Why Linux Quicktime isn't going to happen any time soon.

[nfotxn]

The reason there isn't a linux port of Quicktime.

". .. Think Apple could see an additional $20M in net revenue from having a Linux port?"

Makes a lot of sense. It's one of those times when you scratch your chin and say "ahhh, well that's why.

Comments

well, sorta

[ranger1.livejournal.com]

If a Linux port were easy, Apple would probably do it. Naturally Apple wants their media technologies to gain market share from those of Real Networks and Microsoft. But QuickTime isn't something you can port easily -- it isn't even a single piece of software. In order deliver QuickTime for Windows, they had to port major parts of the Mac OS core API's over to Win32. The Windows market was large enough to make it worth all the pain. Linux? Forget it.

Re: well, sorta

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually the comment pointed that out too. I just thought the whole economic perspective explained most simply why it isn't done. Hopefully the Debian Drones will stop moaning about it some day..

[deafeuphoria.livejournal.com]

pft apple are still greedy fucks.

[cub4bear.livejournal.com]

Yeah!!!!!! How dare they try to make money, those slimy assholes!!!!!!

[jwall.livejournal.com]

You're only allowed to hate MS for those reasons. Mac's are blameless, holy creatures (-:

[notofthisworld.livejournal.com]

It's easier to hate Microsoft because (1) Apple has been come close to being broke multiple times, while Microsoft hasn't; (2) Microsoft made its initial money off MS-DOS, which was not a very clever, innovative, or well-designed operating system; and (3) Microsoft has been using its operating system monopoly to drive out its competitors in other markets.

But Microsoft are far from invincible, as the past several years have started to show. (X-box, anyone?) And they've actually cleaned up their act recently -- Internet Explorer, C#, and Windows XP are all good, well-designed products -- no doubt because of the pressure from Netscape, Java, and... well I don't know precisely who their competitor was in the OS market, but XP seems vaguely influenced by Mac OS X.

I used to think Microsoft needed a rival OS for the home PC market, but hell, just get a Mac.

[sultmhoor.livejournal.com]

The money and time figure is all speculation, not fact.

I think that you'll probably eventually see a player, if not the authoring support, which is what he's talking about.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

There's the crossover plugin already which works for playback. Maybe if video editing becomes big on Linux we'll see authoring support, but Apple is really driving hard at the market already.

[notofthisworld.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Macs have always tightly integrated their hardware with their system software. On one hand, this makes things like porting difficult. On the other hand, it allows Macs to be quite fast and glitch-free.