I have come to a realization about Apple's new strategy. They have done something that none of the other commercial operating system vendors (like Microsoft) have done, being that they have embraced open source applications with open arms, allowing Apple more freedom and manpower to dedicate to the core of their system instead of all the add on applications.

To demonstrate where this is going, let's use an example. Microsoft is a software behemoth in that they offer thousands of titles which work hand in hand with their operating, which in turn brings greater value to the whole. Apple is also in the midst of doing almost exactly the same thing, in providing the means for incredibly powerful, tested and proven software to enhance their system, but with one huge difference. The software packages that Apple is embracing are open source. This allows for a few things, most notably that they don't have to dedicate time, money and man hours to developing said applications as their cohorts in the windows world do, but instead can tap into the vast knowledge pool of the open source movement.

Apple offers a great deal of the same types of things that Microsoft does for their enterprise users, but with minimal costs attached. For example on windows you can setup a windows and mac friendly file sharing environment using their proprietary software. Apple does the same, but along with their own implementation of Appletalk they use the open source samba package to offer the windows sharing. Microsoft also offers things like web/ftp services, LDAP, and print services that are crucial in the enterprise world, with their own proprietary and at times expensive software. Apple does the same but with apache, ftpd, openldap and CUPS, all from the open source world. Brilliant.

Now here's where the line differs between the two operating systems' offerings. Microsoft add-ons are proprietary, meaning they run on only microsoft operating systems, and they often thin your wallet in the process because they require a lot of other upgrades around the newest versions for compatibility, additional licensing fees, etc. This is a technique Microsoft has always used to increase their revenues and sales. However, the pool of software that Apple has tapped into for these offerings are open source, meaning they are highly available on most if not all Unix based systems (all the bsd's, Linux and of course OSX) and they don't necessarily burden your budgets in the process of using them.

Open source software has been looked upon my millions of sets of eyes, whereas Microsoft code is held in a death grip within their organization. This fact alone leads my belief that the open source alternatives are a much better choice from a security standpoint. Just when was the last time Microsoft's code got a proper audit? Judging from the insane amounts of security problems that are found in their operating systems I think it has been far too long, and that they are in need of one badly, but don't hold your breath waiting on this one.

Add to this the fact that alongside all of these great popular applications Apple has tapped into there are tens of thousands of other applications that are there for the taking, and built for your needs. Many of them compile with no more than a little reading and a few lines of typing in the terminal. And in fact it can be even easier than that as many these applications are included in projects like darwinports and fink, which ease the installation and management of them, and in many cases they also provide binaries (already built and ready to install), which greatly reduce the deployment time.

This all adds up to tell me something very important, and that is that Apple is the clear winner in this software race and as time moves along they will pull further ahead of the competition in the commercial operating system market. Of course I may be biased since I've been a long time Mac user, as well as a PPC Linux user. For me this is the best of both worlds. To open up a native terminal and have bash and all my command line tools without having to ssh into a separate box is a godsend for me, and has in fact converted me back to the land of Mac OS after a couple of years I spent heavily in the PPC Linux world. OS X suits most if not all of my *nix needs, and at a price that's more than affordable, even when compared to commercial Linux server offerings, which are often quite a bit more money than an unlimited OSX Server license for commercial installations.

Kudos to Apple for embracing the new. The day that I can run nothing but native OSX for my needs is finally here, and in fact the machine I am typing on right now (my beloved 15 inch TiBook 1Ghz) runs the tools I use daily on my servers (apache, php, perl, mysql, python). This gives me a truly usable and portable prototyping platform for my work, along with the comfort of the familiar and very usable interface that Mac has always been famous for.

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how to install my 9.2	mashiur