The hardware for Apple software

Apple has chosen not to allow its OS to be installed on regular PCs and has not written Mac OS X drivers for generic PC hardware; as the software creator, they can set restrictions on how their software can be legally used.

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Many things are technically possible. Mac OS X uses the Carnegie Mellon Mach Kernel with FreeBSD UNIX APIs and many of the FreeBSD UNIX utilities, plus a mix of other Open Source UNIX utilities where their license does not conflict with the Mac OS X license.

You mentioned Linux portability. Linux is developed with portability in mind, where often times companies interested in making Linux work on their platform, provide the porting labor.

Apple is only interested in making sure Mac OS X runs on their hardware. And since Apple is a hardware company, that happens to make great software to sell their hardware. Not other people's hardware.

The Mac OS X license under which Apple sells their software, specifies it is licensed to run on Apple hardware. Not someone else's hardware. So if you load Mac OS X on 3rd party hardware, you are in violation of the Mac OS X license.

You also mention Windows. Microsoft started out as a Software company, and make their revenue based on software sales. Windows does not sell for $20, where as Apple gets its money from hardware sales, so Mac OS X is subsidized by the hardware profits.

Basically you are comparing different business models and profit methods, and trying to cherry pick the features from all three to wonder why Apple does not allow you to run Mac OS X on someone else's cheap hardware.

Apple was weeks away from going out of business in the '90s when they licensed their software to run on 3rd party hardware. Read the Steve Jobs biography.

Again, Linux is a non-profit organization. MIcrosoft is a software company. Apple is a hardware company. Undercut Apple's hardware sales and they no longer make a profit.

And since hardware subsidizes the software today, the price increase on the software would be much greater than what you pay for Windows, as Windows has a much larger volume of sales and can develop new versions of Windows with a lower profit margin per sale. Apple does not have that volume of software license sales, so they would have to charge a lot more to survive until the software sales grew enough to make up for lost hardware revenue.

Again again, I point out that it didn't work for Apple in the '90s, and their current business model is making them lots and lots of money, so why would they want to change what works to do something they know doesn't work for them?

Follow the Money!

Apple does not have any problem making money.

If you have a better "Business Plan", take it to the Apple Board of Directors and make your case. Maybe they will make you the CEO and then you can implement your plan.

I suspect that either you were not interested in Apple during the 90's or you were too young, but the people running Apple DO remember and their culture is not going to do what you want unless the money they are currently making dries up.

They are very successful with their current business model. They are not going to change it any time soon.

Windows doesn't run on all hardware platforms. It never ran on the PowerPC for instance. There are a lot of other chip designs then Intel PC chips.

The unix portion of Mac OS X is open source. You can run it on any hardware you wish.

http://www.opensource.apple.com/

Robert

So, Robert, if I am right, there are certain versions of a specific Mac OS that is permitted to be run on non-Apple hardware? Now I did not know that. Thanks for letting me know! 🙂

I think maybe you do not understand the differences between "Darwin" and "Mac OS X"

Darwin (the Unix part of Mac OS X) is open source. The Mac OS X GUI, the part most people associate with Mac OS X is very proprietary.

So installing Darwin on any hardware you like is just like installing Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc... It is just a flavor of Unix, and actually one that does not get as much stand-alone attention as the other platforms.

rccharles wrote:

Windows doesn't run on all hardware platforms. It never ran on the PowerPC for instance.

I ran Windows XP for years on my G4 Macs with Connectix' VirtualPC. Microsoft acquired this software and released an update for the PowerPC G5 CPU.

On a side note, I "extracted" that licensed copy of Windows XP and it is that copy that I have used in Bootcamp and Parallels on my more modern Intel Macs.

Since we're just shooting the breeze and not actually solving a technical question here....

It seems to me that there is a case for  to consider leasing as open source legacy software that would not affect its business model but could generate further revenue. AFAIK, there's no technical reason why Snow Leopard, for example, could not be developed by the open source community to run on the latest Apple hardware.

Where's the profit for apple? There's a lot of people that really don't like the new-fangled OS, but would like to update their hardware. Releasing SL to the open source community costs Apple nothing, and ensures they keep a portion of the market they might loose. They could always insist the App Store has to be part of any distribution, so they'd still get their cut of app sales too.

I know I for one would instantly go back to 10.6 or some version of it if it was compatible with the latest versions of apps I do use. I certainly don't need any of the features in Lion or Mountain Lion (the social, iOS-type features) and OS X has offered me nothing for the last two upgrades other than compatibility for upgraded apps that I was already using.

One drawback to this is that Apple loses control of the hardware/software 'system' which is something they have always wanted very strongly to maintain.

Think about it if SL goes open source you now have tens or dozens of version of SL out there. Some may work fine some may be real crap but to the public its all Apples Snow Leopard on Apple hardware.

Then there is the difficulty of the applications. It's not just the OS. There would be incompatibilities for sure. What version of Finder or Preview or Calendar or Messages (or would you need iCal and iMessages?)

Don't see it happening.

regards

Frank Caggiano wrote:

One drawback to this is that Apple loses control of the hardware/software 'system' which is something they have always wanted very strongly to maintain.

Not "one" drawback, but "THE" drawback.

An interesting intellectual discussion, perhaps; but a time-wasting trip down the yellow brick road to Oz!

My gripe with Apple is that, in a day of near zero expense online-software distribution, Apple's failure to offer some of its legacy software for online sale (such as Leopard, OS 9, etc.) renders its availability on other channels to a more sound "fair use" argument.