<div dir="ltr"><i>The whole of open-source is largely a hobby project</i><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>:)<span class="gmail-im" style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><div><br></div><div>> I will note, however, that there are a huge number of people who rely on Sonoma on Intel or ARM as their daily work machine.</div><div><br></div></span><div>This is not the right question to ask. How many people exclusively depend on Macports for their daily work will be a better one. It is irrelevant how many use Sonoma as such, as long as they are not using Macports.</div><div><br></div><div>Then, how many people depend on 10.7, 10.8 or anything below, say, macOS 12? There is nothing specific to PowerPC here. Apple hardware restricts OS which can be installed, so nobody gonna use older Intel systems just as much for commercial applications.</div><div>In fact I would bet that there are more users of 10.5 ppc than of 10.7 x86. There are some reasons to use the former, there are arguably none to use the latter.</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 2:33 AM Perry E. Metzger <<a href="mailto:perry@piermont.com">perry@piermont.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<p>The question is very simple. "Does anyone using MacPorts actually
depend on the machines in question for their daily work". Not
"could someone in theory do so". Not "is there a way that you
could do such a thing if you really really wanted to". Does anyone
*actually* do it.</p>
<p>My assumption is no, or possibly a very, very small number of
people. You can buy a much newer and better machine for a pittance
on eBay or the equivalent.<br>
</p>
<p>I will note, however, that there are a huge number of people who
rely on Sonoma on Intel or ARM as their daily work machine.</p>
<p>Perry<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p></p>
<div>On 1/8/24 13:17, Sergey Fedorov wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">I do not particularly get the question. By “not
using as a hobby project” you mean using it commercially?
Obviously, “the latest software” condition restricts this to
open-source.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I can name at least a few areas where macOS PowerPC <i>can
be</i> used either commercially or with the latest software
but rather for not-too-demanding academic applications.
Obviously, even the best machines from 2005 cannot compete
speed-wise with the modern ones, so if a commercial
application is sensitive to processing speed (or portability),
PPC is not a reasonable option.</div>
<div>There is nothing preventing one from using a PowerMac today
for print media design and prepress, commercially. But
software won’t be the latest.</div>
<div>There is nothing preventing from using a PowerMac for
something like econometric models in R. Perhaps not a very
commercial stuff, but not a hobby project either. Everything I
did for Bayesian modelling on an Intel Mac I can do on a
PowerPC.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What is the real stopper is portability. If someone would
give me a PowerBook with G5 quad or at least dual cpu, I could
use it as the to-go machine.</div>
<div>Single G4 – no, thanks, that is only good for a hobby
project.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at
11:45 PM Nicklas Larsson via macports-dev <<a href="mailto:macports-dev@lists.macports.org" target="_blank">macports-dev@lists.macports.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hi
all!<br>
<br>
I’m seriously curious: does anyone still today use a PPC
machine today as (1) main/only workstation with (2) necessary
use of latest software and (3) without using it as hobby
project?<br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
Nicklas<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
> On 8 Jan 2024, at 15:50, Perry E. Metzger <<a href="mailto:perry@piermont.com" target="_blank">perry@piermont.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
> <br>
> There's been a bit of tension recently because of a group
of people who are very interested in keeping MacPorts working
on PowerPC hardware, none of which has been made for the last
18 years or so.<br>
> <br>
> I'd like to float the idea that we create a fork of the
MacPorts repository that is devoted to operating systems and
hardware that is more than (say) a decade old, and that we
allow the people who are interested in maintaining that
software to freely work on it. It doesn't hurt the rest of us
after all, and it absolves us of the need to keep the main
MacPorts repository complicated by patches to support very old
systems.<br>
> <br>
> This way, people interested in old systems can keep them
running, and their work doesn't take up time for the rest of
us and vice versa.<br>
> <br>
> Perry<br>
> <br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote></div>