In my experience, they have nowhere near the range and quality of packaging as Linux distros have. There's just a much larger community for that stuff in Linux than there is for OS X, which focuses less on FOSS.
Yes, you can do all the Linux stuff if you run Linux in a VM. Not the same though as running it directly :) Performance in particular.
> Everything you say about open source, of course, is true, but keep in mind OS X (Darwin) from the knees down is also open source;
Yes, definitely Apple deserves credit for using a FOSS kernel as well as much in userspace - WebKit, LLVM, etc. Still, massive and crucial parts of OS X are proprietary; you aren't allowed to look into those.
> I'm not the OP but in summary, I love both Open Source and the OS X experience, to me it's not an either/or proposition
Of course, I agree completely. As I said above, OS X and Windows are great too, just for different things. Linux wins on hackability, they win on other stuff.
But I can do that with fink or macports too. OS X is almost FreeBSD with a custom UI and kernel. There is almost nothing (except Linux-kernel level stuff like LXC/Docker/cgroups) that I can't do on OS X that can be done on console Linux. If I really need Linux, I have Vagrant and Virtualbox. Same with X11 apps, though they feel pretty clunky on OS X.
But then, I have all the capabilities that are _better_ than the OSS counterparts: Photoshop, Office, Messaging, Netflix, great GUI and media integration.
I'd also suggest that GUI IDEs like those from JetBrains or editors like Sublime Text are pretty sweet relative to a console-centric toolchain (but I can do that too on the Mac).
Everything you say about open source, of course, is true, but keep in mind OS X (Darwin) from the knees down is also open source; most of what you say applies. It's not "open source vs. proprietary", however, as that's a Stallman-esque view of the world that isn't really congruent with the BSD approach.
I'm not the OP but in summary, I love both Open Source and the OS X experience, to me it's not an either/or proposition, which seems more political than practical.