Genuine question: is there anyone (corporate or not) that cares that macOS is a certified Unix?
Usually it's one or the other.
Nowadays macOS needs something like Homebrew to fill the gaps. It's still slightly better than Windows + WSL, but Microsoft is catching up, while Apple seems to think that iPadOS is the future.
I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve. Just that Apple aren't dropping support out of respect to their customers. They're doing it because it's cheaper.
Apple seems to be really good at maintaining their profit margin.
Here, they not only realized it had become popular, but GNU licensing gave them an excuse to switch the default without much thrashing about.
The fact that I can `chsh -s /usr/local/bin/zsh` and macOS doesn't freak out is quite nice.
There's a whole lot more to Unix and open source than GNU. macOS has current versions of many open source tools, such as zsh, awk, sqlite, tar, git, and xz.
If one is being pedantic, GNU is not even "open source" but rather is "free software," and macOS certainly is not free software.
On Linux, sure, but not on other Unix OSes (like *BSD)
This is very subjective. I, for one, much prefer kde plasma. And there's a substantial breed of developers who would prefer a tiling window manager with good keyboard navigation, such as i3.
Integration with their other hardware devices is the more important moat right now, as is hardware.
I’ve always wanted to use Nix and have tried to get started a few times. It has always ended up seeming more trouble than it’s worth.
* Nix doesn't have support for GUI apps like homebrew cask does - which meant I couldn't drop homebrew anyway. * The nix ecosystem forums suggest using nix-shell for managing packages for other languages, eg. python, java - but it's been really difficult to convince team members to use nix instead of pyenv, conda, gradle etc
Windows Subsystem for Linus sure has been a game changer!
And while you can still find an traditional unix(tm) box here and there in the dusty forgotten corners of enterprise serverooms(i am personally responsible for maintaining a few hpux boxen), unix(tm) certification haven't really mattered since Linux became serious business which happened around the same time OSX was launched.
What used to matter was that you could run the same CLI tooling in an macos desktop as on an Linux server but i don't think this is an use case apple see's as particularly important for the future success of Apple.
It’s not as if they want their CLI interaction to be 1-for-1 with Linux, but relatively close seems to still be a priority.
Precovid, on any conference I went to, professional or academic, the amount of Apple laptops was insane. I'm sure they're running things locally or on Linux servers, but the fact that they work pretty well between them is important.
IT's an trip the classic macos took before it and i think there is an signficance in apple returning to the MAcOS branding thats subly hinting that the days when OSX was an relatively open unix is ending.
They aren't for you. Move on.
The Google bit is particularly goofy. No, "Google" doesn't even appear on the charts (you know -- the charts which Apple usually is within the top 2, often leading). Chromebooks do, sold by a wide variety of sellers, as a schoolhouse special. Their great for what they do.
Actually, it would cost them a lot, due to the GPL. Sure, they could try and pull a Google re: Java/Oracle feud, but I doubt they will and for good reason.
But it might help Apple to win government contracts.