Re: [LUG] [Fwd: Web perils advise switch to Macs]

Ben Goodger wrote:
> On 05/07/06, *Rob Beard* <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
>     Ben Goodger wrote:
>     > On 05/07/06, *Julian Hall* <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>     <mailto:lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>     > <mailto: lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
>     >
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>     >     Hash: SHA1
>     >
>     >     http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5150508.stm
>     >
>     >     Ummmm Macs aren't the only option are they? :)
>     >
>     >
>     > <bbc> What you're forgetting is that Linux is not used by anyone
>     > except uber-geeks, and for that reason it's fine to ignore it
>     utterly,
>     > even down to using Realplayer for streaming media.</bbc>
>     >
>     > No, they're not, but for the average UK tv-license-payer, you
>     mustn't
>     > forget that Windows is a part of the computer, as is AOL. A Mac
>     is the
>     > only even vaguely applicable alternative for them ("what's this
>     > colonel thing?!")
>     > But meh: Mac == BSD == UNIX =~ Linux, so what's the big deal? The
>     > point is to leave Windows - for all Sophos cares, we could probably
>     > put people on ERNIE-2 dumb terminals...
>
>     ("what's this colonel thing?!") = The guy who knows what the secret
>     herbs & spices are for a certain brand of fried chicken :-)
>
>     Mac == BSD == UNIX =~ Linux - Well not far off.  I think the big
>     differences would be the licence and freedoms.  I don't see Apple
>     giving
>     away the source code for all their nice GUI features, or allowing
>     anyone
>     to port/run MacOS X on any hardware.
>
>
> You can run Mac OS X on any hardware, there's a procedure for doing it
> somewhere...
> The freedoms are largely immaterial from a security standpoint,
> particularly since all of the essential bits of those OSes (I was
> using UNIX to refer to a type of OS , e.g. "windows, mac os 9, unix")
> are open-source/free.
Well you say ANY hardware but I wasn't aware you could run OS X on a Sun
UltraSparc box which you can with Linux.  ;-)

Of course the underlying parts (Darwin) are open source (under a BSD
licence?) but the nice gui isn't though is it.  Not to mention Apple
aren't too happy with people running MacOS X on non-Apple branded
x86-compatible hardware even though it is possible.

It's possible to get the shiney GUI if you have an OS X cd, as far as I recall.