Apparently we are doomed to listen to people yammer on about Apple's moral obligation to port Mac OS X to Intel iron until hamsters sprout wings or we plunge meat thermometers straight through both ears. This is fine; we have long since accepted this fate. It's just one of a long list of inevitabilities in this life, like death, taxes, and getting one's fingers caught in the toaster while trying to pry out a stubborn bagel half and suffering second degree burns, electrical shock, and then blunt head trauma when crashing screaming into the edge of the sink. (Oh, like it's never happened to you.)

Well, faithful viewer Mark Hamilton informs us that the age-old "OS X for Intel" subject is the latest grist for Robert X. Cringely's weekly mill. Based on what we've heard, Bob's statement that "there simply is no technical problem with porting OS X to alternate hardware" is an entirely true one, and he's right; everyone knows that Mac OS X's core technologies ran just fine commercially on Intel hardware long before a reasonable PowerPC port was done, and Apple even fully expected to ship an Intel-compatible version of its new operating system back when it was still called Rhapsody. With a little work and maybe some technology licensed from ARDI, Apple might even be able to get those icky beige Xtels running honest-to-goodness Mac software in a sort of emulation layer.

The real question, of course, is why? It seems that ol' Bob wants Apple to release an x86 version of Mac OS X primarily so that Microsoft will be able to point to a viable competitor in the operating system market and pry the Justice Department off its back once and for all. Well, now that's an incentive! As for what's in it for Apple, well, there's certainly the possibility of doubling its OS market share percentage in fairly short order, but then there's the tricky fact that at least some people who now buy Macs would buy cheaper Wintels instead, thus sending Apple's hardware revenues hurtling towards the earth's core. No, we don't necessarily buy Bob's argument that "Macintosh users will always buy Macs"; granted, the hardware's much nicer today than it was in 1996, but we still remember faithful Mac users by the thousands buying Mac clones instead of Apple products-- ourselves included. Besides, Steve's really into this "we make the whole widget" thing; his company's having enough trouble supporting its own hardware (old ATI chips, anybody?), so we doubt Apple's all that keen on trying to support every heinous Wintel config lurking in every dark corner. Basically, market share yadda yadda yadda, but we just don't see a whole lot of point.

But wherever you stand on the whole "Mac OS X for Intel" thing (frankly, Bob's scenario of Dell boxes preloaded with Aqua-y goodness has us asking for volunteers to hold our hair as we sprint heaving for the toilet bowl), there's an interesting thread over on SlashDot about the subject; one gentleman who claims to have spent "four years as a senior software engineer on Apple's OS teams" insists that Apple already has all of Mac OS X (well, everything but Classic, obviously) up and running on x86-- Cocoa, Carbon, Quartz, Aqua, the whole shebang. As the story goes, Apple has no intention of releasing this wonder as a shrinkwrapped Cringely Special; instead, the company maintains the Intel version entirely as an emergency measure in case the PowerPC goes up in smoke. And if Apple ever has to use it, you can bet that it's still going to require a proprietary Mac ROM to prevent it from being used on anything but Apple's Intel-based Macs. Still, anything's possible, right? (Hygiene note: a few showers may be necessary to restore your sense of well-being after exposure to the concept of "Intel-based Macs." Act accordingly.)

Hey, so wait, did the Maine laptop initiative thingy go through after all? The last we'd heard, the deal was in limbo because of the massive public outcry and heavy political pressure for Governor King to spend the funds on social services instead of blowing the wad on 36,000 iBooks for every middle school student as Apple had trumpeted last month. Today, though, we stumbled upon an Associated Press article which states that "all 239 middle schools" in Maine have signed on to participate in the iBook program, which implies to us that it's a go. (Then again, Steve Jobs announcing it onstage at a keynote also implied to us that it was a go, so apparently our ability to recognize reasonable indicators of go-ness is slightly on the fritz.)

Well, let's just hope that what Apple has referred to as the biggest education sales deal in history is back on, because otherwise we know of 239 middle schools that are going to be awfully disappointed. The education department is heralding the schools' unanimous participation as a major endorsement of King's plan, since signing up was not mandatory, and each school had the option of taking a grant of "alternative equivalent value" instead of the iBooks-- but each and every one of them chose the Macs instead of the cash. While it's true that cash may be used to buy many iBooks (money can be exchanged for goods and services!) it's nice to see that middle schools are skipping the middleman and just taking the hardware.

Assuming all systems are go, it sounds like wireless AirPort networks will start going into the demonstration schools starting next month, and seventh-graders can look forward to receiving their iBooks this fall. Apparently eighth-graders won't get theirs until next year, but since next year's eighth-graders will be this year's seventh-graders, we just hope Maine is alert enough not to dish out two iBooks to the same students. (We may have uncovered a subtle flaw in the plan.) Man, wouldn't that be an embarrassment to a program that's already had enough black eyes?

Oooh, what's this? Could there actually be a sudden influx of real drama in "Redmond Justice"? After all, the show's been on the air for four seasons, now, and pretty much any show that survives that long starts to wear a little thin. (Cough.) Gone are those pulse-quickening days when Microsoft got caught faking evidence, or when Bill Gates professed not to understand the meaning of the word "we"; in recent seasons, fans of the show have been forced to make do with nothing more thrilling than duelling legal briefs and quibbles over whether a hearing is going to take place in March or April. Bestill our pounding hearts.

But suddenly things have just gotten a bit more interesting: faithful viewer Daniel Blanken nudged us towards a Reuters article which reveals that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly may have Microsoft's lawyers contemplating a quick change of undergarments. [By the way: note the poll on that page.] Once the feds changed hands, the Justice Department may have gotten all cuddly and eager to settle, but the attorneys general still have their teeth filed into sharp points; it seems that, in light of the sanction hearings slated to commence next month, the nine states still involved with the case had the audacity to request a peek at Microsoft's crown jewels-- the source code to Windows itself.

This is, of course, the same source code that Microsoft has always protected with its very life, claiming that if any mortal non-Redmond eyes should ever glimpse it, the sky will become black as sackcloth, the moon will become as blood, and big, hairless apes will leap, howl, and sweat profusely before the masses. (Er, about that last one-- we can only assume that somebody must have spied a line or two at some point.) Given how touchy Microsoft has been on this subject from the beginning, frankly, we never for a second expected that the judge would even begin to contemplate the merest possibility of approving the states' outrageous request. But approve it she did: "It seems to me that if your side has access to it, then the other side, frankly, should have access to it," she said.

Now, don't get too excited, there, Buckaroo; we've gotten plenty of frothing email from people who didn't read closely enough and leapt to the startling conclusion that Microsoft has been ordered to make Windows open source, and that just ain't so-- well, so far. All the judge has done is order that Microsoft turn the source code over to the states for the purposes of exploring Microsoft's continued assertion that Internet Explorer is an unremovable part of Windows, and not just an application that's been merged as much as possible for no reason other than to bolster a legal defense strategy. However, if the judge was willing to make Microsoft fork its code over to the plaintiffs, that might signal that she wouldn't be overly averse to approving some sort of forced licensing of said code as part of the sanctions against Bill's brigade. Consider it an interesting first step-- and stay tuned.