No it wasn't sarcasm at that level. I wasn't secretly rooting for Apple demise. I think it was a completely different era though. A completely different Apple with a market capitalization that was way lower than it is now.
There's probably zero interest for them to do it but it might work in theory. I'm sure that on paper they could go to a few hardware makers, sign deals for a very few models with top of the line specs and work in tandem to create such laptops but there's no apparent reason, it's a lot of work with a very unsure outcome, they have more cash than a few nations on earth so they don't need to do it and also their focus has shifted to mobile devices, which is one of the reasons why we're complaining about the diminished quality of their computers :D
Apple licensed Mac OS to "clone" manufacturers in the 90s, yes. They haven't done this with OS X, but it's not called that anymore, either. It's just "macOS" now (for a couple years, I think). Point being, that Apple lost revenue, it did not reinvigorate them, and people were associating Apple's brand with cheap hardware.
Leaving all the arguments about the virtues of free software to one side, Apple is a "closed shop", and that's why they've become the first trillion dollar company. They don't stand to gain anything by licensing macOS to third parties, as much as we might wish it so.
I would have no issues with using Linux for work, other than the fact that I work for a very large "Microsoft shop" even though I almost never touch Windows in any capacity, and work almost entirely with Linux.
But the rest of the company does not, so I am forced to use a platform that runs Microsoft Office (mainly because Skype for Business is required), and at least macOS is UNIX.
One could argue about that. Sure, macOS is certified to be allowed to wear the UNIX trademark like it was a badge, but for (us) purists, the only Unices left are AIX, HP-UX and Solaris - with Solaris, sadly, having the brightest future.
No it wasn't sarcasm at that level. I wasn't secretly rooting for Apple demise. I think it was a completely different era though. A completely different Apple with a market capitalization that was way lower than it is now.
There's probably zero interest for them to do it but it might work in theory. I'm sure that on paper they could go to a few hardware makers, sign deals for a very few models with top of the line specs and work in tandem to create such laptops but there's no apparent reason, it's a lot of work with a very unsure outcome, they have more cash than a few nations on earth so they don't need to do it and also their focus has shifted to mobile devices, which is one of the reasons why we're complaining about the diminished quality of their computers :D
Apple licensed Mac OS to "clone" manufacturers in the 90s, yes. They haven't done this with OS X, but it's not called that anymore, either. It's just "macOS" now (for a couple years, I think). Point being, that Apple lost revenue, it did not reinvigorate them, and people were associating Apple's brand with cheap hardware.
Leaving all the arguments about the virtues of free software to one side, Apple is a "closed shop", and that's why they've become the first trillion dollar company. They don't stand to gain anything by licensing macOS to third parties, as much as we might wish it so.
I would have no issues with using Linux for work, other than the fact that I work for a very large "Microsoft shop" even though I almost never touch Windows in any capacity, and work almost entirely with Linux.
But the rest of the company does not, so I am forced to use a platform that runs Microsoft Office (mainly because Skype for Business is required), and at least macOS is UNIX.
Learned another thing today. Thank you!
One could argue about that. Sure, macOS is certified to be allowed to wear the UNIX trademark like it was a badge, but for (us) purists, the only Unices left are AIX, HP-UX and Solaris - with Solaris, sadly, having the brightest future.
I thought the *BSD's counted as true Unix as well?
Not anymore. They were forced to remove the last bit of original Unix code around 1992. Their degree of POSIX compatibility is varying.