"If it was as easy to apt-get some package on to the mac" / "The initial hurdle to deployment is the hard one"

Far easier for the vast majority of users already. Download, move to Applications, done. Automatic updating via Sparkle. It ain't exactly rocket surgery.

As far as typical unixy tools, homebrew (http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew) does a pretty fantastic job.

I've installed some non-standard packages on the Mac and it was pretty tricky.

Not exactly 'move to applications'. And if some package is only available in source you're really in for a rough ride.

It's been a while though (about 2 years), possibly it's much easier now than it was then.

I use my mac so little now I've borrowed it to a friend here that does design. Too bad in a way because I really like the machine, it's so quiet compared to the pcs I use.

Well, that's exactly the thing... There's a vast difference between installing some library for a programming language versus an application that John Q. Enduser wants to use.

As far as installing things from source that also has improved greatly in the last two years as well, so there's that.

But in general I'd say the user experience when installing applications on the mac is certainly miles ahead of the way Windows typically works, and arguably better then even Linux (Ubuntu or similar) with the gui frontend to apt-get.

How do people find stuff ? Is there a repository of sorts ?

Well, there's http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/

Versiontracker.com and Macupdate.com are the two big ones for the Mac.

I certainly hope you're wrong. Writing software is one of the few things left that a normal working person can get into and become financially independant.

Personally I expect to just see the prices of software to come down on Mac and Windows but start charging on Linux if more people start using it. A couple of bucks is no big deal if the software is easy to buy.

One of the bigger drawbacks to the whole open source movement was the inroads that it made on -surprise- people like me that made a good living selling software they wrote.

For every package on the windows platform there were suddenly 3 or more competitors available, 90% feature complete in a race to the bottom for marketshare, which they all got and then suddenly figured out they had to make money somehow.

And then they imploded, but the damage to the market was done, everybody expected 'free'.

Apple has bucked that trend to some extent, but I don't think this was a reversible process, all software, including operating systems and so on, with the exception of niche code and in-house software for deployment in a company, some firmware or as a back-end for a service will be free. And even some of the latter will be free (see 'reddit').

So, I changed tack, way ahead of the pack I aimed at a service driven income stream rather than selling bits of software.

My then partner Michael saw it coming with great clarity and together with another guy called Paul (who was founder of one of the first ISPs in NL) they changed my future in a fairly dramatic way.

So if you haven't seen the elephant yet, maybe you need a higher ladder, but he's coming for sure. None of the 'old' ways of making money can be taken for granted. Read 'being digital' by Nicholas Negroponte if this hasn't convinced you.

It's old (by internet standards) but it is in many ways a visionary book. Far more so than Gates' 'the road ahead'.

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure it will play out exactly that way. So many movies/songs were being copied that some people were speculating that no one would be willing to pay for movies/songs at some point.

Then iTunes came along and showed that actually people just wanted (a) to not pay such a rediculous amount and (b) to be able to conveniently get the product. $15 for a CD that has just one song I want? Nah, I'll just download it. $1 for exactly the song I want and I don't have to mess around with torrents and shady software and sites? Done deal.

What used to be around that a normal working person could become financially independent from but can't anymore?

Fair point. "financially independant" wasn't the proper phrase. I meant being able to have a good middle class, or better life without punching a clock for someone else. I resist anything that would mean our only asperations can be (a) be the next google or (b) sit at a desk in a sykscraper hammering a keyboard.

I find apt-get harder to use than macports though the packages are usually more uptodate.