ldquo;Fact to the matter is Mac use DRM hardware to lock you into their overpriced commodity hardware. While MS Windows allow you to run on ANY commondity hardware even Mac without any speical hardware. How in the fucking hell is Mac more open? The COLD HARD FACT is you can run Windows on Mac while you CAN NOT run OS X on PC just show you how lock down Mac is!rdquo;
So what forces you to write to the Aqua (or Cocoa, or whateverthedevil Apple calls their proprietary user interface) published interface on the Mac? Can’t you write code against the FreeBSD kernel interfaces and libraries that’s there (and open-sourced), or against the horrid X11 interface that’s also available for the thing? I use MacOS as one of my primary development environments, but the code I’m writing there moves seamlessly from MacOS to SLS Linux to FreeBSD.
If Apple imploded tomorrow and Microsoft bought the rights to MacOS so it could entomb the source code in concrete and sink them in the ocean, it would be annoying, but I wouldn’t lose anything other than access to a slick gui wrapped around my tty sessions. If I’d have been using Windows as my primary programming environment and Microsoft did the implode and entombment routine, I’d be in much worse shape.
So, boohoo, Turtleneck-Ego LLC doesn’t want me to use their Unix gui on machines they don’t sell. But it’s still Unix. Being able to put Windows on random ia32 and ia64 PCs doesn’t make it anything other than Windows, and that’s a far nastier restraint than having an X-terminal vendor refuse to license their gui.
The original article and a lot of comments make essentially this point:
“OSX doesn’t run without a Mac, therefore the Mac is a dongle for OSX. Simple, really.”
Please get a clue. If you just want OS X (shiny!) then you have already locked yourself into an operating system and its vendor. That is how you lose your freedom. It is no different than deciding that your new PC must run Windows Vista. If you force yourself to use whatever Apple or Microsoft produces then you really can’t complain. It’s your decision.
But not all Mac users made that decision. Some people, myself included, bought a computer. We see OS X as part of the package, but we all know there will come a day when the machine won’t run the newest version. Then what ? Well, I plan to run Linux. And I won’t hesitate to switch sooner or not upgrade OS X if Apple pisses me off either. All my OS X programs will continue to work, or I can use Linux versions, or I can use Linux equivalents. So how does choosing a Mac cost me Freedom 0 ? It doesn’t.
Anyone who locks themself into any platform can get stuck. It has always been this way. Don’t lock yourself in. Not to programs, operating systems, or hardware. Mac hardware doesn’t lock you in. Mac software can lock you in, just like Windows and Linux software can lock you in. Even open source software can lock you in, if the barrier to fixing it is too high. New versions might not do what you want and old versions might become too obsolete. If you can’t fix it, then where is your Freedom 0 ?
The fact is, unless you are writing or maintaining your own software, you probably don’t have Freedom 0. So please quit wanking if you just rely on others. It is perfectly possible to use proprietary software and not give up any freedom at all. It is only when you force yourself to use it or when you are locked into using it that your freedom is gone. Most people are a lot more sensible than that. That’s why open file formats are popular and multi-platform applications are popular. Please figure it out.
Freedom 0 is great not so much for being free as in speech but free as in beer. Commercial software is expensive, and I do not like my programs checking up on me to see if I’ve paid up.
Why would Microsoft want to restrict which platforms Windows, Office, etc. run?
Let’s face it - no one buys a Windows machine to run windows, but to run applications like games, Office, etc. As long as Microsoft gets you hooked into the applications, you will always be a Microsoft Junkie.
Because Microsoft makes money on LICENSES, if you bought an expensive Mac, but are willing to run Windows and Office on the same computer via Parallels or dual boot, it only benefits Microsoft!
Microsoft is HAPPY as LONG AS you buy Apple AND Windows, because it proves you are a “Microsoft Junkie” and MS is not losing market share! But the minute Apple gains more market share from Windows and begins to develop alternatives to applications on Windows (e.g. Office, games, etc), that is when MS will go on the offensive.
(Most) People don’t care about Freedom 0 because there’s nothing wrong with “giving up” Freedom 0 to buy a product or service. There’s also nothing wrong with someone offering a product or service to you and “taking away” Freedom 0, so long as the exchange is not coercive.
I’m primarily a Mac user, but also use Windows and Linux. I use what I want, when I want, and am thrilled that anyone else can (and does) do the same. The moral rhetoric surrounding software is distressing (and annoying), especially since people who decry software patents, “monopolies,” and proprietary software will generally argue incessantly for the necessity of taxes, war, government control, and a host of other things that actually restrict freedom.
So yes, my MacBook is a dongle in a sense, but it’s the best-working dongle I’ve used in 18 years of owning computers. =]
Well, there’s a whole heck of a lot more innovation coming out of apple then most companies…and I can leave my mac on for months at a time without worrying about security issues and all the other crap that comes with a lame windows based pc. So, in the grand scheme of things, who cares if I can’t open up my computer and get all geek on it…the vast majority of people don’t care at all.
Heh, I’ve said similar for a long time when debating if Apple is a hardware or software company: Apple is a software company that sells really stylish hardware dongles
Jeff, I assumed better of you. Today, I lost all my respect for you. You clearly have never used a modern Mac. Go try using one for a week. You’ll see what I mean.
(Oh, BTW, I’ve been using Windows all my life till now, and have been a Linux sysadmin for 2 years – and have used Linux and Solaris machines for over 8 years now. No guesses for what computer I use today)
I had this argument many years ago with people who thought that open-source, free systems were going to drive proprietary MMOG’s out of business. My argument against that ties in with what you’re saying:
OSS does a very good job of creating free alternatives to “commodity software”. The OpenOffice suite is pretty much just as good in every significant way as MS Office, Linux as good as Solaris, PostGres to MS SQL Server, and so on. Where there is a definite target to aim for, it can compete, and it’s hard to compete with free.
But it doesn’t do creativity, and it doesn’t do aesthetics. As soon as there are choices to be made that do not have clear best logical answers, the OSS development effort will fork. And then fork again, and again, and again, until you no longer have an OSS development community, but hundreds of different (and duplicative) solo projects that can’t be effectively merged.
For what it’s worth, I just gave up on full freedom software, dumping my Linux laptop in favor of a Mac laptop. Now, I still use Linux on my desktop, but the last time my Linux laptop went belly-up, and I was confronting the process of wrestling to get the Dell’s hardware working with linux (the NVIDIA proprietary drivers need installation, the wifi needs an infinite amount of wrestling, and then there’s the whole matter of hibernating to disk and RAM). I just couldn’t face it again. My job is to write software and text on my laptop. My job is not to be a laptop tweaking hobbyist. And I don’t like hassling with hardware and drivers.
Freedom as in freedom is worth a lot to me, but it turned out not to be worth that much.
When we get real commodity laptops, I’ll be happy to go back to Linux. But for now I just want a laptop that works and that runs some Unix-alike.
Flash is a piece of crap, it’s just until recently been the ONLY browser ria option. and the iPhone, like the iPod before it, is 80% marketing, 15% image, and only 5% functionality. Free thinkers of the world realise this.
Nevertheless I’m still pro-proprietary.
I know I’m a tad late in commenting, but I just found this post because of stackoverflow pointing to Douchebaggery (the post), pointing to here. I’ve noticed that people in computer science at universities and many developers seem to have this mac fetish. I thought about it, many times. The “just works” factor, and the sleekness that is their laptops, is very seductive. But then I think: What would the world be like if Apple and Microsoft switched positions? Not only would we have a desktop OS monopoly (I’m exaggerating things a little bit), but we’d have a desktop hardware monopoly, too.
I understand why a normal person would choose a mac. It “just works”. I don’t understand why computer programmers choose macs, because they should understand the ramifications of loosing freedom.
Macintosh == zero freedom?
bullshit!
This argument doesn’t have anything to do with freedom; it has to do with someone too cheap to pay for someone else’s work. Sure it’s altruistic for me to contribute all my hard work for you to use without paying me anything but that doesn’t pay my mortgage.
You want a superier experieance on your computer? Pay me to write better apps.
You want freedom? You are free to use WinDoze (and suffer).
I always thought the PC ecosystem, although deeply flawed, was more naturally
analogous to the eclectic third party hardware and software hacker ecosystem
that grew up around the semi-open Apple II hardware platform.
Did you ever go to the West Coast Computer Fairs? Before the PC? After? Conclusion? Bill and Micro$oft KILLED innovation.
Can’t believe I wasted my time replying to this stupidity.
but I think there actually is a little dongle—the Mac ROM—inside Macs, that you need in order to run Mac OS X.
Yep, in the pre-iMac days, that was definitely the dongle, in fact the ROM was the dongle that made the IBM PC a IBM PC, except that it was a lot weaker than the version in the Mac (because there was much less code in the ROM), so weak that Compaq and Phoenix began reverse engineering it, which created the PC clones that looked much open than the Mac. In contrast, the Mac ROM stored core classic Mac OS code. Then the Mac clones came and the Mac ROM was beginning to make creating Mac clones harder. Thus for CHRP, the Mac ROM was moved to the disk. But by the time the CHRP-capable Mac OS finally came, Apple was already killing the Mac clones. They ended up using CHRP in the development of NewWorld, which was introduced with the iMac, and also moved the Mac ROM to disk. Eventually, Mac OS X made the Mac ROM unnecessary. http://yuhong386.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!57E2793D0C53276F!164.entry
