Jaguar: Smooth sailing ahead?


According to a write up on Think Secret, those using beta versions of Apple's Jaguar OS X update report only a handful of conflicts/bugs with third-party applications and utilities. Whereas X.1 wrought a plethora of problems for users and software developers.

"In the early part of Jaguar's development, some developers Think Secret spoke with were concerned that Mac OS X v10.2 would cause similar damage," states Nick dePlume, chief dishmeister. "In recent days, readers have expressed similar concern.

"Luckily, this hasn't been the case, by far. Jaguar hasn't introduced nearly as many issues with third-party software, and nearly all major apps work flawlessly in the final gold master of Jaguar."

TS does provide a non-specific list in-progress of applications that are problematic to some degree or another under Jaguar:

• Apple Remote Desktop;
• MacReporter;
• AthenaIRC;
• Warcraft;
• Cisco VPN app;
• FruitMenu;
• AOL Instant Messenger;
• ASM;
• ProcessWizard;
• StuffIt Menu;
• Theme/Duality; etc.

Mssr. dePlume also discusses a handful of specific bugs and conflicts, but I'll leave that for you to discover for yourself -- here

Cutting two ways

Software Piracy is definitely a two-edged blade. Whereas software vendors lose revenues they might have garnered had everyone using their software paid for the privilege, they also benefit from "illicit" use of their products. The latter is true for two reasons: 1.) wider distribution means more people performing a wider variety of tasks will discover more bugs and 2.) lots of the people pirating are also hackers that also form the bulk of any OS or applications' "informal" developer community.

Analysis: In a world where "the update for the update" is often released within days of the original, it's nice to hear about a fix that actually fixes more than it breaks. M$' service packs are infamous for creating as many (or more) problems -- i.e. security holes and conflicts -- as they are designed to fix. That Apple apparently will release an update that not only fixes problems and introduces entirely new functionality without making an even bigger mess of things is quite reassuring.