On Mon, 8 Sep 2008, Kevin Driscoll wrote:
> Christina identifies a troubling phenomenon:
>
>> .I'm pretty concerned with how successful at "freewashing" Apple is as
>> a corporation. Maybe I'm totally off the mark, but my sense is that Mac
>> has been promoting its products as hip & cool and, somehow, ethically
>> better than Windows. A lot of free software supporters scoff at using
>> Windows but are totally comfortable running OS X, and that worries me
>> (because clearly Ubuntu ftw).
>
> Apple is in the appliance game. As a whole, it doesn't seem particularly
> interested in the kind of free-wheeling, all-purpose computing that
> would fit FC peeps. So what gives?
>
> Is it the apparent ease with which foss apps are ported? Is it the nice
> hardware? Is it the not-windows-ness?
>
> It's certainly not the cost!
Freedom can be expensive! (Even more than a buck o'five.)
I think it has to do with Apple's promoting it generally speaking as an
"alternative" operating system, in a similar way you might hear of
"alternative" news sources. You're already "think[ing] different[ly]"
when using a Mac - you could easily go so far as to be a Free Culture
revolutionary.
Anyway, this (yarrrr) drives me nuts also.
To be more fair, I also think the emphasis on media creativity software in
plays a large role. Given only a finite amount of time in a life, I
accept that there is a tension between using software that fits one's
principles and wanting to achieve one's goals - at least, that tension
exists when someone offers you software good at meeting your goals that
doesn't match your principles.
It is in fact empowering in a "participatory media" way to use iMovie to
remix videos in QuickTime containers using patented codecs, even if that
story is quite seriously problematic for someone in the Free Software
mindset. It's in fact further empowering to society to see those remixes
- culture has been made broader - and, more compatibly with Free Software
ideals, that video can be shared under very liberal terms that allow its
further re-use and remixing.
To the extent that we want participation at all layers, there is even a
tension for a Free Culture movement: Do we fight the hardest for the
layers where freedom is most easily-defined, like software? Or do we try
to give our message of a bottom-up, participatory society to reach as many
people as possible using whatever tools they have, even if those tools
frustrate us? Surely we should be pleased when those people participate
in a step toward more cultural freedom.
Man, that was tough to write. This "freewashing" drives me nuts, so I'm
done defending Macs now. It's quite frustrating to see otherwise
respectable people corrupted by shiny things coming out of my backyard,
Cupertino. So maybe some true Apple fans can perhaps continue praising
them.
-- Asheesh.
P.S. Full disclosure: I maintain packages in Debian GNU/Linux and feel bad
that I sometimes run Adobe Flash. So I'm not a purist, either. (-;
--
Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work,
work till we die.
-- C. S. Lewis
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