At 13:16 +0200 on 14/12/2002, Max K. wrote:
Actually, it is said to be something between FreeBSD and NetBSD...i hope you know that Apple's Mac OS 10 (or OS X) - is FreeBSD kernel with some additions...
Anyway, this connects to the thread about professional maintenance of backwards compatibility. MacOS has maintained backward compatibility in an admirable fashion. I still have applications on my Mac which date back to 1988, and still work.
But they did improve the system all the time. At the time those applications were made, the system didn't have threads or even virtual memory. Moreover, it was based on the old Motorola architecture.
They made the transition to RISC in such a smooth fashion that you didn't hear a creak. They are now making the transition to MacOS X with as much smoothness - by running the old system within the new system so that users are not lost. And all the time they keep improving the system, adding new memory management, filesystems, and so on.
Point being - since I'm sure my lecture is not easy on the ears of the free-software junkies, MacOS being a proprietary piece of software (with all the drawbacks) - you can be both professional in maintaining your user base and not breaking their work at every stem, and keep innovating and advancing, and even take serious steps when the old technology becomes untenable (move to RISC, change to a unix core).
If either FreeBSD or Linux learn from this example, they'll take the lead. Maybe this is why efforts such as CrossoverOffice are important.
Herouth
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