I like to think that the F/OSS community could have done better with OpenSTEP/Cocoa language bridges than Apple’s performance with Java had the community not be

I like to think that the F/OSS community could have done better with OpenSTEP/Cocoa language bridges than Apple’s performance with Java had the community not been burning all its energy on frameworkless window bling. In the other timeline where GNUStep becomes the defacto UI environment for Linux, we are writing Cocoa and GNUStep apps in Smalltalk and Guile because even Apple recognizes how great some of the F/OSS apps are. Also BeOS had major problems. I loved it, but I think BeOS with its multiuser story and networking would have been a much harder road to follow for Apple. Lastly, I think NeXT without Apple was failing not because of technology but because of cost and the economies of scale that little NeXT could bring. OSX proved the tech could carry forward with incremental improvement.