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FYI: Linux only GA planned for early 2026

This talk is focused on JJ within Google.

This is a Google-internal only GA. JJ is available externally just fine. Google is mainly a linux-dev shop, with all other platforms being second-class citizens.

Furthermore, many engineers at Google work on Macs, some even on Windows, but the actual code runs on a Linux box in a datacenter. I use a Mac, my editor is local, my terminal is local, but it's all SSH/remote to the linux box, so I've never needed jj to run on my Mac. This, or a high powered Linux desktop, are the norm.

The main exceptions to this are devs who work on iOS or macOS software, who will sometimes do local builds on their physical machine. They would benefit from jj support, but there are more hoops to jump through, and the jj port will most likely be less about running on macOS and more about jj supporting the weird ways in which source is accessed.

Not that there are any other options. You're not gonna run datacenters on Mac boxes or Window s, nor would you want to pay a Unix vendor
The datacenter OS doesn't have to be the same as the developer OS. At my work (of similar scale) the datacenters all run Linux but very nearly all developers are on MacOS
MacOSX is a popular choice for dev boxes (if I understand correctly, they provide some pretty good tooling for managing a fleet of machines; more expensive hardware than a Linux dev machine fleet, but less DIY for company-wide administration).

... but Google solves the "A Linux fleet requires investment to maintain" problem by investing. They maintain their own in-house distro.

> their own in-house distro

Not really, it is just a well known outside distro plus internal CI servers to make sure that newly updated packages don't break things. Also some internal tools, of course.

> UNIX vendors

Well FreeBSD exists, just look at Netflix

What does "GA" stand for? General availability?
Yes, as in anyone can use it, you don't need special permission.

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