I get sad and frustrated that so many people are positively passionate about Apple and its Mac and iPod products. Particularly so many people I care about and who are influential to me and others.
Apple is probably as bad as Microsoft in being a proprietary company. It is in the same class of evil in taking us further away from free culture. Superior design allows them to treat people like consumers and they are predators of contributers, collaborates and competition in the desktop computing and music industries.
As Mark Pilgrim wrote “Openness is not a cargo cult. Some get it, some don’t. Apple doesn’t.”
I think that if the time and money we spend on Apple products is spent on open products, the world will be a far better place. If you spend money on proprietary solutions donate the same amount to an open solution.
I am encouraged by people making the switch from MacOS to Ubuntu.
technorati tags:free culture, apple, iProduct, iEvil, proprietary, open, openness, buy, advocate, advocacy, marketing, influence, influencial, people I care about, mac, apple, ipod, predators, desktop computing, music industry
Blogged with Flock
- Mobile Mac Mini (Computer) On The Move!
- An APPLE for the Teacher
- Technology: Opening New Worlds of Learning
5 Comments
Hmmm….I don’t remember being an *advocate* for Apple…I use the tools. I explain how those tools work for me at maximum effectiveness. It is the product that I love, not necessarily the company.
Advocates of anything must be realistic. Ubuntu simply does not allow many people to function at maximum effectiveness.
Re: time and money. I don’t spend time, and that’s kind of the point. Money I do spend…but I would probably personally have to spend many Macbook’s worth of money to smooth the edges of various apps and experiences that I depend on.
So, don’t be sad…do what works for you, show and explain what works for you, find out the areas that need smoothing. I think most of the people you linked to are in favour of free culture — we just have other battles we’re fighting.
Hi Boris,
Thank you very much for the comment!
Advocacy is likely in the eye of the audience, and much of your audience may not appreciate the differences you articulate so well
You are a good person, and I am happy if you keep focusing on your other battles.
I still can’t help, but be saddened because we are so far from a free culture and the computing desktop is a major battle filed, just like the Web is — where you fight the good fight.
Money, I would be surprised if that is the case. How do we confirm either of our assertions? Ubuntu is a solution for the whole world, not just our 1st world problems. My discomfort is the only discomfort I can heal.
Boris, spending time: I think you have been very fortunate, but you have also spent your life time in Apple products — even if it is for the most practical of reasons. It is time away from free culture
Personally, it makes me very happy to know that all 3 Macbooks your friends bought were defective — just think of the horrible bugs that Jesse could be coding right now if he had a working laptop again! And I am spending much more time packing since I can’t watch movies in bed.
(Oddly enough, I just found an enormous uncashed check from Apple dating back nearly a decade in my boxes of old papers that I’ve been sorting. I can’t believe I’d have forgotten about it, but I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.)
Boris has an exellent point there. Not many people are passionate about using open source softwares and is willing to spend time and put up with the rough edges.
Give it time. Already a few great opensource softwares had emerged to take on a number of categories like browser, office suite, email client.
Apple has avocates so does open source. Don’t give up!
One Trackback
[...] Unfortunately, nothing of the Mac OS X “experience” has been open sourced. And at the same time, the concerns continue about Apple’s predatory treatment of independent software developers. [...]