Gentoo vs Snow Leopard: which is better?

[xsilentmurmurx]

Hey everyone.. this thread has probably be made before but, which OS has more strengths than weaknesses: Mac OS Snow Leopard vs Gentoo? Please state the reasons why you believe that one is better than the other...

[GWilliam]

#NULL

[John R. Graham]

Tacos are better.

- John

[aidanjt]

Tacos are better.

I second this notion.

[krinn]

the snow leopard of course : he is faster than a poor penguin (you're speaking on land, because under water it will be the gentoo)

anyway, if they fight, the claw & teeth of the snow leopard and his agility vs an old bird will not gave any chance to gentoo.
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/Research/globec ... gentoo.jpg
http://www.photoethnography.com/blog/im ... rdCubs.jpg (a choose a cubs one, it's cuter)

[disi]

Gentoo is more of a software package construction set.

I love that quote Once you get used to it, you are not really satisfied with other distributions anymore.

[Jaglover]

Tacos are better.

- John

++

[kimmie]

They are simply alternate astral projections of a single higher dimensional being. Beware, lest you invoke his wrath with your grovelling doubt!

Actually, gentoo is far superior because most of your friends and family won't use it. So you can avoid fixing their little problems every second day by claiming you don't know OS X. Or Windows. Or whatever. This is also why ANY phone from 5 years ago is way better then an iPhone.

[Cyker]

the snow leopard of course : he is faster than a poor penguin (you're speaking on land, because under water it will be the gentoo)

anyway, if they fight, the claw & teeth of the snow leopard and his agility vs an old bird will not gave any chance to gentoo.
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/Research/globec ... gentoo.jpg
http://www.photoethnography.com/blog/im ... rdCubs.jpg (a choose a cubs one, it's cuter)

lol

But... not many people know that the Gentoos are friends with a certain gender-confused super cow who will surely squash the snow leopard flat!

[GWilliam]

#NULL

[1clue]

The whole thing.

++

Actually, gentoo is far superior because most of your friends and family won't use it.

++

Actually, I use both. I have a MacBook Pro for work, and an i7 920 for home with Gentoo.

[doctork]

Clearly, Gentoo is superior, because I use it. Can there be any doubt?
--
doc

[Randy Andy]

++

and cause it's free.


Open your mind, open your source!


I will never go back to any prison of mind, if i have the choice.

FOSS for ever.

Regards, Andy.

[1clue]

++

and cause it's free.


Open your mind, open your source!


I will never go back to any prison of mind, if i have the choice.

FOSS for ever.

Regards, Andy.

Dude.

The only real freedom is to have the ability to choose, each time, every time. Free and non-free software can happily coexist, and for most people their experience will be better for it.

Open Source is wonderful because it lets people build what they want, and get what they want without having to justify its marketability. But OS projects are every bit as political or even more so than regular commercial software, and sometimes you just can't submit your fixes back to the main project just because somebody else doesn't like what you did.

If I had ONLY free software I would go nuts. If I had ONLY a mac, I would also go nuts even though a whole lot of OSS is on there. Maintain the balance, dude!

[Shining Arcanine]

++

and cause it's free.


Open your mind, open your source!


I will never go back to any prison of mind, if i have the choice.

FOSS for ever.

Regards, Andy.

Dude.

The only real freedom is to have the ability to choose, each time, every time. Free and non-free software can happily coexist, and for most people their experience will be better for it.

Open Source is wonderful because it lets people build what they want, and get what they want without having to justify its marketability. But OS projects are every bit as political or even more so than regular commercial software, and sometimes you just can't submit your fixes back to the main project just because somebody else doesn't like what you did.

If I had ONLY free software I would go nuts. If I had ONLY a mac, I would also go nuts even though a whole lot of OSS is on there. Maintain the balance, dude!

An issue with reliance on Apple's Mac OS X is that it implements a great deal of propietary APIs on top of UNIX and a combination of Apple's licensing agreement and software dependent on those APIs has the effect of marrying you to Apple's platform. If new hardware debuts tomorrow that is superior, you will be able to neither easily nor legally move to it because you cannot use your essential applications on anything other than an Apple system, because they are tied to the OS and the OS is tied to the hardware. Reliance on Apple OS X only software is the equivalent of handcuffing yourself to a ship and throwing the keys overboard.

[1clue]

An issue with reliance on Apple's Mac OS X is that it implements a great deal of propietary APIs on top of UNIX and a combination of Apple's licensing agreement and software dependent on those APIs has the effect of marrying you to Apple's platform. If new hardware debuts tomorrow that is superior, you will be able to neither easily nor legally move to it because you cannot use your essential applications on anything other than an Apple system, because they are tied to the OS and the OS is tied to the hardware. Reliance on Apple OS X only software is the equivalent of handcuffing yourself to a ship and throwing the keys overboard.

That's only true if you anticipate massively reconfiguring your system after you installed it. Nobody does that in a real business. FWIW, most companies buy hardware, install *software on* it and then leave it that way until it's time to retire it. They run their maintenance, backups and updates, but they design a tool to do a job and then they use it until it's no longer useful. And then they replace it. The old hardware is sold off or scrapped, or MAYBE is turned into some sort of non-critical server. Believe it or not, it's often cheaper to do it that way when you consider that you're paying some guy $60,000 USD a year or better, or even worse you're paying $250 an hour for a consultant to come in and do it. Worst thing of all, using old hardware poses a significant risk of premature hardware failure, and if you don't have a failover you can have 150 people sitting on their thumbs being paid for nothing, and no work getting done so no money coming in to pay for it. All because you wanted to save $1000 by reconfiguring old hardware. The cost of the hardware and the software is minor compared to the money involved in running the business.

And in the exact same way as you mentioned, reliance on only open-source tools can force you to be open source when you would rather go commercial and sell your product -- especially if you're using even one GNU package in a mountain of other less restrictive software. Or, some proprietary format or application which EVERYONE uses, and no OS tool exists for, means you either belly up and get that tool or you don't talk to anyone who uses it. In my case that means I find a different job.

GNU is no more free than Microsoft. In fact I would go so far as to say it's less free. The two licensing models are at opposite extremes. For the most part though, Microsoft licenses tend to try to make you pay for however many copies you want to use, where GNU (maybe I should say RMS/FSF?) tries to keep you from having anything except free software installed on your system, and on any system that computer talks to. If I want to use a piece of Microsoft software in some way that the license terms don't allow, I can at least call Microsoft and tell them the situation, and they might find some way to bill me so it's legal. If you want to use GNU in some way that the license doesn't specifically support, you're just plain out of luck. Better sit down and start writing code to replace it. Or find out if it used to be commercial and go talk to the company who OS'ed it in the first place, see if you can buy a copy of that version.

I don't use OS software because I don't have to pay for it. Quite the contrary, it tends to require a lot more installation time and more regular maintenance time than any commercial system does, which translates to paying several times the price of the commercial software over the life of the system. I use OS as components of a system because, in those particular applications, the OS software is better in some tangible way, and worth the extra work of making it function and making sure all the licenses are hooked together in a legally compatible way.

If you read my previous post, you'll see that I have both a Mac and a Linux box. What I didn't mention is that most of my critical software can run on either. I also didn't mention that one requirement of my job is that my software interfaces and is tested against Microsoft SQL Server and the entire Microsoft business suite, and Business Objects, and Oracle Financials, and JD Edwards. So I also have a couple Microsoft VMware instances on developer licenses for the things I need to test on the fly, and tools to interface with the rest. I not only MUST use non-free software, I MUST use a lot of it. The only way I can change that is by changing my entire career to a completely different industry. My job involves writing software to interface with existing systems. Those systems are almost entirely proprietary. The tools for interfacing with many of them are entirely proprietary.

Badly designed or badly configured free software locks you in just as tight as commercial software. And for all practical purposes, nobody wants to touch something that's in production in any substantial way for fear of breaking it.

Getting back on topic, Mac OS runs a whole lot of the software Linux runs. If you bought a Mac it's because you wanted it, not because what you really wanted was too expensive. You probably wanted it because the UI is the best bar none, right out of the box. There are some really useful tools that don't run on anything else, but in general it's the entire packaging of the UI and whatever tools (many of which are free software) that makes a Mac valuable.

*Edited for clarity*

[cach0rr0]

especially if you're using even one GNU package in a mountain of other less restrictive software.

huh? Heaps of people include GPL'd software in their proprietary apps. They have to offer up any mods willingly, as well offer up the exact source used, but the above seems to intimate that proprietary apps cannot include any GPL code anywhere, full stop. Which isn't the case. Bundle your ThirdPartySoftware.txt with the installer, and you're done.

where GNU (maybe I should say RMS/FSF?) tries to keep you from having anything except free software installed on your system, and on any system that computer talks to.

The dream behind the license maybe, but the letter of it no

If I want to use a piece of Microsoft software in some way that the license terms don't allow, I can at least call Microsoft and tell them the situation, and they might find some way to bill me so it's legal. If you want to use GNU in some way that the license doesn't specifically support, you're just plain out of luck.

Real world example of "some way" ? Again, all you have to do is share modifications made to a GPL'd app. You don't have to open source your entire project.

Better sit down and start writing code to replace it. Or find out if it used to be commercial and go talk to the company who OS'ed it in the first place, see if you can buy a copy of that version.

Or just include your ThirdPartySoftware.txt.

If you read my previous post, you'll see that I have both a Mac and a Linux box. What I didn't mention is that most of my critical software can run on either. I also didn't mention that one requirement of my job is that my software interfaces and is tested against Microsoft SQL Server and the entire Microsoft business suite, and Business Objects, and Oracle Financials, and JD Edwards. So I also have a couple Microsoft VMware instances on developer licenses for the things I need to test on the fly, and tools to interface with the rest. I not only MUST use non-free software, I MUST use a lot of it. The only way I can change that is by changing my entire career to a completely different industry. My job involves writing software to interface with existing systems. Those systems are almost entirely proprietary. The tools for interfacing with many of them are entirely proprietary.

FUD. Again, nothing in the various permutations of the GPL restricts you from using covered software in conjunction with proprietary software, or software under any other license. It affects only redistribution constraints - which again are pretty much nothing beyond, offer the source of the GPL'd app, offer the source of any modifications made to said GPL'd app.

You probably wanted it because the UI is the best bar none, right out of the box.

And now we've fallen way into the realm of the subjective. OS X and I divorced after a month. I spent the better part of the last decade or thereabouts working for a software vendor that produced exclusively Windows software (that had to interface with too many offerings from MS to list - and of the worst non-MS, fuck me Crystal Reports is gobshite...anyway). My transition from Windows to the various Linux DE's and WM's was seamless - no need to re-learn everything, everything was laid out in an intuitive enough fashion that I could pick it up with minimal effort.

Then came a contract job where I was stuck with a Mac Mini as the corp machine. Took a month before I have another OS running full screen under Fusion. I found the UI on OS X to be a haphazard, unintuitive pile of feces.

I then moved to a new company, same industry, commercial software for Linux and Solaris. And what do you reckon, going back to a Linux DE took zero adjustment whatsoever.

Defence of a Mac == Choice-supportive bias. There are a few legitimate reasons to fork over the cash for a machine whose PC spec equivalent costs half at most - but more often than not the defence of Macs is done because people want to believe they haven't wasted their money. That or they need some external justification for wearing turtlenecks and berets out in public.

[John R. Graham]

...
Real world example of "some way" ? Again, all you have to do is share modifications made to a GPL'd app. You don't have to open source your entire project.
...

Statically link your proprietary app against any GPL or LGPL code and technically you are forced to release the entire app under a compatible license. I've been participating in GPL compliance audits for Cisco and this is their interpretation of the GPL.

The insidious part is not the large libraries, which can generally be dynamically linked and, if they are licensed under the LGPL, merely require an acknowledgment, as you stated. No, the dangerous case is the programmer than innocently and ignorantly includes some GPL licensed code within his company's proprietary source code. This triggers one of the so-called viral GPL events where the entire proprietary code base linked with the GPL fragment legally becomes licensed under the GPL.

- John

[Shining Arcanine]

...
Real world example of "some way" ? Again, all you have to do is share modifications made to a GPL'd app. You don't have to open source your entire project.
...

Statically link your proprietary app against any GPL or LGPL code and technically you are forced to release the entire app under a compatible license. I've been participating in GPL compliance audits for Cisco and this is their interpretation of the GPL.

The insidious part is not the large libraries, which can generally be dynamically linked and, if they are licensed under the LGPL, merely require an acknowledgment, as you stated. No, the dangerous case is the programmer than innocently and ignorantly includes some GPL licensed code within his company's proprietary source code. This triggers one of the so-called viral GPL events where the entire proprietary code base linked with the GPL fragment legally becomes licensed under the GPL.

- John

You need to distribute it outside your organization for that to happen and I suppose that it is possible to fix it by replacing the GPL code with non-GPL code if there is a mistake.

[1clue]

That's also the position IBM took when I worked there. Which coincides with their adoption of Linux everywhere. No static linking to GPL from commercial software.

And yes, I make commercial software for third parties.

Fortunately enough, pretty much any GPL library has a close-to-standard API if it doesn't exactly adhere to a standard. We can make our core code reference a standard, then either make a wrapper for the GPL version so they can be hooked in, or enable our software to detect the variations and take them into account. PITA.

Sorry about the book up there. For the record, I DON'T want this to turn into a war. I get seriously bent when people think that extremists are the salvation of mankind. And that goes for ANY type of extremist. Just in computing, you have not only RMS but Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. I'm sure others could submit more names.

It takes all kinds to make the world go around. If a completely free environment works for you, then by all means set yourself up that way. If you want to use recycled junk then be my guest. I got some for you that's just sitting around. Just keep in mind that commercial interests fund and write a huge amount of OS software, and if they couldn't use it then chances are they wouldn't fund it or write it. To bash a distro because they allow use of non-free software is to bite the hand that feeds you. Apple has done things its own way as usual, but it HAS contributed back to the OS pool both financially and with code. I don't like Steve Jobs any more than I like RMS or Bill Gates, but he follows the rules reasonably closely. Edit: Including X in the base OS goes a long way. Lots of OS software compiles and runs fine on Macs, without needing any proprietary code that didn't come with the OS.

My company used Windows and Linux on the desktop for most of my first 10 years here. Then somebody got a mac and his productivity went way up. We all started looking, and now we all use Macs. We all love them. Not a huge company, but there were some pretty hardcore enthusiasts for the other brands. I was a dyed in the wool Linux user. Now I like both, for different reasons. I don't want to give either one up, and I don't have to.

But to make the assumption that the price tag has anything at all to do with choosing Open Source is to guess wrong for just about any sizable business out there. Linux and OS are pervasive in many large organizations, but there is a certain amount of care that must be taken to follow the rules. The fact that so many large companies use OS software in spite of the extra legal loopholes means that there are some very good tools out there. You guys all know that, but you may not think from the perspective of a large for-profit organization.

[Ormaaj]

You need to distribute it outside your organization for that to happen

I don't think that's technically true. Any individual should have the right to redistribute to anyone the source of any software that gets sucked into the GPL even from within an organization and perhaps even under an NDA. I would think that NDAs are fundamentally incompatable with the GPL because it concerns universal individual rights and never those specific to a group.

You'd lose your job for sure but it's still an interesting legal question. I wonder if its ever been tested in court and/or who would win out in a battle between NDA and GPL with regards to software that's exclusively for internal use.

I get seriously bent when people think that extremists are the salvation of mankind.

I too tend to take the middle ground - tending towards freedom but there are exceptions. I can largely identify with Stallmanesqe philosophy. Software freedom is important and always a goal, but I think we need to work more on identifying which types of software are especially detrimental to freedom and which are not. Two Adobe examples - Flash and Photoshop. The former is a proprietary reference implementation of a nearly ubiquitous technology with no on-par alternatives. It is ridiculously damaging and it's continued support is dependent upon the commercial interests of a single company with few obligations.

Photoshop on the other hand, while proprietary and ubiquitous, is not especially harmful. It is a top-level application, not a platform that is depended upon by everyone and everything. It's development doesn't really hamper the development GIMP. It isn't a standard or reference implementation of anything. If Photoshop disappeared tomorrow it would not screw over the entire computer-using populous. I would say that overall the existence of Photoshop does more good than harm, and while it's users accept sacrificing some freedom, they are not necessarily imposing that sacrifice upon others - a very important distinction.

Unfortunately, a lot of the serious, professional-grade, domain-specific, high-level application software missing from the Linux platform is of this second category, and I think people ought to have the freedom to use it if they choose.

To bash a distro because they allow use of non-free software is to bite the hand that feeds you.

Completely agree! The notion of restricting freedom in the interest of freedom is laughably absurd.

[krinn]

But... not many people know that the Gentoos are friends with a certain gender-confused super cow who will surely squash the snow leopard flat!

Sarah palin, she's friend with gentoos ?

[d2_racing]

haha

[kernelOfTruth]

But... not many people know that the Gentoos are friends with a certain gender-confused super cow who will surely squash the snow leopard flat!

Sarah palin, she's friend with gentoos ?

[1clue]

You need to distribute it outside your organization for that to happen

I don't think that's technically true. Any individual should have the right to redistribute to anyone the source of any software that gets sucked into the GPL even from within an organization and perhaps even under an NDA. I would think that NDAs are fundamentally incompatable with the GPL because it concerns universal individual rights and never those specific to a group.

You'd lose your job for sure but it's still an interesting legal question. I wonder if its ever been tested in court and/or who would win out in a battle between NDA and GPL with regards to software that's exclusively for internal use.

This is a really interesting question. While I'm not certain at all what the technically legal answer is, I can guess that there is a massive amount of internal-only software out there which uses GPL software in ways that would definitely be in violation were it to be released to the public.

Were there to be a court ruling that internal-only software were also bound by that point, then I think the result would be that the door would slam on any open-source software being used by any commercial interest at all. The boards of every company would freak, the lawyers would freak and some sort of audit would happen barring any OS software at all, no matter how strict or relaxed its licensing model.

Considering how much OS software was either contributed by or funded by commercial interest, I doubt that result would be advantageous to anyone at all. Even, I might be so bold to say, RMS and FSF. Even before RedHat did its thing and free software came into the public eye, IT professionals have been using free software in critical components throughout nearly every company, whether their management knew anything about it or not. They could get away with it since there probably were no rules one way or the other at that time. But if somebody near the top hears about an unpleasant ruling and creates the sort of rule we all know would be created, all that would need to be replaced by non-free software.

I get seriously bent when people think that extremists are the salvation of mankind.

I too tend to take the middle ground - tending towards freedom but there are exceptions. I can largely identify with Stallmanesqe philosophy. Software freedom is important and always a goal, but I think we need to work more on identifying which types of software are especially detrimental to freedom and which are not. Two Adobe examples - Flash and Photoshop. The former is a proprietary reference implementation of a nearly ubiquitous technology with no on-par alternatives. It is ridiculously damaging and it's continued support is dependent upon the commercial interests of a single company with few obligations.

Photoshop on the other hand, while proprietary and ubiquitous, is not especially harmful. It is a top-level application, not a platform that is depended upon by everyone and everything. It's development doesn't really hamper the development GIMP. It isn't a standard or reference implementation of anything. If Photoshop disappeared tomorrow it would not screw over the entire computer-using populous. I would say that overall the existence of Photoshop does more good than harm, and while it's users accept sacrificing some freedom, they are not necessarily imposing that sacrifice upon others - a very important distinction.

Unfortunately, a lot of the serious, professional-grade, domain-specific, high-level application software missing from the Linux platform is of this second category, and I think people ought to have the freedom to use it if they choose.

The basic dream that there would always be a choice for any type of software, with a free alternative for any application, is great. In reality though, as you pointed out, not only is there often no FREE alternative, but in some cases there isn't even a commercial one. Flash is and has always been a buggy, poorly written piece of junk with infinite security holes. But it works, and EVERYONE uses it. And there are no seriously competing products.

RMS and FSF's enthusiasm for free software is probably what caused Linux and other free operating systems to be functional enough to use. But they go way too far.

To bash a distro because they allow use of non-free software is to bite the hand that feeds you.

Completely agree! The notion of restricting freedom in the interest of freedom is laughably absurd.