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To: Artslaw who wrote (31968)	1/22/2002 1:28:49 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 213176

>>I don't mean to be picky, but you guys understand that FreeBSD (upon which OS X is based) is not the same thing as Linux? They are both unix variants, but have completely different development teams/histories/etc.<< Steven - Yes, of course I understand that FreeBSD UNIX is not the same thing as Linux. Linux isn't even really UNIX, since Linus Torvalds started from scratch and wrote his own kernel lo these many years ago. It is also true that Linux is so much like FreeBSD that many programs that run on Linux will also run on FreeBSD, with a little tweaking. My point may not have been clear. I don't expect Linux users to all run out and buy Macs with OS X. My point was that a lot of people who have been developing for Linux could easily target the OS X market, thus broadening their markets and adding to the variety of software available for Macs. The serious UNIX and Linux geeks I know are, in fact, quite taken with OS X. They'd rather get a Mac and make it into a dual-boot Linux box than start with a Windows machine. If they want to run on Intel, they just build their own machine and don't even bother with Windows, although sometimes they do run Windows using VMWare, inside of Linux. By the way, I also know guys who are totally into FreeBSD, and have never cared about Linux at all. - Allen

To: Artslaw who wrote (31968)	1/22/2002 5:41:46 PM
From: nommedeguerre	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213176

Steve, "but you guys understand that FreeBSD is not the same thing as Linux?" We are running simulation software,etc. on Linux right now that was written for other Unix variants, with nothing more than a recompile with different system libraries. What difficulties do you know of that would prohibit porting Linux apps to BSD? Nearly all of the guts of our software is console window based, using Java, Qt, Tk for any graphical interfaces. These have proven to be highly portable apps, running on Windows sometimes. Most of the modern "Linux crowd" I know are Unix people who have installed Linux as a way to run Unix on their PC's. They were already familiar with Unix beforehand and write very little software which is not written with C++,C, perl, tcl/tk, Java, etc. Most are tired of Windows and are all getting tired of fighting with PC's and dual-boot configuration administration. MacOS X offers the potential to run popular Mac software and Unix-based software without the dual-boot aspect. A turn-key solution that many people are interested in. The hardcore Linux people are still Linux people but many others are actually Unix-people who will write/port code on any Unix machine with the same enthusiasm. Cheers, Norm