Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Balance of [platform] Power, and chaos theory
Author: Jim Roepcke Posted: 1/7/1999; 10:03:53 AM Topic: How Frontier Changed My Life Msg #: 1876 (In response to 1875) Prev/Next: 1875 / 1877
Dave Winer said:Now, in your position, even this might be a good thing, why should you care what bits appear on all the desktops? Maybe I shouldn't care either. I just don't think the Mac is a very open platform for software developers. Or it's too subject to the whims of the platform vendor. Maybe you could say the same thing about Frontier. Who knows.
Very recently you said you were happy to be on both platforms because that meant Microsoft didn't own you, and neither did Apple.
I don't know if you've considered this before, but part of my reason for using Frontier is because:
1) You're not Microsoft or Apple. I don't want either of them to control me either, any more than they already do.
2) The ODB is very open, so if you want to break something, I can probably fix it. That's good protection for me and all your customers.
I think we're seeing Apple become more open. Licensing OpenGL for the MacOS is a step in the right direction. It's a lot safer to code for OpenGL than QuickDraw 3D which Apple could kill at any time.
Dave said:
Let's get our jobs done. I won't worry too much about the Mac, and hope for the best.
Something else to consider is that Apple's obviously got the weaker hand right now, and if Apple loses too much influence, your "No-one owns me cause I'm cross-platform" protection is kaput. So, from where I'm sitting it seems to me it's in your interest to have balance of power... stay balanced.
To me, that means supporting Apple's zigs and zags where appropriate -- if they get MacOS X right, you won't have to rely on NT for your customers who want to run scalable Frontier servers... so for example, a carbon compatible Frontier that screams like a banshee on OS X helps you keep that balance steady in your sphere of influence.
The little things make a difference... it's chaos theory.
Don't assume Apple can keep the balance of power steady all by themselves... We've seen the result of that before. ;-)
Jim
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