4 ms·

If Apple made the transition to OS X in a position of strength, like the one it enjoys today, I think it may had imposed a pattern and rewritten tar, ps, dd, et

If Apple made the transition to OS X in a position of strength, like the one it enjoys today, I think it may had imposed a pattern and rewritten tar, ps, dd, etc. However, the way history has unfolded, I think we’re stuck with this mess for good.

pjmlp 5y ago
In that case, there wouldn't be any desktop UNIX from Apple, and Copland would have managed to eventually make it.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  I don't know about that. I mean, look at Longhorn. And Microsoft was unbeatable back then. Being huge and powerful is no guarantee of success when it comes to shipping software. Size can often be a hinderance.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Exactly because Microsoft was unbeatable, Longhorn UI ideas survived as WPF, while the OS components were rescued into C++ and COM, clunky as Windows Vista, and refined into Windows 7, including a kernel rewrite via the MinWin project. They are on a similar position nowadays, trying to fix the UWP disaster, maybe by a future Windows 12 we get what Windows 8 should have been all along. Likewise, starting from the same premise that Apple wouldn't be bleeding money, they would been able to keep up with their roadmap with System 8 and integration of Copland technologies.
    - tambourine_man 5y ago
      Copland UI ideas and code survived and shipped in Mac OS 8. Multithreaded Finder, Platinum Theme (multiple themes in fact, though killed at the last moment), windows as tabs at the bottom of the screen. However the main challenge, memory protection, didn't. Much like Longhorn's file system.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        So now only if 100% of the features got migrated, does it count. In any case this is playing guessing games, what would have happened if Apple wasn't begging for money. So who knows how System 9, 10… would have turned out. As for the Longhorn example, part of it did ship, as SQL Server features and some ideas on ReFS.
        tambourine_man 5y ago
        Sure, the whole point of the thread was a guessing game. I'm speculating that Apple, had it not been worried with going bankrupt, could have tried to fix code that had grown organically and incoherently over decades. And that this was a missed opportunity for the whole industry as it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.
saurik 5y ago
I mean, you really think its "position of strength" didn't come from it embracing Unix compatibility (which let it welcome the flood of web developers)?
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  In a way, yes, but mostly: iPhone
tambourine_man 5y ago
If there ever was a company that could've tried “Unix done right™” was Apple. Maybe Sun. But I guess it wasn't meant for this world. Perhaps Apple's biggest contribution to the Unix/Linux landscape was launchd, which inspired systemd. I don't know if we would've endeavored in rewriting essential and mostly working decades-old parts if there wasn't a proven path already laid out. Maybe LLVM as well, a modular compiler toolchain, but that's a strech.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  AIX and Solaris already had init replacements before launchd. Sun's only good idea for desktop UNIX was NeWS and they killed it. Their desktop execution for Swing proves how much they understood (not really), desktop development. As for Apple and UNIX, it was more the inverted takeover from NeXT than anything else, given A/UX execution. Also Steve Jobs wasn't a UNIX fan, it was more of a embrace POSIX due to the competition with Sun, and extend with NeXTSTEP Objective-C frameworks than anything else. Get hold of his USENIX talk about "UNIX should be invisible".
  - tambourine_man 5y ago
    I wasn't trying to say that Apple (or Steve) is particularly found of Unix historicaly. Nor should they, Unix should be a means to an end, not one in itself. Unix should really be invisible to most users if present at all. What I'm saying that Apple is a company usually willing to rewrite things the “right way”, vide Webkit, LLVM.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      LLVM wasn't started by Apple, rather Illinois university, and they only adopted it after GPL 3 happened. WebKit was born as Khtml by KDE project.
      - tambourine_man 5y ago
        I'm aware :) I don't know how that proves that it's not a company willing to rewrite foundational/taken for granted stacks.

pjmlp 5y ago

In that case, there wouldn't be any desktop UNIX from Apple, and Copland would have managed to eventually make it.

tambourine_man 5y ago
I don't know about that. I mean, look at Longhorn. And Microsoft was unbeatable back then. Being huge and powerful is no guarantee of success when it comes to shipping software. Size can often be a hinderance.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Exactly because Microsoft was unbeatable, Longhorn UI ideas survived as WPF, while the OS components were rescued into C++ and COM, clunky as Windows Vista, and refined into Windows 7, including a kernel rewrite via the MinWin project. They are on a similar position nowadays, trying to fix the UWP disaster, maybe by a future Windows 12 we get what Windows 8 should have been all along. Likewise, starting from the same premise that Apple wouldn't be bleeding money, they would been able to keep up with their roadmap with System 8 and integration of Copland technologies.
  - tambourine_man 5y ago
    Copland UI ideas and code survived and shipped in Mac OS 8. Multithreaded Finder, Platinum Theme (multiple themes in fact, though killed at the last moment), windows as tabs at the bottom of the screen. However the main challenge, memory protection, didn't. Much like Longhorn's file system.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      So now only if 100% of the features got migrated, does it count. In any case this is playing guessing games, what would have happened if Apple wasn't begging for money. So who knows how System 9, 10… would have turned out. As for the Longhorn example, part of it did ship, as SQL Server features and some ideas on ReFS.
      - tambourine_man 5y ago
        Sure, the whole point of the thread was a guessing game. I'm speculating that Apple, had it not been worried with going bankrupt, could have tried to fix code that had grown organically and incoherently over decades. And that this was a missed opportunity for the whole industry as it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

saurik 5y ago

I mean, you really think its "position of strength" didn't come from it embracing Unix compatibility (which let it welcome the flood of web developers)?

tambourine_man 5y ago
In a way, yes, but mostly: iPhone

tambourine_man 5y ago

If there ever was a company that could've tried “Unix done right™” was Apple. Maybe Sun. But I guess it wasn't meant for this world. Perhaps Apple's biggest contribution to the Unix/Linux landscape was launchd, which inspired systemd. I don't know if we would've endeavored in rewriting essential and mostly working decades-old parts if there wasn't a proven path already laid out. Maybe LLVM as well, a modular compiler toolchain, but that's a strech.

pjmlp 5y ago
AIX and Solaris already had init replacements before launchd. Sun's only good idea for desktop UNIX was NeWS and they killed it. Their desktop execution for Swing proves how much they understood (not really), desktop development. As for Apple and UNIX, it was more the inverted takeover from NeXT than anything else, given A/UX execution. Also Steve Jobs wasn't a UNIX fan, it was more of a embrace POSIX due to the competition with Sun, and extend with NeXTSTEP Objective-C frameworks than anything else. Get hold of his USENIX talk about "UNIX should be invisible".
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  I wasn't trying to say that Apple (or Steve) is particularly found of Unix historicaly. Nor should they, Unix should be a means to an end, not one in itself. Unix should really be invisible to most users if present at all. What I'm saying that Apple is a company usually willing to rewrite things the “right way”, vide Webkit, LLVM.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    LLVM wasn't started by Apple, rather Illinois university, and they only adopted it after GPL 3 happened. WebKit was born as Khtml by KDE project.
    - tambourine_man 5y ago
      I'm aware :) I don't know how that proves that it's not a company willing to rewrite foundational/taken for granted stacks.