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A comment on Mac Versus PC Debate Has Never Been Clearer . Parent comment

Re:Mac Versus PC Debate Has Never Been Clearer by jcromartie on Thursday July 23, 2009 @04:32PM (#720296)
That's not to say someone couldn't come along and do with Linux what Apple did with Mach/BSD/NeXT. A focused Linux-based OS with a seamless new UI and app suite (and good APIs) could be great. In fact, that's one of the things that I like about the Chrome OS idea, no matter how silly it might seem to just throw Chrome on a "bag of drivers."

The problem, of course, is the effort. Software is hard.

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Re:Mac Versus PC Debate Has Never Been Clearer by rythie on Thursday July 23, 2009 @05:01PM (#720351)
Apple basically started from scratch in 2002. A big company with a strong consumer brand, proven track record and lots of cash could do it. Google is such a company. Especially coupled with a paradine shift to web apps and a clear revenue model as a result. I wrote about this here: http://blog.richardcunningham.co.uk/2009/07/what-googles-chr...
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Re:Mac Versus PC Debate Has Never Been Clearer by ZeroGravitas on Friday July 24, 2009 @06:07AM (#721224)
Apple did not start from scratch in 2002.

Mac OS X got it's first (server) release in 1999. And even that was a reboot of Nextstep which was originally released in 1989.

Of course, the whole point of Chrome OS is (apparently) to not have a traditional GUI and apps, just a browser, which is most of the stuff Apple had to add onto BSD.

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Re:Mac Versus PC Debate Has Never Been Clearer by rythie on Saturday July 25, 2009 @11:18AM (#723337)
Agreed.

I meant my comment in the context of the message I replied to. In that in 2002 they first tried to push a new OS to the desktop market as it was then. From what I heard about it, nextstep was not anymore advanced compared to the rest of the market than Linux/Ubuntu/Gnome is now to it's market.

I don't believe any company could afford to start back right down to the kernel and low level libraries for a new desktop OS, even it was just going to run a web browser. I would say that any competitor to Apple and Microsoft would have to use a Linux kernel, CUPS etc. as a base - just as OS X used NextStep/BSD as base.

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