News article possible end of VCS

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

Don't take it the wrong way but I despise you. Deeply and sincerely. 🙂

Stirring the pot.

Making the meal.

Not everyone can handle my spice. Can you?

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

Not everyone can handle my spice. Can you?

I definitely can't. There's so much wrongness about sticking with your "first impressions". What if, as a child, you thought foreigners were really aliens, as in xenomorphs? 🤔

I'm a curious person and I really hate people who indulge themselves in their own ignorance. 😔

[Keatah]

9 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I definitely can't. There's so much wrongness about sticking with your "first impressions".

I suppose as a kid first impressions are powerful and can and do form a life-long point of view or flavor about something.

 

I figure Atari wanted the arcade-going public to think and believe they themselves made Assault because of how they made their logo so prominent compared against the tiny text of "designed & engineered by namco". As a kid I never noticed the tiny text. And I don't apologize for my viewpoint.

 

It's like NASA, EVERYBODY knows that NASA makes the space-A-station, the mars rovers, the lunar lander, The Saturn V, and all the satellites and stuff. Never mind Rockwell, Morton Thiokol, JPL, ESA, Airbus, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, United Launch Alliance, General Dynamics, and the +1,000 other contractors who actually design and build the spacecraft.

 

10 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I'm a curious person and I really hate people who indulge themselves in their own ignorance. 😔

I understand that completely, As time goes on the hating turns into tolerance and eventual respect.

 

[Keatah]

10 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

What if, as a child, you thought foreigners were really aliens, as in xenomorphs? 🤔

That's be pretty messed up. I could change my view, later, as new information became available. That's also a way way different thing than Atari wanting the gaming crowd to believe they made the game.

 

 

[leech]

52 minutes ago, Keatah said:

That's be pretty messed up. I could change my view, later, as new information became available. That's also a way way different thing than Atari wanting the gaming crowd to believe they made the game.

 

 

You mean they aren't xenomorphs?  I haven't seen any foreigners with a second mouth pop out, but that doesn't mean it isn't there!

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, Keatah said:

That's be pretty messed up. I could change my view, later, as new information became available. That's also a way way different thing than Atari wanting the gaming crowd to believe they made the game.

My comparison was willingly provocative, but I wanted to point out that racists and bigots are precisely the kind of persons that stick to their first impressions. Habits can be very hard to change, you often need to fight them.

I understand what you meant. I'm not perfect either; I was also mistaken on a lot of things about video games (and everything else, of course). But even though I had an excuse of being mistaken as a child, because marketing was clearly deceiving and there was no Internet to check who made what, I consider there's no excuse for a grown man to stick to prejudice just because he's too lazy to find out the truth.

 

But I won't bother you anymore. I'm not mad, just a little sad and resigned. 🙂

[Keatah]

20 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

My comparison was willingly provocative, but I wanted to point out that racists and bigots are precisely the kind of persons that stick to their first impressions. Habits can be very hard to change, you often need to fight them.

It doesn't provoke me as it isn't part of my life charter. I rarely think about those kinds of things..

 

25 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

I understand what you meant. I'm not perfect either; I was also mistaken on a lot of things about video games (and everything else, of course). But even though I had an excuse of being mistaken as a child, because marketing was clearly deceiving and there was no Internet to check who made what, I consider there's no excuse for a grown man to stick to prejudice just because he's too lazy to find out the truth.

Choosing to believe Atari made a favorite arcade game is hardly prejudice. And this is about videogames, essentially a fantasy world of its own where anything goes.. If Atari was deceiving about it, that's their issue. I simply choose to remember the world of the arcades as I experienced it.

 

25 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

But I won't bother you anymore. I'm not mad, just a little sad and resigned. 🙂

It's no bother.

[MrMaddog]

If you're talking about ignorance as having the lack of knowledge, then in terms of video game ownership that's exactly how it was in the pre-Internet days.

 

In the 80's arcades we didn't know who were the original Japanese companies that made the coin-op games.  We, in the States at least, knew that Midway made Pac-Man, Sega made Frogger and Atari made Pac-Mania & Assault because that's what's printed on the marque.

 

As a kid, I also didn't knew about Jack Tramiel buying Atari from Warner and selling the coin-op division which became a separate company because I hadn't read the appropriate magazines at the time. (I only got my first Atari computer in 1987 and Antic magazine beginning in 1988)

 

It wasn't until the 90's that between the Internet and the arcade compilations on the Playstation that revealed who actually owned what.  Plus the Japanese companies like Konami could actually enforce their copyrights as opposed to the American ones who's licensing rights had long expired.

 

The current confusion from existing Atari owners who hadn't kept up with what happened with the company since the 80's Game Crash, or the demise of the Jaguar in the 90's, have no idea about Atari's recent history and only have their own memories to go on.  This is why they're like, "Why no Pac-Man or Pitfall?"

 

So it's up to the AA community to explain these things because we have been keeping track of Atari because we do care about Atari.  I only wish there was a simple way to explain the convoluted history of Atari's ownership...

 

 

[leech]

4 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

If you're talking about ignorance as having the lack of knowledge, then in terms of video game ownership that's exactly how it was in the pre-Internet days.

 

In the 80's arcades we didn't know who were the original Japanese companies that made the coin-op games.  We, in the States at least, knew that Midway made Pac-Man, Sega made Frogger and Atari made Pac-Mania & Assault because that's what's printed on the marque.

 

As a kid, I also didn't knew about Jack Tramiel buying Atari from Warner and selling the coin-op division which became a separate company because I hadn't read the appropriate magazines at the time. (I only got my first Atari computer in 1987 and Antic magazine beginning in 1988)

 

It wasn't until the 90's that between the Internet and the arcade compilations on the Playstation that revealed who actually owned what.  Plus the Japanese companies like Konami could actually enforce their copyrights as opposed to the American ones who's licensing rights had long expired.

 

The current confusion from existing Atari owners who hadn't kept up with what happened with the company since the 80's Game Crash, or the demise of the Jaguar in the 90's, have no idea about Atari's recent history and only have their own memories to go on.  This is why they're like, "Why no Pac-Man or Pitfall?"

 

So it's up to the AA community to explain these things because we have been keeping track of Atari because we do care about Atari.  I only wish there was a simple way to explain the convoluted history of Atari's ownership...

 

 

In my opinion, the story of Atari and Commodore are both pretty sad.  Both are companies that were able to make products loved by millions.  Various levels of greed/incompetencies destroyed them from within, not to mention the tendency of human kind to see in a binary fashion.  It is essentially our own fault why we almost always end up with a monopoly or duopoly.

If Apple had been lumped in with those 2 (which nearly happened 2 years after Atari), the technology landscape would be very different today.

[Bill Loguidice]

1 hour ago, leech said:

In my opinion, the story of Atari and Commodore are both pretty sad.  Both are companies that were able to make products loved by millions.  Various levels of greed/incompetencies destroyed them from within, not to mention the tendency of human kind to see in a binary fashion.  It is essentially our own fault why we almost always end up with a monopoly or duopoly.

If Apple had been lumped in with those 2 (which nearly happened 2 years after Atari), the technology landscape would be very different today.

I'd argue that consolidation is an inevitability because it's ultimately best for the average consumer, so there were always going to be lots of losers. While choice is great for many reasons, there are also some downsides for the average consumer in terms of ubiquity, compatibility, and overall support (contrast that to those of us who don't mind putting in the extra effort to make things work in this specific area). It's especially bad if you chose the "wrong" platform, like say, for example, a Bally Astrocade in 1979 or TI-99/4a in 1982 or Atari Jaguar in 1995. With today's consolidated platforms, like with iOS and Android on the mobile side; Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch on the console side; and PC and Mac on the computer side; the average person has few worries about missing out on too much no matter what path they pursue.

[Bill Loguidice]

On 1/6/2023 at 10:25 PM, Flojomojo said:

The Atari flashbacks that got Pac-Man Space Invaders were closer to how we remembered the old systems with games from multiple countries. 

I wonder why AtGames was able to get the other stuff while Atari chooses not to? Except for Big Five software on Atari 50, sticking out as the only third party things on the collection. 

There are probably lots of reasons why an Atari doesn't deal with more third parties and more third parties don't deal with Atari. With Atari's own catalog strengths (albeit overexposed at this point), it probably doesn't see the same benefit from relatively expensive multi-year licensing deals and third parties in turn would probably have some concern over such a direct association with a company that produces/publishes their own games. That's why more neutral parties like an Arcade1Up or AtGames are likely more appealing/practical. Of course, AtGames does publish their own exclusive games now for the Legends Arcade Platform, but it's definitely not an equivalence to what Atari has done or does.

[leech]

10 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I'd argue that consolidation is an inevitability because it's ultimately best for the average consumer, so there were always going to be lots of losers. While choice is great for many reasons, there are also some downsides for the average consumer in terms of ubiquity, compatibility, and overall support (contrast that to those of us who don't mind putting in the extra effort to make things work in this specific area). It's especially bad if you chose the "wrong" platform, like say, for example, a Bally Astrocade in 1979 or TI-99/4a in 1982 or Atari Jaguar in 1995. With today's consolidated platforms, like with iOS and Android on the mobile side; Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch on the console side; and PC and Mac on the computer side; the average person has few worries about missing out on too much no matter what path they pursue.

It can be better for developers, but overall not great as you don't get as much innovation if there are only two that try to equal each other's functionality.  Look at the game consoles; neither of the big two are doing anything innovative (well PSVR2 could be considered as such).  They're basically not much different than a PC with a custom OS.  Even the Switch uses slightly tweaked reference hardware.  The days where companies would try to do something cool and unique to get developers to make their game have different features on different platforms has kind of died off.

What it comes down to for customers is a lack of choice.  Granted this is also why I prefer Linux over Windows / Mac, I have much more choice and freedom over what I do with my computer.  More choice should always be considered more advantageous.

[Bill Loguidice]

7 minutes ago, leech said:

It can be better for developers, but overall not great as you don't get as much innovation if there are only two that try to equal each other's functionality.  Look at the game consoles; neither of the big two are doing anything innovative (well PSVR2 could be considered as such).  They're basically not much different than a PC with a custom OS.  Even the Switch uses slightly tweaked reference hardware.  The days where companies would try to do something cool and unique to get developers to make their game have different features on different platforms has kind of died off.

What it comes down to for customers is a lack of choice.  Granted this is also why I prefer Linux over Windows / Mac, I have much more choice and freedom over what I do with my computer.  More choice should always be considered more advantageous.

Yes, I think we disagree on this point. I want as few abstractions to getting things done these days versus when I was a kid and had much more time to experiment, find workarounds, or just do without certain things. I agree that there's little difference between Windows, Mac, and Linux, but of course the former two are still and will almost certainly always be easier for most people to get stuff for and work with, and certainly enough power for even power users (who don't want an alternative to the big two) to do just about anything they want with it. Similarly, with modern development environments the way that they are, there's not a lot of room for special features. Sure, some games might offer touch controls in addition to regular controls, or VR in addition to standard modes, but there seems to be little appetite and certainly little incentive to go truly outside the box, especially when it can seem like a gimmick in search of a true reason to exist, e.g., the crank on the Playdate. So I really don't think there's all that much lost in comparison to all that is gained.

[Keatah]

In the early days I tried spreading myself too thin across the 8 and 16 bit platforms. In both learning about the systems and actually doing something productive. Word processing and cataloging my then burgeoning collection were some activities.

 

Eventually I had to settle on one "ecosphere" because the time to learn the others was simply too much. Interoperability and compatibility and standards weren't that important to me at this early pre-1982 juncture. They'd become important after 1986.

 

As far as gimmicks go, they were certainly amusing and interesting back then. Gimmicky stuff may have been necessary. Companies had to try something that would work and there were so many unknowns. I remember my Apple II warranty cards being not just a name & address thing, but a whole survey about what I wanted to do with my new micro. What cards did I have? What products would I like to see? How did I use it?

 

But practicality always wins eventually. Just not interested in wasting time to go about things in a Rube Goldberg manner. Not interested in paying tech industry to play with gimmicks.

 

 

[jhd]

On 1/6/2023 at 11:25 PM, Flojomojo said:

I wonder why AtGames was able to get the other stuff while Atari chooses not to? Except for Big Five software on Atari 50, sticking out as the only third party things on the collection. 

 

I am just speculating, but perhaps AtGames was able to obtain an exclusive license to those properties. They are simply not available to Atari (or anyone else) until the license expires.  

 

If AtGames spent more than a nominal amount of money on that project, they would want to protect their investment by not having a competing console appear with the very same games. 

[leech]

2 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Yes, I think we disagree on this point. I want as few abstractions to getting things done these days versus when I was a kid and had much more time to experiment, find workarounds, or just do without certain things. I agree that there's little difference between Windows, Mac, and Linux, but of course the former two are still and will almost certainly always be easier for most people to get stuff for and work with, and certainly enough power for even power users (who don't want an alternative to the big two) to do just about anything they want with it. Similarly, with modern development environments the way that they are, there's not a lot of room for special features. Sure, some games might offer touch controls in addition to regular controls, or VR in addition to standard modes, but there seems to be little appetite and certainly little incentive to go truly outside the box, especially when it can seem like a gimmick in search of a true reason to exist, e.g., the crank on the Playdate. So I really don't think there's all that much lost in comparison to all that is gained.

Weirdly I feel far more constricted in what I want to get done on macOS than anything else.  That includes AmigaOS.  Granted I've also been using Linux since Windows 98 was the 'standard'.  It just provides more freedom, yet usability that is customizable to however I want. 
Granted with Windows 11 now, unlike the Mac, it's just not 'ready out of the box' anymore, as there are all the crappy ads / program installers that one needs to go through and remove...

Amusing story, I bought a Yoga 9i (2022), go to put Ubuntu on it, and it detected pretty much everything (minus the Fingerprint reader and the side buttons being useless), even screen rotation.  But for whatever reason the warning I was using bitlocker on Windows decided to make Windows 11 unbootable.  So I re-installed that.  The installer didn't even work correctly with the keyboard (most dialogs did, but I had to plug in a keyboard to hit tab/next on one specific one).  But the touchpad and touchscreen were useless.  Fortunately it picked all that up after the first boot into the OS. 

So really, if Windows wasn't pre-installed on systems, people wouldn't know how to get past such things, that's always been the case and still is.  Windows is only standard because of Microsoft's bullying tactics. 

[leech]

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

As far as gimmicks go, they were certainly amusing and interesting back then. Gimmicky stuff may have been necessary. Companies had to try something that would work and there were so many unknowns. I remember my Apple II warranty cards being not just a name & address thing, but a whole survey about what I wanted to do with my new micro. What cards did I have? What products would I like to see? How did I use it?

Amusingly, Mice were gimmicks to begin with.  I mean why move away from the keyboard?  Touch screen devices have kind of gone in and out of being gimmicks as well.

[Bill Loguidice]

2 hours ago, leech said:

Weirdly I feel far more constricted in what I want to get done on macOS than anything else.  That includes AmigaOS.  Granted I've also been using Linux since Windows 98 was the 'standard'.  It just provides more freedom, yet usability that is customizable to however I want. 
Granted with Windows 11 now, unlike the Mac, it's just not 'ready out of the box' anymore, as there are all the crappy ads / program installers that one needs to go through and remove...

Amusing story, I bought a Yoga 9i (2022), go to put Ubuntu on it, and it detected pretty much everything (minus the Fingerprint reader and the side buttons being useless), even screen rotation.  But for whatever reason the warning I was using bitlocker on Windows decided to make Windows 11 unbootable.  So I re-installed that.  The installer didn't even work correctly with the keyboard (most dialogs did, but I had to plug in a keyboard to hit tab/next on one specific one).  But the touchpad and touchscreen were useless.  Fortunately it picked all that up after the first boot into the OS. 

So really, if Windows wasn't pre-installed on systems, people wouldn't know how to get past such things, that's always been the case and still is.  Windows is only standard because of Microsoft's bullying tactics. 

I get you're all-in on Linux, but that's simply not the norm in business or at home, as I'm sure you readily acknowledge. You may find flaws in both Windows and Mac, but they've both long since reached the point of more than good enough for what most people want to do, so no reason to change for something that may or may not be better and is not as compatible with both software and hardware.

 

You can look at the Steam user share for just one example of why that situation is unlikely to change over anything more than the long-term, with 96% using some type of Windows, 2.5% using some type of MacOS and 1.5% using some type of Linux distribution. And frankly, what's likely to supplant any of them for primary computing are mobile OS's, and even that would take a good long time for that type of use case (in grouping them all together, obviously Android is in front at over 44% market share, Windows second at 29%, iOS third at 17%, MacOS at 6%, and "Other and Linux" at about 3%, with solely Linux still only around 1% - again, I'd argue that you CAN'T lump them all together, but one day it likely will make sense to do so.). 

 

Let's face it, though. Ultimately, the average user really doesn't care what OS they're using as long as it runs what they want. You can't go wrong with Windows in that regard. Regardless, to go back to the original point, even though we're more homogenized than at other times in the past, we're not truly in a Windows only world like we were in the late 90s and early 2000s. There are five solid operating system families to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. There's still plenty of room for people like you to go their own way, just like in the 80's. That's a win to me as just about any of us can live our best lives as it were when it comes to this stuff. Even the VCS has some decent versatility in that regard. 

[leech]

9 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I get you're all-in on Linux, but that's simply not the norm in business or at home, as I'm sure you readily acknowledge. You may find flaws in both Windows and Mac, but they've both long since reached the point of more than good enough for what most people want to do, so no reason to change for something that may or may not be better and is not as compatible with both software and hardware.

More and more engineers are requesting they use Linux at work, which will eventually translate into more people using it at home.

 

Apple is making strange choices that on the outside look like they are going to merge iPadOS and macOS.  Who knows what that will look like, buy I am guessing for people who use the mac for serious work, they will likely switch to Linux over Windows.  Though with Windows adopting more and more Linux-like things, and indeed Microsoft has their own Linux distribution now...

 

But it is amusing to think no one uses Linux, when the internet is a huge proportion of it. 

 

Steam Decks are changing the game there too.  Granted whether Linux breaks out and becomes the number one OS will probably be around the time civilization falls for one reason or another (ha, at this rate it could be really soon!)

[Albert]

41 minutes ago, leech said:

More and more engineers are requesting they use Linux at work, which will eventually translate into more people using it at home.

I'm not holding my breath on that.  If the apps aren't there in Linux, people aren't going to use it at home or work.  And I'm speaking as someone who has used Linux desktops in the past professionally and at home (although not anytime recently, to be sure).  I do have a Steam Deck, so it's interesting being able to use the KDE desktop in that.

42 minutes ago, leech said:

Apple is making strange choices that on the outside look like they are going to merge iPadOS and macOS.  Who knows what that will look like, buy I am guessing for people who use the mac for serious work, they will likely switch to Linux over Windows.  Though with Windows adopting more and more Linux-like things, and indeed Microsoft has their own Linux distribution now...

Yes, I'm not thrilled with some of the changes Apple is making to macOS to match what's being done in iPadOS.  I don't expect them to merge anytime soon, but I do think Apple will continue to make baby steps in that direction.  They are still worlds apart overall, though.  I think it's more likely iPadOS will continue to gain macOS features than the other way around.  As much as I appreciate Linux, there's no way in hell I would use it as my daily driver.  And I played around using Windows 10 full-time for a week back in 2021, and that only once again cemented how much I despise many facets of Windows.  If I had to abandon macOS for some reason, I'd jump to Windows over Linux, as, again, the apps I need to use (for the most part) are there.  I don't see that happening anytime soon, though.

 

 ..Al

[leech]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

I'm not holding my breath on that.  If the apps aren't there in Linux, people aren't going to use it at home or work.  And I'm speaking as someone who has used Linux desktops in the past professionally and at home (although not anytime recently, to be sure).  I do have a Steam Deck, so it's interesting being able to use the KDE desktop in that.

Yes, I'm not thrilled with some of the changes Apple is making to macOS to match what's being done in iPadOS.  I don't expect them to merge anytime soon, but I do think Apple will continue to make baby steps in that direction.  They are still worlds apart overall, though.  I think it's more likely iPadOS will continue to gain macOS features than the other way around.  As much as I appreciate Linux, there's no way in hell I would use it as my daily driver.  And I played around using Windows 10 full-time for a week back in 2021, and that only once again cemented how much I despise many facets of Windows.  If I had to abandon macOS for some reason, I'd jump to Windows over Linux, as, again, the apps I need to use (for the most part) are there.  I don't see that happening anytime soon, though.

 

 ..Al

At this point, about the only thing that doesn't work well in Linux (unless you're talking about some really obscure software or specific hardware) is the Adobe Suite.  Well and Mac specific software you can't even use on Windows.  For gaming, there are some that employ anti-cheat features that won't work on Linux, but a whole lot of other games 'just work' now.  I still remember the days when they barely could get notepad to work in Wine.  Proton / Wine is so good now, you can occasionally find stuff that runs better there than it does natively on Windows.

 

All the systems I have to log into at work to do my job are Linux based, so using Linux makes things a lot easier for sure.

 

But yeah, it's always come down to; where are the apps?  Well, the apps can mostly run through Wine, or like office, you don't even need to run them locally, most people on Windows runs it through Office 365 anyhow... In a lot of ways, things are becoming more and more OS agnostic, and all you need is a compatible browser.  Ha, maybe someone should just make WebOS again.. oh wait, that's what is on my TV... Tizen?  Well they removed it from their watches... and now it's also a TV (or if you're in India, mobile?) OS...

 

Anyhow, we've totally gone off the subject of this thread

[Flojomojo]

Mainstream operating systems with commercial software for some!

 

Niche custom operating systems with community software for others!

 

Robust web apps with wide compatibility and accessibility for all!

[zzip]

On 1/6/2023 at 5:20 PM, MrBeefy said:

If they don't know it now, they won't care to know. The general public care if it has what they want to play or not. What's your high score in Pong?

The average consumer doesn't follow this stuff and won't know, just like they won't probably know what label released their favorite songs

 

On 1/6/2023 at 6:22 PM, Keatah said:

On the other hand consider Gyruss. I don't know WTF makes it. Konami or Centauri? I clearly remember playing it in Aladdin's Castle and it had a Centauri label on it. So it must be Centauri. OTH the Konami "version" is what shows up in MAME. Actually both do. 2B an ass about it I'm just gonna stick with first impressions. No sense in muddying my own memory for the sake IP accuracy, let the databases worry about it.

Yeah this happened quite a bit,   there'd be multiple names on the cabinet or screen.   Frogger is Sega, right?   Nope Konami also!   The manufacturers of the arcade cabinet made their names more prominent than the developer.   So I thought Pac-Man was Bally/Midway for the longest time,  and Dig Dug and Pole Position were Atari..   Namco got minimized in the credits.

 

   

[zzip]

On 1/7/2023 at 7:02 AM, roots.genoa said:

I'm a curious person and I really hate people who indulge themselves in their own ignorance. 😔

Not everybody can be an expert in every domain.   I can easily walk into a wine-taster forum or a car enthusiast forum and make some newbie comment and get mocked and ridiculed for it and watch them rant about how ignorant people are.  But at the end of the day, I don't care enough about those hobbies to gain a deep knowledge.  In the same way lots of people don't care enough about the retro-game hobby to sort out the tangled web of IP ownership in their minds

18 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I'd argue that consolidation is an inevitability because it's ultimately best for the average consumer, so there were always going to be lots of losers. While choice is great for many reasons, there are also some downsides for the average consumer in terms of ubiquity, compatibility, and overall support (contrast that to those of us who don't mind putting in the extra effort to make things work in this specific area)

Yet too much consolidation results in monopoly which is terrible for consumers.   There has to be a balancing act.

15 hours ago, leech said:

So really, if Windows wasn't pre-installed on systems, people wouldn't know how to get past such things, that's always been the case and still is.

Average Windows users call on people like me to bail them out of their mess.  

  There was one family member who was calling me all the time with issues.  I got tired of rebuilding her computer every 6 months so I tried installing one of those Windows-like Linux distributions and the support calls stopped.   She was really only doing Web/Email/IM anyway.

 

12 hours ago, leech said:

But it is amusing to think no one uses Linux, when the internet is a huge proportion of it. 

It dominates everywhere except the desktop-  backend Internet servers, set-top boxes, even mainframes.   Almost everyone is using one or more linux systems on a daily basis, they just don't know it.

 

12 hours ago, Albert said:

Yes, I'm not thrilled with some of the changes Apple is making to macOS to match what's being done in iPadOS.  I don't expect them to merge anytime soon, but I do think Apple will continue to make baby steps in that direction. 

I don't like the way MacOS is becoming a walled garden.   Windows is to an extent too.    At work our developers use macs,  one wrote a tool that his development team wanted to use,  but he wasn't able to even distribute an in-house app to coworkers without obtaining a certificate from Apple,  that blows my mind since it's something people have done forever without needing a cert.    Is the software somehow more trustworty because we paid Apple for a cert?  They didn't review the code or anything.

[Albert]

1 minute ago, zzip said:

I don't like the way MacOS is becoming a walled garden.   Windows is to an extent too.    At work our developers use macs,  one wrote a tool that his development team wanted to use,  but he wasn't able to even distribute an in-house app to coworkers without obtaining a certificate from Apple,  that blows my mind since it's something people have done forever without needing a cert.    Is the software somehow more trustworty because we paid Apple for a cert?  They didn't review the code or anything.

You can certainly distribute software without it being signed by Apple.  You just have to go into System Preferences (or System Settings, as they have renamed it in Ventura) in the Security panel to allow an unsigned app to be installed.  I do this on a regular basis.  Here's how it's done:

 

https://www.wikihow.com/Install-Software-from-Unsigned-Developers-on-a-Mac

 

Granted, it's a bit of a pain, but quick once you know what you have to do.  I don't mind this too much, as it will prevent many people from unknowingly installing malicious software. 

 

Now, if Apple ever removes the ability to do this, you can bet your ass that's when I sell all my Macs and stop using macOS as my daily driver.  Of course, it would not surprise me if Microsoft did the same thing at some point.

 

 ..Al