5 ms·

I'm untroubled by DRM on all-you-can-eat streaming services because I'm explicitly making a very different deal. It's transparently gross if music SOLD to me t

I'm untroubled by DRM on all-you-can-eat streaming services because I'm explicitly making a very different deal. It's transparently gross if music SOLD to me that I'm supposed to be able to listen to in perpetuity is DRM'd so I can't shift platforms or devices or whatever. That's shitty, and I'm glad we're done with that. However, the deal with a streaming service is that for the price we used to pay to "own" a single CD or album, we get access to an enormous body of music we can listen to at will. That, to me, is a service that I'm paying for. I'm not troubled by the music being locked in, because what I'm paying for is access to that library. It's definitely a shift in how music works, and it's not without its downsides (especially as I understand it for artists), but in a world where most people don't have access to great record stores I think it's overall better. We never "won" with video purchases at all, which was predictable (we only got free-access formats on music because it happened outside the industry), but also less of a problem for me personally. I might "buy" something from Apple or whatever, but I understand it as a long-term rental. If I really want to own a film, I buy the BluRay. As for Linux, man, that's an unalloyed victory. Does anyone even SELL commercial Unix anymore? When I was younger there was still AIX and HP/UX and obviously Solaris, but I never heard of any of those anymore.

simonh 4y ago
>Does anyone even SELL commercial Unix anymore? Apple. And before anyone says yes well but it runs a proprietary application layer so it doesn't count, it also runs all the open ones too just fine. The fact it's barely used for that despite a massive user base (by Unix standards) is hardly Apple's problem, or fault even. It just goes to show how deeply and thoroughly the open source software community has failed in getting the vast majority of ordinary people to care about open source desktop software. Even when all the barriers to access are completely eliminated.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  edit:lay blame where it ought Rarely have there been such obvious and one-sided manipulation of public source repos on strictly licensed code, as have been published by Apple Inc. It appears that they go out of their way to insult and dismiss any "power" over the code itself, like a steering committee especially, but as simple as an open repo maintainer. There is simply no profit in making current, working source code available in the same way as a published book at a public library is.. and so there is infinite Chutzpah at Apple Inc to say, not our affair. There is no way that current active source code works the way it is supposed to, if you cannot find it, build it, change it and thereby learn it and apply it. Emperor Apple has no clothes here
  - simonh 4y ago
    I'm not "apologisting" anything, it's just a statement of fact. I make no claims about any ethical dimension to Apple's activities, if you dislike their practices I won't argue with you. The question was about commercial Unix, and MacOS is commercial Unix just as much as Solaris, AIX, etc.
    - rvz 4y ago
      > The question was about commercial Unix, and MacOS is commercial Unix just as much as Solaris, AIX, etc. Precisely. For those attempting to deny this, He's right you know. macOS is a commercial and certified Unix and is still sold as part of their Macs. So that is still true to this day.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    Apple has a certified UNIX, macOS. macOS 12 and many earlier versions certified by TOG as a UNIX product along with AIX, HP-UX, and SCO OpenServer. Also, Apple's kernel (XNU) is somewhat open-source. Apple isn't really interested in contributions, but you can build it yourself and install it, and macOS will boot and run from it (the main exception being iOS apps on Apple Silicon, maybe Apple Pay, and FileVault gets disabled to make the modification and inability to fully secure your system obvious, those parts are closed source kernel extensions, but they aren't dealbreakers).
- underdeserver 4y ago
  I believe Apple is based on FreeBSD, not Unix.
  - siver_john 4y ago
    Not to be that guy, but isn't BSD and it's derivatives still Unix derived so parent's comment still holds? (Though to the parent comment I'd argue that OSX isn't really a sold OS either because I can't buy just it)
  - tzs 4y ago
    MacOS is a certified Unix. See [1] [2]. [1] https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3673.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3673.htm [2] https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3678.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3678.htm
    - underdeserver 4y ago
      Interesting. I wasn't aware that Unix is a standard - I thought it was a codebase. Thanks!
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    FreeBSD is literally based directly off of AT&T Unix versions 5, 6, and 7 (in varying capacities). AT&T Unix -> BSD -> FreeBSD -> NeXTSTEP -> macOS. (This is overly simplified, as everything is a mess and macOS contains code from both FreeBSD and original BSD which FreeBSD was based on, among other places.) macOS is ironically a more authentic Unix than Linux is, Linux having been a clone while macOS being a great grandchild. Diagram of Unix History: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_history-simple.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_his...
    - akagusu 4y ago
      Linux is not Unix and it is not developed to be one.
  - 4y ago
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  Ok, fair. I guess what I mean is more "for use in the datacenter."
raxxorraxor 4y ago
Bought some music from Amazon recently. 2 downloads at my workplace failed because I forgot to deactivate the firewall. 3rd download worked. Couldn't download it at home anymore because you can only download it 3 times. That day some music was pirated somewhere. I don't like spotify at all and I think the situation for music is still bad. I don't think the film industry gets as much from me as before with physical copies. But I don't accept discs anymore. Give me a digital download or go away. I use some streaming services but just consume far less now. I am not much troubled by DRM, but the industry mostly regresses to past behavior.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  Do you dislike Spotify in particular, or just the whole notion of music services?
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    The latter to be more precise. Perhaps Spotify is the least bad option, but the convenience of audio file formats is just that much larger and it is a minimal requirement for me. I will never use an app specifically to access music, no matter how many songs I can play "offline", I am not interested at that point.
    - ubermonkey 4y ago
      Huh. I held off on the subscription services for a long time, but I eventually pulled the trigger for two reasons. First, OTA access to everything was simpler and easier than cable sync from my (enormous) library. This may or may not be a unique feature of Apple Music, but I'm in the world so it works for me. By signing up to AM, I can get everything on my phone on demand, including weird or esoteric things that aren't actually available on Apple Music because AM will read my actual library and upload anything it doesn't have to facilitate easy access. (Now, YOU can't get access to the weird stuff I have, but that's fine.) The second reason, which I admit is actually the first forcing function, is that while I understood perfectly well how to go to the music server and plug in my phone and sync music, it was just a Bridge Too Far for my nontechnical wife. She wanted it simpler, and so rather than complain was just not listening to music on her phone. :( So I signed up for AM, and holy crap it's been pretty much an unalloyed boon. I still buy stuff (mostly local, since I live in a place with a record store), but I sample FAR more widely than I did before because the incremental cost to trying something because I read an article about this-or-that artist is zero. That aspect is pretty great. And the way I have AM configured, everything I listen to gets downloaded, so if I'm in a place with no coverage (or an airplane) I still have everything I want.

simonh 4y ago

>Does anyone even SELL commercial Unix anymore? Apple. And before anyone says yes well but it runs a proprietary application layer so it doesn't count, it also runs all the open ones too just fine. The fact it's barely used for that despite a massive user base (by Unix standards) is hardly Apple's problem, or fault even. It just goes to show how deeply and thoroughly the open source software community has failed in getting the vast majority of ordinary people to care about open source desktop software. Even when all the barriers to access are completely eliminated.

mistrial9 4y ago
edit:lay blame where it ought Rarely have there been such obvious and one-sided manipulation of public source repos on strictly licensed code, as have been published by Apple Inc. It appears that they go out of their way to insult and dismiss any "power" over the code itself, like a steering committee especially, but as simple as an open repo maintainer. There is simply no profit in making current, working source code available in the same way as a published book at a public library is.. and so there is infinite Chutzpah at Apple Inc to say, not our affair. There is no way that current active source code works the way it is supposed to, if you cannot find it, build it, change it and thereby learn it and apply it. Emperor Apple has no clothes here
- simonh 4y ago
  I'm not "apologisting" anything, it's just a statement of fact. I make no claims about any ethical dimension to Apple's activities, if you dislike their practices I won't argue with you. The question was about commercial Unix, and MacOS is commercial Unix just as much as Solaris, AIX, etc.
  - rvz 4y ago
    > The question was about commercial Unix, and MacOS is commercial Unix just as much as Solaris, AIX, etc. Precisely. For those attempting to deny this, He's right you know. macOS is a commercial and certified Unix and is still sold as part of their Macs. So that is still true to this day.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Apple has a certified UNIX, macOS. macOS 12 and many earlier versions certified by TOG as a UNIX product along with AIX, HP-UX, and SCO OpenServer. Also, Apple's kernel (XNU) is somewhat open-source. Apple isn't really interested in contributions, but you can build it yourself and install it, and macOS will boot and run from it (the main exception being iOS apps on Apple Silicon, maybe Apple Pay, and FileVault gets disabled to make the modification and inability to fully secure your system obvious, those parts are closed source kernel extensions, but they aren't dealbreakers).
underdeserver 4y ago
I believe Apple is based on FreeBSD, not Unix.
- siver_john 4y ago
  Not to be that guy, but isn't BSD and it's derivatives still Unix derived so parent's comment still holds? (Though to the parent comment I'd argue that OSX isn't really a sold OS either because I can't buy just it)
- tzs 4y ago
  MacOS is a certified Unix. See [1] [2]. [1] https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3673.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3673.htm [2] https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3678.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3678.htm
  - underdeserver 4y ago
    Interesting. I wasn't aware that Unix is a standard - I thought it was a codebase. Thanks!
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  FreeBSD is literally based directly off of AT&T Unix versions 5, 6, and 7 (in varying capacities). AT&T Unix -> BSD -> FreeBSD -> NeXTSTEP -> macOS. (This is overly simplified, as everything is a mess and macOS contains code from both FreeBSD and original BSD which FreeBSD was based on, among other places.) macOS is ironically a more authentic Unix than Linux is, Linux having been a clone while macOS being a great grandchild. Diagram of Unix History: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_history-simple.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_his...
  - akagusu 4y ago
    Linux is not Unix and it is not developed to be one.
- 4y ago
ubermonkey 4y ago
Ok, fair. I guess what I mean is more "for use in the datacenter."

raxxorraxor 4y ago

Bought some music from Amazon recently. 2 downloads at my workplace failed because I forgot to deactivate the firewall. 3rd download worked. Couldn't download it at home anymore because you can only download it 3 times. That day some music was pirated somewhere. I don't like spotify at all and I think the situation for music is still bad. I don't think the film industry gets as much from me as before with physical copies. But I don't accept discs anymore. Give me a digital download or go away. I use some streaming services but just consume far less now. I am not much troubled by DRM, but the industry mostly regresses to past behavior.

ubermonkey 4y ago
Do you dislike Spotify in particular, or just the whole notion of music services?
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  The latter to be more precise. Perhaps Spotify is the least bad option, but the convenience of audio file formats is just that much larger and it is a minimal requirement for me. I will never use an app specifically to access music, no matter how many songs I can play "offline", I am not interested at that point.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    Huh. I held off on the subscription services for a long time, but I eventually pulled the trigger for two reasons. First, OTA access to everything was simpler and easier than cable sync from my (enormous) library. This may or may not be a unique feature of Apple Music, but I'm in the world so it works for me. By signing up to AM, I can get everything on my phone on demand, including weird or esoteric things that aren't actually available on Apple Music because AM will read my actual library and upload anything it doesn't have to facilitate easy access. (Now, YOU can't get access to the weird stuff I have, but that's fine.) The second reason, which I admit is actually the first forcing function, is that while I understood perfectly well how to go to the music server and plug in my phone and sync music, it was just a Bridge Too Far for my nontechnical wife. She wanted it simpler, and so rather than complain was just not listening to music on her phone. :( So I signed up for AM, and holy crap it's been pretty much an unalloyed boon. I still buy stuff (mostly local, since I live in a place with a record store), but I sample FAR more widely than I did before because the incremental cost to trying something because I read an article about this-or-that artist is zero. That aspect is pretty great. And the way I have AM configured, everything I listen to gets downloaded, so if I'm in a place with no coverage (or an airplane) I still have everything I want.