11 Aug
2007
11 Aug
'07
1:23 p.m.
Another stupid question (forgive me, I am woefully
ignorant about
present-day "state of the Mac" issues:
If OS X is really Unix under the hood, then why do
vendors of several
of my high-end applications that are offered in Windoze and OS X
versions all say "We have no plans for a Linux version"? It would
seem to be a pretty easy thing to do.
I don't *know*, of course, since I have no inside information about any
such vendors. But some plausible answers come to mind:
(1) Because "high-end" applications usually depend on a lot more than
just the "Unix" in OS X. They typically depend on Aqua as well (that's
the fancy - and closed, and proprietary - GUI layer). Porting them
(too often, this really means rewriting them) for Linux is likely to be
difficult, especially since "Linux" is not a single thing when it comes
to higher-end graphics - there's far more variability in graphics
hardware under Linux than across the entire OSX-supporting Mac line.
(2) Because a substantial part of the cost, to the vendor, of a Linux
version is in not the creating of it, but the customer support for it.
(3) Because they have limited resources and have chosen to invest them
in the Windows and Mac versions, expecting higher ROI there.
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