8 ms·

Perl is requires for apple to maintain their unix(tm) certification. And while they likely dont see it as core to what they want macos to become it would be an

Perl is requires for apple to maintain their unix(tm) certification. And while they likely dont see it as core to what they want macos to become it would be an news story in the more sensationalist part of the IT press if they were to drop it. and big sur is still listed as certified https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/.

tpush 5y ago
Genuine question: is there anyone (corporate or not) that cares that macOS is a certified Unix?
- tgragnato 5y ago
  Many care that macOS is Unix-like, I doubt anyone cares about the certification.
- mekster 5y ago
  It's still impressive that powerful command line environment and the best GUI are offered in a same OS. Usually it's one or the other.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    That's a hugely subjective comment and there are plenty of instances throughout history of a powerful CLI and sophisticated GUI being included as part of the same OS (Xerox Alto, BeOS, NeXT, Plan 9). Linux and *BSD's have plenty of popular WM / DEs too: personally I'd rate KDE above anything commercial I've used but that's my subjective preference. Heck these days even Windows can be argued as having a "powerful CLI" with both WSL and Powershell existing, and the Windows UI has it's fair share of fans (regardless of what our own personal preferences might be).
  - pornel 5y ago
    It used to be, but Apple seems to have lost interest in the Unix/Open Source side of macOS a decade ago. They've abandoned GNU tools after GPLv3 (2007), haven't added anything new, and just let the old stuff limp along until it's obsolete. Nowadays macOS needs something like Homebrew to fill the gaps. It's still slightly better than Windows + WSL, but Microsoft is catching up, while Apple seems to think that iPadOS is the future.
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      This new world is way better. Before we were dependent on Apple's release cadence to keep our OSS up to date. Apple officials dropping support doesn't mean they don't want these tools to be on their platform, it just means the community does a better job of managing Unix/OSS tools separate from Apple's release schedule.
      - hnlmorg 5y ago
        That's still pretty appawling though. If Linux distros can have big release candidates and still push out package updates between releases then why can't one of the most profitable companies in the world manage it? I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve. Just that Apple aren't dropping support out of respect to their customers. They're doing it because it's cheaper.
        blacktriangle 5y ago
        Linux distros have massively different expectations of their users. And users have very different requirements from how they get and update their OSS, hence he variety of distros and package managers. Its less that Apple is unable to do this and more that Apple is in the one size fits all business, and that model simply doesn't work for solving the OSS distribution problem.
        hnlmorg 5y ago
        We're not talking about forking macOS for every theme change or offering alternative init daemons. We're just talking about providing a package manager for common user land tools. In fact Apple already do this: it's called "App Store". But you have to pay to have your app on there so most OSS don't bother. And here lies the problem: why would Apple run another package manager for free? For them, this is 100% a financial decision.
        mousepilot 5y ago
        I'm thinking that the less value that Apple delivers to the customers, the better it is for their bottom line, don't forget, adding value costs money, plus its not like Apple fans are going to suddenly quit buying their products right? Apple seems to be really good at maintaining their profit margin.
  - azangru 5y ago
    > and the best GUI This is very subjective. I, for one, much prefer kde plasma. And there's a substantial breed of developers who would prefer a tiling window manager with good keyboard navigation, such as i3.
  - akho 5y ago
    Powerful command-line environments are offered everywhere (wsl, Linux container on Chrome, Linux on Linux). MacOS is actually quite lacking in comparison (being limited wrt licenses and lacking a package manager). So it’s just a GUI question, and I’m not sure there is a definite lead these days. Integration with their other hardware devices is the more important moat right now, as is hardware.
    - jolux 5y ago
      There are plenty of third-party package managers for macOS that work fine. I would prefer it if Apple picked one to officially support, but installing Homebrew takes me ten minutes and then I never have to think about it again.
      - akho 5y ago
        I had unpleasant issues with homebrew upgrades back when I used it. It’s not exactly state of the art. (Nix works the same everywhere, though — but there are some hoops you need to jump through on macs)
        jolux 5y ago
        It’s definitely not the best. I have my issues with it. But I’ve been using it since I got a Mac in 2014 and it has improved a lot since then, it rarely blows up on me anymore. In fact I can’t remember when last it did. I’ve always wanted to use Nix and have tried to get started a few times. It has always ended up seeming more trouble than it’s worth.
        vanpythonista 5y ago
        I've used it as my primary package manager on macOS for six months, but ended up dropping it. My main reasons - * Nix doesn't have support for GUI apps like homebrew cask does - which meant I couldn't drop homebrew anyway. * The nix ecosystem forums suggest using nix-shell for managing packages for other languages, eg. python, java - but it's been really difficult to convince team members to use nix instead of pyenv, conda, gradle etc
  - JeremyBanks 5y ago
    Indeed. Windows Subsystem for Linus sure has been a game changer!
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    It was impressive back when OSX debuted, but now it feels like Apple is lacking in both regards. Their shell utilities are all horribly outdated/mismatched, and their UI design took a nosedive with Big Sur. Modern MacOS reminds me of what Ubuntu felt like 10 years ago: it's a confused and scared operating system that doesn't quite know where to go from here. I mean, look at what Monterrey introduced; basically better Facetime and some new wallpapers. I'm getting the feeling that Apple has painted themselves into a corner here. They spent the past 2 decades focusing on vertical growth, only to discover that the next 50 years are going to be ruled by better interop and protocols.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Their tools are up to date with UNIX standard, https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3668.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3668.htm
  - splistud 5y ago
    and in this case it's neither
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Best GUI? Finder is atrocious, and overall experience is far worse than even cancelled Unity. YMMV, of course, but I hate every second spent with this 'best GUI'. The only reason I ever use macOS is because I occasionally run Sketch.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    In fact, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500
- cpach 5y ago
  End-users? Probably ~0. But it might help Apple to win government contracts.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    And who’d imagine, in 2000, that 20-ish years later, one of the most popular lines of computers would be RISC-based UNIX workstations…
  - curt15 5y ago
    The few, government workstations that aren't running Windows are probably using RHEL. Microsoft and Red Hat/IBM have much more experience than Apple at speaking "enterprise."
- Stranger43 5y ago
  not in 2021, but apple made sort of an big deal about it when they started to market OSX 20 years ago. And while you can still find an traditional unix(tm) box here and there in the dusty forgotten corners of enterprise serverooms(i am personally responsible for maintaining a few hpux boxen), unix(tm) certification haven't really mattered since Linux became serious business which happened around the same time OSX was launched. What used to matter was that you could run the same CLI tooling in an macos desktop as on an Linux server but i don't think this is an use case apple see's as particularly important for the future success of Apple.
  - mrehler 5y ago
    IMO, Apple still sees it as very important that macOS is fairly attractive for developers. Of course they’re selling lots of MacBook Airs to college students, but outside of that… It’s not as if they want their CLI interaction to be 1-for-1 with Linux, but relatively close seems to still be a priority.
    - tarsinge 5y ago
      Do you have more info on that? Fairly attractive for macOS and iOS developers sure, but for me it was a happy accident that Macs also became popular for web development and Linux server admin, that it was never part of the strategy of Apple.
      - ILMostro7 5y ago
        Companies see Mac products as more attractive for their workforce than Linux-based workstations. Having printers, wifi, other products seemlessly work, since Apple devotes time and money ensuring that, improves productivity, generally, and lowers costs in (in terms of Helpdesk staff and time spent diagnosing and fixing systems integration). So, developers and admins make use of what's offered, as it is a middle-ground between stability and functionality.
      - rovr138 5y ago
        While it may have been a happy accident, it's a pretty big market. Precovid, on any conference I went to, professional or academic, the amount of Apple laptops was insane. I'm sure they're running things locally or on Linux servers, but the fact that they work pretty well between them is important.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  I believe it's a compliance thing for government contracts.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    It would be needed to POSIX compliant (even Windows had compliant) but not UNIX(R)
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I mean, I do. I'm sure plenty of businesses love having a standardized spec across their devices, too.
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 5y ago
Perl isn't required by or even mentioned in the Single UNIX Specification.

tpush 5y ago

Genuine question: is there anyone (corporate or not) that cares that macOS is a certified Unix?

tgragnato 5y ago
Many care that macOS is Unix-like, I doubt anyone cares about the certification.
mekster 5y ago
It's still impressive that powerful command line environment and the best GUI are offered in a same OS. Usually it's one or the other.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  That's a hugely subjective comment and there are plenty of instances throughout history of a powerful CLI and sophisticated GUI being included as part of the same OS (Xerox Alto, BeOS, NeXT, Plan 9). Linux and *BSD's have plenty of popular WM / DEs too: personally I'd rate KDE above anything commercial I've used but that's my subjective preference. Heck these days even Windows can be argued as having a "powerful CLI" with both WSL and Powershell existing, and the Windows UI has it's fair share of fans (regardless of what our own personal preferences might be).
- pornel 5y ago
  It used to be, but Apple seems to have lost interest in the Unix/Open Source side of macOS a decade ago. They've abandoned GNU tools after GPLv3 (2007), haven't added anything new, and just let the old stuff limp along until it's obsolete. Nowadays macOS needs something like Homebrew to fill the gaps. It's still slightly better than Windows + WSL, but Microsoft is catching up, while Apple seems to think that iPadOS is the future.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    This new world is way better. Before we were dependent on Apple's release cadence to keep our OSS up to date. Apple officials dropping support doesn't mean they don't want these tools to be on their platform, it just means the community does a better job of managing Unix/OSS tools separate from Apple's release schedule.
    - hnlmorg 5y ago
      That's still pretty appawling though. If Linux distros can have big release candidates and still push out package updates between releases then why can't one of the most profitable companies in the world manage it? I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve. Just that Apple aren't dropping support out of respect to their customers. They're doing it because it's cheaper.
      - blacktriangle 5y ago
        Linux distros have massively different expectations of their users. And users have very different requirements from how they get and update their OSS, hence he variety of distros and package managers. Its less that Apple is unable to do this and more that Apple is in the one size fits all business, and that model simply doesn't work for solving the OSS distribution problem.
        hnlmorg 5y ago
        We're not talking about forking macOS for every theme change or offering alternative init daemons. We're just talking about providing a package manager for common user land tools. In fact Apple already do this: it's called "App Store". But you have to pay to have your app on there so most OSS don't bother. And here lies the problem: why would Apple run another package manager for free? For them, this is 100% a financial decision.
      - mousepilot 5y ago
        I'm thinking that the less value that Apple delivers to the customers, the better it is for their bottom line, don't forget, adding value costs money, plus its not like Apple fans are going to suddenly quit buying their products right? Apple seems to be really good at maintaining their profit margin.
- azangru 5y ago
  > and the best GUI This is very subjective. I, for one, much prefer kde plasma. And there's a substantial breed of developers who would prefer a tiling window manager with good keyboard navigation, such as i3.
- akho 5y ago
  Powerful command-line environments are offered everywhere (wsl, Linux container on Chrome, Linux on Linux). MacOS is actually quite lacking in comparison (being limited wrt licenses and lacking a package manager). So it’s just a GUI question, and I’m not sure there is a definite lead these days. Integration with their other hardware devices is the more important moat right now, as is hardware.
  - jolux 5y ago
    There are plenty of third-party package managers for macOS that work fine. I would prefer it if Apple picked one to officially support, but installing Homebrew takes me ten minutes and then I never have to think about it again.
    - akho 5y ago
      I had unpleasant issues with homebrew upgrades back when I used it. It’s not exactly state of the art. (Nix works the same everywhere, though — but there are some hoops you need to jump through on macs)
      - jolux 5y ago
        It’s definitely not the best. I have my issues with it. But I’ve been using it since I got a Mac in 2014 and it has improved a lot since then, it rarely blows up on me anymore. In fact I can’t remember when last it did. I’ve always wanted to use Nix and have tried to get started a few times. It has always ended up seeming more trouble than it’s worth.
        vanpythonista 5y ago
        I've used it as my primary package manager on macOS for six months, but ended up dropping it. My main reasons - * Nix doesn't have support for GUI apps like homebrew cask does - which meant I couldn't drop homebrew anyway. * The nix ecosystem forums suggest using nix-shell for managing packages for other languages, eg. python, java - but it's been really difficult to convince team members to use nix instead of pyenv, conda, gradle etc
- JeremyBanks 5y ago
  Indeed. Windows Subsystem for Linus sure has been a game changer!
- smoldesu 5y ago
  It was impressive back when OSX debuted, but now it feels like Apple is lacking in both regards. Their shell utilities are all horribly outdated/mismatched, and their UI design took a nosedive with Big Sur. Modern MacOS reminds me of what Ubuntu felt like 10 years ago: it's a confused and scared operating system that doesn't quite know where to go from here. I mean, look at what Monterrey introduced; basically better Facetime and some new wallpapers. I'm getting the feeling that Apple has painted themselves into a corner here. They spent the past 2 decades focusing on vertical growth, only to discover that the next 50 years are going to be ruled by better interop and protocols.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Their tools are up to date with UNIX standard, https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3668.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3668.htm
- splistud 5y ago
  and in this case it's neither
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Best GUI? Finder is atrocious, and overall experience is far worse than even cancelled Unity. YMMV, of course, but I hate every second spent with this 'best GUI'. The only reason I ever use macOS is because I occasionally run Sketch.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  In fact, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500
cpach 5y ago
End-users? Probably ~0. But it might help Apple to win government contracts.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  And who’d imagine, in 2000, that 20-ish years later, one of the most popular lines of computers would be RISC-based UNIX workstations…
- curt15 5y ago
  The few, government workstations that aren't running Windows are probably using RHEL. Microsoft and Red Hat/IBM have much more experience than Apple at speaking "enterprise."
Stranger43 5y ago
not in 2021, but apple made sort of an big deal about it when they started to market OSX 20 years ago. And while you can still find an traditional unix(tm) box here and there in the dusty forgotten corners of enterprise serverooms(i am personally responsible for maintaining a few hpux boxen), unix(tm) certification haven't really mattered since Linux became serious business which happened around the same time OSX was launched. What used to matter was that you could run the same CLI tooling in an macos desktop as on an Linux server but i don't think this is an use case apple see's as particularly important for the future success of Apple.
- mrehler 5y ago
  IMO, Apple still sees it as very important that macOS is fairly attractive for developers. Of course they’re selling lots of MacBook Airs to college students, but outside of that… It’s not as if they want their CLI interaction to be 1-for-1 with Linux, but relatively close seems to still be a priority.
  - tarsinge 5y ago
    Do you have more info on that? Fairly attractive for macOS and iOS developers sure, but for me it was a happy accident that Macs also became popular for web development and Linux server admin, that it was never part of the strategy of Apple.
    - ILMostro7 5y ago
      Companies see Mac products as more attractive for their workforce than Linux-based workstations. Having printers, wifi, other products seemlessly work, since Apple devotes time and money ensuring that, improves productivity, generally, and lowers costs in (in terms of Helpdesk staff and time spent diagnosing and fixing systems integration). So, developers and admins make use of what's offered, as it is a middle-ground between stability and functionality.
    - rovr138 5y ago
      While it may have been a happy accident, it's a pretty big market. Precovid, on any conference I went to, professional or academic, the amount of Apple laptops was insane. I'm sure they're running things locally or on Linux servers, but the fact that they work pretty well between them is important.
chrisseaton 5y ago
I believe it's a compliance thing for government contracts.
- fomine3 5y ago
  It would be needed to POSIX compliant (even Windows had compliant) but not UNIX(R)
smoldesu 5y ago
I mean, I do. I'm sure plenty of businesses love having a standardized spec across their devices, too.

xeeeeeeeeeeenu 5y ago

Perl isn't required by or even mentioned in the Single UNIX Specification.