for them and, of course, this is a data processing revolution ... or would have been almost twenty years ago. (Wired: Microsoft Links Open-Source Arms with Linux Frenemy Red Hat)
Usually Wired is more progressive than that but the opening sentence tells it all:
Note: I worked with many people who signed multi-million dollar computer contracts and not one of them ever mentioned 'inking a deal' although we see how this may seem revolutionary to a journo who still uses a Royal typewriter.
Red Hat's rivals are other vendors selling different versions of Unix, none of which are competitive with anything except each other ... until Apple shifted to a Unix base at the turn of the century. Fifteen or so years later, even Microsoft gets it.
Ho hum
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