##osx-server

nigelk: Ideally, no

as a time investment or business decision? I don't think there's enough of a market, or upside for growth.

I don't think in terms of "a market"

I think in terms of "a problem to be solved"

but it's what drives people to solve problems. Regardless of whether you're selling software for money or not.

sometimes you need to stop thinking of software as a business

and start thinking about it as a means to solving your bigger problems

"but it's what drives people to solve problems" not me

I want to solve _my_ problems

the benefit reaped from solving the problem is payment for creating the solution

so what's your theory for why no-one has attacked this problem? If it's "Puppet Labs stole all the Mac admins" I think that's bollocks.

be that monetary or time

If my solution is valuable to others, or I can make it so (so other people will help me solve my problems) then great

No, that's not my theory at all

so why aren't any Mac admins solving the problem?

My theory is that most Mac admins don't really have the needed skills.

i'd also wager that any one person doesn't have enough to gain as an individual by doing it

it seems like a pretty big problem scope to address with a solution from any one person or group

dirkg: again, I think it's because the size of the user base of your solution and the size of the market of people who will devote resources (time, money, whatever) isn't large enough and isn't growing enough

nigelk: That could well be the case

why is the Linux space seeing such vibrancy right now? even from individuals?

Is it?

totally

I'm seeing cracks

nigelk maybe, but this is my speculation as a non-macadmin looking at the problem scope

Docker is a sign (to me) that Linux is fundamentally broken

gneagle: we've got all the work on top of config mangement, openstack, etc, consul, serf, puppet/chef have ansible/salt coming up, we're working on how the world of systemd changes config management, there's all the cluster managemnet stuff of kubernetes, mesos, docker.....

gneagle: bah. that's an entirely different rant.

:-)

but there's project after project appearing every month to solve parts of the problem

Point

I see none of that vibrancy in the Mac admin space.

and regardless of what you might think, I lurk and watch a lot in that space

nigelk: Why?

why do I do it?

emotional attachment

nostalgia

Seems like an odd use of limited time

remember too I manage a team who do this as their job

so it's not entirely unrelated

Do what as their job?

manage macs

Oh

Why do they?

There are great tools in the mac community, but I think there's almost too many small tools. You can get the job done but you have to research and test so many different things. Then there's poor documentation (it's free though) so you end up having to make your own toolsets to do the job.

because we're a company of 350 people that are 90% mac?

Sounded earlier like you thought it wasn't really needed

With BYOD and good defaults etc

we don't manage heavily at all, is that really inconsistent?

egomez: i'd argue the Linux side isn't _that_ different

it's about more than config management though. e.g Santa was a pretty interesting release that I probably care more about than another config mgmt solution

Lots and lots of tools, all with varying documentation quality

Just because you don't manage, doesn't mean there isn't management.

i'm not sure what you're arguing against now.

let me summarize

Santa is a perfect example of just how bad things are in OS X.

I think client management on all platforms is a shrinking market

No one is leading.

nigelk: OK. I actually do agree that OS X doesn't need a lot of config management.

and this is why there's no major activity in that space

on Windows or OS X or Linux

management decreasing is only in enterprise sector

egomez: Santa is interesting, but addresses a pretty narrowly focused need

egomez: 99.9% of Apple customers do not need its functionality

I disagree.

egomez: So not sure how it is "a perfect example of just how bad things are in OS X."

Anyway, I basically just encourage you all that if you actually care about Puppet Mac functionality, express that in the Puppet community, tickets.puppetlabs.com, ask.puppetlabs.com, puppet-users@groups.google.com etc

it's not constructive here, and is invisible as far as helping anyone determine prioritization

nigelk: If I revisit Puppet again, I shall.

gneagle: What I mean by this is 3rd party companies leading the enterprise management when the leader should be Apple.

Apple will never lead enterprise management of Macs

nigelk: But we talk about all sorts of tools for managing Macs here, including Puppet

they never have

and they never will

I know

And it's pathetic.

Eh

hard to argue a company that valuable is pathetic

their strategy is clearly working

My Apple stock argues otherwise

And I'm glad I never bought Microsoft stock

heh

Apple: keep doing what you are doing!

My kid's college educations thank you for paying for them

This is the one problem I see. Apple Education Enterprise vs Apple Enterprise.

kids' not kid's

You guys don't see it how we do.

Neither does Apple.

egomez: This is going to sound condescending, but I don't mean it that way

I used to feel the way you do

So switch to another company that "gets" EDU

I probably felt like that for a decade as an edu Mac sysadmin, railing against the system

There's no switch though because 90% of education is Microsoft.

but Apple aren't going to change, particularly not now their strategy/behavior is validated with money

nigelk: I agree.

egomez: So go 100% Microsoft

gneagle: never!

see now you're not being rational

which is why Apple won't ever have to change

You sound like a woman with an abusive husband

:)

which is nothing to smirk at really. :-/

I treat Apple like a force of nature

egomez: then switch to Linux

hah

I can pray (file bug reports) but in reality I have no control or influence

iPads getting into education is the only reason I have a job.

All I can do is deal with reality.

gneagle: and isn't that pathetic?

Nope

It's feeing

or freeing

In what sense?

Once you stop railing against the river, the tide, the windstorm

and just get to work.

I don't sit here and just complain though. I reach out to Apple and if they listen great, if not, oh well.

Meanwhile....

I don't even reach out to Apple much any more

Microsoft is starting to catch up. I just had a meeting with Microsoft and their new toolsets for Windows 10/Server 10.

They are beginning to do things that Apple could and should have done.

So get rid of all those annoying Apple boxes

Go all in

One console to rule them all

No

DO EEET

egomez: are you seriously saying "Microsoft are just beginning to catch up" for client management vs Apple ?

I still believe in the right tool for the right job

Which is why Airwatch sucks :D

Resistance is futile

I never said client management

what are they catching up in then?

Here's a good example of "where things are going"

You will be able to fork the MS App Store.

Full control

yep

how does that catch up to Apple?

Okay maybe I should say "catch up, while pass"

catching up in other areas, (UI, consistency, modern applications) and passing Apple's own view of the future of client OS.

Google has also begun to think differently and for the better. De-bundling their apps from the OS.

You can update without bloat. Meanwhile Apple is bunding more and more apps into iOS.

Go back to puppet vs gneagle

egomez: There's no 'vs'.

This channel should be called binary

there is no vs, there is only one

egomez: I still don't see where Apple is leading so much that Microsoft is catching up in any way

except in mobile where they've given up