Will Linux finish off the Mac 3139

Indeed. I was at the PostgreSQL "Slony-II Summit" not long ago where a bunch of the "Core" developers and other parties interested in multimaster database replication were hammering out frightening layers of details. There were more MacOS laptops than anything else, which frankly surprised everyone.

Indeed. In the "world view" where the point of having X is the capability to: a) Have 6 xterms, b) Have a couple virtual desktops c) Run a web browser,

Safari plus a terminal app is as much "GUI" as they really needed.

I'm getting way increasingly convinced that MacOS is the solution to suggest to computer novices. They'll have enough of the apps they need, run them atop a reasonably stable form of Unix, and be able to avoid the mbuttive Windows(tm) troubles.

A friend who's neither stupid nor an expert applied a whole barrel of "Windows Updates(tm)" last week and discovered it busted a bunch of her applications. I don't expect the same instability with MacOS...

I agree. It seems to me that there are enough possibilities of mutual benefit to make them less adversarial with one another than they are with Windows(tm). -- "Tom Christiansen asked me, "Chip, is there anything that you like that isn't big and complicated?" C++, EMACS, Perl, Unix, English-no, I guess not." -- Chip Salzenberg, when commenting on Perl6-C++