3 ms·

Variants of this come up from time to time, and that alone rather undercuts the question in the article title -- if no one gave a crap about "Freedom Zero," the

Variants of this come up from time to time, and that alone rather undercuts the question in the article title -- if no one gave a crap about "Freedom Zero," then people wouldn't keep asking the question. My biggest problem with Atwood's specific argument is that claiming that Macs are "dongles" for OS X is that it's essentially an argument that platform incompatibilities violate Freedom Zero, which is, with all respect to Atwood, a little nutty. I owned a TRS-80 in the late 1980s, and I'm pretty sure that my inability to run Apple II software on it could not be accurately blamed on hardware-based copy protection. The Mac is not a dongle for OS X any more than OS X is a dongle for Cocoa software. Or are we seriously going to argue that it's harmful for consumers if we can't run all applications on all platforms, and that the differentiation should only be a matter of aesthetics? (Which, all platforms followed Freedom Zero, would be easily changeable anyway, right?) The thing I'd really like to see more focus on is data freedom. Maybe what I'm using to read ebooks, play music, watch videos, create word processing documents and spreadsheets, write code, and edit photos in is open source, maybe it isn't -- but switching to something else to do those things in shouldn't require me to lose fidelity/functionality in a conversion process, let alone require me to either re-buy something due to DRM (or crack the DRM). Yes, if I had the freedom and the ability to modify every application on every platform, I would theoretically have complete data freedom -- but I should be able to have that even if I'm using 100% closed source software.

dylangs1030 13y ago
This is again a case of apathy. How many users care about DRM and the integrity of their data, let alone its freedom and exportability? Most users are not power users (else the term would be redundant). Most people who use computer that I know simply log on, surf the web, check email, etc. In fact, most users spend almost all of their time on a web browser, to the point that different systems seem pretty much the same. Most users cannot quantify the difference between Mac OS X or Windows beyond the hardware differences, and even that's just a momentary thought. They don't care about data because it's not relevant to their lifestyles. Corollary to this point is the fact that many hackers attribute malice and spite to companies that don't allow data freedom. But honestly, it's not profitable for most companies to serve that small subset of users in the mass market because their voices aren't loud enough. They have more profitable things to worry about - their users couldn't explain what RAID is or DRM to save their lives. So they don't invest in you - the customers who want these features (or lack) because it's not relevant to mass producing machines for everyone. This goes hand in hand with perpetuating the ubiquity or proprietary software.
Dylan16807 13y ago
It's not just architectural differences; Apple goes out of their way to make OS X break on the hardware they don't sell. This is a definite violation of freedom zero.
- chipotle_coyote 13y ago
  My understanding was that it's less malevolence on Apple's part than Macs not being quite like PCs architecturally, particularly with respect to firmware -- but it's somewhat orthogonal to both my (strained) analogy and my point. :) I like both OS X and Apple hardware. But we're living in the future, compared to back when I first got into computing, and data is a lot more easily transportable between platforms. If at some point I decide that I don't like that combination enough to pay the price differential between a new Mac laptop and a comparable PC laptop[1], switching platforms will suck a little, but it won't be a nightmare. I simply don't agree with the assertion that my freedom is cruelly curtailed if I can't run OS X on a cheaper Acer laptop. [1]: Please nobody tell me that I'm paying three times as much for "exactly the same thing," or conversely argue that Macs are cheaper than PCs if you only look at it the right way. No, I'm not. No, they're not.

dylangs1030 13y ago

This is again a case of apathy. How many users care about DRM and the integrity of their data, let alone its freedom and exportability? Most users are not power users (else the term would be redundant). Most people who use computer that I know simply log on, surf the web, check email, etc. In fact, most users spend almost all of their time on a web browser, to the point that different systems seem pretty much the same. Most users cannot quantify the difference between Mac OS X or Windows beyond the hardware differences, and even that's just a momentary thought. They don't care about data because it's not relevant to their lifestyles. Corollary to this point is the fact that many hackers attribute malice and spite to companies that don't allow data freedom. But honestly, it's not profitable for most companies to serve that small subset of users in the mass market because their voices aren't loud enough. They have more profitable things to worry about - their users couldn't explain what RAID is or DRM to save their lives. So they don't invest in you - the customers who want these features (or lack) because it's not relevant to mass producing machines for everyone. This goes hand in hand with perpetuating the ubiquity or proprietary software.

Dylan16807 13y ago

It's not just architectural differences; Apple goes out of their way to make OS X break on the hardware they don't sell. This is a definite violation of freedom zero.

chipotle_coyote 13y ago
My understanding was that it's less malevolence on Apple's part than Macs not being quite like PCs architecturally, particularly with respect to firmware -- but it's somewhat orthogonal to both my (strained) analogy and my point. :) I like both OS X and Apple hardware. But we're living in the future, compared to back when I first got into computing, and data is a lot more easily transportable between platforms. If at some point I decide that I don't like that combination enough to pay the price differential between a new Mac laptop and a comparable PC laptop[1], switching platforms will suck a little, but it won't be a nightmare. I simply don't agree with the assertion that my freedom is cruelly curtailed if I can't run OS X on a cheaper Acer laptop. [1]: Please nobody tell me that I'm paying three times as much for "exactly the same thing," or conversely argue that Macs are cheaper than PCs if you only look at it the right way. No, I'm not. No, they're not.