Leopard Server hardware requirements?

[Nat!]

Am 02.10.2007 um 21:23 schrieb John C. Welch:

> On 10/02/2007 14:08 PM, "Nat!" <nat at mulle-kybernetik.com> wrote:
>
>>>>> And, just for the record, phasing out old equipment is good for
>>>>> everyone, as it means less legacy code in the OIS to support old
>>>>> hardware.
>>
>>>> That's a funny use of "good for everyone".
>>
>>> No, it's a perfect use of it. Being able to keep the codebase  
>>> updated,
>>> especially with regard to hardware is a good thing. It means fewer
>>> workarounds and easier ability to rewrite when necessary.
>>
>
>> And that's another funny use of "good for everyone".
>
>> It reminds me of the famous quote "What's good for General Motors is
>> good for the country."
>
> Apple tried supporting every mac ever made and doing a brand new OS  
> once. It
> was called Copland. Resounding success.
>
> Oh wait, no, it never even made it into beta.
>
> The ability to say "No" is critical in any successful large - scale  
> project.
> I fail to see why that magically doesn't apply here, nor why not  
> being able
> to run Leopard on everything that ever supported every version of  
> Mac OS X
> is some kind of problem.
>
> Will your Mac OS X 10.4 machines burst into flame on Leopard's  
> release date?
> No, no they will not. So it is probably *your* definition of "good for
> everyone" (which translates to "don't ever inconvenience me  
> regardless of
> reason") that is far more amusing here.
>
> -- 

As solely a customer of Apple and not a shareholder, I find it  
amusing, how you emphasize so much with Apple over its problems and  
needs. Do you also emphasize as much with the problems of the post  
office, if your letter arrives three days late ? That's a huge  
logistics large scale project right there too.

If we separate "everyone" out into

a) Apple + people with financial investment
b) people with emotional investment in Apple (aka Lemmings)
c) people who just own Apple computers
d) the other 99% of humanity :)

The benefit for a) is clear. The benefit for b) is none, but because  
of the faith, what is good for a) is good for b). Then there is c)  
people, whose hardware becomes obsolete and who don't like it.

Here's a case how the advent of Tiger and its arbitrary hardware  
requirement affected my Apple hardware investment. As a developer  
it's a major hassle to work with various Xcode versions. So when 10.4  
came out there was a new incompatible Xcode. Xcode is tied to the OS  
version. I could have chosen to stay for 10.3 on all machines for  
just about as long as I needed to buy a machine from the next new Mac  
line. New Macs don't support old OSs. Not going to 10.4 was not a  
realistic option though. My company is not an island and the rest of  
the world progressed to 10.4 quickly.

Now suddenly, that laptop I used to develop on the train became  
useless for its purpose. That is certainly not "good for me" by  
anyones definition.

I chose to call the requirement arbitrary is, because that same  
laptop eventually ran 10.4 nicely. (http://www.macosxhints.com/ 
article.php?story=20050430144551596)
------------------------------------------------------
You know, in the Bible it doesn't say,
"Waddle forth and calcify." -- DLR