[Cialug] Apple and Intel

Wed Jun 8 11:11:21 CDT 2005

While you're being that rabid about it, you might as well un-install 
that nasty proprietary nVidia driver you know so much about getting 
going on debian systems.
;-) I mean if it's proprietary it must be polluting that nice little 
FSF cocoon you've woven yourself.

I've preached the four freedoms myself and while I agree the "movement" 
is noble sometimes you just need to get stuff done. I find OSX and 
Apple's current regime to be a comfortable middle ground that is 
helping to introduce Open Source (and quite a bit of Free) software to 
a wider audience than our basements - to people who just want to get 
stuff done. If you don't believe that Apple is playing nice, I'd 
suggest looking over this page, and the fairly extensive list of 
projects that they've opened up to the community. 
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/ Many of these were internal projects 
that they had NO obligation to share - Darwin Streaming Server, 
ZeroConf, etc.

Fanaticism: that's always the problem I end up having w/ the "pure" FSF 
flag wavers is that they end up sounding like rabid street preachers 
after a while, everybody just ignores them and goes on their way. I 
respect that others want to remain "pure" but please stop waving the 
GNU flag in my face. btw - I refuse to pre-pend GNU to every mention of 
Linux.

Sorry if this is coming off a little touchy, but I'm getting tired of 
getting preached at, believe it or not I'm already in the choir.

On Jun 8, 2005, at 10:45 AM, Theron Conrey wrote:
> "Beside, a proprietary OS that can give me a real terminal window 
> can't be all that bad, can it?"
>
> Yes.  Yes it can.
>
> Theron
>
>
> Tony Bibbs wrote:
>
>> I disagree.  I'm still longing for an OS that has then flexibility of 
>> linux with the sort of driver support found in windows..  OSX is 
>> quickly becoming the middle ground.
>>
>> I'm guessing quite a few on this list would agree given all the Mac 
>> laptops I saw at the last (and only) LUG meeting I attended this 
>> year.
>>
>> Beside, a proprietary OS that can give me a real terminal window 
>> can't be all that bad, can it?
>>
>> --Tony
>>
>> Theron Conrey wrote:
>>
>>>  From a hardware perspective it's pretty interesting stuff but,
>>> no matter what happens the situation remains the same.
>>> OSX still isn't free, so the impact (hoepfully) will be minimal at 
>>> best.
>>>
>>> Theron
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> D. Joe Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 10:35:02PM -0500, Bryan Baker wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Jun 7, 2005, at 10:29 PM, Nathan C. Smith wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> So here's a stupid question - what kind of thing will keep me
>>>>>>     from buying Mac OS and slapping it on any Intel box?  I
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> thought all the stuff that used to be in ROM no longer was. What 
>>>>>> will distinguish an Apple from any other machine?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I'm betting they will have a hand at least in the mobo design, 
>>>>> they  do a bunch of their own ASICs, etc. and they have been using 
>>>>>  OpenFirmware - not BIOS, but that may change now, but I bet 
>>>>> there'll  be other diff's - that said I give it a couple weeks 
>>>>> before someone  comes out w/ a hack, but you can bet it won't get 
>>>>> support.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That, and what this guy said (after you skip down past all the
>>>> license flamewar cruft) in
>>>>
>>>> http://zgp.org/pipermail/linux-elitists/2005-June/011207.html
>>>>
>>>>    Mac OS X's demographic is precisely the opposite of those
>>>>    with enough technical skill to hack and/or patch enough of
>>>>    their operating system to make it run on non-Apple hardware.    
>>>> Even if someone managed to make that work, and found a way
>>>>    to hack in driver support, either through some Rube Goldberg
>>>>    linux-driver-wrapper horseshit or other, it wouldn't be
>>>>    terribly useful to terribly many people who leave their
>>>>    basement on a regular basis.
>>>>
>>>> The "not [...] terribly many people" who would be interested in
>>>> doing this are pretty much the Mac fans who inhabit Linux and
>>>> other free OS mailing lists like this one--a minority of a
>>>> minority.  Heck, I figure I probably know the majority of these
>>>> people who live in Iowa ;-)
>>>>
>>>> ie, not enough to affect their market significantly.
>>>>
>>>> outside of this, the Mac customers are either going to be the
>>>> ricer-wannabees who might think the hack is cool, but who don't
>>>> have the time/skill/whatever to actually apply it, and the
>>>> people like the ones Valentine mentions above, who want their
>>>> sealed-box to Just Work, they don't care how, and you can't make
>>>> them care.  The main thing is that someone who does care, and who 
>>>> does have
>>>> the skill to apply the hacks isn't going to be able to hang out
>>>> a shingle and go into business selling beige boxes that have
>>>> been Macified.  The Clone Wars have already been fought, we know
>>>> how that turned out, and that was before the DMCA.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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--
Bryan Baker
Technology Advocate
Iowa Legal Aid
Suite 230
1111 9th Street
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