weblog.infoworld.com — OS X's commercial credentials recently got a major boost from the Open Group. Thanks to the efforts of Apple's OS boss Kevin Van Vechten and his team, Leopard has cleared all of the hurdles required to attain UNIX 03 certification. That places Apple in elite company. Only Sun, IBM and HP are certified, so OS X turns the Big Three into the Big Four.
Jul 31, 2007 View in Crawl 4
vitriolandangstAug 1, 2007
It probably means more for Government and security conscious Financial Institutions who need these certifications.
balancedAug 1, 2007
There is a big difference between "No support" and "No new product certification."I think it's safe to assume that achieving this certification took a great deal of time and, thus, money. Certifying a platform Apple no longer sells is kind of pointless.A similar example would be RAM. Historically, many Macs have had a RAM ceiling in the specs that is simply what was reasonably available (I.E. only an arm and a leg, not a whole basket of limbs) when the machine was created. This number is not revised as larger capacity RAM modules become available, but the modules still work just fine.
macparrotAug 1, 2007
I've known for a long time that naio was certifiable
saifatlastAug 1, 2007
You're ...? annoying.
mistafreezeAug 1, 2007
The people who are saying it is bad are not those who use servers based off the other 3 unix platforms, they are those who run windows / linux servers. The reason behind their logic is you have to go through apple, or have apple technicians come in and replace parts (never a good thing). But atleast apple comes to your workplace. We have a few xserves where I work, they are great, and look awesome.
Closed AccountAug 1, 2007
I love how people bring all their typical desktop biases and try to apply them to the server market. Let's see a few here:*"Apple makes a s**tty server". Wrong. XServes are actually great servers, other than the hardware aspect (as was previously mentioned). They are rock solid, and OS X, like most other UNIX and UNIX-like derivatives, has the uptime you want in a server. Would I choose an XServe? Probably not, I'd prefer a straight OPEN-BSD headless myself, or even a Red Hat server -- but that doesn't change the fact that XServes are good machines*"HP makes s**tty quality stuff". Does HP suck as a company? In many ways undoubtably. But say what you will about them, HP-UX is another great server platform, if a bit over priced for licensing. *"Linux is better than UNIX" or "UNIX is better than Linux". This is a non-sensical argument in many ways. First off, it's a matter of philsophical preference: do you believe that everything must be 100% Open Source all the time? Then you would choose BSD or Linux, not straight UNIX (although OpenSolaris is redefining a lot of the OSS debate surrounding UNIX vs Open Source, even though it's not true hardened server material yet). *Anyone who is making an argument about servers and starts talking about GUI's has no idea what they are talking about (I noticed this a few times above). If you need a GUI to administer your server you are either an MS junkie or a newbie. (I'm not passing judgement on you by the way; I personally think that Windows should never be anywhere near a mission critical server, but if that's your cup of tea have at it -- just don't try to talk intelligently about UNIX and UNIX-like server architecture). *"To say that Dell is a viable option won't be the case in the eyes of purchasing." This depends. Dell makes commodity hardware, and you get all the pitfalls and benefits that come along with it. I can build 3 or 4 good linux servers, for example, for the cost of running just one UNIX server (licensing costs alone). Similarly, I can put together a Dell server or 5 for much cheaper than a Sun or Apple machine. Is the hardware as high of quality? No, but with a good amount of redudancy this isn't as much of an issue. Bean counters in accounting may not care about your arguments when it comes down to saving thousands of dollars up front, and a Dell Red Hat server will still get the job done just fine.*"Linux hasn't ever been certified". This is true, if you are simply looking at the SUS Certification in question. However, there is at least one distribution of linux that is fully POSIX compliant (Linux-FT), and all Linux distros are at least mostly POSIX compliant. POSIX compliance allows for a portablity of code that makes things like the SUS much less relevant. Is it cool that Apple has done this? Sure, it's pretty cool, but it's not like it's revolutionary really. The average desktop user could care less -- there already stable system isn't going to feel any different. The average programmer doesn't really care, because you've been able to code on OSX and then port to any other of the UNICES or UNIX-Like OS's for a long time. The server admin may care if they are running a mixed Solaris / HP-UX / AIX / OS X environment, but that's about the extent of it. **Disclaimers: I'm pretty fond of open source software. I use Linux as my primary OSS, and have since an early version of Red Hat (currently running Debian Testing). However, I'm also getting a MacBook this month, and look forward to trying out OS X as a development platform, and an everyday OS. I'll probably end up dual-booting Linux and OS X. Unlike many people, I don't avoid Windows out of some philsophical antagonism, I just don't like the way it feels, and how it's architectured. I've been using UNIX(like) OS's for so long that Windows feels very confining to me. Do I love proprietary stuff? Not particularly, but I'd take a proprietary UNIX OS anyday over a badly written OS like Windows (the registry *shudders*, it gives me chills to think about that piece of crap).-olly
lowededwookieAug 2, 2007
I don't necessarily agree with your comments about GUIs. Yes you get more power from the commandline but in terms of speed of getting a server up then a GUI I believe would be more practical. Once up then yes, use the commandline to fine tune it. If a server down is mission critical then getting it up as fast as you can is of utmost importance not whether or not you have more power in the commandline and less in a GUI.Thing is though, many apps that create GUIs for the the commandline in Mac OS X are very powerful. You only need to look at FFMPEG X or Handbrake to confirm this.I've used GUIs my entire computing life except for an old Dick Smith Wizard which was a rebadged Spectrum. I've used Amiga's Workbench, Mac OS 9 and X, Windows, Red Hat, Ubuntu but in all cases (except for Mac OS 9) I also use the commandline.I use the GUI for speed and when I need to configure something that isn't available to me in the GUI then I go to the commandline. To believe the two are mutually exclusive is a retard notion that only nerds subscribe to. Each method has their uses so don't discount them merely because that's not the way you do things. Each man to his own.