5 ms·

Since Apple isn't opposed to releasing new OS flavors, I think they should release "serverOS", a variant of macOS but licensed to run anywhere, even (or especia

Since Apple isn't opposed to releasing new OS flavors, I think they should release "serverOS", a variant of macOS but licensed to run anywhere, even (or especially) on non-Apple hardware and in VMs. It's very frustrating to a lot of people that macOS VMs aren't easy (licensing/ToS-wise) to spin up on non-Apple hardware, especially since Apple doesn't sell high-end servers any longer. Yes, that calculus will be different when the new Mac Pro begins to sell, but a lot of IT departments would rather add Apple VMs for testing/build/dev to their on existing on-premise compute clouds (vSphere/etc.) than spin up brand new ones on Apple hardware. Additionally, there's a lot of demand for local Apple VMs on Windows machines. Microsoft makes a lot of money from software that's running on my Mac - especially Office and Windows (via Parallels Desktop or Boot Camp). Why shouldn't Apple make money from VMs running on Windows and Linux machines?

airstrike 7y ago
Perhaps better yet they can build Apple-branded server hardware and compete with Azure and AWS on a Mac OS version of the cloud
- AceJohnny2 7y ago
  Server hardware is low-margin. Apple doesn't do low-margin.
  - airstrike 7y ago
    Cloud hosting is high-margin, though
- c256 7y ago
  It was called XServe. It died due to a bunch of reasons, mostly (I believe) having to do with price/power/performance of Intel chips. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve
AceJohnny2 7y ago
It's a quip among colleagues that "macOS is not a server OS". I have to run a bunch of VMs for builds, and I really wish I could be running Linux instead.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  That doesn't mean the XNU kernel and core libraries couldn't be tuned to support compute- and network-bound workloads.
  - AceJohnny2 7y ago
    I don't know that it'd be worth the investment at this point. We already have our widely-supported Unixy system for that, Linux. Furthermore, there's a longstanding (3 year) bug where the kernel would (very rarely) fail to execute a process. This would manifest as "/bin/sh: fail to execute binary file", because the posix_spawn() call returns an error (this is the actual bug), the libc interprets this as trying to execute a script, and falls back to running it through /bin/sh (this is standard Unix behavior), which can't execute it either because it's not a script. That such a bug would persist for so long doesn't inspire confidence in the quality of the kernel.
    - TimTheTinker 7y ago
      > That such a bug would persist for so long doesn't inspire confidence in the quality of the kernel. That says more about Apple's current priorities than anything else. Sure, Linux is more mature, but if Apple were to release serverOS for specific types of workloads that are needed, you can bet any bugs that would interfere significantly would be prioritized up.
peterkelly 7y ago
I would be very surprised if they didn't already have something like this internally for hosting iCloud and various other services. I agree it would be great for them to make it more widely available as a product.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  Someone mentioned on HN a few months ago that they definitely do have large banks of both Apple-branded and non-Apple machines running a special in-house flavor of macOS. In fact, the last manufacturing run of XServe hardware had a more souped-up configuration than they ever offered to customers and was reserved for internal use at Apple. It would be ... well, kind of them to offer IT solutions they use internally to other IT departments tasked to support work on Apple platforms. At the very minimum, they could license a version of macOS (or "serverOS") tuned for server workloads, VM deployments, and Apple Remote Desktop sessions.

airstrike 7y ago

Perhaps better yet they can build Apple-branded server hardware and compete with Azure and AWS on a Mac OS version of the cloud

AceJohnny2 7y ago
Server hardware is low-margin. Apple doesn't do low-margin.
- airstrike 7y ago
  Cloud hosting is high-margin, though
c256 7y ago
It was called XServe. It died due to a bunch of reasons, mostly (I believe) having to do with price/power/performance of Intel chips. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve

AceJohnny2 7y ago

It's a quip among colleagues that "macOS is not a server OS". I have to run a bunch of VMs for builds, and I really wish I could be running Linux instead.

TimTheTinker 7y ago
That doesn't mean the XNU kernel and core libraries couldn't be tuned to support compute- and network-bound workloads.
- AceJohnny2 7y ago
  I don't know that it'd be worth the investment at this point. We already have our widely-supported Unixy system for that, Linux. Furthermore, there's a longstanding (3 year) bug where the kernel would (very rarely) fail to execute a process. This would manifest as "/bin/sh: fail to execute binary file", because the posix_spawn() call returns an error (this is the actual bug), the libc interprets this as trying to execute a script, and falls back to running it through /bin/sh (this is standard Unix behavior), which can't execute it either because it's not a script. That such a bug would persist for so long doesn't inspire confidence in the quality of the kernel.
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    > That such a bug would persist for so long doesn't inspire confidence in the quality of the kernel. That says more about Apple's current priorities than anything else. Sure, Linux is more mature, but if Apple were to release serverOS for specific types of workloads that are needed, you can bet any bugs that would interfere significantly would be prioritized up.

peterkelly 7y ago

I would be very surprised if they didn't already have something like this internally for hosting iCloud and various other services. I agree it would be great for them to make it more widely available as a product.

TimTheTinker 7y ago
Someone mentioned on HN a few months ago that they definitely do have large banks of both Apple-branded and non-Apple machines running a special in-house flavor of macOS. In fact, the last manufacturing run of XServe hardware had a more souped-up configuration than they ever offered to customers and was reserved for internal use at Apple. It would be ... well, kind of them to offer IT solutions they use internally to other IT departments tasked to support work on Apple platforms. At the very minimum, they could license a version of macOS (or "serverOS") tuned for server workloads, VM deployments, and Apple Remote Desktop sessions.