[PLUG-TALK] F. Richard Stallman

[Ronald Chmara]

On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 2:34 AM, Russell Senior <seniorr at aracnet.com> wrote:
Snip_>
>
> I don't own any Apple products*, but is this not correct?

That "*" is possibly important to the discussion. I've run every Apple
*nix I've been able to find in my career, trying to squeeze
performance out of the hardware. Some of the innovations created even
made it back into "mainline" *nix variants, such as yum for package
management. (yum came from "yellow dog linux", which was the linux on
Apple PPC project, with an amusing political joke in the name).

>  "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:

Same as every other phone. Once you start tinkering, you lose vendor
warranted support.

>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking
> Also, similar information here:
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_Dev_Team

Take in any android(TM) phone with a custom OS, and they won't support
it in the same way as a "pristine" install. The usual stock suggestion
is a wipe/install.... same with a Dell laptop, a cracked Wii, or any
other consumer-focused company trying to keep their platform stack
consistent.

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

I'm pretty sure that Apple has done mountains more for F/OSS, than,
oh, MS, and Nokia and Oracle. Maybe less than Google, but maybe more
(because Google is so new and young). That doesn't mean that they're
sitting on the OSS->private spectrum in a place Stallman wants, but
blanket characterizations tend to be false because of the "blanket".

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

I think that is an accurate statement, but now we're forking.

Is the issue Apple's open-ness? Jobs' Open-ness? Scully's open-ness?
Gil's open-ness?

Lots of people have been part of the teams over the years, and to put
it all on Jobs' shoulders doesn't seem right. Jobs once argued, in
several semi-famous anecdotes, for the RAM banks on a motherboard to
be moved on a circuit board for aesthetics (no, seriously).

He lost that battle, and many others, because Jobs was not Apple.

Stallman's comments also seem to conflate Jobs and Apple, *and* not
take into account Jobs' career trajectory away from proprietary to
open, or many years of development and changes.

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

Me too. I also recall Apple tool-less machines, something I've never
seen in X86 land... no screwdriver, no pliers, only your hands. Never
seen that on any X86 windows boxen I've worked on (though, they must
exist, no?). I also recall  absurd "special tool" crap all over the
80's, which continues to this day... with proprietary machines still
using "magic" screws, interfaces, etc.

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

You can build the entire OS from source. IIRC, They're (Apple) still
selling their *window manager*, and add-on utilities, and not
providing sources for those, without NDA/Developer agreement.

Note the way we *both* phrased that, though...

The OS is open source.

They (Apple) sell a window manager, and tools to manipulate the OS.

Peering deep into their history, though, this is how Apple always
been. They take hardware, and make it easy, and charge for it. They
take software, make it easy, and charge for it.

In a simplified world, that's their whole business model.

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

Hopefully I did it right again.

> * 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.

Do you have a machine that uses 'yum'? A multi-buffer graphics GUI? A
mouse? Rounded rectangles?

-Ronabop