Whether at home or professionally at work, I only care about the problem I’m trying to solve. Sometimes keeping data Free (rather than the systems themselves) is an important part of the problem I’m solving, and when that is the case I care very much about it, but when it isn’t on the list I’m not really bothered by it.
I’ve got plenty to be getting on with just by trying to solve the problems I already have and I’m not keen to add to that list if I can avoid it. Sometimes this point of view makes freedom 0 very important. Sometimes, however, it’s completely irrelevant to the issue in front of me.
The current .Mac store offers three MacBook Pro variants, two MacBook Air variants, three MacBook types, four iMac variations, two Mac mini variants, and one Mac Pro ‘style’. Excluding the Mac Pro, the only in-house changes which can be made before ordering the machine are the RAM and hard drive, both of which could be upgraded at lesser expense by the end user. The Mac Pro has, depending on how you look at it, between ten and twenty meaningful variations.
For those counting, this means that for people looking to purchase a new Mac OS X computer, the number of meaningful options is limited to at most thirty five machines. That’s the total amount of variety available, and includes everything from small, minimalist laptops, to massive systems that use server processors and memory.
For most users, this doesn’t matter. Most people complain about too many choices when it comes to computers. But it’s still significantly fewer than Windows machines can present, and many people care about that. Even assuming one motherboard, power supply, case, and CPU manufacturer, and no changes in terms of minor optional features, a single Windows PC maker like CyberpowerPC can provide two times that much variation. The entire field as a whole gives you so many options it’s literally mindboggling to the uninitiated.
There really isn’t any need to defend Apple to this degree. He isn’t bashing the company at large, merely reflecting on one aspect of their products.
Everyone has a preference, and that’s fair, but be realistic- All OS’s have flaws. Linux is not user friendly- I don’t care what version of KDE you’re using. Windows has security issues- I don’t care how many patches you install. And OS X restricts you to specific hardware. That’s what a “dongle” is.
On the other hand, Linux is the most customizable operating system by far- Given enough time and patience(!) you can replace/improve on just about anything. Apple’s hardware equivalent of a walled garden ensures a degree of compatibility (to say nothing of amazing integration) among hardwaresoftware products that the other two can’t dream of. Windows, I would argue, hits a sweet spot between the two, being both easy enough for my computer-illiterate parents, and open enough to third party hardware/software developers to support a thriving ecosystem.
I like the idea of apple. I work in IT field for the DOD. I am not a software dev and most of my work is done on the windows platform. I have 2 windows machines in my room. But I also have a linux box and a laptop that duel boots. I use fedora on the laptop since usually it just works and archlinux on my dedicated box because I like screwing around with the os. However currently I’m very tempted to buy an apple. Things just working sounds great for me, esp being in the IT field people want thing to just ‘work’. As long as someone offers something that just works I think people will go for it.
I have a friend who bought a kit-car. It was delivered in hundreds of boxes. He could choose any engine he wanted. It took him over a year to build it. He claims he enjoyed every second of putting it together. But he knows his cars, he loves tinkering with them.
I bought a BMW. It’s reliable. When something goes wrong I take it to the nearest BMW dealer and have them fix it.
OTOH, I own 2 iMacs, a powerbook, a couple of laptops (one with XP, one with Ubuntu), and a big old PC that I use as a server with Windows 2003 installed on it. I tinker with them all. Spend hours learning about some new programming language.
He owes a PC with Windows XP installed on it. He uses it to browse the internet and email photos of his car to me. When it breaks he calls me or takes it to the nearest PC shop. All he wants is a reliable computer.
Just like there aren’t that many people who buy kit-cars and put them together, there aren’t a lot of people that what to build computers from scratch. Most people don’t care what OS they’re running, or which browser version they have, they just want it all to work. So they’ll either buy the most popular or the one they think is coolest. They don’t really care about freedom zero.
This argument only makes sense when you assume everyone shares your particular definition of freedom as it applies to software. Some people buy into the FSF/Stallman definition, a political definition opposed to capitalism. My definition of freedom has nothing to do with a theoretical “right” to do whatever I want with my software or the attached dongle. All I want most of the time is the freedom to use my computer to get things done, without being too impaired by half-baked code or incompatible drivers. In that respect Apple offers me more freedom.
If you want to build your own computer from parts you get at Frys and run your own compiled-from-source Linux distro on it, no one is stopping you. Not even Steve Jobs. You can build your own car out of spare parts and things you make yourself in your garage, and I’ll choose the freedom to have a Toyota that actually gets me places. We don’t all want to live in a free world of incompatible bolt-on parts.
There is nothing free or righteous about imagining how the world should work so it suits you, and then trying to impose that vision on everyone else, or criticizing those with different priorities. Go create whatever you want – Apple and Microsoft are not stopping you. Go ahead and give it away if that’s what you want to do. If I choose to get my job done with my overpriced Apple dongle so I don’t have to spend 30% of my time resolving shared library problems in Linux, how is that reducing your freedom?
There’s obviously plenty of room for all kinds of software, whether it meets some arbitrary political standard of “free” or not, and you have freedom to choose the software that suits you without demanding that every piece of software suit your worldview.
for people who defend apple… consider this: if apple hardware was like PC’s, then apple and apple-compatible machines would be so much cheaper. competition benefits consumers. you will be affected.
P.S. All my consoles are hacked so I can run better software. For instance I’ve got 2 original Xboxes I just use to run Xbox Media Center (XBMC: www.xboxmediacenter.com). Nothing in any current console can match it for playing every file type on the planet. XBMC is better than any other media player ever invented and it’s FREE!
This far into the comments I guess the discussion is over - wish I’d seen this yesterday!
I totally don’t understand the ‘Mac is a dongle’ idea. It feels like Apple-bashing for the sake of it, to me - the point you made makes no sense at all. The Mac is a piece of consumer electronics that can run a huge library of software - considering Apple-sanctioned tools like BootCamp and the VMWare scene, you could argue the Mac can run more software titles than a standard PC. Certainly you can run all flavours of Windows, Linux, Ubuntu… okay, maybe not OS/2, though I’ll bet someone somewhere has tried.
I bought my first Mac nearly 3 years ago because I was fed up of having to fight my PC every time I wanted to record some music from my guitar. I had a real life dongle for my PC software, and each time I came to use it something had to be updated, or installed, or the other pieces of software on the machine conflicted with something. I used to waste anything from 10 minutes to an hour or more each time - before I’d even got started with the music. I was given a demo of something similar on the Mac platform and realised that I could treat the Mac like a piece of consumer electronics (exactly like a Wii or XBox) - I could just turn it on, use it for a purpose, and then turn it off.
Most people approach PCs this way too - it’s only developers and enthusiasts that might care about things like Freedom 0. For everyone else, computers are just a means to an end - they’re a tool for browsing, doing your accounts, surfing the internet, doing your day job, researching your homework. As long as the tool can do what you want it to do at a price that suits your circumstances (either free, or very little, or whatever the market will stand) - most people just don’t care.
Just as NakedProgrammer said the majority of pc users just want the software they have to work period.Reliability comes with restrictions so don’t blame Apple for satisfying the majority of the consumers.
Sorry about all those posts. I leave my PC for half an hour and come back to find that I’ve been repeating myself. I really have no idea how I did that.
“I frequently argue for it in various specific projects. But a politically correct dogma holds that open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation, and that claim is not borne out by the facts.”
Pfft.
There’s quite a bit of very creative stuff going on – it just doesn’t have the billions of marketing dollars behind it the “real world” has.
For example, take Portal – it was originally a freeware game done by some students, that just happened to attract the eye of Valve at random, and was brought to the attention of the world. THAT’S open source / indie creativity.
“…Second, freedom zero is of paramount importance for government and large business contracts. The reason for this is clear: Governments have changing needs, and the software they need is complex and unpredictable. The requirements of yesterday are not the same as the requirements of tomorrow, and governments should be able to flex their financial muscle to ensure they get the source as part of the deliverables.”
Governments (especially the one I work for) do not have the money or the human resources to purchase and use latest and greatest software or hardware. What they do is limp along on systems at least 10 years out of date, and when they do update, they rely on current resources that are inadequate to the task. They get away with this because government’s tasks really do not change at all. The court system is always the same, and runs on software from the 90s. Benefit programs have to run the benefit programs, and those programs don’t change, resulting in outdated software that still runs. The military’s only need is to expand itself, which is what bloatware is for. The recent attempts at improvement (IRS and FBI come to mind) have been spectacular failures, ludicrously so because the needs were obvious and the contractors were abysmally bad at meeting those needs. Doubtless throwing money at the FDA, the latest horror show, will have the same result. Your gov’t runs on IE 6, producing documents in Office 2003. There are no plans to upgrade.
As one who used to work for the pirates in Cupertino I can attest to their ‘closed’ system mentality.
One can only imagine what the computing world would look like if that ego maniac had not been so full of himself as to think that abandoning the small/individual developer was somehow a good thing.
Yea, your right, the Mac is the biggest most expensive dongle ever made.
Maybe nobody pays them any attention because they’re just crying wolf. We already have Freedom 0, at least for general purpose computers, and we never lost it. You can install any program on any OS’s.
Does Freedom 0 dictate that all devices must be Freedom 0? Cars and their software? Medical imagery devices? Who gets to decide? You say Windows gives you Freedom 0, but they won’t let me alter and redistribute a new kernel, so technically I’m not free.
In the end, you’ll always have the power to vote with your wallet. If you don’t like something and care so much, write Apple (or whomever) and tell them why you’re not buying xyz.
Basing this story on Apple just sounds like another FUD attack, resurrected from Microsoft sponsored literature of the late 90’s. If anything, it’s DMCA style laws that strip you of your rights, and are a much bigger threat than the Freedom 0 non-issue.
