OS X achieved greater success than Linux

Wired magazine recently published an article named Clint Finley (Klint Finley) explaining how Apple "killed" the Linux desktop. The article points out that the real reason for Linux failure is that developers are turning to OS X, and the reason for this is that the toolkit used to develop Linux applications is not doing well enough to ensure backwards compatibility between different versions of the application Interface (API). More importantly, developers are turning to the web for development work.

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It's hard to say exactly what percentage of the total number of desktops and notebooks running the Apple OS X system It is clear, however, that the operating system has achieved slow but steady growth, eating 1.1 of the absolute lead that Microsoft built with its windows in the 1990s. Some people point out that desktops running Apple OS X have a market share of 6% to 7%.

But one thing is for sure, OS X has been a lot more successful than Linux, which is an open-source operating system that has built its own "home" in the Data Center server area, but is still missing in the desktop and notebook world. Last year may have witnessed a big increase in Linux, but the operating system still failed to grow as much as OS X and failed to achieve the growth that Linux supporters have long hoped for.

Why does this happen? Miguel de Icaza--linux desktop environment Gnome was one of the original creators, the desktop environment has been unable to stabilize their status-that is likely to upgrade Linux to a new height of most software developers have "mutiny" to other platforms, including Apple OS X, But more importantly, these developers are turning to the web for development work.

Some might argue that Linux has been slow in the desktop market because of the lack of integrity of the desktop user interface used by the major Linux operating systems. Many Linux geeks were disappointed in 2010 when Linux developer Canonical announced that it would replace the GNOME desktop environment with a self-developed unity environment in the desktop-based Linux operating system Ubuntu. But many people are dissatisfied with the direction of Gnome's development, including Linux founder Linas Tovoz Linus Torvalds, who published an article on Google Plus last year.

Tovoz has turned to Xfce, the original creation of the desktop environment as an alternative to the dominant GNOME and KDE environments. Ubuntu Studio, which focuses on audio and video content, has already completed a transition to Xfce last month, and earlier this month Debian abandoned using GNOME as its default desktop environment and replaced it with XFCE.

But de Icaza points out that Linux had lost to OS X in the desktop market before the latest changes began. The real reason for Linux's failure, he argues, is that developers are turning to OS X, and driving them to do so is that the toolkit used to develop Linux applications is not doing well enough to ensure backwards compatibility between different versions of the application interface (APIs). "For many years, we've been cracking down on code that people develop. "he said. "OS x does better in this area, ensuring backward compatibility." ”

But at the same time, development efforts are turning to the web. The importance of open source on the desktop has dropped dramatically compared to open source on the server. The need to develop local applications is weakening; At the same time, OX X provides a good, Unix-like environment that allows programmers to work on Macs and then deploy them to a Linux server.

The net is the real boom in open source, even Microsoft CEO Ballmer Steve Ballmer admits that Windows is losing Linux in the Web server market. Even if you don't have a single open source application installed on your laptop, you'll probably be enjoying a wide range of Open-source services, including Apache and Nginx Web servers, and programming languages and architectures like PHP and Ruby on Rails, as long as you're using the Web. They all run on an open source operating system. The latest developments in the field of Web technology-from cloud computing to large data-are based on open source technologies such as Apache Hadoop, MongoDB, and Xen hypervisor.

Open source provides support for the server side of the network, but does not guarantee the openness of the client, which is what open source advocacy organizations are currently focusing on, even if they are already starting to use Macs. "A lot of people have been talking about free software, and today they're talking about open networks," he said. De Icaza said.

Stomy Pites (Stormy Peters), a former executive director of the Gnome Foundation, has served on the foundation's board as de Icaza. But as the Web site and developer affairs director of the Mozilla Foundation (Mozilla Foundation), her focus is now on open networks. "My personal reason for working for the Mozilla Foundation is that I see a lot of websites that don't work on the principles of free software," he said. "she said. She points out that with the help of Ajax and HTML5, the network has become a dominant application platform.

How can the principles of freeware apply to the Web? One of the most important assets of open source software, Peters points out, is that you-or someone you trust-can view the source code of an application and see what the application is doing. One way to bring this degree of insight to the network is to help users control their data and how the Web application uses that data. This is the goal of the Mozilla identity team, which works in Mozilla persona, a browser-based authentication system.

Another major change that has taken place since the beginning of the Linux desktop was the rise of mobile networks. "A large part of the world will experience the internet for the first time through mobile devices," he said. "Peters said. Based on this, Mozilla is working to develop its boot to gecko open source mobile operating system, but perhaps more importantly, Mozilla Marketplace. These apps will run anywhere in the Firefox web browser.

Mozilla developers also make de Icaza concerned about the heart. Since 2001, he has been working on the development of Moon, an Open-source architecture that runs Microsoft. NET language on non-Microsoft operating systems such as Linux and OS X. Now, the project is also on the Android and iOS platforms.

At the same time, GNOME and Linux desktops are still slowly moving forward. GNOME 3.6 has been launched and is dedicated to improving the developer experience.