Licensing OSX

I think that apple should start allowing other companies to use osx i know it would allow in more viruses, but thats the one thing that makes me not want to use a mac, that you only have the MB and MBP not hp's or dells or ibms etc. etc. Just an open discussion for thoughts on this.

 

It's a bad idea for Apple as a business. They have a vertical market. If they license out their OS, they become a direct competitor for Microsoft, which will bury them, as well as losing control over the hardware. As it is now, they have full control over the OSX experience, whereas they can't be sure what hardware it will run on "in the wild", which could really negatively affect them in word-of-mouth.

 

definitely... this will become more and more of a problem as things like Core Animation come into their own. They really need to be able to control what kind of hardware is out there running their software.

Further, they would run into some of the same problems that Linux runs into with regards to companies not wishing to release drivers for their software.

Anyway, it would be cool, but it ain't gonna happen.

 

I guess i just wish they could have more configs and more styles.......but still there stuff kicks ass i just think they need a 12" MBP and maybe a 13/14/15 incher with a midline graphics card, so if you want some decent gaming with a mac you dont have to buy an MBP......

 

It won't necesarily open them up to viruses. remember, it's unix based. *nix systems are very secure. How many viruses have you seen for unix and linux?
And Unix is the leading OS for servers (or at least, has a damn big share).
They don't need to license out their OS for companies to build hardware for it. Granted, they may have to let mobo makers into the OS more than they would like, but they wouldn't need to do that for video cards and sound card. They just develop via APIs.

I do wish that mac had a lower range product similar to the mac pro. I probably will buy a mac pro in a year or so, but I don't want/need Xeon processors. I'd rather have a single dual/quad core and be able to run 2 video cards in SLI if I chose.

I agree. a 12" MBP, or even a MB with a 15.5" MB would be great. I'd take a 15" MB!

 

you can build a hackintosh using jas/a developer build of os-x. not 100% as it runs the hacked 104.4 kernel with the 10.4.8/10.4.9 framework, but it works.
the only way to build the system you want if apple does not sell one, minus the legalities of course... if they ever break that trusted efi bios thing of apples and emulate it, the way they emulate the oem bios for vist activation, will be a whole new ball game.

http://www.osx86project.org/ info here

their insanelymac forum is great though for tech problems, even on real macs.

figured out how to get final edit pro to work on a computer with intel gma video (non-power book/mac) by simply moding 1 file. my buddy is editing on a cheapy macbook with a ram upgrade now, no problem.

 

Well, that's not legal, so it really shouldn't be suggested and technically isn't good to discuss here. But forgetting that, it's not easy either. I think that many people on the Apple board here would barely find it worth it, especially considering that it's hard to find a notebook where everything will work well, and at the end of the day, it's still not a Mac. You're always going to have problems, thus defeating the purpose of OS X's philosophy of "just works."