Opinion of OS' and the OS war

[Dr. Kraus]

Just typed a huge topic on another fourm having to deal with this. I'll post it here as well!

I'll Start with my view on the OS war of the past 1 1/2 decades.

Yes the OS war is still on, Now with windows 7 released and working very well for everyone Mac (formally known as; Macintosh Computers, Apple Computer Inc.) is going to need to upgrade the MacOS. Currently Mac's made between the years 2000 and now run Mac OSX 10.0-.6 (Chettah-Snow Leopard). In my opinion this shows that Mac OSX was unstable to have this many updates, don't take me wrong, updates to an OS are essential to a nice, clean experience with the user. Microsoft has their service packs, which in opinion, are better then updating the OS piece by piece, like Mac with OSX. Microsoft is very smart in the sense of updates to an OS, over a year or so they compile a list of problems people have had with the OS, they then take that list of problems and fix them, The final product is SP1 or Service Pack 1. Sure a service pack takes more time than what Mac has done the past 10 years but its more efficient in the long run because its simple and makes people happy, "fix the problem with one Nuke than days of carpet bombing." But what Mac is doing has its upsides, such as keeping the community happy with frequent updates than to have them sit and wait for an update. The consumer makes the OS in retrospect (such as the consumer makes the goods). With out the consumer Mac would most likely would have died in '95, the start of the OS war between Apple Computer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Apple tried to kill off Microsoft in late 1994, before Windows 95 could "fight" Apple System 7.0, Apple's OS at the time. "Apple had previously agreed to license certain parts of its GUI to Microsoft for use in Windows 1.0. When Microsoft made changes in Windows 2.0 adding overlapping windows and other features found in the Macintosh GUI, Apple filed suit. Apple added additional claims to the suit when Microsoft released Windows 3.0." Apple argued that the "Look and feel" of System 7.0 was taken and used by Microsoft in the GUI of Windows 1.0,2.0,and then soon 3.0.
"The circuit court dissected the GUI, following the lead of the district court, in order to separate expression from ideas (as expression, but not ideas, are covered by copyright law).[4] The court outlined five ideas that it identified as basic to a GUI desktop: windows, icon images of office items, manipulations of icons, menus, and the opening and closing of objects.[1] The court established that Apple could not make copyright claims based on these ideas and could only make claims on the precise expression of them.
The court also pointed out that many of Apple's claims fail on an originality basis. Apple admittedly borrowed many of its representations from Xerox and IBM and copyright protection only extends to original expression. Apple returned to its "complete look and feel" argument, stating that while the individual components were not original, the complete GUI was. The court rejected these arguments because the parts were not original." With this ruling Apple retreated and allowed Windows to live and create Windows 95 which became "the most successful operating system ever produced."  

I could go on but, that is for another time my children.

Resources:
History of Mac OS
Apple Computer Inc. V. Microsoft Corporation
All about Windows 95

[Aurora Borealis]

Interesting! Didn't know that the Service Pack format of Windows updates have some advantages by fixing many bugs at once! I had thought that due to the rampant security exploits (found in XP especially in its early years), releasing an update only once every year or so wouldn't be good. But it for sure has the advantage to those too lazy to frequently update their software. Yeah, I'm using Mac OSX and haven't been keeping up with the updates.

Apple did nearly meet its demise due to Windows 95, but it wasn't in 1995. Apple was actually doing very well that year, despite Windows 95's quick success. but it was in 1996-98 that Apple became on the brink of disaster. Other things going against Apple at the time included the Mac clones (which were more trouble than they were worth to Apple) and confusing product lines that discouraged buyers.

Ironic that Apple licensing certain parts of their GUI to Microsoft was a major factor in their near demise!

Even though Apple sued Microsoft in 1988 over the GUI disputes, it seems silly in a way since Windows 1.0 and 2.0 didn't even sell well anyways. A minor nitpick, but the current Mac OS version at the time of the 1988 suit was System 4.2.  

On the other hand, Apple successfully sued Digital Research in 1986 since their GEM GUI looked so much like the Macintosh.

But is it because of that 1988 suit against Microsoft why Apple hasn't sued others since then for making Mac-like GUIs?

But I don't think Mac OSX needs to be replaced. It was off to a bad start, but has gotten better and better each release. Even though the OS Wars are still continuing, it's not the curb stomp battle it was in the mid-90's.

Translating this into the OS-tan world, although the Mac-tans and Windows-tans still have their conflicts, they wouldn't be as vicious as they were 15 years ago, and there would even be diplomacy attempts made, with Windows being able to run on Intel Macs, and Microsoft still making its Office suite for Macs.

[Red-Machine]

The OS wars are well and truly over.  Microsoft is firmy secured in its position as the haegemon, anything else is relegated to the enthusiast niche of the market.

However, as history has repeatedly reminded us, it can't last forever.  Microsoft is almost certain to make a mistake at some point from which it will never recover.  Even if A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS! it will not be enough right now because Microsoft is too secure; the OEMs will not give anyone else a chance because Windows is the safe bet and they will not risk losing money in the name of fair play.

[Bella]

I agree with Red-san, the OS wars are done... M$ has secured their monopoly on the personal computer market, Mac will always be the niche computer for those people who dislike Windows/M$/want a good computing experience, and Linux... well, Linux is for the more technically-minded or people who enjoy tinkering with their system. That being said, distros like Ubuntu work pretty much right-out-the-box, but it's still too niche to take on Windows.

I would like to point out something... your assertion that Service Pack updates somehow make a better OS is wrong. Or at least terribly myopic. Service pack updates routinely screwed up my computer (running XP) and caused trouble with software and drivers, while I've had no such problems with OS X. Secondly, OS X  is a Unix. And if history has shown us anything, it's that Unix systems are flexible and withstand theh test of time well. Apple would be insane to abandon a nice BSD-based OS like OS X for some OS built from scratch. Unix is the operating system of mainframes, supercomputers and servers; Windows was, is and always will be the OS of PCs (and the occasional laughable server).

(Keep in mind that I dislike Unix, but even I'll admit it's one of the more "powerful" OSes today.)

[Aurora Borealis]

Oh... Didn't look at it like that.

Even though the OS Wars are over, and Windows still has 90% of the market, The Mac is one of several successful niche systems. Plus the Mac specializes in the graphics and video departments; Unix and Linux have a considerable share of the server market.

[Dr. Kraus]

Thank you all for your posts! I am very happy to be flooded with all of this information! Again, its just my opinion that the OS wars are still on. Hopefully when the tec curve happens the OS war will start using nukes and really get serious!

[PizzaDrill]

Every OS sucks.

[stewartsage]

Except for CP-771.
Finally a reference I get.

[Sora]

As a piece of gaming hardware, I won't be involved in this war.
The iFlames would be too painful.