[Cialug] Apple and Intel

Wed Jun 8 12:16:58 CDT 2005

One man's "rabid" is another man's "consumer rights."

Quoting Bryan Baker <ka_klick at mac.com>:

> 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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> >>
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> >
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> --
> Bryan Baker
> Technology Advocate
> Iowa Legal Aid
> Suite 230
> 1111 9th Street
> Des Moines, Ia 50314-2527
> 
> (515) 243-2151 (x1635)
> 
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> bbaker at iowalaw.org
> 
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