- Site menu:
- Latest Discussions
- Latest Newswire
- Archives
- Submit Story
- Story HOWTO
- Syndicate
- E-mail Alerts
The Apple way and the Linux way
|
|
|
Comments (4)
Jem is a twit. Or to be more precise, Jem spends too little effort on collecting facts.
I think he has a good basic point, only backed with a rather bad example.
For a good while I considered Macs and this whole Apple experience as a "golden cage" of sorts. It looks great, it feels great and it just works so flawlessly, but it's still a cage. Apple is still the boss. At least half of the operating system is still completely proprietary. You can't run it on any computer. You can't change the underlying OS to do a different thing. You can't be sure there's no DRM in there nor can you be sure Apple wont put something as malicious in there if it fits their interests. So yeah, it does have the usual disadvantages of proprietary software which can be summed up in simply - less control by the user, more control over the user.
So where the line between user being in control and the Apple being in control is drawn, is another subject and perhaps Jem's article drew it a bit off. My problem is there being such a line in the first place. If I paid for it, I control it. Period. Free Software gives me that. Nothing else does.
For a good while I considered Macs and this whole Apple experience as a "golden cage" of sorts. It looks great, it feels great and it just works so flawlessly, but it's still a cage. Apple is still the boss. At least half of the operating system is still completely proprietary. You can't run it on any computer. You can't change the underlying OS to do a different thing. You can't be sure there's no DRM in there nor can you be sure Apple wont put something as malicious in there if it fits their interests. So yeah, it does have the usual disadvantages of proprietary software which can be summed up in simply - less control by the user, more control over the user.
So where the line between user being in control and the Apple being in control is drawn, is another subject and perhaps Jem's article drew it a bit off. My problem is there being such a line in the first place. If I paid for it, I control it. Period. Free Software gives me that. Nothing else does.
"Jem spends too little effort on collecting facts."
And too little effort pondering the collected facts. The anti-GPLv3 article was just waaaaay off-base.
And too little effort pondering the collected facts. The anti-GPLv3 article was just waaaaay off-base.
Post a comment
A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.
Your message:Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help
Sign up and post (it is free) or Log in and post
Another thing the author doesn't realize is that Mac OS X is UNIX with a BSD userland. Had he opened up Terminal and installed a nice ports/repo system such as MacPorts or Fink, he could install anything he thinks is better from the 'Linux or BSD worlds'.