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Recently I wrote an article commenting on Mary Jo Foley's comparison of Leopard to Vista. I've seen a lot of the backlash from the blogging community in response to Foley's original article and some of it is disturbing. Then Long Zheng from iStartedSomething directed me to his recent post on the matter.

He makes some interesting points. Many of which I agree with. Long points out that people get way too emotional about this stuff. I agree. I'm always surprised by how angry people get when it comes to the OS wars. I still voice my opinion on the discussion but I try to do it with a sense of sarcastic play and refrain from childish slurs or just spewing anger.

I'm not sure if I was to be included in Long's comments about the ongoing war between OS camps, but regardless I'd like to say that the points I made about Mary Jo's post were not about which OS is better. I wanted to point out that her comparison of Leopard to Vista is silly. Why? Because Leopard is much closer to Tiger, which came way before Vista. Her blog compares Leopard directly to Vista and makes direct and indirect claims that Apple copied Microsoft. My issue is with her knowledge of the technology market that she's commenting on.

Does it matter who copied who? Not really. Instead what bothers me is that you have a tech blog writer spreading information that suggests Apple copied Microsoft, when if anything the opposite would be an easier case to make. So people come along, they read this stuff and they go on believing something that's not factually true. The other thing that bothers me is that Mary should be more tech aware as a writer for ZDNet. Some of the statements she makes prove that she may not be very technically proficient. I consider that a bad thing when you're writing a blog on a tech web site. But hey, that's just me.

To be very clear, I completely agree with Long's comments about how far people take these discussions. There's something about the internet that brings out the worst in people. Perhaps they don't think there are consequences. Perhaps they think the people they target in their vile rants don't have feelings. I can only rest easy in knowing that I have said nothing in these posts that I wouldn't actually say to Mary Jo if she had said these things to me in person.

So yes, let the discussions continue because they're worth having, but let's do it in a way that's at least respectful of those you're talking with. And in the spirit of this post, I went back and removed the word "absurdities" in the original post in favor of a word that won't be misconstrued. I wasn't angry in writing it, so I don't want to leave people with that impression.

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Sadly Mary Jo Foley's recent blog post at ZDNet entitled "Leopard looks like... Vista" will likely be read by far more people than this post will. That's what makes her observations all the more frightening. She compares the upcoming Leopard OS from Apple to Vista and suggests that Apple copied Microsoft. This is laughable at best, when you consider that Vista copied Tiger, so essentially she's saying; Leopard looks like... Tiger.

Here are her points and my responses to them.

New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista's Aero and Sidebar.

First of all, uh, no it doesn't. Secondly, compare Leopard's desktop to Tiger's. They're nearly identical. That's because it's an evolution of an existing interface that OS X has had for years.

New Finder: Many of the same capabilities as the integrated "Instant Search" in Vista.

Aww, look mom, she can type letters. To the forgetful Mary Jo, instant search was integrated and instant and called Spotlight since the first betas of Tiger, which came out long before Vista. So yes, it looks like Vista's instant search because Vista ripped it off from Tiger and I guess Leopard did too.

The new Leopard Coverflow viewing capability looked almost identical to Vista's Flip 3D to me.

One might also say it's 100% identical to the existing coverflow view in iTunes. And may I point out that Flip3D isn't even available in all editions of Vista, so I guess we're really comparing Leopard to Vista Ultimate here.

64-bitness: Leopard is the first 64-bit only version of a desktop client. Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. And most expect Windows Seven will still be available in 32-bit flavors. Until 32-bit machines go away, it seems like a good idea to offer 32-bit operating systems.

Yes, Vista is sold "separately" as either a 32 or 64-bit OS version. The two are not compatible, nor are there enough drivers for the 64-bit version, nor does a lot of the software run on the 64-bit version and so on. This is why they're separate and why no one buys the 64-bit version. Compare that with Leopard which lets 32 and 64-bit processes and drivers run side-by-side with no performance hit and no choice for a consumer to make that will limit his/her software options. See the difference?

Windows 7 will have a 32-bit flavor because MS can't figure out how to gradually make the move without leaving people behind. Apple has solved the issue, MS has not. Also, almost all chips today are 64-bit and Leopard (fully 64-bit) will "also" run on older 32 bit hardware. Another thing MS can't do. You need to do some more research before spreading this kind of misinformation.

Core animation: Not sure what the Vista comparison is here.

That's because this is for developers. Which I'm guessing you're not. The comparison would be with the Windows Presentation Foundation but the difference is that Apple gives you a full IDE for free (XCode) while Microsoft gives you a stripped down version of Visual Studio for free that you're not legally allowed to make production apps with.

Dashboard with widgets. Isn't this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets?

Yeah, it's also a lot like the Tiger Dashboard (exactly even) which has had widgets since long before Vista came out with Gadgets. Tell me this is a joke.

Time Machine automatic backup. Vista has built-in automatic backup (Volume Shadow Copy). It doesn't look anywhere near as cool as Time Machine. But it seems to provide a lot of the same functionality.

Haha, okay sure. Volume Shadow Copy is "just" like Time Machine. Just as easy to use, just as slick, just as straightforward.

Granted, I am not an Apple user. So I'm sure I’m glossing over some subtleties regarding what’s new and cool in Leopard. But given how often I hear the "Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers" message, I was thinking that Leopard would be light years ahead of Vista.

Clearly you're not and never have been an Apple user. If you were you'd know that the features you speak of have been in OS X for a long time and are just improved (some being completely new). The photocopiers message was from a couple years ago when Tiger debuted and Redmond did just that... it's called Vista, which you now reference as the "original."

In all fairness I'm not trying to be harsh with Foley, but when you post a blog on ZDNet shouldn't there be some discovery of fact before doing so? I mean to compare OS X to Vista as if the copying was done by Apple is so misguided it almost feels like a gag. Maybe it is. Maybe I've been had. Who knows?

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Since Parallels came out with Desktop for Mac, virtualization has been a huge topic in computing circles. Parallels was the first company to let you install and run Windows from within OS X with little to no performance hit. Following Parallel's lead, VMWare launched the public beta of their competing Fusion product.

Even though these products do some amazing things, people often complain about having to pay for them on top of having to purchase a license of the OS they plan to install. Considering what these apps do, I think it's a silly complaint, personally. But now it may be an issue of the past.

Innotek has announced a Mac version of its VirtualBox virtualization software. This time though, the product is based on open-source code and is the first professional virtualization product being made available free of charge to the Apple Macintosh platform.

The product supports a wide variety of x86 compatible guest operating system such as: various versions of Windows from NT to Vista, DOS, OpenBSD and Linux. Features include USB support, snapshots and command-line scripting.

The OS X version is currently available in its first public beta version and is based on VirtualBox's new version 1.4 codebase. The product is expected to be completed in the 2nd quarter of 2007.

So if you have the need for virtualization software, but haven't been able to justify the extra cost, this may be the time to give VirtualBox a try. After you give it a try, write us and let us know how it performs. Especially if you have one of the competing products and you can give us some details on your comparisons.

Story from InfoWorld

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