Apple: A Bigger Open Source Enemy Than Microsoft?
Even before Linux was created, Microsoft has been scorned by members of the free-software community. Its products are decried as defective by design, and its sometimes questionable business practices as an obstacle to technological innovation. That’s old news. What amazes me is Apple’s track record for openness is even worse than Microsoft’s.
Apple, while its products may be prettier and more intuitive than Microsoft’s (or so I’m told; I’ve never really used a Mac, iPod or iPhone myself), is in some respects worse than Redmond when it comes to respecting the fundamentals of software freedom.
For example, the Free Software Foundation published an essay last summer containing a number of criticisms of the iPhone. Many of the iPhone policies—like the requirement that all applications be installed from Apple’s central repository, allowing Apple to monopolize iPhone software in an unprecedented way—far surpass anything that Microsoft has ever done to lock in users.
Apple’s record on desktop computers, where it seeks via legal and technical restrictions to monopolize hardware as well as software, is not much better, and its history of DRM endorsement on iTunes is equally troubling. In this light, it’s hard to see Apple as the valiant underdog in the fight against Microsoft that it portrays itself as.
This dissimulation is all the more flippant due to the fact that OS X, the operating system that saved Apple from going under a decade ago, is based on an open-source Unix kernel that Steve Jobs ungratefully borrowed from U.C. Berkeley in the ’80s.
Safari’s HTML engine, moreover, is derived from the codebase of Konqueror, KDE’s native web browser. Although free software has been integral to Apple’s success, its policies remain diametrically opposed to the principles of openness and transparency that produce such software.
Why the Blind Eye?
Nonetheless, criticism of Apple seems almost taboo in the Ubuntu (and larger Linux/free-software) community, banned from the discourse among all but the most radical adepts of Saint IGNUcius.
I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps Steve Jobs has left so many Ubuntu geeks starry-eyed with his sleek interfaces and shiny cases that comparing him with Bill Gates is unimaginable. Maybe we’re scared of the inevitable backlash from Mac fanboys, many of whom are also part-time Linux users. Or perhaps software freedom and its abuses just don’t matter to many members of the Ubuntu community, although I find that hard to believe.
This is not a call to arms against Apple. In fact, I think that the free-software community’s time and resources are much better spent improving Linux and Ubuntu than criticizing the business practices and software of their competitors.
But I remain perplexed by the mentality that Apple, by virtue of being a perceived underdog (at least on the desktop market), is somehow on ‘our side’ despite being no different than Microsoft in most regards. Maybe I’m just too much of a freetard (to borrow the eloquent language of Fake Steve Jobs), but I find this reality hard to deny.
It’s also worth observing that, as the computing industry continues to move towards high-powered mobile devices, in which Apple is heavily invested, a more direct confrontation between Linux and the Mac world seems inevitable. The days of ignorantly blissful coexistence may be numbered.
WorksWithU Contributing Blogger Christopher Tozzi is a PhD student at a major U.S. university. Tozzi has extensive hands-on experience with Ubuntu Server Edition and Ubuntu Desktop Edition.
WorksWithU is updated multiple times per week. Don’t miss a single post. Sign up for our RSS and Twitter feeds (available now) and newsletter (launching January 2009).
I’ve ALWAYS been saying this/thinking it. Nothing Apple has done really even amazes me though, because of all the restrictions they seem behind to me. I see them more as making appliances than computers. They also have no problem picking up pieces from open source, and making sure the licenses allows them to keep as much to themselves as possible. If they don’t necessarily HAVE to open source something even though they STOLE it from the open source community they won’t, even if they do they’ll fight it.
On another note I just got my G1!! 2 days early baby. Load apps from Google Market, the media card or internet… Apple? I’m going bananas over here.
I’m an Apple believer — even though I’m co-founder of the Works With U site. I own an iPhone, I have a MacBook Pro (in addition to multiple Ubuntu PCs).
I believe Apple represents the best of closed source — though I realize that may be an issue going forward. Apple, I fear, will implode after Steve Jobs retires and the insane focus on product design has faded from the company’s culture.
The designers — not the programmers, not the engineers — rule Apple. That has served the company well for many years. But we’ll see how that closed mindset treats the company in the decade ahead, as more and more open competition emerges.
Show me any Windows kernel or useful Microsoft technology that’s open source (in the sense that the FSF actually recognizes it as having an open source license and it’s not some shitty .NET code snippet from CodePlex). Name one. How’s that list coming? Is it as big as this one (notice all those projects under the APSL)? http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.5/
Ever heard of LLVM or clang? If you haven’t, you will. What has Microsoft done that’s in any way comparable? Made a crippled version of Visual C++, called it Express, and given it away for “free?” Give me a break.
@Michel Darwin is only open source because it has to be – due to the open source software it’s based on.
My main worry with Apple is they lock you in with which hardware you use – imagine a world where Apple had Microsoft share – there’d be no getting away they’d control both the software and hardware.
Apple are at least active in the open source community and do give stuff back. Well I think they do any way. Michel Botos’ list is clear as to if those are projects Apple is taking advantage of or actively sponsoring. Microsofts open source efforts thus far are pitiful. And at least Apple showed some restraint and stayed away from the OLPC project.
That’s really the major difference between Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft try to grab everything where Apples approach is more targeted. So Microsoft gets all the flack and Apple comes out smelling of roses.
Of course Apple aren’t getting it all their own way. They’re currently being sued for monopolizing the MP3 download market.
Apples products are things I will never own. The level of lock in just isn’t for me. Apple are behaving like a bunch of crack dealers hanging around the school gates.
Get ’em hooked while they’re young.
Maybe you would think otherwise is you had used Apple products for years, like I have. Since they moved to the Mac machines their push has been to build appliances that are easier to use and are reliable (that, of course makes them more expensive). Since I have retired and can’t spend much money on machines I have been lucky that Ubuntu has come along and Ubuntu is doing a good job of moving toward a OS that may be used with little effort (closer to being an appliance).
Reliable has not been MS’s forte. They are just out to kill the competition through marketing (devoid of quality). Apple never tried to kill Atari, Commodore, or the other companies that had inovative computers – I think squashing those interesting computer can be blamed on MS.
The side effect of my moving to Ubuntu is that I have become interested in inner workings of my computer and have ventured out (or in) to command line stuff – made aliases for backing up my computer to another disk drive and to update the web sites I maintain – mostly using rsync.
So, bottom line: I fail to see how Apple is a big threat to Open Source – they don’t seem to have threatened creativity in the past, I doubt that it is happening now, eh?
You’re dead wrong on Apple.
For example, the problems cited with the iPhone are ridiculous. Apple does this because they don’t want to see the open source movement fill it with billions of half-finished apps, much like we see with Linux these days. Apple has a reputation to keep, and that reputation is directly linked with usability and stability.
This is also why they are also hardware distributors. Yes, it sucks for those of us who like to tinker, but for everyday users and consumers (who don’t know or don’t care about open source), an Apple computer is the closest thing they’re going to get to a perfect machine.
And, please, let’s not forget that Apple usually plays nice with open source long before Microsoft does. Apple has contributed tens of thousands of lines of code to a wide variety of open source projects. Yes, they are a for-profit company, and they do file for ridiculous patents (just like Microsoft and IBM), but they aren’t anti-innovation the way Microsoft is.
Besides, the reason you don’t hear people crying about Apple is because they too are an underdog in the fight against Microsoft’s monopoly. It’s best to bring down one’s common enemies before dividing one’s own forces.
Oh, and one more quick point: I hate DRM with a passion, but what Apple did was completely logical. The digital music movement would simply not exist if Apple hadn’t convinced music labels to sell their music digitally, despite their overblown fears about piracy. Jobs himself is against DRM, and iTunes has now started selling music without DRM. DRM is a demand placed upon Apple by the recording companies, not just by Apple upon consumers. Our fight against DRM is with the record companies, not with Apple.
You wrote:
gt; Nonetheless, criticism of Apple seems almost taboo in the
gt; Ubuntu (and larger Linux/free-software) community, banned
gt; from the discourse among all but the most radical adepts
gt; of Saint IGNUcius.
Eh? Criticism on Apple from FOSS people is easy to find. Not quite as easy as criticism of Microsoft, but even a cursory search on Google should give you oodles of articles of FOSS people criticising Apple and Steve Jobs.
Well, Apple is a darling because of their brilliant marketing. Apple makes stuff that is “Ooh shiny”, it’s not really better than the competiton on a technical level, but humans like “Ooh shiny”. In addition to the “Ooh shiny” designs, they market the items as being special objects used by exceptional people. Apples marketing has made owning Apple kit almost synonymous with being special, being a member of a creative elite.
Saying you can’t see anything special about Apple, is like saying you don’t see the Emperors new clothes. You just label yourself as being common and unrefined. After you dissent, you can expect ridicule coming your way, because the commoner is talking about stuff he is quite obviously not qualified to talk about. Apple kit is magical and the people using it are far better than the drones slaving away at beige boxes. Never mind Apple is just selling Cell phones, MP3 players and x86 computers like everybody else.
MS at least doesn’t artificially curb x86 hardware choice (save some netbook shenanigans). The biggest plus of Apple is that they are small and don’t wield a lot of power beyond their own designer-ware.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who has noticed this trend. The more I watch, the more I see Apple as a Microsoft(Monopoly)-wannabe.
Their products may be good, but in the end their goal is world domination (though, on a smaller scale). They are a corporation that makes money. That is their purpose and you can’t fault them for that.
Amen. I completely agree with this article and have thought this way for years. I actually brought these same arguments up in a Ubuntu mailing list and received a swift backhand by many of the other users. Apple is slowly building a monopoly yet so many are reluctant to open their eyes to see it.
I think Apple gets a pass because it’s for so long been the underdog and even though they do some shady stuff they no where near as huge and all encompassing as M$
Also unlike with MS people have a choice to buy Apple or not and also people are not feeling the big threat of being sued by Apple for using Open Source.
Apple has it’s issues and as Apple gets bigger people will have their say about Apple. As long as I can use my Ubuntu without being worried about being sued by Apple I wont be able to hate Apple as much.
Also using the Mach Kernel without giving back or whatever is not against the license. Since it’s under the BSD license as long as Apple is following the letter of the license there is not much you can say about them using it or any other software in the Mac OS.
Notice that Apple does not use much if any GPL licensed software.
Josh is deluded. Why would Free Software fill the iPhone with half finished app’s? The owner would choose what they installed but as it is they are denied that opportunity I think is the point. If the app is complete to the point the person finds it useful then it isn’t half finished!
I would use MS over Apple any day (although gladly I use Ubuntu and so don’t have to go anywhere near either) as at least I know where I said with them. Meanwhile, Apple, like you say, “borrows” heavily from open source yet I’m to see them give back in any way.
Additionally, I can’t stand Jobs and his constant parading of over-priced and under-whelming products to the doe-eyed technically illiterate, who for some unknown reason think style is synonymous with substance.
Take the iPod, a gadget that is the poorest in it’s class. I had an IAudio before the video iPod came out; it had full colour screen with video playback and could play ogg vorbis AND flac while the iPod was struggling with mp3.
@Dave
Actually Darwin is under Apples own license so Apple does not have to release source.
Also most of the stuff in Darwin was under the BSD license so it’s doesn’t have to be re-released anyway.
I’ve been saying this for a while. Because Apple has a lower market share than Microsoft, and is seen as their biggest competitor in the desktop space, their actions are overlooked.
Furthermore, the ad campaigns coupled with Apple being the only alternative choice to Windows in 99% of retail outlets, makes people believe that Apple is the little guy taking on Microsoft. Buying Apple is being “rebellious” to many, even though that is not true. Since Microsoft is associated with monopolistic anti-competitive closed-off behavior, therefore their competitor Apple must be the opposite, right?
“Apple does this because they don’t want to see the open source movement fill it with billions of half-finished apps, much like we see with Linux these days.”
I use Linux and I don’t see anyone tainting it with billions of half-finished apps. It’s obvious that you don’t use Linux or you wouldn’t have made such a ludicrous statement.
Open source is about choice and freedom of code. Apple, like Microsoft, chooses sole jurisdiction of the operating system level of their products. But, unlike Microsoft, they extend this principle to the hardware and application layers. Thus, by limiting choice, Apple is opposed to the spirit of OSS. They have not expressed a stern determination to extinguish OSS as Microsoft has publicly declared. For this reason, I still believe that Microsoft is still a more evil enemy to OSS than Apple.
Apple seems to me better than MS because they never try to kill the Competitors! MS did and still doing! Apple’S goal is not the World Domination, if it was they would try to put Mac OS X in all Computers around the World!
MS tries to put their shit everywhere, Linux began to get more Markt Share with NETBOOKS, MS tried to stop it with givin’ XP as alternativ NETBOOK-OS !
Apple have a lot of opensource Projects, you should probably wide your Skyline:
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html
Darwin
Darwin Streaming Server
Bonjour
WebKit
Compiler Tools
HeaderDoc
OpenDirectory
OpenPlay
Security
X11
A/G BLAST
CUPS
and they’re some more where Apple are developing with:
http://www.apple.com/opensource/
e.g:
php4
php
portmap (RPC)
Postfix
procmail
prototype
pyobjc
pyOpenSSL
PyRSS2Gen
PySVN
pysqlite
python
The title for this article has a typo:
Apple: A Biggert Open Source Enemy Than Microsoft? | Works With U
I earn a living with Unix/Linux and Windows on servers, mostly.
I’m a very happy Macbook user in my spare time! It’s not even expensive, a comparable Asus cost’s 25% more, although it has a better graphics card, but I don’t need much GPU power for what I do with it.
As to the opennes of Appel, I’m typing this from a Macbook running openSuse with konqueror using webkit.
Googles Chrom is based on webkit.
Webikit is included in QT and Apple provides bugfixes to QT.
Have a look into your fave linux distros repository, you might find darwin streaming server there.
As to the opennes of phonse, where is the difference between Googles software market an Apples store? What about Googles kill switch?
How open do you want your phone and, think about it, is it yours or your telecom providers phone?
And DRM on Media, at least you knew wich rights were granted when you bought at iTunes, and they didn’t shut down the DRM servers as others did 🙂
Don’t like the offering, procure somewhere else, say, an nice Sony CD which kills your car stereos CD changer? Or an EMI CD which can’t be played in data capable CD player, like my car stereos CD changer?
No, Apple is certainly not as open as GNU is, but it is open enough for most purposes.
And I can’t find fault, that they only support their own hardware. Much less driver trouble than on any other platform.
Try to get support from BMW when you fit a Ford engine into a Porsche.
Darwin is based on bsd software. So no they don’t have to release it.
@Josh:
Half-finished apps are not a problem at all, if they’re not done, it usually says ‘(pre-)alpha’, meaning it still doesn’t work as expected, meaning it isn’t ready for widespread consumption.
These people usually do this in their spare time to fill some functionality that they crave, but don’t get to finish them because the real world often knocks and they have to leave their projects behind.
What’s ridiculous is the fact that Apple leaves out Linux users in some bin as if they aren’t worthy enough to exist. Let’s say that Linux doesn’t have enough market share to consider supporting their iPod/iPhone customers who have any flavor of Linux on their computers, sure, but to proactively change their firmware just to leave out the community who made, _for free_, software designed so that they themselves can use Apple’s pretty products with the machines that they have… that’s ridiculous. It isn’t even logical, they want their products to be sold, to be used by the general public, but to keep these guys out?
I do agree with you on the DRM thing, they are a business. They may or may not want to add DRM, but the industry giants would only do business with them and supply them with the songs the carry if they DRM their music.
Hmm.. but then again, IMO, the industry sort of equates free-software guys with pirates, maybe someo
Horse crap.
They support and maintain CUPS – the printing system you’re using in Linux.
They support and maintain LLVM – the next generation compiler core for GCC.
They support and maintain the Darwin core – which is based on BSD and doesn’t have to be released.
They incorporate open source code and don’t hide the derivation: bsd, gcc, dtrace, zfs, cups, ruby, rails, etc. They contribute back. They don’t threaten to sue for patent abuse.
Try again.
mac is quite artsy the only problem with it i find is the hardware lock in and the feeling of it being too easy for me to use. I don’t mind going the extra step to find my programs in a menu or work in the command line.
I will never own any Apple products due to anti-open source policies! All they do is take, take and take from the open source communities but never give anything back. Where do you think OSX came from? BSD.
They are the most pompous, arrogant and disgusting tech company out there. They are worse than Microsoft, just not as big so they can’t do as much damage yet.
Linux is making great headways on the desktop and has already conquered the server market. I will always use open source products on my systems.
For example:
Why should I buy a MAC laptop for 2500.00 with an Intel processor and a motherboard ( with dedicated graphics ), made in Taiwan when I can buy the same spec hardware for 800.00 from HP and put Linux on it? I shouldn’t. That would just be stupid, and I tell everyone I know not to buy Apple products and then proceed to point out all the benefits of using Linux and the over 6000 applications that are available to choose from to solve any particular need.
I equate Apple and their management with the mentality of Tom Cruise and his crazy religious beliefs.
There are no more arguments for not using Linux and the sooner Apple and Microsoft die screaming, the better.
They might be worse, but they are small and opposed to Microsoft, so for the moment, we are on the same side. The prime priority right now is to break the MS monopoly. If we can do that through open software, hopefully Apple will catch on and join the parade.
DISCLAIMER:
The above comment was meant figuratively. I obviously do not wish harm to anyone.
Apple bought Cups just because they we’re afraid of GPLv3, this is a fact. Why don’t we ask the KDE people how fine Apple was on getting their Khtml and creating webkit, this really says how much cooperative it is with free-software. And yes, it´s really scary how many macheads are there living in their own world keeping saying how much Apple helps with freesoftware.
I wrote about this recently in my post “Proffer Me an Apple: iStandard.”:http://dialogues.port49.com/2008/10/6/proffer-me-an-apple
Apple’s policies undermine the business of software engineering, which is ironic given the disproportionate number of software engineers who use Macs. If we don’t organize in opposition to Apple, we are going to find ourselves gadgetted out of a job.
Absolutely agree! For all its problems Windows is a more open platform than Mac. See the way Apple kills iPhone apps it doesn’t like? There is no reason to think they won’t do the same on OSX.
I’ve disliked Mac since the days of the Amiga, and was never fond of Microsoft either. But if I had to choose one or the other it would be Microsoft every time.
I was recently distressed to find that my constant ragging on Vista was driving people towards the Mac instead of Linux as I had hoped. So I quickly did a U-turn. Microsoft is bad, but Apple is worse. Once you’re locked in there we’ll never get you out.
And while we’re on the subject, does anyone really trust google?
I think that many in the FOSS community are hesitant to bash (pardon the pun) Apple because they see them as an ally in the fight against their common enemy – Microsoft. I think that as market share for Apple and Linux continue to grow, you’ll see more conflict between the two camps. This is inevitable, and in my opinion should be welcomed. When there is competition in the ecosystem, then we’ll get more quality software.
Just a few points that have been made already but are somewhat scattered around in the comments, so I thought I’d bring them together.
Apple DOES give back to OSS, when it suits THEM. i.e. Cups, yeah so they maintain it a bit, think about why they do that. It’s only common sense that they want to use cups because their systems are Unix/BSD based, and cups is really the only sensible choice for printing, so they help to improve that software, so that they can continue to use it for free, instead of developing their own closed source project which would take more time, effort and money, making them less profit.
Darwin is developed under the BSD license and doesn’t have to be released. True, but does that make it any more reasonable that they took an already designed OS, which they got for free, played with it and then started selling it without even so much as giving it back to the original developers? Regardless of license we’re talking morals here.
Mach Kernel, same applies as with Darwin sorry.
Using Konqueror code to make Safari, then not making a Linux version available and not open sourcing it? WTF!!!!! Hello anyone awake in that head that thinks Apple gives back what it takes?
Apple has made BILLIONS from GPL and BSD code, it incorporated and continues to incorporate GPL and BSD products into it’s software every day, and yet only ever gives back what it absolutely has to under law and absolutely NOTHING FURTHER. When was the last time Apple designed a piece of software for an Apple product, and then said, tell you what, we’ll GPL it and you OSS guys can port it easier to Linux and Windows? When did they last do that? Someone please tell me.
Apple makes all it’s own software and closes the source code off, then when it can’t or doesn’t want to, or simply recognises it’s cheaper to go OSS on this one, dips into the OSS world and disappears again quicker than you can hear the word ‘thankyou’.
I like the way the iPhones, iPods, Mac Books etc all look, but that’s about it. I don’t actually like OSX in the slightest, I start out liking it when I sit down at a Mac, it’s all ‘Ooh Shiny’ as someone else said, and is very polished and refined. But then I go to use the terminal and realise bash just isn’t bash on this machine, I try to find a GUI application to change a setting that Apple doesn’t really want it’s users to change and I get lost, I try to install a piece of Open Source Software like Inkscape and I start getting errors about ‘Cannot find X11’ etc etc etc.
I think the moral of this post and certainly of my comment here, is that if Apple wishes to ‘dip it’s wick’ in open source every now and again it should at the very least, try to be more compliant with other open source projects and give a little more back than JUST what it uses. It’s like my daughter eating less than everyone else and refusing to do the washing up because of it, that’s just not gunna fly.
I have always felt that apple was a much worse company than M$ and have therefore always refused to so much as buy an ipod. while I don’t like M$, I look at them like a massive bumbling robot, but I look at apple as the hidden assasin….
OK, you clearly do not understand your history at all — you wrote this article with half-baked ideas and you look like a total moron.
Is Apple the most friendly company towards open source? No. Are they completely against open source? No.
Free-BSD and the Mach kernel are the basis for much of NeXtSTEP (which in turn is the basis of OS X), but through Darwin, they HAVE contributed a significant amount of support back to the Free BSD community. And the license says they don’t have to release everything, so let’s get over the “ungratefully borrowed” or “stole” accusations. That’s just oversimplifying and untrue. I suspect that like most Linux zealots, you have little to no experience using BSD. If you did, you would have seen first-hand the benefits Apple has given back.
In the case of Konquerer, Apple took something that flat out sucked — I mean, SUCKED (did you use KHTML pre WebKit, if you say you did and that it was even halfway decent, you are a liar) and all but abandoned and they created WebKit – which is still open source (compile your own damn browser if you want it so badly — isn’t that alway the OS party line when people complain that something doesn’t work or that it doesn’t exist) that is now used by KDE, Gnome, Google’s Chrome and dozens of other smaller projects. Konquerer was crap, would still be crap (or would be abandoned) if Apple hadn’t poured time and money (and hired away Mozilla’s best Mac guy) to create Safari. So Safari isn’t available for Linux. I don’t think the market exists for an Apple branded browser. It is in Windows because a) iTunes is essentially WebKit with a QT wrapper b) Windows users actively buy Apple products. Linux-only users aren’t typically a pro-Apple audience. People like me who use multiple OSes usually do use a MacBook or MacBook Pro because the hardware is more reliable and we can run lots of stuff at one time.
Oh and if you really wanted to cite an example of where Apple does crap on open source, you should have used DTrace. But you didn’t, because you have no idea what you are talking about and instead use the two examples that every anti-Apple Ubuntu freak always uses, even though they are scurious and totally half-baked. I’ll totally say that DTrace was a messed up situation, and that Apple is hardly an open source cheerleader, but they aren’t the devil and in neither example have they done anything other than follow a license and still provide source code (as in the case of Darwin) and actually make something worth using and not a piece of dung like with WebKit.
Christina: I admit that I’m not an expert on the history of Apple and open-source; I also didn’t mean to imply that Apple has done anything illegal regarding free software. But I would point out that as far as KHTML goes, Apple did say that it deliberately chose KHTML over a number of other possibilities (including writing an engine from scratch), which makes it hard to believe that KHTML was such a horrible disaster before Apple came along.
I also emphasize that the larger point of the article is that although Apple has benefited enormously by borrowing open-source software, its policies very much conflict with the ideologies that produce such software, and yet few Linux users seem to be concerned. Apple is obsessed with locking in and controlling users. If the developers of KHTML, Darwin etc. had felt the same way about their products, Apple never would have been able to use them. Steve Jobs likes to share (and he does share code back, as you point out) within a limited context, when it benefits Apple, but he rejects the principles–choice and freedom–upon which sharing is supposed to be based.
As I say in the post, perhaps I’ve just read too much Richard Stallman, but I think that Apple at least should no longer be given such a free pass by larger part of the FOSS community.
I posted a response to your article here: http://rayne-vandunem.livejournal.com/125270.html
In Joe Panettieri comment where he says:
“I’m an Apple believer — even though I’m co-founder of the Works With U site.”
and then later goes on to say:
“I believe Apple represents the best of closed source — though I realize that may be an issue going forward.”
is probably one of the clearest examples of what Chris Tozzi is talking about in this post.
The constant excuses that are made for Apple’s blatantly monopolistic behaviors by its fan base continue to amaze me. But I suppose anything is possible when I consider that I have (otherwise intelligent) friends that continue assert that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks.
The power of faith is astounding. But I have to ask: is what Apple and its evangelists do in the name of the Macintosh “insanely great” or “greatly insane”?
Votre: Yes, I admit that my statements about Apple contradict the spirit of open source. But the fact is: I’m very happy with the quality of Apple products (iPhone, MacBook Pro).
I think the real innovation area to watch involves iPhone (closed) vs. Google Android (open). They’re basically emerging to market within 18 months or so to each other, so we’ll see how quickly the open source folks and app developers can drive Android forward and either catch or surpass Apple’s innovation on iPhone.
Again, I realize I’m one of those guys talking out of both sides of his mouth: I love Ubuntu. I love Apple. I’ll let you know if my loyalty to Apple ever fades.
I realized Apples’ trend sometime back but for not being so big like Microsoft, not many have attacked Apple. Ironically Apple needs social marking but it is killing it indirectly, more of it at http://www.nichea.info/2008/10/credit-crunch-is-hitting-bloggers-too.html
I’m in no way an Apple supporter — don’t own a single Apple product and have no intention to. But I don’t lose sleep worrying about an Apple monopoly. It’s not simply a question of their current market share; it’s the fact that their total hardware/software lock-in has no hope of becoming a monopoly at this point. Whatever is going on with the OS market, hardware has long been a commodity market and that’s not about to change.
What Apple and OS X do, particularly in the server market, is divide those who want a modern, friendly Unix-like OS from those who want a free, open-source OS. Traditionally both camps chose Linux, but now those who have no scruples about license are starting to look at OS X instead.
It’s a shame that Apple and various Linux vendors cannot team up to present a united front against Microsoft, because there is a lot to be gained from that. But it would involve both commercial and idealogical concessions on both sides, which I can’t blame either side for refusing.
I have never thought about it, but I totally agree with this.
It’s a shame that Apple use the open-source benefits but do not contribute to the community.
Congratulations for the post. I’ve linked it in a post I wrote today, inspired by yours!
http://www.chrisb.com.br/blog/apple-inimiga-da-comunidade-open-source/ (in portuguese)
I guess I’m not lonely anymore… I’m always warning people about the danger of Apple. I try to show in my blog (portuguese only, but there is a plugin to translate… You’ll find it in the right sidebar) that Apple is even worst than M$. But like you said in this post. Apple criticism is a taboo even in GNU/Linux sites… My blog were in a brazilian GNU Planet agregator and some days later it was removed. I dont know why, but I think it was because of my posts against Apple… By the way, Apple fanboys from Brazil and Portugal are really getting pissed at me. We really need to make something to warn everyone about Apple. We need to join this fight! It IS necessary! Apple users and even Linux users are blind when it comes to Apple…
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Apple stole from FreeBSD and never gave anything back. I think it’s a little sad how the FreeBSD site states that FreeBSD is used in “tons of applications, including Mac OS/X”.
Fanboys who want to defend Apple have just fallen victim to their brainwashing propaganda machine. All a capitalist entity cares about is maximizing profit – if taking away your freedoms and corrupting governments, schools and hospitals means more profit, they’ll do it.
So keep rubbing the Mac fanboys’ dull faces into the dirty facts, hopefully we can stop a second Microsoft from being born.
Microsoft is awesome. They are great at everthing they make.
@Angela : Sure MS is awesome, if you expect your software to cost a lot, require a lot of maintenance and crash once in a while 🙂