<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>headShrinker</author><text>&amp;gt; Or, crazy idea here, they could licence their OS if they don&amp;#x27;t want to make pro gear anymore.&lt;p&gt;Maybe some are too young to remember &amp;#x27;Power Computing&amp;#x27;, the company that licensed MacOS in the 90s. That was juuuuust before Apple ran in to major problems, and had to file bankruptcy. The first thing Jobs did when he came back was borrow 55 million dollars from Bill Gates and buy back all the licenses and shut down production of all mac clones. One of the only true things Apple has is its reputation for quality. You want to bleed that out, you would do it by allowing clones, thus bringing about the destruction of the brand as a whole.</text><parent_chain><item><author>nostromo</author><text>I wish Apple would just admit the trash can Mac Pro was a mistake and bring back the &amp;quot;cheese grater&amp;quot; Mac.&lt;p&gt;Some people just need or want a beefy desktop built with upgradable components (in addition to a laptop).&lt;p&gt;Or, crazy idea here, they could licence their OS if they don&amp;#x27;t want to make pro gear anymore.</text></item><item><author>outworlder</author><text>Big surprise. Video Pros now, developers next, common users last.&lt;p&gt;While Apple is focusing on trying to create the thinnest notebook on every generation, other companies are actually making useful computers, laptops or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;Right now, I&amp;#x27;ve decided to take the money I&amp;#x27;d spend on the cheapest Macbook to buy a desktop system, plus a chromebook. I can have mobility and a lot of performance, for a fraction of the price.&lt;p&gt;Even Windows is becoming more viable again, ubuntu core and all.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Video Pros Moving from Mac to Windows for High-End GPUs</title><url>http://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/02/23/video-pros-moving-from-mac-to-windows-for-high-end-gpus/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>mpweiher</author><text>&amp;gt; crazy idea here, they could licence their OS&lt;p&gt;Another one to chime in that I don&amp;#x27;t consider this crazy...any more.&lt;p&gt;It didn&amp;#x27;t work the first time around partly because the cloners had much smaller volume and could therefore always scoop Apple on the most profitable high-end gear, which didn&amp;#x27;t have component availability.&lt;p&gt;The licensing model was always a gamble, with the hope that the loss of margin would be offset by an increased base.  The problem was that it was &amp;quot;bet the company&amp;quot; stakes at the time, and when it didn&amp;#x27;t quite work out as hoped they had to shut it down or shut down the company.&lt;p&gt;Now the Mac line in general and the pro line in particular is a sufficiently insignificant part of the overall business that they could afford the gamble.</text><parent_chain><item><author>nostromo</author><text>I wish Apple would just admit the trash can Mac Pro was a mistake and bring back the &amp;quot;cheese grater&amp;quot; Mac.&lt;p&gt;Some people just need or want a beefy desktop built with upgradable components (in addition to a laptop).&lt;p&gt;Or, crazy idea here, they could licence their OS if they don&amp;#x27;t want to make pro gear anymore.</text></item><item><author>outworlder</author><text>Big surprise. Video Pros now, developers next, common users last.&lt;p&gt;While Apple is focusing on trying to create the thinnest notebook on every generation, other companies are actually making useful computers, laptops or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;Right now, I&amp;#x27;ve decided to take the money I&amp;#x27;d spend on the cheapest Macbook to buy a desktop system, plus a chromebook. I can have mobility and a lot of performance, for a fraction of the price.&lt;p&gt;Even Windows is becoming more viable again, ubuntu core and all.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Video Pros Moving from Mac to Windows for High-End GPUs</title><url>http://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/02/23/video-pros-moving-from-mac-to-windows-for-high-end-gpus/</url></story>