What a great post - I agree with you completely!
I think “freedom from complexity” or “freedom from unnecessary headache” is much more important. No?
Dude: Sorry for the negative tone I had previously. But what can you do, you have your needs for the software: You might tell the project in question about your ideas. If they don’t care to do that, then you could do it yourself. If you don’t have time, interest or skills to do it, then you could pay someone to do it. If you don’t have that much extra cash, then you use a (cheap) system where those features are already implemented. It’s as simple as that.
I agree, it is as simple as that. My solution was to use software produced by a real company where there is someone actually responsible for making sure it works, and it does.
I have no need for the features you mentioned, so the implementer won’t be me. OSS works perfectly for me, I really don’t care if you will or won’t be an OSS user.
This is how it works. No one will be kissing your ass to use any (at least non-commercial) OSS.
I don’t expect anyone to kiss my ass, whether I pay for a product or not, but I do expect it to actually work as advertised/expected.
Samuli on January 29, 2008 11:11 AM
“So… can I run my windows on a Whatever Processor? Is Intel Processor hardware dongle for windows? This post is beyond silly.”
Speaking of beyond silly - ever heard of AMD?
What was that I was saying about Mac’s eating people’s brains? Beyond silly - today’s lesson: IRONY
Why do Mac-Heads try to pretend it is Apple versus Microsoft? It is Apple versus pretty much the rest of the computer world (which includes many operating systems, many microprocessors, many hardware manufacturers, many different companies and organizations)
Let sum up (from a software engineering perspective):
The Mac runs Mac-only software (nobody cares, the market share is in the noise level. If you want to make money with software do you target 2.3-3% of the market or 100% of the market…since the Mac’s now run Windows and other PC operating systems)
The Mac can also work as an overpriced PC with limited options - there is no denying this fact. If you are into overpriced hardware with limited options, no question about it - the Mac is the way to go.
PC’s run Linux cheaper and with more options
PC’s run Windows cheaper and with more options.
In the modern lexicon PC means pretty much any microcomputer other than Apple.
This is all the information you need to make a selection (from a software industry standpoint)
…and you guys wonder why Apple has a 3% market share.
Apple excels the most at marketing.
You’re confusing two concepts here. Yeah, a Mac is akin to a dongle which allows you to run Mac OS X on your PC. However, that has got nothing to do with third-party apps. On Mac OS X, you CAN run any program, for any purpose, even more so than on Windows.
In fact, I run a Mac BECAUSE third-party applications are so much better than on Windows. Where’s Windows’ Pixelmator? Coda? Quicksilver? Mellel? OmniGraffle? OmniFocus? Hazel? Delicious Library? Acorn? Lineform? SubEthaEdit? Textmate? There is NOTHING standing in the way of third-party apps on Mac OS X. In fact, Apple ships a whole freaking IDE with every copy of OS X.
Where are the small software developers for Windows who give a crap about their UI? Where’s Windows’ Panic? Delicious Monster? Omni Group?
So it’s about data in Apple’s own applications? Well, most of Apple’s applications write their data in bundles containing plain image, movie and XML files. It would be great if Microsoft were as open.
What you want is the freedom to run Mac OS X on your non-Apple PC. You can’t do that, but that has got nothing to do with running third-party applications on Mac OS X. A computer running Mac OS X is nothing like an Xbox. At all.
Don’t confuse “I can’t run Mac OS X on my PC” with “Apple’s hardware is locked down and there are only Apple apps on Macs.” They have nothing to do with each other. The first is true, the second just plainly isn’t.
Somehow, I don’t know what else to do with my Xbox 360 than play games, because that’s what I bought it for. Well, maybe I could watch divx’s etc without connecting to Live! “to download codecs” every single time. But mainly to play games, and better leave it that way, as long as it works…
My PCs are a whole different story, because I’m a computer enthusiast. I want to do with them anything I like and use/modify/experiment different software as much as I like, without paying hundreds of euros for licences, without using crappy pirated software.
And on top of all that - I hate malware.
So, for me, on PCs it’s just easier to use open source OSs like Debian/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/you name it - than proprietary operating systems or other proprietary software.
I know what you mean with the Dongle-thing, but somehow I don’t think Xbox as a computer (although it is) - For me, it 's just a “thing” that has to start a game when I insert a disc 
And in the same way, for some people, PC just has to start a solitaire for them. I understand that they don’t care a bit about how free their software is, they already paid for everything that’s needed to run the solitaire, and usually these people don’t even understand the difference between price and freedom.
It’s kind of a pity. But I, too, appreciate that no-one is telling me how closed-source, evil crappy my Xbox’s OS is, it does what it needs to do
“for consumers Apple is the in the lead right now.”
That is if you consider 2.3% worldwide market share the lead? Or are you talking about your personal opinion? Fantasy?
What was that I said about Mac’s eating people’s brains?
All I can say is “wow” - the marketing geniuses at Apple are able to get people to make illogical silly statements - in this category, Apple is absolutely amazing.
"Speaking of beyond silly - ever heard of AMD? "
AMD uses intel instruction set, AMD is an intel processor.
“The Mac runs Mac-only software”
false, The Mac can run Mac-only software. In fact OSX is very good at running open source software and it’s the reason I use it.
On the other hand Mac-only software can only run on Mac OS X. It doesn’t have to be Apple’s hardware but Mac OS X is sold with a licence that says you can only install it if you gave money to Apple for their hardware. Are you complaining about software licences?
“Yup, just like airplanes are dongles to fly through the air.”
That would be a good analogy if only airplanes made by one company could fly or only one kind of airplane could fly (of course none of that is true). Speaking of flying - look up - Jeff’s point is flying way over your head.
One again, what was that I said about Mac’s eating people’s brains?
(I could do this all day with the Mac-Heads comments - but this is my last one)
Also…
The Mac can also work as an overpriced PC with limited options
what limited options are you talking about?
I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. I don’t think Macs really are locked down all that much. In the last year I have switched all my PCs to Macs of some sort. My life is a lot less hassle now- I don’t have to spend hours tracking down drivers or trawling through registry entries or removing viruses (virii?) or reinstalling applications on a constant basis. I still use a Wacom tablet, Logitech keyboard and mouse, Samsung screens and so on, same as I did with the PCs. Initially I thought I’d have problems finding Mac equivalents for the software I used on the PC but I was pleasantly suprised by what’s out there. Free software such as Quicksilver has changed the way I use computers. Sure, I hate Itunes and I think the iPhone was one of the most ridiculous debacles in recent history, but the Mac Pro hardware is well worth the money, and OS X is actually well thought out in most parts, and there is a lot less operating system patronisation than you get from Windows.
“AMD uses intel instruction set, AMD is an intel processor.”
Close, but no cigar
Funny, AMD is Intel’s number one competitor. I don’t think Intel thinks AMD is an Intel processor. HINT: AMD has not been a licensed second-source manufacturer for Intel since the K5. Currently x86-64, which supports Intel’s x86, and was created by AMD and has been cloned by Intel (using your logic, some Intel chips are actually an AMD chips) Currently you got it backassward - your comment was true about 20 years ago.
Most consumers don’t care about Freedom Zero because Zero Freedom programs have giant teams of people dedicated to making Zero Freedom programs easy to use.
open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation
Why should it? It’s a way to develop software, may it be innovative, trail-blazing and mind-blowing, or “simply” state-of-the-art, or boring bread-and-butter, or even crippled and terrible. OS is not a hindrance either, it’s a possibility, to be exploited by (and dependend on) the developers. However, I’d rather see the results of software development being open source, as this reveals a lot more advantages and gains to developers and users, the so-called public, now and in the future - perhap’s that’s what appeals to most OS developers.
Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world the results of proprietary development?
Why shouldn’t they? The examples mentioned have been developed out of a commercial need. No competition here between free and proprietary software, IMHO, just the chance that open source will prevail and used much more widely (and in ways the developers could have never foreseen) when its proprietary counterpart has long been buried or subject to bit rot due to lack of any more commercial interest in it…
I’ve got the feeling the press has its part here in oversimplifying things in order to get it into peoples heads. And it stuck indeed… 
MacHead: “false, The Mac can run Mac-only software…”
What was that I said about Mac’s eating people’s brains - read the entire message and observe your error (note: you immediately contradict yourself) I never claimed Mac’s could only run Mac-only software.
Jeff,
I too have always loved freedom (as in free software), but I think “freedom 0” is exaggerating. Having used a variety of hardware over twenty years and most of the reasonable operating systems, I think that my MacBook is the best tool I’ve ever had, thanks to the closed, proprietary development.
And it allows me to have the best of two worlds.
I can trust that those proprietary pieces of software that I deeply love, Photoshop for one, run smoothly. Then again, as an engineer, I can’t live without my daily dose of TeX and emacs. The choise of building a modern OS on top of the trusted BSD platform is ingenious.
– Could you elaborate on why you “find Apple’s brand of hardware lock-in particularly egregious”.
The Mac itself includes, internally, a chip which is required to run the normal version of the Mac operating system. In a good number of cases, this operating system is the primary reason people purchase Macintosh computers; while there are a good number of people running Boot Camp or the various Virtualization software, the majority of Mac users responding to surveys name system stability as the reason they purchased Macs, citing the operating system rather than the hardware.
Attempting to install OS X on non-Mac hardware, however, is not legally possible. While there are few real issues, the OS X code specifically checks the hardware to make sure it does not install on hardware from other manufacturers.
The result is that you need the hardware to run the software, not because of some inherent aspect of the interaction, but because Apple decided to make things so. This results in (depending on device and production) a fairly expensive “Mac Tax”.
The general concept is called vertical expansion or vertical integration in economic terms: one company ownsWhile this is perfectly legal, and under most of the more libertarian business philosophies, perfectly acceptable, it still results in some pretty significant negative results.
For example, you can’t legally change hardware manufacturers without changing software, and this typically involves a pretty hefty commitment in terms of time and/or money. If the newest Mac generation of machines have a hardware manufacturer that you can’t ethically support, or have board issues, or look like a monkey’s behind, you can’t change this without needing to convert to another operating system. This significant discourages variation within a field – Apple has little to no reason to release computers with minor variations in performance, and doing so would probably cost them money rather than produce it, where in the PC world, small variations from one manufacturer and the next are common. For similar reasons, this discourages competition within a field. Supporting AMD-based systems would literally double the cost of QA, without much benefit to Apple.
This vertical integration combined with high barriers to transition is part of the Apple business philosophy. You can’t easily transfer from an FairPlay-based system (iTunes) to a Janus-based one, or vice versa, and Apple won’t license FairPlay to other players or even sellers. If you go iPod, you give up your purchased music if you try going elsewhere, or commit a few felonies.
There’s nothing wrong about this; it’s perfectly legal, and people who purchase from Apple know what they’re getting into. But it’s the sort of thing few other companies could get away with, and it’s a particularly galling example of the ‘dongle’ mindset. Rather than defining inputs and outputs and building an application layer of the OSI model, it insists on absorbing down to layer one.
As for the opening post: the average user doesn’t care about Freedom Zero. They don’t think about what their next purchase will be after grabbing a piece of hardware. They want their Macbook or Dell or whatever; not to think about what they can do with the hardware when someone else comes up with a cool trick, or when they can move stuff. It really doesn’t matter to them for another few years.
Freedom Zero is only important when you can look that far ahead. I use subversion, openSSH, and putty, for example, because I know they’ll always work. If anything changes, I can recompile old code on a new operating system legally, and we’d be up and running soon. It’s important to me. To the average user, though, it looks like we’re spending a lot of time for relatively little benefit.
I guess it all depends on how you define freedom. If submitting yourself to a giant dongle and getting something that works then that’s your view.
Others might think being bound to a system that doesn’t work without installing patch ofer patch and modding with hardware and config files to just get working is giving up freedom as well. You’re a slave to your system.
Both have pro’s and con’s, pick your poison.
I drink from both bottles.
I am a patriot, I love my Operating System
Because my Operating System is all I know
I wanna be with my family
People who understand me
I got no place else to go…
I am a patriot…
Anyway, my take in this:
Apple seells hardware that require new software.
Microsoft force you to buy software that needs new hardware.
Pretty much the same if you ask me, but I feel that Apple is more honest, but again I dont know the mac platform very well. But as a microsoft developer since MSDos, I am almost ashamed of using Microsoft technology these days.
Why not just stop bashing about Apple?
I actually thought you could do better than that!