@some of AC, immediately above Hans
> "Still no Viruses for OSX in 20 years, too funny!"
>
> "Yes, the Classic MacOS had around 60 viruses"
>
> "Viruses can't be crafted for OS X since the Mac community doesn't allow for
> them. ZERO in 20 years is a pretty damn good record."
>
> Flip / flop / flip - which is it Ted? Either there have been viruses or there
> haven't.
His argument is entirely consistent. The Classic OS is an entirely different set of code to OS X. Viruses that were designed for the Classic OS won't function on OS X, in the same way that viruses that were designed for AmigaOS won't function on Windows.
> 'The Mac community doesn't allow viruses' - well that's a new one on me. I
> think however that should read "Whenever a Mac threat appears the Mac
> community will bend over backwards to redefine what a 'virus' is to the point
> where, if applied to the number of viruses for Windows, would reduce the total
> number from 'millions' to 'about three'."
Yeah, "the Mac community doesn't allow viruses" is clearly a ridiculous statement. However, since several Mac users have openly admitted that their OS is not a panacea for security problems on this discussion page, the statement isn't correct even when interpretted as you attempt.
> OSX is not the 'same' OS as 'Next Step'. Sure it draws on it and may share
> some code, but if it were the 'same' then I would be able to boot up a NEXT
> box and run, say, iPhoto on it, which of course I cannot. If you had wanted to
> say NEXT had no viruses then why didn't you say that?
Your test is fatuous. Is OS X v10.5 the 'same' OS as OS X v10.4? It can run the same applications. But there are some applications that will run on v10.5 but not v10.4. So if we apply your test then it is possible that A is the same OS as B, but B is not the same OS as A.
It's probably better to say that if OS X is the same OS as NextStep just a little less than Vista is the same OS as Windows NT.