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Leopard DVD contains not just the OS, but numerous essential programs and system libraries that come with it: GCC, Python, Ruby, vim, Apache plus myriad of user
by old-gregg 18y ago
Leopard DVD contains not just the OS, but numerous essential programs and system libraries that come with it: GCC, Python, Ruby, vim, Apache plus myriad of userspace UNIX utilities and libraries.
Think of it as a free vs proprietary ratio of x86 instructions loaded in a machine's RAM. Building anything on top of Linux/GCC/MySQL/Python/Apache will guarantee that the best you could hope for will be nothing but a miniscule percentage of it. Google would find life much more difficult without OSS: Windows/Solaris licenses alone will make it significatnly more expensive to operate thousands of cheap x86 servers, not to mention increased development and management costs.
I find OSS fascinating. People keep underestimating its importance all the time, mistakenly calling operating systems and compilers a "commodity" without realizing this enormous dependence of our industry on this movement.
- jws 18y agoI would not count something as "not written by Apple" just because it is compiled with gcc. I did neglect Apache, python, and such. I was just thinking of the BSD type utilities. As far as OS licenses, there are cheaper ways to get a base OS than Windows or Solaris. I don't remember what I used to pay for QNX licenses back in the '90s for devices we used to build, but they were cheap enough that it didn't matter. What google does in their large farms just needs the bare core of an OS, I'm sure they could write their own for under $100M. I'm just reinstalling a Tiger machine. I'll list off all the executable files and see if I can find a sane way of estimating author. It should make an interesting pie chart.