If possible, would you put OS X on a non Mac computer?
 

Titles says it all. I don't want to get into specific elitism on platform versus platform, but if Apple allowed third parties to load OS X as an option on their computer systems, would you ever consider running OS X on a non Apple branded computer.

You are limited to what you buy with Apple, but if they opened it up to other products you could build your own, or buy something they don't offer or make.

I am polling various computer forums as some research for an article I want to write for my website about Operating Systems.

Thanks.

I think I might be open to it, but only if it didn't harm the platform. Apple makes its money selling the hardware, and so if they were to sell the OS separately then the OS would need to cost much more. Because of that, I don't see a whole lot of advantage to me as a user. Sure, there might be more options, but there's bound to be more trouble too.

I don't know where that would fit in your poll.

Under perhaps, its a yes with conditions or a maybe I would say.

nope... for every good reason. :D

Lets assume it ran just like a Mac but you could "build your own" and not have to be limited to what Apple makes.

I built my new PC for 1200 dollars and it has the following specs

Intel Q9550 Quad Core processor w/ 12 MB of cache
4Gi DDR 1033 RAM
1 TB of HD space
Nvidia GTX 260 1Gi video card
900w True PSU
DVDRW dual layer burner

I mean for 1200 that is awesome. I just wish I could run OS X on it.

That's not including the cost of OS X, which would need to be significantly more than $129. Look at the what ever the price of Vista Premium Ultimate Super Duper Business Home Office Lounge Resort Spa is and then add a few hundred dollars. Would it still be worth building your own? :confused:

Microsoft knows it can do that, and they have the most expensive license cost in the world.

Even pay for linux distros are under 100 bucks and sometimes cheaper per a license.

MS has the market so they charge for it. More competition between OSes you would see a price break everywhere I would think.

Maybe, but as a customer who reasonably expects to live perhaps another 40 or 50 years, I don't want to kill off a company that provides me with quality products. I want them to be profitable so I don't ever have to buy from Microsoft. Take away their hardware revenue, and they need to make it up from software.

While Microsoft can get away with high OS prices because of their monopoly, Apple can't count on doing the same thing while cannibalizing their hardware.

I think its give and take or you can't have it just one way. I think they would sell more OS license than they would on hardware sales. Plus I worked in retail IT/sales for 6 years the mark up on hardware is crap. More money is made in software and accessories as far as margin goes.

Would you pay for Linux? I know some people that would never pay for Linux ever. However, if I were to get a bit of support with my purchase I could see tossing a Linux company $60 for a copy of their enterprise linux.

Spec wise Apple is a bit behind everyone else, however they do get to have that niche of being a closed platform. All in all hardware is pretty much hardware these days. Drivers can be hard to find on some more esoteric items but even when I toss open source Linux on a laptop it will plug and play everything, and most of the times the wireless card even works out of the box these days. Which was a real problem with Linux on laptops a few years ago.

Sure, for the retailer, but not the manufacturers.

I think you're looking at things through an IT tech's eyes and that is causing you to confuse features and benefits. The critical specs for most users are: does it do what I want, and does it cause problems for me? Features like clock speeds, seek times, RAM, hard disk space, etc., are simply trivia that may or may not have something to do with whether or not the system benefits the user.

Whether or not Apple should sell the OS for use on other hardware depends on whether or not it benefits the users not just now, but in the future. The fact that it will certainly benefit a very small but vocal minority of users who want to build gaming rigs or run OS X on the PC they just built isn't relevant.

Or maybe someone who wants to purchase 3,000 OS X licenses to load it on their existing PCs and not want to pay for new hardware?

I see your points, but I think consumers are more savvy each and every day and that they get more savvy they care more about future proofing and specs. When I worked in a retail IT environment the most common question is, can I upgrade it and is it future proof. They ask questions like this and while it may not be relevant to the performance of the product it is a growing concern I think. I haven't worked in that environment for some years now too, so it could have changed.

defiantly, almost 100%, since i could build myself a beefy gaming rig for the same price an an imac

That is kind of what I am getting at. Since many consider the Mac platform a niche market and I agree it is at the moment, but I also consider gaming a niche market as well.

How big are these niche markets? Are there more gamers than Mac users out there that run on custom built PCs? It is way more common than you think.

What if the niche markets all had some things in common. I know a lot of people that dis like the mac because of the lower specs and lack of customization. however, those people are typically in the niche market of power users or gamers.

always a tricky one but yes yes yes...

what they could do is open the the OS on other hardware as a choice at an increased price using their EFI/BIOS locking or something....beyond me.....but i am sure some super sonic tech geek could come up with some plan...;-) which overall will be cracked anyway...lol

I want more choice on OS, i could roll out OS X on current PC hardware and people/business's would be very happy....some business's just will not buy apple hardware due to price but would love to run OS X....and can't run Linux for software related reasons.

I personally think they would not lose that much market share from hardware...i would still buy Mac lappys over PC lappys for example....even though they are at least 30% more expensive.

so overall i am back on the slopes tomorrow and will gladly leave all my technology (mac,pc and internet not mobile phone DOH!) at the chalet just for the chance to carve up some snow...;-0 so what i am doing commenting.....less we forget how all this technology has allowed us to get away and still operate our business's.....whether that be on a mac or PC....rant over.....happy holidays!

Part of the problem that Microsoft faces is supporting virtually every possible hardware configuration - something that they obviously have trouble doing well. I don't want to see Apple try to tackle the same beast, as I fear that the OS's stability would suffer as a result. Keeping it as a closed system reduces the variables that they have to consider. They can introduce new hardware as they are ready to address it (and even then, they still have bugs to work out).

Well a lot of enterprises would love to slap OS X on some desktops. The lack of viruses. Not a lot of them want to spend millions on new hardware. I think from an enterprise perspective they could make millions and millions in just companies buying mass site licenses and support packages to just run their OS.

The consumer is the weird, it's on the fence type subject I think, where the enterprise would be a good market to tap into.

That isn't all on MS's shoulders. Some of that is on the developers. They all have the SDKs from MS and many of them had over two years to develop drives for Vista. Granted I am not a developer, so I can't say what went wrong and who's fault it ultimately was when things don't work in Vista. However, I strongly believe that if done right developers could easily port apps and drivers for more support over to OS X. After all, the hardware is mostly all the same when you go down to the component level. I mean who writes the code for all the Intel hardware support? Is it Apple or is it Intel, or is it both?

The problem with MS is that they are too big and can't work with everyone at the same time, and some developers are probably a pain in the ass are not very good compared to others.

Perhaps having a certification standard and developers of third party hardware could follow Apple's standards and make their hardware also "Apple compliant," and if they went out side those guidelines then you are on your own for support. Then perhaps give that to the open source community.

Just saying it is an idea.

could not agree more tlarkin and i suppose they would hold on to their consumer market anyway....as far as games a PC box,xbox,psp is the way to go anyway.....in enterprise it would rock...the MS boat big time.

As someone that has to integrate (note use of word) Mac environments into PC worlds....it would be great as i am pretty damn savvy on 3 platforms but the PC bods seam to think they know it all and fire fight to their hearts content where as my implementations are very effective require less support and have a generally better user environment so what i am trying to say is that Apple's implementatin of Linux is very good....(not without its issues) but power apps is what people i deal with want....

Unfortunately, Apple needs to improve their Enterprise products. I have to tip my hat to MS for Exchange and Active Directory. They just work, and they do their job well, and they are robust.

I now work in a complete OS X Open Directory Environment (30 xserves, 6,500 mac clients) and I can see lots of room for improvement. It seems to me Apple does the 80:20 approach. They will spend 80% on one feature and make it so kick ass no platform can touch it, while only spending on 20% on other features that are needed to just "make it work" so to speak.

I mean I have a real large love/hate relationship with WGM.

I totally get that :)

Brett

haha... it is possible, and I have done it.
I flipped out a couple of my coworkers when I had it running on a Dell at work a few months ago. Mostly just to see if it would work. And it did--with a little massaging. But I'm not allowed to go into that.

Not if they want to remain profitable. The enterprise is low margin, high volume and that means that when a company falters (DEC, Compaq, IBM, etc.) there is very little chance of recovering. Apple appears to be better off doing what they're doing. With higher margins there's room for the inevitable error or two. I'd like to be able to buy cheaper hardware and still get a great performing Mac, but I don't think it's possible without harming the platform.

As for enterprises buying Macs, it isn't like they need to replace every PC simultaneously. They only need to incorporate Mac purchases into normal procurement schedules, so it isn't like they'd be spending millions on new hardware. They'd be spending what they normally spend.

It doesn't matter: they're not Mac customers and they're not going to be. The Mac is not now, and never has been about the hardware. The hardware is simply where Apple makes their money. Gamers are about the hardware. The Mac is like a sleek, sexy yacht that has great cruising speed, but gamers want a hydroplaning speed boat. Sure, the Mac can play games, and a gaming rig can run Photoshop or Office, but that doesn't mean they're in the same market.

Well of course it is possible but it requires effort and is not supported offically. Apples sucess and our pleasure from it comes from the close integration of Hardware and Software. Of course now that there is a lot of overlap in Mac and PC hardware it is more tempting.

As others have said Apple makes most of its Money on Hardware and somewhat higher margins. And Apple chooses not to offer as many models or configurations and never could then a dozen brands times dozens of models.

Apple took a pass at this and it worked, but not financially for Apple and it ended the experiment.

It is not like it is not possible for it to work as a business model. MS sells very little harware except the Xbox, Zune, and Mice and Keyboards. OK well they sell some:)

I Would say the most current elegant example would come from the Iphone. Is anyone even thinking about putting Iphone software on a G1, or Strom. It is almost unthinkable. With Laptops and Desktops it is not as radical a departure and Apple gets additional revenue mostly from AT&T and some from Itunes, and the App store, etc., but if you want to have Apple computer around it is probably not in their or our interest.

I guess the real question is that if Apple is willing to take the risk of jumping into that market? I mean I am polling other sites and almost all the PC users I have polled have said they would buy a copy just to dual boot and check it out before they would ever consider buying a Mac.

If marketed properly maybe it could be a gateway to buy a Mac, I dunno I am not marketing genius. Apple on the other hand....

If only we had of those crystal balls:) While what you say might be true I think the issue really is the golden goose. If Apple thought it would work as a business model they would do it. There is no inbetween though. They would loose the majority of their sales to all the other computer producers and left PCwise selling the OS $75 to $175 dollars.

Well, Apple is also, well Apple. SJ has been quoted saying that Apple is NOT an enterprise company, yet they make enterprise products and companies are looking to switch to them.

Then they pull out of Mac world.

I think the company will make some market changes in the next few years. They are already raking in the doe with the idevices.

Maybe once someone else holds the reigns we will see a change of what they want to do. I know how much yearly subscription licensing costs since I work in IT, and there is a lot of money in it.

If enterprise had the option to easily try out the product for a reasonable price while keeping their hardware why would they not try it? If they don't want Mac hardware they'll never switch.

Also, their servers, the Xserve is VERY competitively priced compared to other companies. It is also certified to run Unix, Linux, OS X Server of course, and Windows Server. You can feasibly run your AD/Exchange network off of Xserves running Windows Server!

If they aren't testing the waters then why the compatibility and why the competitive pricing? I mean I have spec'd out servers from many companies with Apple being the cheapest, including storage solutions. XSAN is getting a larger market shares. Companies are considering it, it will happen eventually. Consumer markets are unpredictable and not always the best way to make money.

The iDevices (iPod, iPhone, etc) craze won't last forever. Eventually everyone else will catch up and make better cheaper products, that is how the cell phone industry works. When that happens I will go back to Nokia when they make an awesome touch screen because even though my iPhone is awesome, all of my Nokia phones have out performed every other phone in one aspect. The ability to make clear calls over cellular networks, and to always have signal. The iPhone is great, but the phone part is not as good as my Nokia, which I still have as a back up plan.

This is getting slightly off the topic though.

I still think if the consumer had a choice to load OS X on say an HP they bought from HP they would probably start doing it. That was just an example.

But where is it written that catering to the enterprise is a good long term strategy? Most of the PC companies that have made that commitment are no longer around, or are in fairly deep trouble. Only a few are in good shape.

The enterprise wants a road map, low prices, lots of backward compatibility, and more hand holding than consumers. None of that is good for any company that wants to truly innovate, which is probably why companies that cater to the enterprise tend to get into trouble. They end up as commodity brokers who compete on price and price alone.

Symantec, IBM, HP, Dell, Microsoft, AutoDesk are all pretty much making most of their money off of enterprise. IBM stopped making consumer machines a while ago and now only makes business class and servers.

Who says Apple has to stop making consumer items?

Symantec may sell a lot of copies of NAV to consumers, but a site license to Ghost is a TON of money, and companies pay for it because Ghost is a great imaging solution.

We run the Casper Suite right now at work which is enterprise back end software for OS X and OD networks. We are paying per a client license at a discounted rate and they are making a good sum of money off of us each year.

The money is in the subscription licensing. Then you are in a contract and you pay x amount each year and you get all the software that comes in that subscription, so the company knows how much revenue they are going to make of off enterprise licensing that year pretty much already.

We purchased 6,000 Macbooks at my work, and we didn't get that huge of a discount on them. I think they were 900 a piece (w/ applecare parts and labor only), do the math. Enterprise sales do make lots of money. That doesn't count for our 30 servers either and our software license upgrade protection either.

What if Apple could land 10 of those sales each year? Even 5 of those types of sales would still be 30,000 units sold.

While the consumer market is easier to cater to, the enterprise market is always there buying in bulk.

"Tech journalists" have been saying this about the iPod for the last five years.

Symantec doesn't make computers, IBM is a shadow of its former self, Dell needs to sell something like 4 (or is it higher?) times as many computers as Apple just to make the same money, Microsoft doesn't make computers and is still resting on the monopoly Bill Gates won in 1981, and AutoDesk also doesn't make computers.
It isn't that they would have to stop making consumer items. The problem is that the intense hand holding that the enterprise requires would prevent them from producing quality, innovative products. It's probably what keeps companies like Microsoft from being able to truly innovate no matter how much money they spend on R&D.

Let's face it, innovation comes from small to medium sized businesses, and it dies in the enterprise, which is primarily about conforming. Apple's focus on consumers and small businesses is probably as important as Steve Jobs for making them innovative.

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Very interesting points, cwt.

No, I am saying those companies make most of their money off of enterprise revenue. Lets say you have a staff of 30 IT employees, they all need a copy of ARD Admin @ $500 per a license, they just made $15,000 in software sales.

Symantec and Autodesk don't make any money off their consumer products, they make all of their money off of their enterprise licensing. A yearly site license to ghost can cost up to $60k or more per a year for example.

I don't want even to go into how much Autodesk products cost, and Autodesk doesn't offer any support you have to buy it. I used to deploy the whole Autodesk educational suite, 500 install license for each high school, and we had 5 Highschools. Each license was $10k per a year. That is $50k per a year they are making (that is also edu discounted) off one school district. There are probably 15 to 20 school districts in the kansas city metro area and the out skirts.

Enterprise licensed software you can make a bunch. What happens when a business, college, or organization wants to buy a site license to final cut pro, shake, and logic audio? They are going to pay Apple a subscription fee each year for it.

We pay Adobe an ungodly amount for our subscription license, and CS4 has been on my desk for a few months now.

Mikey-

I thought the iRiver was a better product then the iPod (at the time of course) because it supported pure drag and drop of media and you could organize songs by folders in the music folder on the iRiver. No stupid software needed, it mounted as a USB drive and you just dragged and dropped supported media. Too bad the product could not innovate past that. I have an iPod touch that was given to me as SWAG and I like it, not sure if I'd pay for it, because I hate iTunes. There are third party items out there but the support sucks, Apple won't release any kind of SDK for it either. The iPod is still one of the better, if not the best you are right. However, that market is way different than cell phones. I mean as far as certain functionality my blackberry kicks the crap out of my iPhone. No exchange/groupwise support for my iPhone, no copy and paste, Apple are kind of nazi-ish with the apps on the iPhone. I jail broke mine so I could get all the cool apps for it and I love it, but it is lacking features to make it perfect. I think that some company will get it all with the cell phone and I think it is possible it won't be apple.

Another point I want to bring up, if Apple were so against the idea, wouldn't you think they would go after OS X x86 project? They haven't yet, and it is still widely available to download and people are developing for it. It is all open source community but it is still there alive and kicking and Apple is not trying to stop it.

I'm going to say "No". Once you take OS X and pull it away from the hardware it is meant for, then it becomes all diluted. The reason OS X is stable is because it's built for a specific set of hardware. Windows has to support every little device under the sun, and has to support a million different hardware configurations, hence a lot of it's instability.

Once you do that with OS X, I'd imagine it'd get all messy and such, like Windows.

Amen to that. Having TOILED with windows - no way would i want to go back there again. At least with Apple you can get on with what you WANT to be doing.

Apple are maybe always a bit behind with their configurations , but im sure in this day and age - for most users the present configurations are overkill anyway. All the people i know who have macs, seem to be very happy with their lot.

Because it just works.

Although I voted yes, I completely understand why Apple does not allow it and because of those reasons I do not mind either.

I agree that you could make a cheaper computer than Apple... no one would dispute that... but Apple operate the way they do for a variety of reasons.. the ones that spring to mind are:

Why go mass market? Apple operates very well in its own niche. (Heigher market share means more chance of Virus, Malware et al)
Why cheapen the brand by letting OSX be installed on any PC? Would you see Rolls Royce selling its badges to let you stick them on a Honda?.. I think not.
Not knowing what Hardware your OS goes on make it difficult to guarantee it quality... OSX is all about Use Experience... the problem with a 'build your own PC with OSX on it' scenario is that Apple are not able to control the quality of the end product..

to be fair... I cant even believe I am discussing this issue... its as daft as asking if McDonnalds will go into the fine dining market!

Linux can do it. I have installed Ubuntu and Debian on probably 100 to 150 different PC hardware configurations in my time, maybe more. Set up a DRBL server off on old desktop once.

It is very stable, and at boot up with everything running in the background, including all the fancy Compiz 3D stuff Linux has like a 400MB of memory in use. Vista will typically idle around 1Gig or at about 25% of your RAM because of ready boost, and OS X well I have seen it Idle at 20% of RAM usage and I have seen in spike.

I mean the stability thing is true on one side of the spectrum but its not like its end all be all argument either. I don't think it holds water. If Linux and Unix can be stable, offer robust 3D user desktop environments, work on a super broad range of hardware configurations, then why can't OS X?

Also for the record, once you tweak Vista you can get it running rather fast. I have it running on my PC at home so I can take advantage of DX 10, and overall I am not too impressed with Vista, but I must say it performs better than I originally imagined it would.

There are a few support issues with *Nix on a PC but for the most part it works as smooth as silk out of the box on almost all PCs.

You're IT background is getting in the way again. Almost all users are not in IT, and they're not going to tweak Vista or any other OS.

But the money they make doesn't get used for my (or any other consumer's) benefit. Their products are geared toward corporate wishes, many of which are not at all helpful to end users. What's more, none of them are true innovators and they represent a small percentage of the companies that have been and are involved in the enterprise. Most others have failed or aren't doing well.

That isn't to say that they haven't improved technology, but a faster processor, larger hard drive or more RAM on a chip isn't an innovation, and they aren't developing them to produce better products for end users.

You and many others in IT would naturally prefer drag and drop, but for the rest of the world, it becomes very limiting once they get beyond a few dozen songs. Most people just aren't that organized, especially when it comes to computers.

Not necessarily. By keeping the door open, they keep Microsoft a little off balance, and it's possible that Apple might some day come to a point where they make more off of software than hardware, in which case it might make sense to sell the OS separately.

I think you are wrong, you'd be surprised how many people are doing this. just check out any PC driven computer forum and you will find people, plus this next generation is already doing it. Video games are making billions per a year, and sure there are consoles lumped into there as well, but the growing number of power users is growing faster and faster. In the school system I work for you start using a computer in Kindergarden, and at 1st grade you start to learn how to type, and by the end of primary school you are using all kinds of applications. There is one student who showed me his flash animation the other day, and we haven't even started teaching flash just yet and he taught himself, and it was good, and this is a 16 year old kid. We have the full CS3 on some of the Macs and he just taught himself flash by just using it and watching demo videos. Times are changing.


Money is money, and funds get shifted and invested and diverted all over the place. I am sure the millions of dollars we spent got shoveled around to all departments of Apple.

Cell processors were innovated for enterprises as well as blade servers the PS3 uses a Cell processor. It innovates.

I don't see how any users wouldn't want simple drag and drop capabilities, in fact it failed mostly because there was no control or DRM on it. iPods have to be authorized to transfer data from machine to machine and it is a burden on me since I have 5 or 6 Macs I use on a regular basis. I can't fit all my music onto my 8Gig iPod so I want to distribute it amongst them. It isn't easy or innovative.


I think you are talking in circles. If they are keeping MS at bay by not touching OS X x86, why don't they just buy it up? I think them making their Xserves Windows Certified is more keeping them at bay than anything. Once enterprises start buying Apple servers they are more inclined to try OS X Server, and there are organizations out there buying Xserves to run Linux and Windows on them. Why aren't they suing psystar either? They are just doing mediations at the moment. If they were so worried and against their OS being used on non Apple hardware why didn't their lawyers throw the book at Psystar and make an example of them so no one else tried to do it?

I honestly just think Apple couldn't handle it personally at this point. It takes them longer to implement fixes and security patches than most other companies. If they had to broaden their support they would fall even worse perhaps who know? That will never be answered.

I do believe that Apple is definitely looking to venture that way. Their servers are very competitively priced and a better value in many cases, they can run any server OS. So the back end is looking a lot better, but still enterprises don't like buying iMacs and the Mac Pro is over kill.

If I have to tweak my OS to run fast, I am using the wrong OS. :)

And yeah, I can't stand organizing music into folders. Let the computer do this stuff, I have better things to do than Asperger out over how my record collection is placed into directory hierarchies.

fair enough, I like folders it reminds me of playing my vinyl records, I also like to listen to albums for the most part from start to finish.

By tweaking I meant configuring, but point also taken.

I'm sure the absolute numbers are large, but the percentage is small.
Not at bay, just off balance. Keep the enemy guessing.
That's an unfair comparison. What is better, to take longer to implement a good fix, or rush out one that creates as many problems as it solves? You have to look at their track records: who is plagued by successful exploits?

I do think that they "couldn't handle it" either, but then I think that most if not all companies can't handle it in the long run. The enterprise wants to turn the computer into a commodity with low prices on interchangeable boxes. That is antithetical to real innovation and leads to a dead end for companies that focus on it. Dell, for example, has been having trouble with its profitability for a while now because everyone else caught up with their manufacturing/distributing advantages and they have nothing else to give them an edge.

I don't need to back up these claims. Apple was the first machine hacked at the last security conference. The ARD client root escalation bug took them months and months to fix. The DNS issue was a known fix, everyone fixed it with in that first month: Cisco, Novell, Microsoft, anything that can handle DNS fixed it, the problem was with DNS not with the OS, it had to do with BIND. DNS released the information to fix it and Apple took their super sweet time.

However, Apple is innovating on the Enterprise level. Google search Podcast Producer and XSAN w/ XGRID and you will see what they are doing. Even if SJ says they aren't an enterprise company they sure do have a TON of enterprise products that came out in the last few years and they have more to come.

This is digressing a bit though.

Back on topic:

From other polls it seems that the Windows/custom build PC crowd would love to buy it for their PCs. The Linux/Unix crowd says it highly depends on how Apple implements it. They view Apple much like Microsoft in regards to an OS and a company. The casual users I have polled have all pretty much said, if there was a trial OS I didn't have to pay for, and if they liked it they would buy the OS for their PC.

About 25% of those that said yes, said they would consider buying a Mac after they tried it on their PC first.

I have polled only about 60 or so people at the moment so the numbers are pretty low.

Anecdotal evidence can be used to show anything you like, but look at the long term stats. OS X has been around for nearly nine years now, and it's essentially untouched by malware.
I have no problem with them selling products to the enterprise. I just don't think it would be good for them focus on the enterprise and I'm afraid that they would have to if they separated the OS from the hardware.

That IS what I am saying CWT, is that the long term of it, is that Apple sucks worse than anyone else when it comes to implementing updates. Historically and even by today's standards OS X gets patched in a less timely manner.

Huh? Didn't OS X go through 5 major revisions in the time is took MS to go from XP to Vista? :confused:

Revisions is one thing, bug fixing and security patching is another. Just because you can upgrade the OS and add some new features does not mean you have fixed security issues or known bugs.

I have a current known bug that Apple won't be fixing until 10.6 so I am forced to upgrade to fix it.

This is getting off the point yet again.

Be it consumer or enterprise, would people be interested in purchasing OS X for a non mac computer?

You say "won't", reality may be "can't" or "can't reasonably".

I can't possibly see where this fix would require 10.6 as its not a problem with the OS itself, it is with an Apple made app, but that is what it is.

How have you determined the fix (or right fix) is appropriate or possible in 10.5?

Also, as I said, it could be "can't reasonably" and not "can't". It may be the case that the correct fix conflicts with other changes happening in the development/build cycle and/or future changes the team knows about. Sometimes in the midst of all of the things happening, there isn't time or resources to back-port the change to the earlier release and test it thoroughly.

I can't speculate as to what the case is here--especially given I don't even know what bug you're talking about--but these are common scenarios and I would hesitate to jump to conclusions.

I have Apple Enterprise Support (pay for kind) and talked with engineers directly. They said, yeah its a bug, its now put a list to be fixed, probably won't be any time soon probably won't be in 10.5, straight from Apple.

None of this conflicts with what I said, just describes what I was talking about. :)

I would, but only because I'd like to run OS X on a netbook. If Apple released a netbook however...