> TL;DR: [tag:osx] and [tag:mac] are a complete mess. What should we do about that?

## What's the current situation?

Per [this question](https://meta.superuser.com/questions/635/mac-and-osx-tag-usage-on-su), we've established the following distinction between the "OS X" and "Mac" tags, more than two years ago:

- [tag:osx]

 > Mac OS X is a Unix-based operating system developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc.

- [tag:mac]

 > Questions about Mac hardware, sold by Apple. Use [tag:osx] for the operating system, and use [tag:mac-address] for MAC addresses instead.

Now, this works *in theory*. We get a nice differentiation between Mac hardware and the operating system that runs on it. t But at the same time, we have 4,664 Mac questions and 8,026 OS X questions, with 1,995 questions overlapping. I dare to say that a considerable amount of all "Mac" questions are *not* related to hardware at all and actually should be tagged "OS X" instead.

But why is that? Here are a couple of possible reasons:

- Apple popularized the "Mac" label for anything that is ["not a PC"][1]. Since Macs typically run only with OS X, people referring to Mac actually mean the operating system, not the underlying hardware (MacBooks, iMacs, etc).

- Some software vendors target the "Mac" platform instead of labeling it "OS X", including Microsoft, who sell ["Office for Mac"][2] and not "Office for OS X".

- The app store for OS X is often called "Mac App Store".

- People don't read tag wiki excerpts. *cough cough*

The gist of all that is: We have so many questions tagged with [tag:mac] that **are not about hardware**. Not at all. 

## But what can we do?

More than two years ago, Ivo Flipse ♦ [said][3]:

> A distinction between OSX for software and Mac for hardware would be more clear (just one hell of a job ;-) )

That was long before we had so many affected questions – so as a matter of fact: We were never able to keep up with making that distinction clear.

So, what should we do?


  [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5z0Ia5jDt4
  [2]: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products
  [3]: https://meta.superuser.com/a/636/48078