iTunes - once again.

[Garrett Cooper]

perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
>>> Call me silly, but it seems to me you ought to be lobbying Apple
>>> for Linux support.
>>>
>>> Get a decent Apple-made Linux player, and FreeBSD support via
>>> the linux emulator would *probably* work, no?
>> I agree, getting Apple to support iTunes on Linux is key. I don't
>> know if there have been other online petitions ...
> 
> Good luck.  My guess is that open-source systems like Linux or *BSD
> are considered too easily hackable, and therefore prohibited in
> Apple's agreements with the recording industry.  (Even if the iTunes
> app itself were distributed as binary-only, having both the input
> and output drivers open-source might be perceived as making it too
> easy to attack the encryption.)

It's not just that.

	Given Apple's stance in the marketplace, they (rightly) prefer to do 
things when it suits their vested interests. So, considering the 
following points, Apple won't support iTunes on any platform other than 
OSX and Windows:

-DRM doesn't exist on *BSD, Solaris or Linux, which means that Apple 
would have to do the system from scratch or adapt the system to meet the 
requirements of the installation platform.
-The cost of development, security risks, and probable loss of IP would 
be much higher since they'd be spreading out their resources pretty thin 
by developing DRM/iTunes for other platforms.
-Plus, the number of PCs owners that do have iTunes protected files is 
probably much smaller than the market share that own Mac or Windows 
machines and use iTunes.
-Many times writing binary applications for Unix requires a common 
denominator for all applications. Considering that there isn't 
necessarily a common denominator in Unix (shells are different, kernels 
are different, not all clients have the same WMs, DEs, etc), finding and 
establishing that common denominator would take a lot of time.

Therefore, with that thinking in mind I highly doubt that anything will 
come about in the near future where iTunes is supported on another 
platform than Windows or OSX, unless everyone will start using Linux or 
*BSD because of Vista ^_^.

-Garrett

PS Have you tried Crossoffice yet? It's a packaged suite for wine that 
supposedly supported iTunes (as well as Office XP) back in the day (~1 
year ago). You'll have to pay for it though.