[PLUG-TALK] F. Richard Stallman

Russell Senior seniorr at aracnet.com
Sat Oct 8 09:34:16 UTC 2011


>>>>> "Ronald" == Ronald Chmara <ronabop at gmail.com> writes:

Ronald> On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 4:31 PM, Russell Senior
Ronald> <seniorr at aracnet.com> wrote:
>> RMS's remarks are completely consistent with his philosophy.  They
>> aren't news.  They remind people that Apple has a closed,
>> freedom-limiting POV, that is often obscured by their marketing and
>> their very aesthetic packaging.

Ronald> Damn Apple for being all open-sourcey, with style.

Ronald> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

Ronald> What with encouraging users to hardware hack the Apple II,
Ronald> putting debug switches on their Mac *hardware* to let
Ronald> programmers debug and reverse engineer binaries, their
Ronald> promotion/sales/distribution of three totally different
Ronald> flavors of *nix over the years, (A/UX, AIX, and Darwin/OS X,
Ronald> with Darwin being open-sourced), their contributions to
Ronald> WebKit, the free compilers, the multiple expansion and
Ronald> customization options, licensing macs with Linux
Ronald> pre-installed, etc...

Ronald> It's easy to think that Apple has a "closed" POV, but it's
Ronald> just that... easy. It's not correct. I think they have
Ronald> *cultivated* a reputation of cachet, of simplicity, of being
Ronald> "non-tinkerable" as a marketing gimmick, but they've been
Ronald> contributors the open source community since 1988, and I've
Ronald> been fiddling around in their hardware, and tweaking their
Ronald> software, just as long.

I don't own any Apple products*, but is this not correct?

  "iOS jailbreaking, or simply jailbreaking, is the process of
   removing the _limitations imposed by Apple_ on devices running the
   iOS operating system through use of custom kernels. "

(emphasis on 'limitations imposed by Apple' is mine). If not, maybe
you should edit the wikipedia article here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking

Also, similar information here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_Dev_Team

Yes, people have overcome the obstacles placed for them, but I don't
think you can overly credit Apple for that.

Also, please correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the openness of the
Apple II more a reflection of Wozniak than Jobs?

Subsequently, I recall cases that required odd tools to open.  

Is it possible for me to build OSX from source?  I wasn't aware of
that, it might be fun to try.

I do appreciate you attacking the facts rather than the style.  That's
how we all replace wrong facts with right ones.

* I do have an ipod someone left behind in my igloo a few years ago,
  but I am just "holding" it until they ask for it back, along with
  their smoking paraphernalia.


-- 
Russell Senior         ``I have nine fingers; you have ten.''
seniorr at aracnet.com



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