Umm.. you fault Apple for being a giant dongle, but praise console games for simplicity. Game Consoles are even bigger dongles than Apple could ever hope for.

That's my point-- they're the same model.

Does freedom zero really matter if what *works* in practical terms is "zero freedom"?

"Umm.. you fault Apple for being a giant dongle, but praise console games for simplicity. Game Consoles are even bigger dongles than Apple could ever hope for. "

You might want to re-read that. I think his point was to compare Apple to console games as big dongles that people accept because they prefer simplicity over freedom of choice.

I will answer your last question:

For most software CEOs:
DemandingUsers.satisfaction < LessDemandingUsers.money

Thats how they build todays proprietary software market imo.

No-one (by which I mean most folks) cares about freedom zero because freedom zero is the right to run any software, and most people don’t particularly enjoy running new software. Most people aren’t computer enthusiasts, any more than they’re chainsaw enthusiasts or car enthusiasts. They enjoy what they do with their computer (e.g. talking to friends, listening to music), but the thing itself is just a tool.

I’m embarrassingly ill-informed on the subject, but I think there actually is a little dongle—the Mac ROM—inside Macs, that you need in order to run Mac OS X.

And not to get all fanboy-ish, but I don’t think the “legally pull the rug out from under you at any time” quite applies to the Mac, or indeed any hardware. I’ve run Linux on Mac hardware before, and I’d be very surprised if Apple could complain legally about it.

In regards to the 4 million iPhones Apple has sold, a massive percentage of them have been jailbroken (made to work with third-party applications) or unlocked (made to work with other cell networks.) I myself have a jailbroken 1.1.3 iPhone and enjoy using it to read email, web browse, play NES roms, or VNC to my home machine.

But, yes, as I say here (http://www.seretogis.org/2008/01/22/avoiding-the-cult/), OS X is a lovely front-end for a *nix system and that is really the only reason to use it. If Terminal were removed, it would be ridiculously limited and Apple would certainly lose some marketshare. I don't think that locked-down console-esque computers are the wave of the future, and that eventually Apple will learn the hard way that consumers want choices moreso than 100% reliability.

But they could discontinue any piece of software at any time, with no way for it to move forward, I think that was his point.

I think a big part is that people don't envision themselves using their machine 5-10 years down the road. I bought my Xbox for some specific uses, but I'm not expecting to use it forever, and the life cycle of the software for it just never enters the equation.

And yes, closed-source has for the most part created vastly more unique and sophisticated pieces of software, and open source has generally created copies of those. I think a huge piece of that is profit motive, and rightfully so. Which may be why Firefox is such an exemplary piece of open-source sortware, it's drowning in cash.

Anyway, no real answer, I think it just comes down to it- people don't care about the principles so much as they care about just using the machine, and I think that's fine.

There's nothing in this post that isn't correct (though it's worth noting, for the record, that the iTunes Store is actively moving away from DRM, not that it erases past transgressions, of course), *however*, it's also worth noting that many people aren't [themselves] hampered by the fact that what they're dealing with is in some way locked down.

Nobody except people who don't want to pay money for a Mac actually cares that you can't easily run Mac OS X in its entirety on, say, a Dell. (I have several Macs, and two Dells: one runs DragonFlyBSD, the other runs Mac OS X—and it runs Mac OS X really, really badly). People in general, as with games consoles, buy the hardware for what it's capable of—even if “capable” has been artificially limited in some way.

But, this is obvious stuff and I'm rapidly heading away from the point I'm trying to make, and that is that the reason that people don't care about Freedom Zero is that it's not important enough for most people to cause the to sacrifice something which makes their day-to-day life easier. I'm not going to stop using Mac OS X because it's non-free until the alternatives are on a par or better than it. The same applies to search engines, television stations, DVDs, and anything else you care to think of. I—and most people I know—simply do not have the time to fiddle and mess around and put up with sub-standard results purely for the freedoms it buys (which only exist for the majority in terms of the hypothetical). It's no good extolling the virtues of, say, Ubuntu, or Wikia's new search engine, or OpenOffice.org, or *anything else* for that matter, if you can't use them for the things that people need to do.

The reason the iPhone sold well wasn't that it did *everything*; plenty of devices do everything, but the iPhone did the things it did far better—in the eyes of the beholder—than the alternatives. The iPod was the same: the Slashdot story about the announcement of the iPod was pretty typical—“firewire!?”, “it's only HOW big?”, “the UI sucks, you can't do anything”, “but I don't want to use iTunes…”, etc. All perfectly valid criticisms, but none of them remotely important to the people who bought the thing.

The other aspect to it is that the populous at large don't, and haven't ever really cared about Freedom Zero, but SOMEBODY always does. In the long long term, the stuff created to those principles will survive, whilst the Apple and Google and Microsoft products will be blips in history.

I'm not sure Apple hardware, say PPC and Intel on, counts as much of a dongle. Especially Intel based hardware. You can freely install any OS you want on it, they [Apple] even bundle the Windows drivers for all the proprietary hardware, backlight keyboard, webcam, volume, eject button, etc.. on the Leopard install disc.

They promote a close ecosystem of tight integration of Software and Hardware with nice results and if you chose to use OS X you are bound to apple hardware but if you already have the hardware you are not bound to OS X and the hardware still functions.

In terms of the standard PC model of upgrading individual hardware components you are more restricted than a standard PC, especially in the realm of video cards ( see the recent top end card that only works on the latest Mac Pro).

The crux of the discussion though, and this goes back to the argument for consoles, i think usability and mass consumer devices is tightly bound and ultimately preferred by consumers who "just want it to work". That is the tradeoff between freedom and close systems.

@pauldwaite: Not only can they not stop you running Linux on your Mac, but Apple were responsible for porting Linux to the Mac in the first place (MkLinux was a research project co-managed by Apple and what is now the Open Group, and ran Linux on top of pretty much the same Mach Microkernel that sits at the heart of XNU/Darwin/Mac OS X now).

Thank you! I've been feeling this way since the Mac came out. I remember the disappointment when it turned out that the Mac was going to be a proprietary, overpriced and locked-down system. The Apple II, on the other hand, was open hardware and firmware. Still have the original reference manual with complete schematics and boot monitor listing (including Sweet 16!).

Well, there have been some open source successes too (and OS is really what this is all about). You say iPhone, I say Firefox. It's a battle that hasn't been decided yet.

I suspect most people don't care about "freedom zero" because they practice it every day. I've worked and/or played with a fairly large sample set of computer users, and I can safely say that every single one of them has unlicensed software, that they use at least semi-regularly, installed on their computer.

The software industry has created this problem systematically in two ways; we create crappy software (and then expect users to pay for defect fixes!), and we price software out of the reach of most users. When *one* software package costs more than she paid for the entire computer, she has a powerful incentive to "borrow" a friend's copy.

Sadly, the Open Source movement has only fixed one of these problems (the price factor). As you mention above, outside of some special niches, the quality and usability of Open Source is much worse than the proprietary stuff...

By the way, isn't your copyright notice at the bottom of the site out of date ?

Nothing pisses me off more than buying hardware that is locked down. Whats the point of buying a supper blue tooth enabled, wifi enabled, mp3 playing smartphone ... if you cant use any of it?

I love my iPhone because it is hackable. More so than any other phone... it's unix after all. Apple keeps tightening it up though.

Ever wonder why there are no killer compact framework phone apps? Because all the smart phones that would run them are locked down.

I cant wait for a device / phone you can actually write apps for, above board. I want skype on my phone. :P

It's all about selling media. Controlling its distribution and play. Some record labels actually consider it piracy to rip a cd, that you purchased, and play it on an mp3 player. The only reason i buy cds is to rip them and play them on my comp/mp3 player... anyway. Many Verizon phones can play mp3s ... but to get the mp3 on the phone you have to buy a crapply compressed version from V-Case for 2$

Apple is now in the same market. They don't care about making inovative devices, their concern is distributing media.

You know how much money is in selling crappy ring-tones? It's a lot more then selling Mac software, i'm sure.

Open source seems to divide into two major types of projects. The first are very innovative, the sort of thing for which there are no proprietary comparisons. I think these are often open source by chance; there's no reason why they should be one way or the other, other than the interest of whomever got the idea in the first place. The second are the "copiers" -- people who want to find free/open versions of proprietary software. That these should be open source makes inherent sense -- who is going to be able to get a lot of people together to make a clone of Photoshop with a lousy, unintuitive GUI? Who would put up the cash to make a vector drawing program that can't export to file formats usable in most desktop programs? Who would want to make a slow and buggy knock-off of Microsoft Office? These sorts of projects seem much more intelligently to be open source -- it's a neat challenge and the idea of "replacing" the proprietary world seems to motivate a lot of people.

I've been more disappointed with many of the promised open source programs than I have been pleased. They just never seem to live up to the hype or be quite as good as the proprietary ones. Only Firefox comes close, and even it has a lot of things I dislike about it (ugly way of handling forms, very slow at times, and after awhile the continual cry of 'this add-on has an update, want to install it?' makes me, against my will, long for the days when third-party add-ons stopped asking me for permission every time they wanted to do something). Some products, like OpenOffice.org have been downright depressing -- at best it is a slow clone of Microsoft Office, with all of the bad ideas that were originally there. At worst it can't even get to Office's level -- it seems practically impossible to make good-looking charts in OO.org; it's only _mostly_ impossible in Office. And Base seems like way more trouble than its worth -- reproducing all of the unintuitive and difficult-to-use parts about Microsoft Access without providing any of the powerful functionality. It's like the programmers never thought to consult with the potential audience, and instead barreled down the path of emulating a suite software which hadn't changed it's interface for a decade.

I've often thought that the problem with Microsoft is that it is software-development-as-decided-by-a-lot-of-middle-managers, and the problem with open source is that it is software-development-as-decided-by-a-lot-of-programmers. You can't get good results from an all-manager environment, and you can't get good results from an all-programmer environment. There's got to be some sort of hybrid -- I imagine a third market, which exists now but hasn't really opened up, of managers and programmers who take the fruit of open source programming and build intuitive GUIs around it, installers that don't require you to drop into a command line to "sudo" anything, and get rid of feature-clutter that programmers think people "might like" but have no real idea.

Don't get me wrong -- I think open source holds a lot of promise, and I'm in no way throwing my lot in with a purely proprietary model.

Oh, and I use an Intel Mac. Har har har. I like being able to run a fast, good-looking machine that can also quickly drop into a Linux command line and also load up XP in a virtualizer. I've got the best of all worlds, from what I can tell, and if I paid a little more for the benefit, well, that's what the old "academic discount" is for. ;-)

Really Jeff, you don't have to tell us that Apple is one evil proprietary company. We as software developer know, the problem the customers don't and they don't care.

It maybe cool for the Wii or XBox, but I never could understand, why the iPhone could get so successful, without being able to run 3rd Party software on it.
Not even simple J2ME cardgames 'common. It's the one device I'm going to carry around everywhere, let me install the apps I need! Things like Coktail Reciepes, Language Dictionarys, a PDF Reader etc. I used all of this in 2002 on my first Symbian phone and 3rd party apps for mobile devices have been massive since then.

They went a long road to establish standards between different device vendors and now Apple enters the game and throws everything away. And people buy this stuff like theres no tomorow.

Also, nobody seems to care that iPods only work with iTunes. If I buy an overpriced Mp3-Player should'nt it be my choice which software I use? It's not like you cant just plug any other Mp3-Player into an USB-Port and start transfering files.

People always critize Mircosoft for having restricted policies on topics like this, but Apple is even worse and still they maintain their nice clean image.

Freedom Zero is a promise of future gain. It does nothing to solve your current needs, only those which you think you might have in the future.

Consumers don't buy promises. They buy tools to help them with whatever their problems are *now*. Regardless of what you think about Apple, they are solving people's needs right now. And no-one is going to turn off all those devices and stop them doing whatever they are doing now (if we take icky DRM out of the picture for now).

Freedom Zero is a noble aim but it is not the only way, nor is it necessarily even desirable above other models. If enough people have a certain need in the future, then software *will* fill that need. The issue that really hangs over freedom is software patenting, which could stifle efforts to clone software that has since been unsupported.

greg: A large community of hackers/crackers has grown to turn the iPhone into an open platform for third-party applications. Just goog--wikia for it.

There you go, another post that I can totally say is mine.
Please share a picture poster size so I can hang it on the wall. :)

I have a Mac and I do things with it that Apple "allows" me to: use a web browser, e-mail, LaTeX, Perl, Python, RSS reader, listen to music, watch movies. All this with a good UI, no viruses, and with a minimal of hassle. How is there a conflict with what my needs and wants are and what I'm "allowed" to do? I purchased my Mac because it filled my needs.

I do not own an iPod nor an iPhone because neither do what I want. I have not purchased anything from the iTunes Store because I prefer CDs and DVDs.

I admin Linux and Solaris machines at work, and we use them because they do what we need. If they didn't, we wouldn't be using the software in the first place to do the things we do.

While some people do care freedom zero, if software or devices that provides said freedom can't handle the job at hand in an efficient way, what's the point of using it?

There may be open platform mobile phones, but the UI sucks: my mother cannot easy check voicemail. The iPhone's UI doesn't suck, and once the device stabilizes it a bit I'll probably buy her own and flip the SIM card, because she'll finally have a phone that is easy to use.

Software and devices are tools. If the tools don't do the job at hand then providing freedom zero is a moot point. If I can find a tool that gives me freedom zero, great, I'll use it. If not, then other tools will be used.

As far as non-nerds are concerned, they do have Freedom Zero, the freedom to run the program for any purpose.

I can use Safari on my Mac to browse porn sites, terrorist sites, religious sites, business sites, or environmental conservation sites. I can use Pages to create flyers or newsletters for environmental conservation, business, you get the idea.

The notion that somehow Apple (or Microsoft) are restricting your freedom by not giving you the source code strikes the vast majority of people as ridiculous, and I don't blame them at all.

I disagree. I run OS X, but I use open source applications for anything important to avoid tying myself to the platform and because they are free as in beer. Thus I get as much OS X pleasantness as I want, but I am not tied to it in any way. On the other hand, if I choose to go to windows, there is less open source to choose from, so it is fair less capable of allowing me this freedom. So I see windows is being the less free platform.

As a development platform, both platforms appear to be about the same, tying developers to the particular APIs and architecture of each. However, if you are able to use open source APIs, OS X is the winner again.

A while ago a friend of mine came up with the term "flogging the gnu": the insistence on using Free Software (GPL definition) despite there being superior, albeit non-free alternatives and making do without software when there is no free alternative available; some examples: using Gimp rather than Photoshop, only because Photoshop is not Free Software; not using a particular file-format because the codec is distributed in binary-only format.

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/powerbook/20-journal.html#gnuflogging

Why, exactly, should I give a crap about freedom zero?

Freedom zero advocates have done an exceedingly poor marketing job, selling the drill instead of the hole.

Nobody cares, because nobody realizes why they *should* care. Closed-systems salesmen, in sharp contrast, can explain their benefits clearly and convincingly.

It's pretty trivial to understand why open source can't come up with the iPhone - physical things cost money.

Open source can innovate, and has. It can copy, and boy does it. So can a proprietary shop. But software is free. I already have a computer and I have my spare time, I can write mountains of code. I can't get a prototype tiny touchscreen without spending hundreds of dollars or having a promise that I can back it up with sales. And that's hard to do as a hacker on my off-hours. It's very easy to do if you are BigCo.

Note that the only software that truly allows for Freedom 0 is Free Software, and the most complete expression of that freedom in wide usage is the GNU GPL, the only license that protects Freedom 0 by specifically requiring you pass it on to anyone you supply the software to.

We give up our freedoms all the time. I give up my freedom of speech when posting on your blog, knowing you have the power and right to censor what I say. This is fine by me, and if it wasn't I'd just go rant on my own blog where my freedom to say what I want isn't compromised by your whim.

I give up my Freedom 0 when I buy DRM'd songs from the iTunes store, so I make sure that any song I would miss if the store vanished tomorrow, I buy unencumbered. I factor the DRM into the value proposition of buying each song.

I gave up my Freedom 0 when, after six years of Linux as my primary desktop, I switched completely to the Mac. I also know that by following some pretty basic principles of keeping any important data in a neutral format, I can move elsewhere if the cost of my loss of freedom ever gets high enough to impact me negatively. Certainly the move would be annoying, but it's still a lot less annoying on the whole than Linux was on a daily basis.

Most importantly, my choice to give up Freedom 0 does not impinge on anyone else's enjoyment of that freedom. Everybody gets to choose the level of freedom they are (un)comfortable with, and the world gets the benefit of widely available free software AND the innovation that, for now, seems mostly confined to commercial development.

On the main point, I hate to say it, but computing will always move towards the appliance model. What's a web app, after all? For most things, people consider Firefox/IE/Safari the appliance.

I bet I don't have to tell Jeff that the web is just 3270 terminals with a prettier interface.

The Mac is closed compared to open source, but is it really any more closed than Windows? Could you elaborate on why you "find Apple's brand of hardware lock-in particularly egregious".

Console simplicity is one small piece of why consumers buy them. There are lots of simple consoles that have failed. The main reason consumers buy consoles is because they want to play the games that are only available on consoles.

Why do publishers produce games for these closed platforms? In large part, because they are closed.

It's much easier to develop and test on 1-3 platforms than it is on an infinite variety of hardware and software. Also, piracy is much more difficult in the console world. Not to mention that the controls are standardized. It's generally not a good idea to make a game best suited for joysticks on the PC.

Microsoft is sort of addressing that last bit, by basically setting a closed standard, the Xbox 360 controller which "Games for Windows" labeled games are now required to support.

Here's something I have wondered about in terms of consistent philosophies:

I think as programmers, we get tied up into the concept of looking for consistency and elegance, for elements to be simplified and rarefied. Freedom seems to be a fairly noble concept to want - and we see how it could be applied consistently across all of the elements of computing (which, to some degree, both represents and is a large portion of our life). However, the flaw to get caught up in here is that freedom as in beer doesn't really extend that well beyond this really important thing.

We don't really get to pick what governments rule us (which unfortunately is still true in a democracy for the most part). We don't fret over growing and taking care of our own farms and foods. These systems work, for better and worse, outside of our domain. It seems, then, for us to be kneejerk insistent on freedom, because we have already comprised it in so many other areas.

Certainly, I don't mean to say that because we have dropped it in those other areas, that it is any less of a worthwhile pursuit. However, I just want to point out that human behavior is a bit more clear when looked at from more than one angle.

Because nobody cares about running programs.

Client software is dead. Didn't you post about that already?

I wonder if automobile engineers rant about free combustible engines -- the freedom to burn gas, for any purpose.

[quote]
It maybe cool for the Wii or XBox, but I never could understand, why the iPhone could get so successful, without being able to run 3rd Party software on it.
[/quote]

Then perhaps the success is due in part because the majority of users have no interest in installing 3rd party software. Heck, this even holds true on the desktop; most computer users install MS office and that's it (and *maybe* also iTunes if they're on Windows). Anything beyond that is usually something designed to plug omissions in the operating system itself or that's been installed by a passing computer geek, not user passion or interest (anti-malware, winrar, registry cleaner, Acrobat reader, Firefox, etc).

By the way, is my iTunes bugged ? Because it allows me to simply drag and drop my downloaded mp3s, movies, tv shows, audiobooks and music videos on it. No iStore or DRM needed. I didn't crack it or hack it either.

Your argument doesn't make sense. A Mac is not a dongle, it is a computer. You can run any software you want on it, including Windows and Linux. You can develop and run your own software on OS X. This is not like a video game console at all. The platform is "closed" only in the sense that the operating system Apple ships only runs on their hardware, in limited configurations. If you want to run Mac software, you have to buy an Apple machine.

Vendor lock-in is hardly a new phenomenon. The solution is to adopt open formats and multi-platform software. Open source is even better, assuming you can maintain the software yourself.

Also, you don't need proprietary hardware to implement software restrictions. Software that restricts users and the file formats that support such things are the problem, and they can be implemented on any platform. You shouldn't use them, and most people can already see why they are a very bad idea.

In short, most people who use Macs have not surrendered the right to use their computer as they see fit. If Apple were ever to demand that, you have a perfectly good computer that can run other software. The Mac is a general purpose hardware and software platform. People like it because the basic things work.

The whole issue is a matter of how widely someone defines their problem domain.

Most people's problem domain isn't sufficiently wide enough to include the reasons that you prefer free software. Mostly, people want a solution that works immediately, has good support, and requires no effort on their part.

Free software groups rarely offer a solution that fits this problem domain, because it would involve too much investment of time and perhaps capital on their part, and they're not getting paid for it (hence the "free" part).

People that sell proprietary hardware/software exist entirely to fill the solution domain to this problem domain. Their entire existence is based on giving these people exactly what they want.

What I don't understand is why this concept is so difficult for most people. People do NOT want freedom. Take a look at what tends to happen to democratic societies (and what is happening to ours). The greatest percentage of any sufficiently large society will ALWAYS be willing to give up freedom in exchange for the ability to concentrate on whatever it is that is important to them specifically.

As it currently stands, using completely free software generally in some way makes their life more difficult (whether it's a lack of support, it's more difficult to setup, it's not engineered to as high of a quality standard, whatever). So, why would they do it? Why would you possibly force yourself to do something that makes life more difficult simply because the software is "free"?

I know there are several illegal versions of os x running on standard pc's either through vmware or natively. This shows it probably now can run on any hardware and why not since its based on unix/linux. So apple are just holding it back to make cash on hardware sales.

This is from my point of view a short term approach. If they opened up the os legally to all hardware lots of people would switch.

There are some great features in os x. To me the OS seems a lot cleaner old mac apps are emulated so it is esentially an addition to the base OS for backwards compatability, you don't have the windows situation of massive bloat to support stuff from 20 years ago through main code. Uninstalling programs is logical in the user interface and actually removes all components no windows registry entries left in and empty program folders. Expose the great task switcher. Near 100% reliability. Great media integration and im sure much more I have forgotten to mention. Im not saying everything is perfect or even better than windows but there certainly is good stuff. One thing I can't get used to is the one button mouse.

All they need is a geek user base to develop all those neet apps we are so used to in windows and possibly get .net framework working probably through mono. At this point it will be a serious competitior.

Now I just worry about apple ending up in court just like microsoft for anti-trust or becoming a monopoly especially with the ipod. Lets face it the ipod + itunes thing is already being picked up by the French government how much longer before everyone else picks up on it.

Quality & elegance win out over an ugly, infuriating, and unstable OS.

What the heck is this "Mac is locked down" mantra? I can run whatever I want on a Mac. I can use third party devices, no one is beholden to Apple to sign their driver.

It's the reverse that you're griping about: You can't make a Mac out of whatever random motherboard you've got lying around. Apple doesn't pretend to be in the game of supporting every random combination of half-working cruft you bought on discount. Nor should they IMHO. This is half of why Vista is bloated, slow, and late.

But once you *are* running OS X, you can do whatever you want with it. You can run far more open source software, far more easily on OS X (than Windows). And you run into a lot less DRM lockdown than Microsoft is trying to push on the market.

If you want to complain about people taking away your rights to use your machine as you see fit, look at what Microsoft is up to.

You're right about Open Source being an open horizon, and closed source a series of temporary products, but I just think you're a little narrowly focused in your bashing. Apple is certainly no worse than Microsoft, and I would argue, a lot better (Safari is based on an open source toolkit, the kernel level is open, ships with apache, gcc, etc, etc.)

Honestly, I really don't care about freedom-0, it makes no diff to me, I buy tools to solve issues right now, if the tool no longer fills my needs, I either upgrade or buy and alternative (or check open source). What it boils down to, open source without a commercial entity behind it rarely, if ever, rises to an awesome tool, like the commercial applications. (having said that, 7zip does rule and I'm certain other examples exist, but by and large, they are exceptions, not the rule)

I'm not free with freedom zero because, honestly, if everyone stopped developing on Firefox tomorrow, what makes you think I have the time, inclination or ability to maintain or manage the application? So when development stops, it is just as dead as when commercial software stops. Lastly, and my biggest gripe about alleged "free" software is it as JUST as locked down as proprietary - I can't take code from it and use it as I see fit, if it is GPL, it is viral, I can't use it for anything I want to sell (and maintain proprietary code apart from the GPL snippet).

I think a lot of the apathy regarding the issue could be traced to how ubiquitous vendor lock-in is. If you see it everyday in most of the products that you use and love, you won't naturally see it as evil, and even when someone points it out to you there will be some internal resistance to the idea.

I disagree. Apple isn't as evil as you make them out to be.

While you may only be able to run Mac OS X on Apple hardware, you can also run Windows or Linux. I believe Apple's reason for limiting OS X to Macs is more about the desire to produce excellent products than anything else. If Apple had to support OS X on arbitrary 3rd party machines you would lose the simplicity of OS X and end up with Windows or Linux, having to deal with installing driver updates and blah blah blahhhhhh. Simply put, Apple doesn't think anyone else's hardware is worthy of their software. Arrogant, perhaps, but I tend to agree.

Additionally, Apple embraces open source. A large portion of Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD and other open source software; see Darwin (which does run on 3rd party hardware). Safari's rendering engine, WebKit, was originally based on the KHTML engine, and they've made such significant improvements that KHTML is incorporating much of the work done on WebKit back into KHTML.

Since OS X is POSIX compliant It's also nearly trivial to use most software written for Unix/Linux on OS X, they even include X11 for graphical programs.

"People buy consoles like the Xbox 360 and Wii because they work with a minimum of fuss."
No, people buy Wiis and Xboxes simply because they can easily grab games on the internet and run them on the console.
My point is that they buy these ones rather than say PS3s because the ROI is okay if you don't need to pay for games, not because they provide a better user experience.
So I don't think your example is the best you could have chosen here.

Only open source advocates care about freedom 0.
When I talk with proprietary software/hardware users they just *don't* understand what's wrong with being locked up by fortune 500 companies.
Like, "But look at this design ! it can even fit in an enveloppe !"

The hype VS substance battle has been lost ages ago.

I think you have this the wrong way.

With a Mac, you pay more, but you can run _any_ software that you want. Check out Parallels or Boot Camp. You can run Linux and OSS no problem.

What you can't do is run OS X on non-Apple hardware. So complain about how Macs are more expensive if you want, or complain that they won't support non-Apple hardware configurations, but you've answered your own question in writing this post. After you heft over the extra cash, you have the freedom to run ANY software you want.

Macs differ from consoles in one crucial respect -- you can run whatever software you want on a Mac, you're not stuck with Mac-only Cocoa apps. In particular, see MacPorts and Fink. Thus, although I run OS X on a Macbook, the rest of my software ecosystem consists of Firefox, emacs, ssh, bash, latex, octave, Gimp, etc. I bought a Mac because it was the best platform on which to run these apps. Furthermore, I have specifically avoided depending on Mac-only solutions like the Omni apps or defective iTunes AAC's.

I actually respect people who engage in "flogging the gnu".

At least they are practicing what they are preaching.

I can't stand people who steal music with file sharing software and watch downloaded bootlegged movies days before the movies are released in the movie theaters and claim they are doing it based on principle.

They say they oppose the large corporations not properly rewarding the people who help make the content so stealing it is somehow rationalized as an act of virtue.

Give me a break! Those people are stealing what they are stealing because they like it, not to make a statement or support anyone. If they didn't like it, they never would have bothered stealing it in the first place.

People who are "flogging the gnu" and are willing to do without some features as a consequence of choosing that lifestyle really impress me.

I think music, movie and software thieves should look to the "flogging the gnu" crowd as an example of what living with some real integrity looks like.

Personally, I run a mix of proprietary and open source software on a Windows XP laptop. Open source apps like Audacity, jRipper, Firefox, and Juice and proprietary apps like Microsoft Media Player and Microsoft Word.

Knowing the open source crowd is out there busily working away day after day and night after night to provide free software solutions as the need arises makes me feel a little more safe at night, kind of like knowing our soldiers, hospitals and police are out there, ready to help us, 24 hours a day.

You act as if the horrible interface and complete lack of standardization in user experience on windows is the fault of its more "open" hardware platform.

Some of the hardware configuration issues are. The fact that even a random shareware app built for Mac OS using apple's tools is likely to have a more usable interface than most major software for windows is not.

And the only thing a mac locks you out of are:
1) Software written for another operating system (which, btw, every hardware platform does)
2) Replacing your motherboard cheaply.

Everything else is only limited by the different vendor's market research.

I really wish you'd stop writing about OSX and Apple until you've bought one and used it. I love your shit brother, except for when you start talking about Apple.

I have a quad core Mac Pro. I put the ram in myself that I bought from a third party.

I use a third party e-sata card that isn't made by Apple.

I added a second video card, all by myself, so I can run quad monitors.

I added my own harddrives.

I added my own soundcard.

Most of the tools I use are open source and free, unless an obviously superior closed source commercial version exists (I'm looking, lovingly, at you Photoshop and Final Cut Pro).

I've also installed OSX on my Dell laptop and it works 99% flawlessly, certainly better than XP on the same laptop.

Seriously, I love you and your blog, but the veiled apple bashing wrapped in thinly stretched metaphors is a little tiring.

I give a crap about freedom zero. It's why I first started using Linux. It's why I use Gimp even though I think Gimp is a piece of shit. It's why I refuse to use Opera for more than a few seconds at a time.

The people why give a crap might by a minority, but it's still a pretty significant group of people.

Jeff,

You are usually right on the money, but I've got to call Bravo Sierra on you today.

Apple consumer electronics products are fairly tightly closed, but Mac/OSX is a fairly open platform. No one is telling me that I have to run iEveryThing apps. Lawyers aren't knocking on my door to check for non-Apple approved software. FireFox and gVim (suck it, emacs users) run perfectly fine. Heck, Apple makes it easy to run open source software by supplying an open port of X11 for the platform. Apple supplies a full suite of open build tools as well, making it easy to do whatever I need to do, including install and run the latest Gnu approved utilities.

And the hardware is pretty open now. There isn't as much variety as the windows ecosystem, but that is not always a minus. I can plug in plenty of USB and FireWire devices. If I need to write a driver for them, I can. I don't need apple to sign it or anything.

The Mac/OSX combo is superior, compared to the Windows platform, in every way but one. Mac/OSX are sold as a combined package. Your choice of platform is certainly more closed than mine overall.

Sorry... I was the 'didn't read the whole thing' guy...

I feel like you answered your own question, Jeff. No one gives a crap about freedom zero because it doesn't innovate. It's the difference between generic store-brand and Name Brand&trade; stuff. It may be basically the same thing, but nobody's ever going to get excited over or make a rush for store-brand goods.

Another reason is that very few people care about the way something is made. Most people *do not care.* They don't care about the politics or the process that brought a piece of software to fruition. Look at Wal-Mart. Nobody walks in there lamenting the poor laborers that made all that stuff. They want a toy for their kid to make him stop crying, and their budget is $1.96. People don't stop the presses when they buy a cup of coffee to ask whether it's Fair Trade coffee or not. People don't care. And they're not going to care unless it becomes a headline issue on CNN. Then they'll care for about two, maybe three weeks, tops.

I've messed around with Linux distro and although many of the new package managers have been improved tremendously over the years (yum, apt-get), it still isn't attractive to the mainstream non-geek users. For them they still see it as a step backwards from simply double clicking on a installer and blindly hitting "next" 5 times and have the software working. Worse if you have to run some shell script to config it. We're geeks, we can spend hours messing around in a terminal, the mainstream users just want something that works.

Freedom 0 is a very noble idea, but too often as Shmork says, software-development-as-decided-by-a-lot-of-programmers simply does not work out because there's no usability testing involved. It's the reason why Apple succeeds. Their end user softwares are extremely intuitive.

Wikipedia says that Movable Type was released under GPL about two months ago.

I happen to be someone who believes in proprietary software development -- even though I actively contribute to open source projects. Why? Because software just doesn't live very long. Yes, my Mac and it's OS X will probably become dead weight in a few years, with the closed architecture totally locking me out. But will I even care in a few years, when I will have already moved on to something else?

The GNU advocates would have me use crappy software because it's free, waiting hopefully for the day when geeks everywhere will suddenly fall in love with that most ungeeky of things: simple usability. I used to think Linux people didn't value their time, after wasting days trying to configure a server with a wretched interface. But then it hit me: dicking around with the OS isn't a waste of time for them; it's the whole point.

When I buy a pen and paper, I'm totally locked in. When the ink runs out, I have to buy more. I can't really modify my pen for any purpose other than writing. The paper decides for me what its texture and shape will be. But by the time I'm really geared up to care, I will have moved on.

Give me functionality over hollow philosophy any day; or give me a philosopher who knows what life is really about.

While by and large I agree with the entire post (I'm one of the few I know that has no real interest in owning an iPhone), there's a whole other axis of "freedom" that isn't being addressed. People have the right to choose what works best for them, even if that means going with a crippled, third-party-resistant apple product. People are free to choose something that is, itself, less free.

It's easy for developers to miss this point (myself included), as we tend to see anything that plugs in as a playground. Those of us who have done mobile development were kicked in the gut when the iPhone didn't have an sdk- It was like being that kid on crutches in the "pied piper" story, who got to see a glimpse of paradise before the door was shut in his face forever.

But not everybody is a developer. For a lot of people, "the freedom of choice" is a lot more like "the burden of decision." They want to turn on the machine, get whatever they need out of it with minimum hassle, and walk away. It doesn't make anyone a sheep (not that you implied that- I'm just emphasizing)- it just means they have different priorities for their time & energy. For those people, Windows is workable, Apple is perfect, and Linux would be outright ridiculous:P

Here's an interesting insight into how Apple killed Darwin:

http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/writing/osfail.html

What?!!!!!!! You're kidding me! Mac IS NOT a Dongle. You can run Windows on mac. I know MacOS must be installed for the system to work, but THAT COMES WITH THE COMPUTER. There will be no customers who cannot run a brand new mac because they don't have the software. Every apple mac comes with everything that it needs to run. Call it a dongle if you want, but it's an Intel based computer capable of running windows, OSX and a variety of other OS's given you have the drivers. Hell even in OSX you can emulate another system. It is so much more flexible than a dongle.

There is no gaming console by Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony which will run any of eachothers system games. That would be a major advantage. The mac does it. It has eaten its competition so call it a dongle all you want... It does not change the fact that it goes above and beyond every other PC out there....

Windows is like a gasoline pickup built with standalone engine, wheels and cab. Greasy. Powerful. Dirty. Mac is like a honda gasonline-electric hybrid. It will run the alternative option, it will run the standard. But good luck trying to use it's parts on anything else other than the honda.

But I guess I have completely misunderstood your definition of Freedom Zero. I just bought a macbook after years of PC use(since ppc clones were stopped). I feel free as ever. Much more free than any other intel PC i've purchased.

I think what you're really trying to say is that you want to use macosx on a pc legally. and it angers you that you cant.

Yo mommas a dongle.

> Choosing to run proprietary software and hardware is just that, a choice. If it's working for consumers, who am I to judge?

A Professional! You know more, not only about the technology, but about the industry and the issues of freedom.

Theres a few misconceptions I'd like to address, despite the lack of knowledge I have :-)
First, freedom zero is of little real use to a general consumer, because consumers don't really _use_ software. They go to the shop, pick up a piece of software, use for the reason they bought it, and thats it. Freedom zero for these people is only really useful if it didn't quite do what you needed, because you could pay a person to make the changes for you.

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.

Third, freedom zero is of some importance to students, lecturers and enthusiasts, because being able to examine how an application works is one of the best ways to learn the trade.

Fourth, free software has often innovated in interesting and tangible ways: Apache, Firefox, 3D compositing desktops, and source control are examples of areas where open software is stronger than most closed source relatives.

Not to mention, open source software is just more fun to write. For me, that intellectual hive of people all looking to build the best software is addictive, especially to someone who has spent a great deal of time surround by people purely interested in getting a paycheck.

Finally, I believe the point Jeff is trying to make with the apple mac "dongle", is not that you can do what ever you want to the mac, but that you can't run your mac software on other platforms. A Dongle restricts access to software.

Wow, this post seems to have drawn the Apple fanatics out of the woodwork.

Fact: The Intel Macs wouldn't have the market share they have now if it weren't for the fact that you can use other OSes via BootCamp or Parallels/Fusion. This means that OSX isn't the be-all and end-all when it comes to operating systems. And guess what? Apple allows other OSes on their hardware but DOES NOT ALLOW other hardware to run their OS.

OSX doesn't run without a Mac, therefore the Mac is a dongle for OSX. Simple, really.

Joshua, that's what a dongle is. It's a piece of hardware that is necessary for a piece of software to run. The whole point of the article is that if you go to the store and buy a copy of OS X, you can't do anything with it if you don't have Mac hardware, even though you may have a computer that could run it (i.e. has an Intel processor)

I'm not sure why I should give a crap. The only people who lose freedom are those who don't buy the Mac hardware. They don't force anything on anyone.

Complaining about that you are forced to buy a Mac to run OS/X is like complaining that you are forced to buy Windows to run Internet Explorer.

To everyone saying the Mac is not a dongle:

You've got it backwards. It doesn't matter that the Mac can run Windows and Linux. The point is that other manufacturers' computers can't run OS X.

To clarify, the Mac is the dongle to allow you to run Mac OS X. You cannot (particularly feasibly) run Mac OS X on a Dell, for instance. Because you don't have the dongle: the Mac.

<em>Also, nobody seems to care that iPods only work with iTunes. If I buy an overpriced Mp3-Player should'nt it be my choice which software I use? It's not like you cant just plug any other Mp3-Player into an USB-Port and start transfering files.</em>

This is not meant to be some sort of snarky come back, but you can install open source firmware (Rockbox) on your iPod. I mention it because it leads to another reason a lot of people don't care about Freedom 0. I may be working on a closed system, but there are plenty of people working on ways to open it up. Whether it's using Rockbox, jailbreaking the iPhone, playing games with WINE, we can probably break out of our box. It may be a pain in the ass, but dealing with open source software can be a pain in the ass as well. (This is implied in the post, the idea that closed systems work with a "minimum of fuss".)

The first paragraph of the preceding was a quote. Apologies.

Mac is THE ONLY hardware on this planet that offers the freedom to run Mac OS (of course), Windows, Linux & their corresponding software! How is that for being restrictive?

The real dongle are proprietary formats. If you use LaTeX, HTML, or other mark-up for writing, you could switch to any computer, os, and editor combination and still access your document. I wish it was as easy to create and edit a proprietary "database." It's possible, but not easy.

I guess the income from the blog ads hasn't been doing so well. Thankfully you can always use the John C. Dvorak method of pageview generation to bump the numbers up.

"...hypnotized into accepting old software designs as if they were facts of nature. Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique..."

Does he realize the OS X /iPhone is BSD unix-based? Jaron Lanier is a left-over talking head from the 90s. What has this guy done? Why is his opinion relevant to anyone?

The fact that some( certainly not all ) proprietary software is so innovative and polished is simple. People are PAID a LOT of money to develop it, and make it the best. And it is successful, because users will pay a LOT of money to have neat stuff. It's called capitalism and market forces.

I think most people using or writing open source software are not doing so to bring down Microsoft or stick it to the man, or other nonsense. They are doing so out of the love of it. Why else would people work for free? There is no hippie/communistic conspiracies, just people creating and sharing stuff.

Seems like this point has already been brought up, but there's no harm in reiterating.

OS X is based on free software. Just, non-copyleft free software. They care about free software insofar as they can use it in their operating system, Apple just doesn't give a damn about passing those freedoms on to its users.

Just because somebody poured a lot of money into one good system, and another bad system was built for free doesn't mean that "all systems built for free are bad."

Really, what matters is not the philosophy but the people behind it and the effort put in. Apple has great people who put in a lot of effort. Other companies have not-so-great people who put in less effort. And some open source projects have brilliant people who put in a lot of effort.

There's plenty of innovation in the open source world. There are definite usability features that GNOME had before Mac OS had them. And although it's kind of primitive at this point, GNOME does have the Online Desktop model that isn't really anywhere else.

Ruby is an open source programming language, and Rails is an open-source product, and those are both pretty innovative.

It has nothing to do with the process, it only has to do with the people.

-Max

Apple is selling solutions, sexiness, flair, and a software/hardware platform that is clearly the favorite of many. How it goes about it is, like many other companies' practices, what people find objectionable.

Every day we lose freedoms: in elementary schools, the vaccines our babies must take, Bill of Rights, how much shampoo we can take on an airplane. There is no Freedom 0, except when you turn the machine off.

If the open source people could EVER get it together... Downloaded Ubuntu with great hopes but the installer failed. Why bother?

I guess the last computer I really enjoyed was the Amiga...

People couldn't care less about freedom zero. Only a handful of people really realize what they're bying off the shelves, they're not committed to the crap they buy. It's just crap.

If enough people would give a notion to freedom zero, i'm sure that someone like Apple would be among the first to start producing freedom zero products.

It's all about demand and people are more interested in quick-fix diets that give you the feeling of "it just works" rather than anything that would require them to make an effort for something.

We, people, are suckers for things that just works, even if it comes with the cost of a little bit of freedom. And what comes to freedom zero, there's always a button to switch-off the dongle and go do something else. That's just enough freedom, atleast for me.

Sure I have no freedom to run OSX on anything other than a Mac but I'm fine with that. Why? Because I don't give a crap about OSX. It's just the operating system. All the things I really care about are open source applications which run just fine on OSX. The day they don't will be the day my Mac becomes a paperweight and Steve won't ever see another dollar from me after that.

I have no idea how the apple fanboys find every single pseudo anti-apple post on the web, and manage to put some crazy argument supporting apple's policies.

To most of these the content of the post seem irrelevant, and all that matters seem to be only that someone's saying something that kinda looks anti-apple. (P.S: I am writing this from a windows pc, coz I can't afford a mac, coz I am a loser, coz I am stupid etc.. - just bashing myself and saving the "fanboys" the trouble).

anyway, now that I have vented some of my irritation, I really think that the issue you raise, "lack of freedom 0", is something that is mostly ignored and sidelined and is something that has to be discussed a lot more.

Until Vista, there has always been a commercial alternative (albeit a lousy one) to a locked down like MacOSX. It's been over a year, and I can't get myself to upgrade to Vista (although I got it free with my laptop). What is the alternative for the normal pc user?

"I have no idea how the apple fanboys find every single pseudo anti-apple post on the web"

Well, you see they have stuff that just works. Leaves you with plenty of spare time ;)

I just had to, i'm sorry.

It depends on what you define as "Freedom." The Freedom 0 philosophy is too vague to say people don't care about it, people do, but "freedom" is relative... I don't care if you feel a Mac lets you have Freedom for your purposes, it does for me and mine.

"Any purpose" is just that -- "Any purpose" (relative to the person using it.) For me, I feel I have far more freedom on my Mac than I do my Windows or Linux PC's. Not because of any license agreement or hardware but instead of because what I define as freedom in relation to an OS.

For a lot of people, myself included, that freedom is simplicity and usability. Why should usability not be a part of the "freedom to have or do X." I use a Mac at work and at home because of my personal habits and my uses for a computer OS (I don't give a crap about the hardware, really.) Those personal habits and goals, for the most part, mean keeping the OS the hell out of the way and letting me get things done. I also require a shell. For me Windows doesn't have the former and Cygwin just doesn't cut it for the latter and is a sort of leaky cauldron solution -- I needed something else.

From a Windows PC I moved to Ubuntu when it came out, and life was pretty good, but the UI was a little clunky for my taste so I moved to an Intel based Mac... It solves my problems and that is ultimately what a computer is here do to: make life easier and solve problems -- Not freedom from proprietary devices or licenses.

First and foremost a computer is a tool, one that should work well. Working well is infinitely relative and will forever remain so and so is what people consider "freedom." Freedom is a very hard thing to ultimately and globally define. Some people feel quite free on a Mac (me) others feel very unfree (you.) Everything is relative.

Face it, most people buy an "appliance" to handle their "stuff" on. Music, Photos, Videos. Apple makes it work simple, buy a box and get a bunch of software that just work, and work good together.

As a developer I have selected the Mac for many reasons. But first and most important I value my time the most. The dev-tools are free and easy to install. They are delivered with all systems. There is a bunch of great shells available out of the box. I think the extra install/setup time for a windows box makes a Mac well worth the higher price. And I don't know why but I often needed to reinstall windows, maybe this is better now? Then there is the "philosophy" of things...I'm for working, simple, things. I just love Time Machine (safe freedom 0)

You have already provided the answer: if it works, what's the problem?

"All they [OSX] need is a geek user base to develop all those neet apps we are so used to in windows...At this point it will be a serious competitior."

Like what?

Why choose open source over proprietary when you can always download the crack to the latest versions of proprietary apps?

IMHO, you get the best of both worlds.

open source code is for geeks who never get laid.

I think "freedom from complexity" or "freedom from unnecessary headache" is much more important. No?

You're confusing two concepts here. Yeah, a Mac is akin to a dongle which allows you to run Mac OS X on your PC. However, that has got nothing to do with third-party apps. On Mac OS X, you CAN run any program, for any purpose, even more so than on Windows.

In fact, I run a Mac BECAUSE third-party applications are so much better than on Windows. Where's Windows' Pixelmator? Coda? Quicksilver? Mellel? OmniGraffle? OmniFocus? Hazel? Delicious Library? Acorn? Lineform? SubEthaEdit? Textmate? There is NOTHING standing in the way of third-party apps on Mac OS X. In fact, Apple ships a whole freaking IDE with every copy of OS X.

Where are the small software developers for Windows who give a crap about their UI? Where's Windows' Panic? Delicious Monster? Omni Group?

So it's about data in Apple's own applications? Well, most of Apple's applications write their data in bundles containing plain image, movie and XML files. It would be great if Microsoft were as open.

What you want is the freedom to run Mac OS X on your non-Apple PC. You can't do that, but that has got nothing to do with running third-party applications on Mac OS X. A computer running Mac OS X is nothing like an Xbox. At all.

Don't confuse "I can't run Mac OS X on my PC" with "Apple's hardware is locked down and there are only Apple apps on Macs." They have nothing to do with each other. The first is true, the second just plainly isn't.

Somehow, I don't know what else to do with my Xbox 360 than play games, because that's what I bought it for. Well, maybe I could watch divx's etc without connecting to Live! "to download codecs" every single time. But mainly to play games, and better leave it that way, as long as it works..

My PCs are a whole different story, because I'm a computer enthusiast. I want to do with them anything I like and use/modify/experiment different software as much as I like, without paying hundreds of euros for licences, without using crappy pirated software.

And on top of all that - I *hate* malware.

So, for me, on PCs it's just easier to use open source OSs like Debian/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/you name it - than proprietary operating systems or other proprietary software.

I know what you mean with the Dongle-thing, but somehow I don't think Xbox as a computer (although it is) - For me, it 's just a "thing" that has to start a game when I insert a disc :)

And in the same way, for some people, PC just has to start a solitaire for them. I understand that they don't care a bit about how free their software is, they already paid for everything that's needed to run the solitaire, and usually these people don't even understand the difference between price and freedom.

It's kind of a pity. But I, too, appreciate that no-one is telling me how closed-source, evil & crappy my Xbox's OS is, it does what it needs to do :)

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. I don't think Macs really are locked down all that much. In the last year I have switched all my PCs to Macs of some sort. My life is a lot less hassle now- I don't have to spend hours tracking down drivers or trawling through registry entries or removing viruses (virii?) or reinstalling applications on a constant basis. I still use a Wacom tablet, Logitech keyboard and mouse, Samsung screens and so on, same as I did with the PCs. Initially I thought I'd have problems finding Mac equivalents for the software I used on the PC but I was pleasantly suprised by what's out there. Free software such as Quicksilver has changed the way I use computers. Sure, I hate Itunes and I think the iPhone was one of the most ridiculous debacles in recent history, but the Mac Pro hardware is well worth the money, and OS X is actually well thought out in most parts, and there is a lot less operating system patronisation than you get from Windows.

Most consumers don't care about Freedom Zero because Zero Freedom programs have giant teams of people dedicated to making Zero Freedom programs easy to use.

> open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation

Why should it? It's a way to develop software, may it be innovative, trail-blazing and mind-blowing, or "simply" state-of-the-art, or boring bread-and-butter, or even crippled and terrible. OS is not a hindrance either, it's a possibility, to be exploited by (and dependend on) the developers. However, I'd rather see the results of software development being open source, as this reveals a lot more advantages and gains to developers and users, the so-called public, now and in the future - perhap's that's what appeals to most OS developers.

> Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world the results of proprietary development?

Why shouldn't they? The examples mentioned have been developed out of a commercial need. No competition here between free and proprietary software, IMHO, just the chance that open source will prevail and used much more widely (and in ways the developers could have never foreseen) when its proprietary counterpart has long been buried or subject to bit rot due to lack of any more commercial interest in it...
I've got the feeling the press has its part here in oversimplifying things in order to get it into peoples heads. And it stuck indeed... :-(

Jeff,

I too have always loved freedom (as in free software), but I think "freedom 0" is exaggerating. Having used a variety of hardware over twenty years and most of the reasonable operating systems, I think that my MacBook is the best tool I've ever had, thanks to the closed, proprietary development.

And it allows me to have the best of two worlds.

I can trust that those proprietary pieces of software that I deeply love, Photoshop for one, run smoothly. Then again, as an engineer, I can't live without my daily dose of TeX and emacs. The choise of building a modern OS on top of the trusted BSD platform is ingenious.

I am a patriot, I love my Operating System
Because my Operating System is all I know
I wanna be with my family
People who understand me
I got no place else to go...
I am a patriot...

Anyway, my take in this:

Apple seells hardware that require new software.
Microsoft force you to buy software that needs new hardware.

Pretty much the same if you ask me, but I feel that Apple is more honest, but again I dont know the mac platform very well. But as a microsoft developer since MSDos, I am almost ashamed of using Microsoft technology these days.

Why not just stop bashing about Apple?

I actually thought you could do better than that!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anyone remember that old Rainbow Technology ad about the dongle saying it was invented by Don Gall? Man, for years I thought that was real...

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.

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.

Gosh,

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.

What's `freedom zero`?

"So let's be completely clear: when you buy a new Mac, you're buying a giant hardware dongle that allows you to run OS X software."

So let's be completely clear: when you buy a new BMW, you're buying a giant hardware dongle that allows you to use the on-board computer.

Peace
-stephan

Funny, whenever you walk away from your tagline "programming and human factors" your posts become rants about things you don't know.

Just removed you from my RSS inbox, you're posts are no longer relevant to software development. Thanks for the posts I enjoyed in the past.

Peace
-stephan

"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.

It's a mistake to confuse sales with 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.

.02 user

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.

Your basic premise that you can only run Mac OS X on Mac hardware is wrong. For instance: http://www.osx86project.org/

I'd venture to guess that people not caring about Freedom Zero is a specific case about people not really caring about their freedoms at all (as long as they're told they're free).

People don't care because to the general population the argument makes no sense. Non techies see their computer as an object that does a task, in exactly the same way they see their TV, radio and DVD player, washing machine and car.

To them the concept of being able to modify it or run some other OS makes absolutely no sense. Try explaining the concept of an operating system to a non-techie. Now try convincing them they should care that companies want to make it hard to change their OS.

It's as nonsensical as trying to convince someone that they need to change the motor in their electric drill because the current one is made so that you can't take it apart and modify it.

@David
"not using a particular file-format because the codec is distributed in binary-only format."

Well, that is a bad example since it has caused quite a few people headaches. E.g. all those who used the Indeo 5 codec for their video now find that they can not use them with 64bit video editing programs without converting them first.
If you rely on binary formats, at least if they do not have a > 50 % market share, you always risk to have a choice between a massive conversion effort or just losing your data.
For a lot of people their 5-year old data does not matter and those of course do not have to bother.

@John
"I used to think Linux people didn't value their time, after wasting days trying to configure a server with a wretched interface."

I think a lot of most Linux people have wasted hours to find that one check box they needed in one of e.g. Microsoft's products but could not remember where it is. And decided that a searchable and well documented text configuration file is just so much easier to use.
I use Linux because I usually do _not_ want to have a Gui (though I sometimes install one to learn the first steps and get a working starting point), but preferences obviously differ.

"To clarify, the Mac is the dongle to allow you to run Mac OS X. You cannot (particularly feasibly) run Mac OS X on a Dell, for instance. Because you don't have the dongle: the Mac."

Apple is a hardware company, not a software company (well, not an operating system company if we're including the Pro applications). If you just buy Apple hardware and run Linux/Windows on it, it makes no difference to them. OS X is simply a differentiator to the competition to make the hardware more attractive.

So, go buy some AAPL while the market is down and ride the wave.

brian,
"Many Verizon phones can play mp3s ... but to get the mp3 on the phone you have to buy a crapply compressed version from V-Case for 2$"

This is not true. I have an LG Chocolate Verizon phone and I downloaded all my ripped CDs on it. You can still buy $1 songs on any service and put it on an LG Chocolate. The only catch is that you have to BUY the media kit that is used to sync the song onto the phone from the computer. However the kit includes a (1) 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB xSD card, (2) wired or wireless headphones, and (3) a cable to connect the phone to the PC. Note the 8GB card does not work on the Chocolate, but it does on the newer phones.

I don't work for Verizon, I'm just a happy customer.

That's an easy question to answer. No one cares about freedom 0 because 99% of the market have busy lives with kids and jobs and families and hobbies.... they want their car to run, their oven to get hot, their shower to flow. They're not in the 1% of Woz-like geeks who want to install "TurboTemp .76 beta" on their oven. They just don't care. They want a machine that let's them get their email, shop on amazon.com, and maybe balance their checkbook. And that's OK. Apple's smart to serve a target audience that wants to do a handful of things with a computer, then move on with their lives.

Heck, with no prodding from me whatsoever, my MOM has bought and shares to iMacs with her family, and my GRANDPARENTS each have their own iMac. Guess how many tech support calls I get? Zero. Now that's freedom.

We all need to stop navel-gazing and see things from the perspective of the masses out there who aren't programmers....

Quick example: last Christmas I bought my daughter an iPod to use with her iMac. Not to be outdone, I bought myself a Sandisk MP3 player to use with Rhapsody on my PC.

To cut a very long story short, it took me three hours of monkeying around with driver versions, reboots, etc. to get the Sandisk working. And, yes, I plugged the iPhone into the Mac and it "just worked".

After twenty some years of struggling with getting new devices and software working on Windows PCs, I'm now an Apple convert. I suddenly realized I don't have time for this nonsense any more.

Freedom 0 may not matter to society on a conscious level, but historically speaking, open source solutions come out ahead in the long game.

I don't like how Apple limits consumers. If I buy OSX that was built to run on an x86 chip, why can't I run on an x86 machine with similar hardware to an Apple machine? The answer is simple: Apple has code included with OSX that prevents me from doing so.

Anyone that tries to limit what the consumer can do with their purchases, whether software or what have you, is NOT cool in my book. It doesn't matter if the the hardware is stylish and the software is easy to use, I'm not going to buy DRM'd music because I don't agree with the restriction on consumer rights, and I'm not going to buy Apple products for the same reason.

Please don't even mention windows or mac in any more posts. It brings out all the fan boys.

I care about freedom zero!!!!

> Freedom Zero is a promise of future gain. It does nothing to solve
> your current needs, only those which you think you might have in
> the future.

Most insightful bit I've seen so far. But I think it would be more accurate to say that its kind of like insurance. It really become most useful when your hardware obsoletes, or your vendor moves on to greener pastures, dies, or just decides to stop working with you for whatever reason.

So how many people don't bother to buy insurance (unless forced to)? How many people gamble (when the odds are always with the house)? Buy lottery tickes? Its human nature to think that *you* will be the lucky one.

One more. How many people are of average intelligence or less? For the math impaired, the answer is *most*.

So should we be suprised that "most" people don't care about freedom zero? No, we should not. That doesn't mean that *I* shouldn't care either. Far from it.

I dunno, I don't think Apple computers are as bad as all that. Sure, they could be more open, but come on -- the BIOS runs OpenFirmware, OS-X is based on BSD, they've switched to the x86 platform, etc.

It's not like you buy an Apple device and can *only* run OS-X on it -- hell, even my aging G4 powerbook has been re-tasked as a Linux portable.

The only "lock-in" that Apple computers really have is a simple one: if you want to run OS-X, you must do it on Apple hardware. It's not a decision based on "DRM", as you imply -- in fact, Apple does NO CHECKING WHATSOEVER to prevent wholesale copying of their OS.

Rather, it's a support decision. OS-X is so stable and "just works" because Apple can support a limited number of hardware configurations.

Freedom 0 is about being able to have software that's general-purpose: there are no computing tasks that OS-X prevents you from doing, so it's not violating Freedom 0.

OK, let's move the argument to cars.

You mean I can't put in *any* engine? I have to use one specified by the manufacturer. One that fits? That's proprietary!

You can, with time and effort, do anything to a car, or a computer, but historically, almost all machinery is proprietary to some degree.

Freedom zero has been with us a long time.

Well, lots of people get the high quality of proprietary software at the same low cost (well, purchasing cost, anyway) as OSS, by stealing it. The same people who would not steal a pack of gum will steal hundreds or thousands or dollars worth of software without blinking an eye.

My personal experience with OSS is such that when I hear someone mention using OSS, I pretty much think "Oh God, you're gonna be in hell!". That is due to my personal experience that the vast majority of OSS I have dealt with SUCKS! The software SUCKS, the support SUCKS MORE and generally the attitude of the people providing it is not the same as what you get from a software vendor whose job it is to make software and stand behind their product.

This personal experienec includes development tools, of which I have tried many and the expectations and quality is quite random, but trying to get help for it isn't random at all, in almost every case it is met with eye rolling (yes, I can sense this even on a forum <vbg>) or well, what do you expect (um, something that actually works) or "hey, you have the code, just fix it yourself".

Oh, so to summarize my last post, this basically describes the difference between a product and a hobby, which is ok, unless you're the poor soul who expected to get a product and instead got someone's hobby.

I believe open source is a novel written without an editor. Open Source generates great ideas - it is a testing ground for future developments. However someone like Apple comes in and selectively edits the output to deliver a coherent package. People pay for well put together packages.

Some people have the time to edit the open source experience for themselves (e.g. Mark Pilgrim). Some people choose to pay to have an edited experience delivered to them (e.g. Me).

I would be sad if open source disappeared and I would be sad if OS X disappeared (or severely degraded in quality).

Well put James! Your post is where I was going with mine, stated much more eloquently.

I think it's the problem of delusions of grandeur.

Consider:
the computing community consists of (my rough estimate) 70-90% button-pushers, and 10-30% "computer people". By Computer people, I'm counting all the programmers (regardless of language, platform, etc.), networking people, and those curious teens (and older than teens) that don't *know* about programming, but like to tinker a bit.

iPhone, iTunes, iEverything else caters to those 70% who know little and want to learn even less regarding computer stuff. They just want stuff to work. They don't want to have to learn about MP3, AAC, OGG, etc.

It's also the difference between the person who nukes frozen meals for dinner, and those that spend 3 hours in the kitchen cooking a gourmet feast. It's all about where most of the population is... and now it's the nuking cheeseburgers crowd.

wow, can't believe so many people misunderstood your dongle point and claim that because they can run XP on their mac it's really more open? You are actually proving the reverse, that you can run XP and Linux on your Mac only because they are *not* hardware (dongle) locked.

I have a nice fast computer, easily up to running OSX, the only reason I can't (legally) is because it's not got the certain bits of hardware in there that OSX checks for on startup... exactly like a dongle.

Happily dongles are just as crackable as other protection methods, so I can now run OSX on my machine if I ever need to (although still not legally of course).

Oh, and your Mac machine is not special in being able to run multiple OS's, I have XP and OSX VM's that run just fine from within Ubuntu.

It's an interesting question. I'm inclined to agree with most of what you say in the blog post; while you can run OSX on other machines (with effort and unsupported by Apple) and you can build your own machine from scratch, most people don't do those things... And more importantly, most Apple consumers are buying Apple so that they don't have to do those things.

I've been thinking about a similar issue with regards to web applications and beta. I personally use several beta web apps enough to say I rely on them---particularly the Google software suite. I do this with full knowledge that they could re-design the entire user interface tomorrow, and my only recourse would be to stop using the software or suck it up and deal. In many ways, this is <i>worse</i> than the situation computer owners have with regards to their desktop applications; while you can always choose to continue to run Movable Type 2.6 and not upgrade to 3.0, if Google started charging for gmail tomorrow, I think most users would just start paying.

So why do we care so little about freedom zero? I think we care so little because it's often easier to pay someone to make your computer work for you than to figure it out yourself. Freedom zero is great, but it won't magically solve my e-mail needs without some effort on my part. Google is willing to fill those needs in an arrangement that gives me everything I want except software control; that's good enough for me, and probably good enough for most people.

@ThatGuy..

"You mean I can't put in *any* engine? I have to use one specified by the manufacturer. One that fits? That's proprietary!"

err, but you can, no one stops me from pulling out one engine and putting in another, there's not clause hidden in the paperwork saying I can't, there's no laws saying I can't drill different holes if the manufacturer has decided to make a proprietary mount, hell there's nothing stopping me scrapping the engine and strapping a jet engine on the back if I really want to... http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

That's kind of the joy of real physical stuff, it's nearly impossible to make anything really proprietary as it can always be taken apart and adapted (barring laws put in place to keep patent holders rich), much like OSS.

I think someone might be keeping a Dilbert calendar on their desk.

"why doesn't anyone give a crap about freedom zero?"

Because life is too short to spend it worrying about running some 10+ year old app on 10+ year old hardware. $100 for an OS upgrade every few years is worthwhile bargain to me. YMMV.

Oh please will all the Mac fanboys just stop. The point is that I cannot run OSX on my PC made from parts I've selectively assembled, not that I've got the choice to run XP, Vista, Linux on top of their nice shiny cases. The reason why you can run XP on your Mac has nothing to do with Apple being open, but more that they wanted to take business from Microsoft.

I know loads of Unix, Linux and like to work with Terminal. (CLI); the last 10 years of my life I spent programming for Windows (.NET now).

I use a Mac. Why?

Because It just Works™. I can't stand Windows Vista (I have nothing against MS, in fact we're just MS Partners as ISVs). But Microsoft's offer is disgusting for me. I find Vista to be a giant patch over Windows XP, which is a giant patch over 2000, and over NT, and Over ME and over 98 and finally Windows 3.11/0. Go to control panel -> fonts to see what I mean.

I understand the new kernel, the new tech, the new new new new.. but I don't buy it.

OS X, with all its faults, its just a Unix on Steroids. You can see what's happening (if you care).

I'm not going to compare user experiences with either OSes, that's subjective, but seriously, who cares about Freedom Zero? Do you really care about the computer in your car? about the Firmware in your TV? DVD Player? Microwave? Nah, you don't. I feel Jeff is bashing Apple for no reason, and masking it with the Freedom Zero stuff.

I usually agree with Jeff, but I don't truly get this. I'm not an apple fanbot at all, I just like to work with computers, and OS X is the cleanest way to do it I've found. Windows for me is just a "container" for Visual Studio ;)

It's really simple.

The vast majority of the public are not software developers or hardware hobbyists.

They do not buy hardware for what they *might* be able to do with it in the future - they buy it for what it does now.

And they value predictability and simplicity *far* more than they do customizability.

Great article man!

my wedding ring is a dongle :(

> My personal experience with OSS is such that when I hear someone
> mention using OSS, I pretty much think "Oh God, you're gonna be in
> hell!". That is due to my personal experience that the vast majority
> of OSS I have dealt with SUCKS! The software SUCKS, the support
> SUCKS MORE

Well, I'm going to hell anyways as I'm some sort of atheist, so that doesn't matter.

Another thing: I don't see anything that SUCKS with any of my OSS-machines, everything just works. But, well, I am one of those godless persons who somehow are able to read (the manual) when neccessary, or *even* use Google. It's a shame that only afterwards I realized that reading your post was not neccessary.

I think most of your OSS-problems are based on the attitude of the component that's sitting between your chair and the monitor. I recommend getting it fixed, or stay far away from OSS.

What about gaming? Am I the only one who uses his PC primarily for gaming? I assume if you just use mac or linux, you're not really into playing the latest PC games. Most, if not all, major titles are written to run natively in Windows. For linux or mac, don't you typically need some sort of virtualization software to run them? At best, you lose some performance. At worst, the game doesn't like being virtualized (I hear people having tons of problems getting Oblivion to work properly in Linux, for example - you need one version of WINE to fix one problem, but a different version to fix a another problem, so you need to compromise). Consoles are okay, but nothing beats keyboard + mouse for first-person shooters.

Meh. Seriously, true Freedom Zero is almost impossible unless you grab a soldering iron.

You could view the x86 (or PPC or ARM or what-have-you) architecture as a dongle of sorts. I mean how deep do you want to go? Yes, Apple has lock-in for OSX. Thanks to Microsoft giving up on the PPC and Alpha (remember kids?), you have x86 lock in for Windows, which wasn't always the case. I see the point of having a need for Freedom Zero and ... it's there. Go ahead. No one is stopping you. But the responsibly for managing/building such a code-base/build/distribution/hardware-platform is all yours.

And it has been done. But I think the Arduino is a little too small to put Linux on... But seriously, the REAL concern for Freedom Zero is to have it on large systems. In terms of computing power, this is what most microcontrollers of today were a few decades ago.

Freedom Zero is *not* a leading edge expectation in computing. It's a trailing edge expectation.

The great thing about Freedom 0 is when it is properly implemented it's a great thing. TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP. Those are all open implementations. They are industry backed (and before that, academically backed) technologies. No one questions if connecting to the internet may or may not work anymore. Open source has excellent support in the server market because there is industry supporting it. And they pay for it.

The bad thing about Freedom 0 is no matter how you cut it it still costs money (someones time is being spent to support a project). I can't count how many times I've looked for a solution on sourceforge only to find out the developer hasn't made any progress in 3,4 or 5 years. All interest has dried up and the code just sits there. And even though anyone can resume the project, does any honest developer really believe they are going to take on someone else's leftovers?

And there isn't any code in OS X that prevents you from running it on a normal PC. its the lack of code that prevents it from running. If you look on the boards its the same complaints: no native support for certain chipsets, soundcards, video cards, wifi, power management. As the crackers have found out its perfectly doable to install and run a retail copy of OS X if you can get a loader that does EFI. You can ask Apple to provide driver support for ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI hardware but I'm sure you know they aren't interested in supporting 'your hardware'.

People could care less about freedom in anything until they are negatively affected by the the lack of it. People will gladly and happily give over any form of freedom in exchange for shiny bits and a false sense of security. Whether it's an OS or Homeland Security, they love it until they hate it.

Also, sadly, if you look at the greatest wonders of the world, the most incredible feats of building, you'll notice that a large majority of them came about because of the will of a single tyrant, dictator, pharaoh or king. A single, crushing vision brings something to the table that a democratic group rarely matches. iPhone vs. Windows Mobile.

People could care less about freedom in anything until they are negatively affected by the the lack of it. People will gladly and happily give over any form of freedom in exchange for shiny bits and a false sense of security. Whether it's an OS or Homeland Security, they love it until they hate it.

Also, sadly, if you look at the greatest wonders of the world, the most incredible feats of building, you'll notice that a large majority of them came about because of the will of a single tyrant, dictator, pharaoh or king. A single, crushing vision brings something to the table that a democratic group rarely matches. iPhone vs. Windows Mobile.

Charlie: You're right about the fps & mouse & keyboard. But, I never liked those fps's too much anyways. At least I can have operating systems on my home-computers that really work well IMO. I'll pay the price of playing on Xbox360 and getting used to the controller :)

P.S. It is possible to play some Windows-games on GNU/Linux systems with Wine/Cedega (dunno about OSX), but personally I don't think it's worth the trouble. Maybe you'll just have to wait for game-studios to release their fps-titles on other OS's more often (there actually already is some rare examples of such behaviour).

Why? Because free software isn't as simple and intuitive as many commercial programs and it doesn't come with a sexy sexy free hardware dongle.

If Cory Doctorow ever gets to heaven, no doubt he will complain to God that he cannot return to Earth. Not backwards compatible you see. Crippleware.

The argument is lost on most people. It's the same argument as liberty vs "security" -- the US has already devolved into a police state and the citizenry doesn't care.

That's nothing new. It reminds me of the "when they came for X, I didn't speak up because I'm not an X... when they came for me, nobody was left to speak up for me" quote.

People won't complain until it really hurts them personally, and by then it will be too late to change things without major pain, suffering, disruption and loss.

People also have almost no ability to plan for the future, especially in today's instant gratification hyper-consumerism. They have no conception of the fact that 20 years from now, UNLIKE with what they write on paper (all the mac zealots with their pen and paper strawman arguments above really need to take a valium and learn to separate their self-worth from their computing platform of choice), they may not be able to access any of the digital artifacts they create and buy today.

I mean, people today have no conception that their $40,000 credit card debts and scam mortgages that are as big as their entire life incomes will ruin the rest of their lives, how can we expect them to have the forethought and insight to understand what Freedom 0 is about?

And a final flame for the mac trolls: Apple hardware is a dongle for OSX and all software that runs on OSX. The fact that you can crack OSX and run it on non-Apple hardware is irrelevant and beside the point. With sufficient effort, you can crack any software and run it without the dongle.

... At least until the hypervisor is embedded in the hardware and even the BIOS has to be cryptographically signed and verified before booting. And that's already halfway there in the server space. And when that happens in the consumer space, that's when it really starts to hurt. (See above for the police state bit, and read up on your world history if you are unable to grasp the point.)

> the developer hasn't made any progress in 3,4 or 5 years. All interest > has dried up and the code just sits there. And even though anyone can > resume the project, does any honest developer really believe they are > going to take on someone else's leftovers?

I believe that in cases like this, the code isn't really needed. If it were, the project wouldn't have been abandoned in the first place.

Another (not very likely) possibility is that everyone who needed it, just took the old version of it, fixed it to work with latest packages/their current OS, and didn't bother to release the patch :)

Hey Now Jeff,
Mac's have pro's like you mentioned. My mom likes it since you plug a camera in & out pops the DVD. Nice & ez. With a PC a few extra buttons are needed to be pressed. Good old dongle keys. I also remember when we were able to use the usb dongle keys (so much better since newer pc often don't have a printer port to plug in the older style). Great post as always.
Coding Horror Fan,
Catto

As has been said above, most people want something that works for what they want to do. If you're into hacking kernels, then you'll choose Linux or a BSD, because that system lets you do what you want to do.

The issue of software freedom is something else entirely, however. Even those who profess to care about it look the other way when they use drivers containing pseudo-proprietary BLOBs or drivers that required the developer to sign a NDA. If I want to modify the driver, I have to either give away some of my rights by signing the same NDA or reverse-engineer something, so I'm in the same boat as people running OS X on non-Apple hardware. The only exception to this, as far as I know, is OpenBSD. And hardly anyone runs OpenBSD, even though the command-line interface is (in my opinion) the best of any *NIX system. There are probably many reasons for this, but one big reason is that it's a bitch to get a system with the newest hardware that will be fully supported by OpenBSD. So Linux users are doing the same thing as Mac users: sacrificing some software freedom to get something that works for them. It's just a matter of degree.

Almost every device we own is zero freedom: televisions, receivers, CD players, VCRs, DVD players, toasters, phones, clock radios, etc. Everyone can use those devices just fine (except for the blinking 12:00). It seems natural to me that those people would want a computer that's as easy to use (and limited). That explains Apple's growing market share, while developers like us go for the PC. It also explains why gaming consoles are so popular when, arguably, PCs are more flexible and upgradeable.

This is why Apple will be dominant in the market of people who want their computer to work as easily as their television. The PC will be for people who need a more flexible environment and who are willing to deal with it crashing and losing data occasionally.

Calm down. Have some dip.

Let's see. The mac just works, is a functioning unix implementation, is rock solid and does security well since it's UNIX.

Windows was originally a pretty interface on top of DOS, with graphical APIs for apps. Oh, and DOS was a single user OS. Then they decided to add some users and still security sucked compared to Unix.

If you want a hacker system, consider Linux. That's truly a hacker ecosystem.

Windows locks stuff down too. For example the way they stupidly didn't let you take a screenshot of a window behind the screen by sending it WM_PAINT. You can only send it WM_PRINT and most applications ignore this. Oh well, so for the longest time we had

* strange bugs with repainting windows in the background, leaving trails, confusing users, where only programmers would realize "the background window isn't repainting itself". And even so you don't really know if a window is there anymore or if the window behind it hasn't redrawn itself yet.

* a hacky add-on for translucency (layered windows) in Windows XP. Because there was just no way to get the contents of the windows underneath.

* all kinds of ways applications could use the background windows (e.g. to make a PROPER app switcher with previews) are like IMPOSSIBLE unless you remember to take a screenshot of a window when it's in front, and hope it doesn't go out of date.

That's just one example of how apps on Windows aren't exactly free either.

The issue you're arguing about is that the Mac software is integrated with the hardware. It won't run on just any hardware, without hacking it. I think that ensuring something runs well is better for most purposes than the "freedom" to muck around and get all sorts of incompatibility problems and a slow system.

There will always be free systems. Look at all the Linux variants. Microsoft is midway between Mac and Linux, in that it is more open but still prevents a lot. Especially in VISTA. And Microsoft works hard to make sure hardware works with their software, but still Vista has problems. Who wins from this ? Hardware manufacturers?

I agree you have a point in principle, but in practice the Mac is just better in many ways. (Now Apple, go fix Panther!! :)

Just my 2c.

>> My personal experience with OSS is such that when I hear someone
>> mention using OSS, I pretty much think "Oh God, you're gonna be in
>> hell!". That is due to my personal experience that the vast majority
>> of OSS I have dealt with SUCKS! The software SUCKS, the support
>> SUCKS MORE

>Another thing: I don't see anything that SUCKS with any of my OSS->machines, everything just works. But, well, I am one of those >godless persons who somehow are able to read (the manual) when >neccessary, or *even* use Google. It's a shame that only afterwards >I realized that reading your post was not neccessary.

>I think most of your OSS-problems are based on the attitude of the >component that's sitting between your chair and the monitor. I >recommend getting it fixed, or stay far away from OSS.

>Samuli on January 29, 2008 09:00 AM

Thanks for validating _exactly_ what I stated about my OSS experience. This is _exactly_ the attitude I am talking about: "Gee, if it works for me, I am clearly superior to you or you just didn't spend enough time -- it must be _your_ fault that it doesn't work for you."

You completely missed my point: I don't _want_ to spend my time trying to make it work, I want to install it and then spend my time _using_ it, whatever IT is.

For example, I used an OSS IDE for java development. Even the simplest things I tried to do didn't work out of the box (gee, parse a WSDL doc for one of the world's most commonly used web services, you couldn't expect that to just work in an IDE, could you?). I wound up spending more time trying to make the IDE work, hacking build scripts, and things like that than I did working on the project I wanted to write. Just because I _can_ hack build scripts and google for solutions, doesn't mean I _want_ to. When I install and run an IDE, I just want it to work so I can concentrate on my project.

Now I use Visual Studio.Net and guess what? It just works! I can concentrate on writing code, not debugging the IDE.

> or stay far away from OSS.

Oh yes I do!

The real question is: Why *should* anyone give a crap? Can anyone give a real-world example of why I should care, one which might actually have some remote chance of affecting me, one which extends beyond some tiny fringe group such as bloggers with over 11 blogs?

Somehow I'm not surprised that in a post mentioning FOSS I see numerous irrelevant and incoherent rants about how the U.S. is a police state and that many people are financing debt (the horror! Next time pay attention in Econ 101). If you ask me, this is precisely what's wrong with free software: There's potential there, sure, but it seems that most people engaged in it are too busy hating Corporate America to come up with any original ideas.

Dude: Sorry for the negative tone I had previously. But what can you do, you have your needs for the software: You might tell the project in question about your ideas. If they don't care to do that, then you could do it yourself. If you don't have time, interest or skills to do it, then you could pay someone to do it. If you don't have that much extra cash, then you use a (cheap) system where those features are already implemented. It's as simple as that.

I have no need for the features you mentioned, so the implementer won't be me. OSS works perfectly for _me_, I really don't care if _you_ will or won't be an OSS user.

This is how it works. No one will be kissing your ass to use any (at least non-commercial) OSS.

I can't disagree more with this post.

I don't think that OSX/Apple is in any way more limited than PC. Maybe in 1997 it was , before USB got really popular. Now almost any periperal is available via USB and the Mac's are great at recognizing hardware, and OSX is very well supported by hardware vendors.

Software is, in some ways more available for OSX, I tend to use a lot of OSS software, so the *NIX platform, including OSX is heavily supported.

I can't disagree with Apple on closing thier hardware/software platform, they ensure an amazing level of quality and performance. It's a good platform. Maybe one day they'll realize that businesses use computers and perhaps they should put some effort into that area.

I've been reading Coding Horror for a while and I hate to say it but this article really sounds like someone trying to justify their bias against the Mac platform.

'Macs are dongles to run the Mac OS'. Yup, just like airplanes are dongles to fly through the air. That's just the way it is and complaining about it is not gonna make your Honda Civic fly.

Geez..

Eric

So... can I run my windows on a Whatever Processor? Is Intel Processor hardware dongle for windows?

This post is beyond silly.

Jeff,
your statements are right-on. I was a huge Apple fan in the Apple II days. The Apple II was the prototype for the computer that won the computer revolution...unfortunately for Apple, that company that made the revolutionary computer was IBM. In 1984 Apple gave us the Third Reich of Computers: one computer, one computer company, one fuhrer. The irony of Apple's 1984 ad is staggering. A common theme among Apple fanboys seems to be slavery is freedom - where have I heard that slogan before?

Sounds more like people trying to justify spending too much money or people feeling duped that Apple made them think buying their computer would make them cool, hip, and sexy. The Mac is a dandy kick-butt overpriced machine. The point of your article is totally missed by the Apple fanboys. After reading some of the Apple fanboy comments - I think some of these people need to realize Apple can only dream of having a 10% market share. Apple dominates 3% of the market (although I think it is down to about 2.3% worldwide) - get over yourselves - about 97% of PC-type computer work is done on non-Apple hardware and there are many times more non-Apple PC's that just work than there are Apple machines in existence...this is taking into consideration all the problems in the non-locked-down-non-Apple world). The Mac eats nothing except your money - and for some people, their brains. The only reason OS X doesn't run on any Intel PC is Apple will not let you. If you want to run Unix-type or Windows software you can get more powerful machines for far less money if you buy Non-Apple machines(and the market share for pure Apple software does not rise about the noise level). The irony of Apple market sharing growing because Apple computers run Windows is about staggering as the Apple 1984 ad. I was there - for years Apple told us Windows was crap and now the only reason Apple is viable is Apple runs Windows.

This was a computer philosophy debate and it seems those that buy expensive devices to be hip and cool don't like to operate on the philosophic level - unless Apple creates a commercial that tells them philosophy is cool.

What a great post - I agree with you completely!

>Dude: Sorry for the negative tone I had previously. But what can you >do, you have your needs for the software: You might tell the project >in question about your ideas. If they don't care to do that, then >you could do it yourself. If you don't have time, interest or skills >to do it, then you could pay someone to do it. If you don't have >that much extra cash, then you use a (cheap) system where those >features are already implemented. It's as simple as that.

I agree, it is as simple as that. My solution was to use software produced by a real company where there is someone actually responsible for making sure it works, and it does.

>I have no need for the features you mentioned, so the implementer >won't be me. OSS works perfectly for _me_, I really don't care if >_you_ will or won't be an OSS user.

>This is how it works. No one will be kissing your ass to use any (at >least non-commercial) OSS.

I don't expect anyone to kiss my ass, whether I pay for a product or not, but I do expect it to actually work as advertised/expected.

>Samuli on January 29, 2008 11:11 AM

Depends on the market. All my professional work in the last five years has been on Linux systems.

I've worked for a major research university, a startup, and Intel. All ran Linux for their enterprise systems. The all ran Windows for their desktop systems. It's about who is making the best software for your needs.

On servers Linux/UNIX is ahead of Microsoft or Apple. On the corporate desktop Windows is ahead and for consumers Apple is the in the lead right now.

"So... can I run my windows on a Whatever Processor? Is Intel Processor hardware dongle for windows? This post is beyond silly."

Speaking of beyond silly - ever heard of AMD?

What was that I was saying about Mac's eating people's brains? Beyond silly - today's lesson: IRONY

Why do Mac-Heads try to pretend it is Apple versus Microsoft? It is Apple versus pretty much the rest of the computer world (which includes many operating systems, many microprocessors, many hardware manufacturers, many different companies and organizations)

Let sum up (from a software engineering perspective):

The Mac runs Mac-only software (nobody cares, the market share is in the noise level. If you want to make money with software do you target 2.3-3% of the market or 100% of the market...since the Mac's now run Windows and other PC operating systems)

The Mac can also work as an overpriced PC with limited options - there is no denying this fact. If you are into overpriced hardware with limited options, no question about it - the Mac is the way to go.

PC's run Linux cheaper and with more options

PC's run Windows cheaper and with more options.

In the modern lexicon PC means pretty much any microcomputer other than Apple.

This is all the information you need to make a selection (from a software industry standpoint)

....and you guys wonder why Apple has a 3% market share.

Apple excels the most at marketing.

"for consumers Apple is the in the lead right now."

That is if you consider 2.3% worldwide market share the lead? Or are you talking about your personal opinion? Fantasy?

What was that I said about Mac's eating people's brains?

All I can say is "wow" - the marketing geniuses at Apple are able to get people to make illogical silly statements - in this category, Apple is absolutely amazing.

"Speaking of beyond silly - ever heard of AMD? "

AMD uses intel instruction set, AMD is an intel processor.

"The Mac runs Mac-only software"

false, The Mac can run Mac-only software. In fact OSX is very good at running open source software and it's the reason I use it.

On the other hand Mac-only software can only run on Mac OS X. It doesn't have to be Apple's hardware but Mac OS X is sold with a licence that says you can only install it if you gave money to Apple for their hardware. Are you complaining about software licences?

"Yup, just like airplanes are dongles to fly through the air."

That would be a good analogy if only airplanes made by one company could fly or only one kind of airplane could fly (of course none of that is true). Speaking of flying - look up - Jeff's point is flying way over your head.

One again, what was that I said about Mac's eating people's brains?

(I could do this all day with the Mac-Heads comments - but this is my last one)

Also...

The Mac can also work as an overpriced PC with limited options

what limited options are you talking about?

"AMD uses intel instruction set, AMD is an intel processor."

Close, but no cigar

Funny, AMD is Intel's number one competitor. I don't think Intel thinks AMD is an Intel processor. HINT: AMD has not been a licensed second-source manufacturer for Intel since the K5. Currently x86-64, which supports Intel's x86, and was created by AMD and has been cloned by Intel (using your logic, some Intel chips are actually an AMD chips) Currently you got it backassward - your comment was true about 20 years ago.

LVD: "The Mac runs Mac-only software"

MacHead: "false, The Mac can run Mac-only software..."

What was that I said about Mac's eating people's brains - read the entire message and observe your error (note: you immediately contradict yourself) I never claimed Mac's could only run Mac-only software.

-- Could you elaborate on why you "find Apple's brand of hardware lock-in particularly egregious".

The Mac itself includes, internally, a chip which is required to run the normal version of the Mac operating system. In a good number of cases, this operating system is the primary reason people purchase Macintosh computers; while there are a good number of people running Boot Camp or the various Virtualization software, the majority of Mac users responding to surveys name system stability as the reason they purchased Macs, citing the operating system rather than the hardware.

Attempting to install OS X on non-Mac hardware, however, is not legally possible. While there are few real issues, the OS X code specifically checks the hardware to make sure it does not install on hardware from other manufacturers.

The result is that you need the hardware to run the software, not because of some inherent aspect of the interaction, but because Apple decided to make things so. This results in (depending on device and production) a fairly expensive "Mac Tax".

The general concept is called vertical expansion or vertical integration in economic terms: one company ownsWhile this is perfectly legal, and under most of the more libertarian business philosophies, perfectly acceptable, it still results in some pretty significant negative results.

For example, you can't legally change hardware manufacturers without changing software, and this typically involves a pretty hefty commitment in terms of time and/or money. If the newest Mac generation of machines have a hardware manufacturer that you can't ethically support, or have board issues, or look like a monkey's behind, you can't change this without needing to convert to another operating system. This significant discourages variation within a field -- Apple has little to no reason to release computers with minor variations in performance, and doing so would probably cost them money rather than produce it, where in the PC world, small variations from one manufacturer and the next are common. For similar reasons, this discourages competition within a field. Supporting AMD-based systems would literally double the cost of QA, without much benefit to Apple.

This vertical integration combined with high barriers to transition is part of the Apple business philosophy. You can't easily transfer from an FairPlay-based system (iTunes) to a Janus-based one, or vice versa, and Apple won't license FairPlay to other players or even sellers. If you go iPod, you give up your purchased music if you try going elsewhere, or commit a few felonies.

There's nothing wrong about this; it's perfectly legal, and people who purchase from Apple know what they're getting into. But it's the sort of thing few other companies could get away with, and it's a particularly galling example of the 'dongle' mindset. Rather than defining inputs and outputs and building an application layer of the OSI model, it insists on absorbing down to layer one.

As for the opening post: the average user doesn't care about Freedom Zero. They don't think about what their next purchase will be after grabbing a piece of hardware. They want their Macbook or Dell or whatever; not to think about what they can do with the hardware when someone else comes up with a cool trick, or when they can move stuff. It really doesn't matter to them for another few years.

Freedom Zero is only important when you can look that far ahead. I use subversion, openSSH, and putty, for example, because I know they'll always work. If [i]anything[/i] changes, I can recompile old code on a new operating system legally, and we'd be up and running soon. It's important to me. To the average user, though, it looks like we're spending a lot of time for relatively little benefit.

I guess it all depends on how you define freedom. If submitting yourself to a giant dongle and getting something that works then that's your view.

Others might think being bound to a system that doesn't work without installing patch ofer patch and modding with hardware and config files to just get working is giving up freedom as well. You're a slave to your system.

Both have pro's and con's, pick your poison.

I drink from both bottles.

> what limited options are you talking about?

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 hardware&software 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.

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.

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.

"There are no crude, selfish third parties to screw the experience up behind your back. No oddball hardware, no incompatible drivers, no more software which has to deal with a combinatorial explosion of potential configurations."

Well, one of four isn't bad, but the fact that that one is only partially correct skews your score.

There are no third party software or hardware vendors on the Mac? Really? I know quite a few developers who will need to have this news broken to them gently. Funny, here I thought they were making their money selling software for that "closed" platform. They must have been just printing it up in their basement.

Apple's hardware platform is rather open. There are some internal components which are heavily controlled (only a few video card choices, for instance), but generally speaking, the delineation between an OS X-compatible bit of hardware (plugged into a slot, or into a USB/Firewire port) and one which is not is, quite simply, the willingness of the hardware vendor to write the software driver for their hardware.

No incompatible drivers? There certainly are enough drivers that they *could* be incompatible. The reason why driver incompatibilities are generally not seen is that OS X has a well-designed driver framework. Still, it's not impossible - and in fact is very easy - to write a KEXT which kernel panics the system and trashes whatever might have been in memory at the time. Windows has improved markedly in this area in the past two revisions, and the two platforms seem about on par with each other there.

Combinatorial explosion of configurations? While there are fewer available choices on Mac hardware than on Windows hardware almost by definition (as there are many non-OS X devices and not many non-Windows devices), the simple fact is that there are more combinations possible than there are owners of systems. In other words, no one, period, is ever going to be able to thoroughly test every single Windows hardware configuration with their software. Likewise, though, no one is ever going to be able to thoroughly test every single OS X hardware configuration either.

For whatever it is worth, Apple is far from the only company in the PC space using the computer itself as a dongle. I don't know if Dell still ships its Dell-specific load of crapware on all of their boxes, but at least eight years ago (wow, it's been that long!) they half-filled every hard drive they shipped with delete-me apps which were locked to their set of BIOS/motherboard combinations. The difference is: Apple's locked software (OS X and iLife) are heavily desired, because Apple invested money into making top-tier products instead of feature checkbox shovelware. No one cares that Dell's Windows Explorer replacement wouldn't run on anything but a T800r, because no one in their right mind even wanted to run it *there*!

The difference between OS X and Windows is simple. In Windows, the OS and the hardware are somewhat disjointed. There are hardware "advisories" which Microsoft publishes, but, honestly, if you can get Windows running on the pile of aluminum cans in your garage you won't hear Microsoft pounding on your door with a cease and desist letter. In OS X, Apple actively keeps the OS tied to the motherboard. More loosely, the motherboard is somewhat tied to certain other hardware devices (eg, the aforementioned video card), and less tied to things like the case. Outside of that, though, the OS doesn't determine the software.

Is that a significant area of "lock down"? Well, yeah, obviously. It means you won't be buying your next Mac for $99 at WalMart. But, it doesn't change most of what you are talking about in your article. You can use that machine however you want (even removing OS X and putting a completely different kernel on it). You have complete freedom to do whatever you'd like with the product.

To sum up an all-too-long post so far: OS X is not "zero freedom". It's more like "90% freedom" wherein Windows is defined as "92% freedom" and an unachievable ideal upper limit exists for "100% freedom" ("Freedom Zero" in Mark's terminology).

"In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero."

If you chart "utility" on the "y" axis and "time" on the "x" axis, indeed, you'll see all software (free or not) hit the x-axis and stick there, eventually.

However, the debatable point is NOT where it ends up, but how much area sits beneath that graph, especially when time-weighted such that 'u' utility a year from now is roughly equivalent to '10*u' utility right now.

While there is always the very real possibility that your non-free software of choice will have its graph plummet tomorrow, the likelihood is that you will get a huge amount of utility from it between now and when it becomes useless. The same is true of free software. What is really important, which completely outweight the "future integral", is how much utility you are going to get from that software in the next week, month, and year.

For instance: imagine a "free" application with 80% of the utility (factoring in usability as well as features which are to be used) of a "for fee" application. Over the next year, barring the relatively unlikely event that the for-fee application gets shelved by its developer AND they issue a recall of all sold bits from your hard drive, you'll get 25% additional work done with the for-fee application. Imagining that the "for fee" application lasts for two years before being abandoned, and the "free" application lasts for four years before being abandoned, you'll have gotten 25% more done with the "for fee" application over the course of those first two years. Then, what happens? Well, most likely, then you turn to the "free" application and use it for the remaining two years.

""It just works." And why wouldn't it? There are no crude, selfish third parties to screw the experience up behind your back. No oddball hardware, no incompatible drivers, no more software which has to deal with a combinatorial explosion of potential configurations."

From these statements I get the feeling you are either ignorant of the Mac platform, or attempting to create flame bait to get more eyes on your post. Rarely, does any software "Just Work", but Apple does their best to make it so. Just as we all do as developers. Yes, the OS is locked down, but any 3rd party can develop for OS X without Apple's blessing. In fact, every OS X install ships with Xcode, Apple's first class IDE, at no extra charge. This in fact encourages development. The IDE is not a limited version and is the same version Apple uses. A professional copy of Visual Studio alone is almost as much as the Mac I'm typing this on right now.

I agree with you that in the long run, all closed source software is dead from the start. Given enough time, only the open source projects will be carried forward. When companies die, typically their software goes with it. Maybe proprietary software's roll will be primarily to drive innovation in the open source community. As developers we need to face the fact that due to the ubiquity of computing the public will continue to be push in the direction of computing as an appliance.

Wow, loads of responses!

Seemingly not much too this article, 'closed vs open', 'pc vs apple', surely everyone here has been through this a million times, we know every last facet of the pros and cons, but it seems for some the bait is too tempting! Just leave it!

oh and apple sucks a big one..

Look at the software dongles your mothership has inflicted on people? Office. IE. Windows. Hypocrite is right.

"why doesn't anyone give a crap about freedom zero?"

Because people like brilliance, and brilliance isn't produced by committee.

Jeff, great post as alway. Let's take a look at what Apple fanboy are crying about.

"The Mac is closed compared to open source, but is it really any more closed than Windows? Could you elaborate on why you "find Apple's brand of hardware lock-in particularly egregious".

Your argument doesn't make sense. A Mac is not a dongle, it is a computer. You can run any software you want on it, including Windows and Linux. You can develop and run your own software on OS X. This is not like a video game console at all. The platform is "closed" only in the sense that the operating system Apple ships only runs on their hardware, in limited configurations. If you want to run Mac software, you have to buy an Apple machine.

With a Mac, you pay more, but you can run _any_ software that you want. Check out Parallels or Boot Camp. You can run Linux and OSS no problem"

Fact to the matter is Mac use DRM hardware to lock you into their overpriced commodity hardware. While MS Windows allow you to run on ANY commondity hardware even Mac without any speical hardware. How in the fucking hell is Mac more open? The COLD HARD FACT is you can run Windows on Mac while you CAN NOT run OS X on PC just show you how lock down Mac is!

It amazed me how fanboy can be so blinded that they don't see the jail when they walk into one.

"Look at the software dongles your mothership has inflicted on people? Office. IE. Windows. Hypocrite is right."

Do Microsoft use any speical hardware to prevent you from running Windows on Mac? Can i run Mac on PC with Apple blessing?

"Fact to the matter is Mac use DRM hardware to lock you into their overpriced commodity hardware"

I don't feel locked to any particular OS. I think it's the software you use that locks you to a particular OS and almost every open source and commercial application on OS X runs also on windows and possibly on linux.
The same is true for linux users.
However I have seen many windows users locked to their operating system (yes, they can choose any hardware they want, but they can't leave windows).

I think you've got part of the answer in the post, as to why people apparently don't care about Freedom 0.

I think people do care, but only for the amount of exercise of that freedom that actually affects them. And, by and large, most proprietary software provides that (though maybe not if one chooses to abide by the letter of the EULA).

For instance, most Windows software that I've bought can be installed on any Windows machine that I own, regardless of what the license says about number of computers. And Microsoft has put a significant amount of effort into making sure that old software runs on new operating systems -- sure, not perfect, but by and large it's true. My favorite image editor is one I bought nine years ago; it still works quite well, just like it did. And that's a pretty extreme case; most people would have chucked it for something newer by now.

(And, as an aside, it's not like something being free software prevents it from getting abandoned, either. I use Zinf to play my music. GPL-licensed. Last update was several years ago, and I suspect it's dead.)

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out as DRM software gets better -- whether companies will actually use it to restrict Freedom 0 for their users in ways that impact what those users actually want to do (such as sharing from computer to computer), and what that will do to sales. I suspect the result is going to be about like what happened with dongles -- sure, it's technically a great solution and completely stops nickel-and-dime piracy, but consumers hate it and the net result is a hit to the bottom line rather than a benefit.

It's also interesting, looking at the occasional story of businesses that get burned by the BSA -- which is sort of the ultimate DRM, when it comes into play. I don't know if there are enough "never again; I'm going completely with free software" anecdotes to make up data or not, but there might be. I suspect the personal-computing situation and the business-compution situation are rather different.

(The business story I've heard most is, "We care, but this is what our business partners use, so we have to use it too, even though we'd rather not." Or, simply, that the benefits outweigh the costs.)

Meanwhile, I'd be interested in seeing statistics for supported lifetime of free-software programs versus proprietary ones -- that is, for what length of time can one get a new version of the program that's backwards-compatible with the old data files and is essentially a new, improved version of the old thing? The theory of "there's always a path forward" is nice, but does it actually map into benefits? Going back to Zinf, I can't make it a modern shiny application on my own; if the community isn't there, it's as dead as my copy of Macromedia Picture Publisher -- and, if in practice the free software is more likely to get abandoned, I'd be better off going with the software that is likely to have a practical future.

But a lot of the comparison isn't among the average programs; it's Word versus Open Office, Photoshop, and so forth. Even if those get abandoned, the user base is large enough that there will still be compatible paths forward. It's not really about programs anyway; it's about data, and work habits.

"However I have seen many windows users locked to their operating system (yes, they can choose any hardware they want, but they can't leave windows)."

Care to explain why user can't leave windows? linux is easy to install and even vendor like Dell is selling PC with linux.

2 points:
1. if it is closed or opened, it just don't matters to a customer. What customer requirements is not what a developer think he wants.
2. There is so much abandoned open source software at sourceforce... that there is no argument that the software will be developed further after the programmer leaves the projekt.

To those who seem to be confused, a Mac is a massive dongle because it is (bar some major hacking) *required* to run OS X (for whatever good or bad reasons).
In the recent Mac marketing campaign I was shocked (well, shocked by a lot of the nonsense in it actually) by one of them boasting how it can run not only OS X, but Windows too! Let's see a PC do that! Oh wait...they can't because we won't let it. You can argue it's for good reasons to lock in the hardware, but you can't then boast how you're the only system to run everything like that's a good thing.

With regards to Freedom Zero, I just go with that works. If that means forking over a little money, I will. If it means a degree of lock in, I will weigh it up a bit, but it won't stop me necessarily. I have stuff to do and it needs to get done the best and easiest way possible, if I have to pay for that I will.

> First, freedom zero is of little real use to a general consumer,
> because consumers don't really _use_ software.

Nitpick: whether they "use" software or not is not entirely the issue. With that argument, it may be appropriate to say that freedom zero is of no -direct- use to the consumer. But "direct" is not identically equal to "real".

Standardizing on tools and parts in auto manufacturing can be argued as being of no direct use to consumers since most don't work on their cars anymore.

It can have a indirect, but -real- effect, however, by the effect it has on the people who maintain the cars for those consumers.

They may not understand this easily or without pain, but they will realize it in time. Just as certain car owners who had to pay $600 for a "headlamp array" may be driven to other cars, that use cheaper sealed-beam headlights, or even super-cheap replaceable bulbs.

It will affect -future- purchases.

> Not to mention, open source software is just more fun to write.
> For me, that intellectual hive of people all looking to build the
> best software is addictive, especially to someone who has spent a
> great deal of time surround by people purely interested in
> getting a paycheck.

Amen, brother. Testify. More fun to build software with, too.

Freedom 0 is just an ideal. Sure, software is one of the areas where this ideal is closest to reality, but still, even though you theoretically can write your own software in machine code, there's a practical barrier to doing that. I can't really see any one of Windows, OSX or consoles as being fundamentally unfair or infringing on Freedom 0, really; they are all tradeoffs of varying degrees, but they all have positives to show up for negatives. You are even given tools to build anything (Turing machine equivalent, anyway) on these platforms, with the exception of some of the consoles, which are, well, game machines, not really computing machines. What would really be alarming is "trusted computing", but I just can't see it happening any time soon.

As to the replies which say essentially "it's my right to handicap my freedoms in whatever way I please, so shut up" ... sure, but in that case I really need an explanation as to why does the US poke its nose into other countries' business. How come you are very willing to deliver the freedom to elect an idiot as a ruler to people against their will, but don't care about not having the freedom of switching essentially equivalent software yourselves?

I'm sorry if this sounds like a flame, it could well be that I'm just fed up with not ruling the world myself :P

@ LastVisibleDog

Er, perhaps you missed my flying car reference. What Jeff wants is the computer equivalent of a flying car - its a 'great' idea but it will never happen. He wants Mac OS to be 'free' somehow to run on any platform.

Not gonna happen, so why kvetch about it?

Just like Linux will never be a desktop operating system for the masses. Why?

Cause no one cares. Nor should they.

Eric

All of this talk about "freedom" and "rights" and "fair" makes it sound like you're talking about the government dealing with our human rights, not PRIVATELY OWNED companies building hardware and software platforms.

People don't give a crap about freedom zero because Apple products get the job done with little fuss, and still accomplish pretty much any general purpose except for hardcore gaming. It's a superior product built for people with less than superior computer operating abilities. The people who want "freedom zero" just go buy PCs, and get what Microsoft has now made a VASTLY inferior experience with Vista.

It's already happened, Eric, just not legally. And you want to know why it won't happen legally?

Because too few people care.

It's not the technical aspect. Mac OS X is still heavily and notably BSD, and the driver support is out there. The various communities built around putting OS X on a non-Mac system have made it rather clear that the amount of work involved is not exactly vast. It's not licensing, or anything else. It's because it's worth more money to Apple to only sell hardware.

People should care, though. There are some really non-trivial risks involved with zero freedom software.

It really comes down to the technical ability of this generation. There are still plenty of people alive who grew up without cell phones or even color TVs. For them, they don't even know the difference between Windows, OSX, and Linux -- what to talk of caring about which is a more open platform.

As always, time will be the true test. As the world population slowly becomes more and more technologically informed, their demand for flexibility in the technology they use will increase. And with this demand will come changes in the companies who have the power to make those changes possible. The company able to most quickly recognize those changes in demand will come out on top.

i can't reprogram my car, and i cannot change the firmware of my tv. But they work perfectly, and they do their job.
i don't wan't to waste my time to grind through the millions line of code of Linux or any other open software. I myself don't will not work without getting paid. I pay happily for the good work of other, and that's what i expect for mine work. that's the way good products are created: money shows us the direction, where investment of time and will is rewarded.
Apple has done excellent work with the iPhone, it is better than all that other crap on the market (btw, there is NO "free" on the pda-market, googles wants to change, but only for selfish reasons).

btw: Do you use Microsoft? So, why do you talk about freedom then?
Your a pharisee, talking water, but drinking wine :-)

for people who fail to get the point of this post: if someone else made apple compatible computers that runs exactly the same as a mac, for 2/3 or 1/2 of the price would you buy it?

yipyip wrote:
"At least until the hypervisor is embedded in the hardware and even the BIOS has to be cryptographically signed and verified before booting. And that's already halfway there in the server space. And when that happens in the consumer space, that's when it really starts to hurt."

I can see that, and I don't see a big outcry over it. In the US you need a license to legally drive a car, fly an airplane, operate a radio station, etc. Yet each of those activities originally did not require it. I'm pretty sure all US readers can remember being able to board a plane without having a government issue ID.

I remember after buying my first car I had some thoughts on adding electronic flashing lights and such. I bragged about it to someone who told me what I had in mind was illegal.

So I am sure computers will eventually be required to be 'Internet Legal', similar to street-legal cars.

@jin for g3 and g4 mac compatible computers of other companies existed, but were not sold very well.

I buy consoles because I want the software, and it's not available elsewhere (in most cases). In fact, after the rug was pulled out from under the Dreamcast by Sega due to its Japanese sales before it even had a chance in the U.S., I came up with a new formula to determine whether or not I would buy a new console:

c = cost of the console (new)
g = combined cost of all of the games I currently really want for the console (not just games I think I might like)

if (c < g)
{
buy_the_console();
}

Note that when they don't release new games that I really want over time, g will go down, sometimes faster than c.

Buying an Apple product is a pretty similar concept, but I have trouble overcoming the fact that the hardware is the same except for what basically amounts to a dongle soldered onto the motherboard, especially now that they've moved to an Intel platform and you can't even argue differences in the processors.

>>. I'm pretty sure all US readers can remember being able to board a plane without having a government issue ID.

You can still board a plane in the US without a government-issued ID (in fact, most people do board planes without a federally-approved ID, since most states don't issue them, yet). In order to board a plane without any ID, though, you not only have to buy the ticket with cash, but submit to the more thorough security screening that some people are randomly subjected to anyway. In some cases, it's the fastest way to get on a plane if you don't mind people rifling through your carry-on luggage and patting you down. Besides that, the identification requirements haven't really changed much in the last 25 or more years.

As for computers being required to be 'internet legal', it would require a few things that certainly would set off some alarms early in the process, especially since it would require changes to the protocol itself that would make not only the end-users' PCs incompatible, but most likely the servers and routers that make the internet worthwhile incompatible.

What you fail to touch on is the fact that Apple gives a specific group of people specific tools for a specific job. Granted, I have found OS X and Mac Mini to be a great solution to general computing needs, but then again, I'm not everyone else.

There is a reason that Apple has done tremendously well over the past months and that reason is NOT an evil company holding people as slaves. It's about a company enabling people by guaranteeing solutions that work the first time around. When Apple ceases to pull this off, their customer base will cease to grow.

"There is a reason that Apple has done tremendously well over the past months and that reason is NOT an evil company holding people as slaves. It's about a company enabling people by guaranteeing solutions that work the first time around. When Apple ceases to pull this off, their customer base will cease to grow"

No. Apple is not holding its user as slaves. Apple see their users as big fat sheep by selling overpriced commodity and you as user have to pay the Apple tax in order to get the key that unlock the OS X kingdom.

Jeff's console analogy is spot on.

First of all, I commend you on this article! Apple will NEVER be a choice for me because of its proprietary needs.

To be quite frank, however, most computer users, and consumers in general, simply do not consider anything more than aesthetic beauty and the perceived status gained from owning a particular product. People will upgrade to Windows Vista because it's graphically pretty, they bought the iPhone NOT because they needed a camera/mp3 player/phone/internet browser all in one device. They (the general audience) do not by Macs because they perceive a better product, just as Sony will be preferred as a laptop manufacturer over Acer or Toshiba.

It's status and beauty. Apple sells well because it's pretty and allows people to indulge in snobbery. It has since they introduced their rainbow colored iMacs about 10 years ago. Do you remember those? Sure, it was tangerine but I couldn't right-click, the mouse felt god awful in my hand, and the keyboard was rickety cheap ass aqua-blue plastic. The iPod was no different with its ultra-minimalist white casing and simple display. It cost a small fortune compared to mp3/CD players on the market at the time (and infinitely more useful as i could play my existing CD collection as well as my not-quite-legal mp3's on the same equipment. I still prefer using these devices). Later on you found out the hard-drives crapped out unexpectedly and you had to drop a few hundred dollars for a new replacement.

The iPhone is no different. People rushed out to buy them in multiples, only to find out that: 1) there wasn't a limited supply so there wasn't much resale value on ebay for those who couldn't find them, and 2) a few months later prices were slashed, making it more available to the general public, and slightly less perceived as status symbol.

I have no clue what Freedom Zero is, but you can't compare it to Apple, because Apple isn't selling software nor hardware: they're selling prestige.

I care. I have a friend running ubuntu on his PS3, which he bought because it wasn't useless like the 360 is. Sure, we're still at their mercy, but deep down, sony knows that they have put themselves at ours, and if they don't pull anything, we won't; if they do, they're going to get owned as hard as the Wii did.

I won't buy HD-DVD, and I won't buy Blu-ray. I stopped using windows even though I'm a gamer because I couldn't put up with proprietary nonsense anymore. This year, I may become a KDE developer. I've HATED Apple for a while now, and I'm glad someone else is actually catching on.

I turned 18 a month ago. You can call my generation apathetic...
but I care.

The more options you have, the more choices you must make.

Take Windows Vista. Most people don't really want to figure out which of the five versions they should buy. If you're a business owner, you're going to be dealing with important, sensitive data. Yet Bitlocker encryption isn't included business edition. You must buy the Ultimate Edition instead. So, as an end user, you actually have to read the list of features, figure out their intended purpose and then evaluate them in comparison to your needs as a business owner. This is in contrast to having the freedom to spend your time doing something else, such as run your business or spend time with your family.

I buy Apple hardware because Apple usually includes the kinds of features I want. In fact, it often includes features that I didn't know I wanted, such as the MagSafe power connector or backlit keyboard. I don't have to shop around and choose between thousands of laptop models to choose a set of features that will likely meet my needs and wants.

Compare this to "features" such as the Windows Sideshow found on some laptops. I don't want the extra cost, weight or all around clutter that it brings. Nor would it do me much good when my laptop is inside my bag. As a potential buyer, I either need to trust the that this feature actually adds value or I'm forced to analyze what it does and figure out if it's something I really need.

If my MacBook Pro is not in my bag, then it's open and I'm looking at it's high resolution screen. If I want to know how much charge I have left, I can push a button on the battery and get a simple LED visual display of power remaining. If I want to tell how many unread emails I have at a glance, I'll use a more portable and accessible device, such as my iPhone, instead of taking my laptop out of my bag. These are, IMHO, much better solutions to the same problems.

And you simply can't get anything like the iPhone or the MacBook Air anywhere else. In this case, Apple as a company is "dongle" for a specific set of features and level of design.

IMO, it's similar to David Heinemeier Hansson's thoughts on opinionated software: good software has an opinion on the best way to do things. Great software lets you keep the defaults (sound familiar), but override them if necessary. It may be that open source software projects are hard to have a singular vision of the best way to do something. Ergo, it dilutes the opinions of the software creators.

Does it have to be like this? I don't know.

Vizeroth wrote:
"You can still board a plane in the US without a government-issued ID (in fact, most people do board planes without a federally-approved ID, since most states don't issue them, yet). In order to board a plane without any ID, though, you not only have to buy the ticket with cash, but submit to the more thorough security screening that some people are randomly subjected to anyway. In some cases, it's the fastest way to get on a plane if you don't mind people rifling through your carry-on luggage and patting you down. Besides that, the identification requirements haven't really changed much in the last 25 or more years."

Which is why I didn't say federally-approved. State governments are still governments. Homeland Security has at least twice threatened to disallow Utah drivers licenses (Utah is where I live) as valid ID in the last five years unless the state made changes in the way they were issued. I will grant that you can board without a valid ID because I did once with TSA doing the procedure you describe. However, I can remember traveling in the late '80s without anyone asking for any ID, and only getting asked sporadically in the early '90s. Requests for valid ID did not become consistent until the late '90s. Even then, I only needed it to board; if I was walking someone to the gate, or meeting them at the gate, no one asked for ID. Does the majority of people object to TSA requiring a boarding pass now to get to a gate?

"As for computers being required to be 'internet legal', it would require a few things that certainly would set off some alarms early in the process, especially since it would require changes to the protocol itself that would make not only the end-users' PCs incompatible, but most likely the servers and routers that make the internet worthwhile incompatible."

I think it will be gradual. I worked for one company for 17 years. They originally did not require virus software, or restrict what software you could run. When I left, virus software was a must, and you were on probation if you ran anything not on the approved list of applications (the joke for me was that some of the apps they sold were not on the list, and if you were a developer and modified a program, you got a warning). Most companies I interviewed with restricted their employees Internet access to websites, and have policies on what applications they can use. It's not a far leap to doing that with individual computers, servers, and routers. Intel tried a few years ago to put unique ID's in their Pentiums. The Utah legislature considered a bill last year that would impose fines on anyone with an unsecured WiFi network. It will happen, and few will object.

This one time at bandcamp I tried to copy my entire giant dongle but could not. I found out that the size of it made copying it hard.

At all the people making analogies like "A BMW is a giant dongle because I need to buy the car to use the onboard computer" (I belive it was stephan who made that specific one).

You make absolutely no sense. I don't buy a BMW to use its onboard computer. And I don't buy a Honda so it will fly. I buy them so I can DRIVE them. What Apple does is gives you the vehicle (the OS), but makes you buy overpriced gas (Hardware) from them. Yes, you can drive all your other vehicles with that gas. But you can't drive OSX with any other hardware.

I wonder what the Apple fanboys would say if MS suddenly decided that XP and Vista shouldn't run on Macs anymore

The original article and a lot of comments make essentially this point:

"OSX doesn't run without a Mac, therefore the Mac is a dongle for OSX. Simple, really."

Please get a clue. If you just want OS X (shiny!) then you have already locked yourself into an operating system and its vendor. That is how you lose your freedom. It is no different than deciding that your new PC must run Windows Vista. If you force yourself to use whatever Apple or Microsoft produces then you really can't complain. It's your decision.

But not all Mac users made that decision. Some people, myself included, bought a computer. We see OS X as part of the package, but we all know there will come a day when the machine won't run the newest version. Then what ? Well, I plan to run Linux. And I won't hesitate to switch sooner or not upgrade OS X if Apple pisses me off either. All my OS X programs will continue to work, or I can use Linux versions, or I can use Linux equivalents. So how does choosing a Mac cost me Freedom 0 ? It doesn't.

Anyone who locks themself into any platform can get stuck. It has *always* been this way. Don't lock yourself in. Not to programs, operating systems, or hardware. Mac hardware doesn't lock you in. Mac software can lock you in, just like Windows and Linux software can lock you in. Even open source software can lock you in, if the barrier to fixing it is too high. New versions might not do what you want and old versions might become too obsolete. If you can't fix it, then where is your Freedom 0 ?

The fact is, unless you are writing or maintaining your own software, you probably don't have Freedom 0. So please quit wanking if you just rely on others. It is perfectly possible to use proprietary software and not give up any freedom at all. It is only when you force yourself to use it or when you are locked into using it that your freedom is gone. Most people are a lot more sensible than that. That's why open file formats are popular and multi-platform applications are popular. Please figure it out.

Freedom 0 is great not so much for being free as in speech but free as in beer. Commercial software is expensive, and I do not like my programs checking up on me to see if I've paid up.

Some might consider *all* computers to be the Devil's dongles.

Brilliant entry, Jeff!

Mark makes a very good point above:

Why would Microsoft want to restrict which platforms Windows, Office, etc. run?

Let's face it - no one buys a Windows machine to run windows, but to run applications like games, Office, etc. As long as Microsoft gets you hooked into the applications, you will always be a Microsoft Junkie.

Because Microsoft makes money on LICENSES, if you bought an expensive Mac, but are willing to run Windows and Office on the _same_ computer via Parallels or dual boot, it _only_ benefits Microsoft!

Microsoft is HAPPY as LONG AS you buy Apple AND Windows, because it proves you are a "Microsoft Junkie" and MS is not losing market share! But the minute Apple gains more market share _from_ Windows and begins to develop alternatives to applications on Windows (e.g. Office, games, etc), that is when MS will go on the offensive.

Kashif

(Most) People don't care about Freedom 0 because there's nothing wrong with "giving up" Freedom 0 to buy a product or service. There's also nothing wrong with someone offering a product or service to you and "taking away" Freedom 0, so long as the exchange is not coercive.

I'm primarily a Mac user, but also use Windows and Linux. I use what I want, when I want, and am thrilled that anyone else can (and does) do the same. The moral rhetoric surrounding software is distressing (and annoying), especially since people who decry software patents, "monopolies," and proprietary software will generally argue incessantly for the necessity of taxes, war, government control, and a host of other things that _actually_ restrict freedom.

So yes, my MacBook is a dongle in a sense, but it's the best-working dongle I've used in 18 years of owning computers. =]

Well, there's a whole heck of a lot more innovation coming out of apple then most companies...and I can leave my mac on for months at a time without worrying about security issues and all the other crap that comes with a lame windows based pc. So, in the grand scheme of things, who cares if I can't open up my computer and get all geek on it...the vast majority of people don't care at all.

I wonder how many posters here actually used OS X. It just works, its rock solid, its refined a few orders of magnitude more than Windows XP and Vista. At work I program all day in Visual Studio, at home I use OS X for the rest of my life. My feeling is Microsoft will be relegated to the corporate sphere, Apple will dominate the consumer side. And I'm quite ok with that.

&ldquo;Fact to the matter is Mac use DRM hardware to lock you into their overpriced commodity hardware. While MS Windows allow you to run on ANY commondity hardware even Mac without any speical hardware. How in the fucking hell is Mac more open? The COLD HARD FACT is you can run Windows on Mac while you CAN NOT run OS X on PC just show you how lock down Mac is!&rdquo;

So what forces you to write to the Aqua (or Cocoa, or whateverthedevil Apple calls their proprietary user interface) published interface on the Mac? Can't you write code against the FreeBSD kernel interfaces and libraries that's there (and open-sourced), or against the horrid X11 interface that's also available for the thing? I use MacOS as one of my primary development environments, but the code I'm writing there moves seamlessly from MacOS to SLS Linux to FreeBSD.

If Apple imploded tomorrow and Microsoft bought the rights to MacOS so it could entomb the source code in concrete and sink them in the ocean, it would be annoying, but I wouldn't _lose_ anything other than access to a slick gui wrapped around my tty sessions. If I'd have been using Windows as my primary programming environment and Microsoft did the implode and entombment routine, I'd be in much worse shape.

So, boohoo, Turtleneck-Ego LLC doesn't want me to use their Unix gui on machines they don't sell. But it's still Unix. Being able to put Windows on random ia32 and ia64 PCs doesn't make it anything other than Windows, and that's a far nastier restraint than having an X-terminal vendor refuse to license their gui.

Heh, I've said similar for a long time when debating if Apple is a hardware or software company: Apple is a software company that sells really stylish hardware dongles ;)

Jeff, I assumed better of you. Today, I lost all my respect for you. You clearly have never used a modern Mac. Go try using one for a week. You'll see what I mean.

(Oh, BTW, I've been using Windows all my life till now, and have been a Linux sysadmin for 2 years -- and have used Linux and Solaris machines for over 8 years now. No guesses for what computer I use today)

I had this argument many years ago with people who thought that open-source, free systems were going to drive proprietary MMOG's out of business. My argument against that ties in with what you're saying:

OSS does a very good job of creating free alternatives to "commodity software". The OpenOffice suite is pretty much just as good in every significant way as MS Office, Linux as good as Solaris, PostGres to MS SQL Server, and so on. Where there is a definite target to aim for, it can compete, and it's hard to compete with free.

But it doesn't do creativity, and it doesn't do aesthetics. As soon as there are choices to be made that do not have clear best logical answers, the OSS development effort will fork. And then fork again, and again, and again, until you no longer have an OSS development community, but hundreds of different (and duplicative) solo projects that can't be effectively merged.

--Dave

I always wondered why Apple didn't consult you first on all this, Jeff. Seems crazy that they wouldn't. They really screwed up this time.

For what it's worth, I just gave up on full freedom software, dumping my Linux laptop in favor of a Mac laptop. Now, I still use Linux on my desktop, but the last time my Linux laptop went belly-up, and I was confronting the process of wrestling to get the Dell's hardware working with linux (the NVIDIA proprietary drivers need installation, the wifi needs an infinite amount of wrestling, and then there's the whole matter of hibernating to disk and RAM). I just couldn't face it again. My job is to write software and text on my laptop. My job is not to be a laptop tweaking hobbyist. And I don't *like* hassling with hardware and drivers.

Freedom as in freedom is worth a lot to me, but it turned out not to be worth that much.

When we get real commodity laptops, I'll be happy to go back to Linux. But for now I just want a laptop that *works* and that runs some Unix-alike.

Flash is a piece of crap, it's just until recently been the ONLY browser ria option. and the iPhone, like the iPod before it, is 80% marketing, 15% image, and only 5% functionality. Free thinkers of the world realise this.
Nevertheless I'm still pro-proprietary.

"Flash is a piece of crap, it's just until recently been the ONLY browser ria option."

hmm. activex, javaapplet, silverlight, javafx, html+ajax...

flash is not crap. it's often abused.

Many have said this above, but I will say it more concisely:

"When you buy a new Mac, you MAY BE buying a giant hardware dongle, BUT you are buying a giant hardware dongle THAT ALSO RUNS WINDOWS."

and apparently it runs Windows better than all the crappy PCs designed for poor people:
"PC World: Macbook Pro is the "Fastest Windows Vista Laptop" of 2007"
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html

I know I'm a tad late in commenting, but I just found this post because of stackoverflow pointing to Douchebaggery (the post), pointing to here. I've noticed that people in computer science at universities and many developers seem to have this mac fetish. I thought about it, many times. The "just works" factor, and the sleekness that is their laptops, is very seductive. But then I think: What would the world be like if Apple and Microsoft switched positions? Not only would we have a desktop OS monopoly (I'm exaggerating things a little bit), but we'd have a desktop hardware monopoly, too.

I understand why a normal person would choose a mac. It "just works". I don't understand why computer programmers choose macs, because they should understand the ramifications of loosing freedom.

Macintosh == zero freedom?
bullshit!
This argument doesn't have anything to do with freedom; it has to do with someone too cheap to pay for someone else's work. Sure it's altruistic for me to contribute all my hard work for you to use without paying me anything but that doesn't pay my mortgage.

You want a superier experieance on your computer? Pay me to write better apps.
You want freedom? You are free to use WinDoze (and suffer).

> I always thought the PC ecosystem, although deeply flawed, was more naturally
> analogous to the eclectic third party hardware and software hacker ecosystem
> that grew up around the semi-open Apple II hardware platform.

Did you ever go to the West Coast Computer Fairs? Before the PC? After? Conclusion? Bill and Micro$oft KILLED innovation.

Can't believe I wasted my time replying to this stupidity.

"but I think there actually is a little dongle—the Mac ROM—inside Macs, that you need in order to run Mac OS X."
Yep, in the pre-iMac days, that was definitely the dongle, in fact the ROM was the dongle that made the IBM PC a IBM PC, except that it was a lot weaker than the version in the Mac (because there was much less code in the ROM), so weak that Compaq and Phoenix began reverse engineering it, which created the PC clones that looked much open than the Mac. In contrast, the Mac ROM stored core classic Mac OS code. Then the Mac clones came and the Mac ROM was beginning to make creating Mac clones harder. Thus for CHRP, the Mac ROM was moved to the disk. But by the time the CHRP-capable Mac OS finally came, Apple was already killing the Mac clones. They ended up using CHRP in the development of NewWorld, which was introduced with the iMac, and also moved the Mac ROM to disk. Eventually, Mac OS X made the Mac ROM unnecessary.
<http://yuhong386.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!57E2793D0C53276F!164.entry>

That link did not go well, I will try again:
http://yuhong386.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!57E2793D0C53276F!164.entry

About Freedom 0 - as much as most people aren't philosophers, I think we tend to stick to the following principles:

1) If it is a freedom that I don't use, I won't care if it's there.
2) If I want to do something that has been restricted - crack it!

As much as Apple being a pain in the butt when it comes to customer lock-in, Microsoft has its fair share as well. But since most people are using a PC and run Windows, getting patches that would unlock / overcome certain degrees of freedom are much more readily available than in the Apple world.

Same goes with many other software / hardware products really.