As someone who lives on linux and has to touch OSX for things like building for iOS devices, I find it really odd that OSX doesnt just solve these problems like all the FOSS distros do. It's insanely odd that Apple gives me a bash shell which is years out of date, and it feels hacky to just use what i want. I know Propietary and free software kinda have a hard time co-existing on operating systems built on free or mostly free software, but if OSX is half free software and its posix compliant, Its hard to believe that apple couldn't give you both propietary software and an easy package system for developers easily.

The sad thing about linux is that as much as I love it and its ecosystem, i cant recommend it to anyone who wants things to "just work":

- X and wayland crash on me all the time on this laptop because of its HiDPI screen and my kinda-works-but-is-wonky fixes to work with multiple monitors.

- Hardware support is the best its ever been, but graphics cards, wifi, exotic devices, laptop power states and embedded devices can still be a pain because manufacturers simply dont care.

- desktop applications can still be a little glitchy, Web browsers work fine, as do first party DE apps, but the more you get away from things which arent in the big name gui toolkits and have custom controls and behaviour, the more problems you seem to run in.

But aside from all that im happy here in ubuntu. When your software library feels as easy as picking a book from a shelf and 90% of the system updates by the update manager and says "hey restart when you feel like it" Im quite comfortable.

GPLv3 appears to be the reason for shipping that ancient version of bash.

If you look Apple ship a modern version of ZSH with their OS, I believe because it isn’t affected by the same potential licensing issues.

But why? That doesn't seem like a rational choice by Apple.

Apple wants to use open source code, but doesn't want to make their proprietary code open or to license patents to anyone who wants to build off of their code.

Ultimately apple will sell developer devices at the price point of their Mac pro devices that come with all the approved tech you are allowed to use to build end user services/apps. In addition to the high purchase price you will have to sign up for a developer account and pay annually.

Everyone else will buy consumer oriented devices that are as open as the ipad.

It's not a bicycle for the mind its a train and if you dress appropriately and pay your fee you may set up a concession stand on the route.