Jim Cheetham wrote:
On Feb 5, 2005, at 7:46 PM, Robert Himmelmann wrote:
I once used an iMac with OS X. During the start it displayed no information, there was no commandline, no choice, in what desktop environment I wanted to use and only IE and safari. The best thing about the GNU/Linux distributions is that that you have for most things at least two, often more than ten choices. Another thing is configurability. Under KDE you can for example configure the task bar (klipper) as much as you like. Under Mac OS that was not possible or at least not obvious.
"By default" is the keyword here. By default, you get no information and no choice. Instead, you get a machine that works without trying to worry you with things that you don't understand. The Apple philosophy is that choice is confusing, and therefore *by default* choice is not offered.
Ok, but they should offer somewhere a choice whether you want expert options or just the normal things. That choice would not be confusing and would make things much easier for us "experts".
However, *nix geeks wouldn't use the Mac if choice was impossible. In fact it's easy :-) The whole underlying OS, Darwin, is open sourced. Apple provide an X11 server (XFree86, in fact), and a complete development environment based around gcc. bash and tclsh are there - all you have to do is run the "Terminal" program, the same as you would on a GUI-login Linux box.
It's true that the whole Aqua interface isn't configurable in the same way that KDE or Gnome are. But extreme configurability is a very overrated facility, IMHO. Some of the Apple apps have better functionality and/or usability than OSS alternatives - probably because Apple only have to account for one OS and one hardware platform, plus they can pay for a mass development effort. At the same time, they also open up their API so that the OSS alternatives can work well if they want to. Both sides win.
(RMS would probably say that FLOSS that uses closed libraries isn't FLOSS, in the same way that Java code cannot be FLOSS. Go RMS)
The article you are referring to is probably "http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/04/07/2021242";.
At that stage I have to agree with Volker: Proprietary software is better than nothing. But when there are two equal programs - or programs of which none is better than the other - I will always use the free one. I AM using Sun Java with all their latest extensions but Java gets on the scale under "http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html " at least partly 3 out of 4 points.
One of the best things of free software is that it is often better and more configurable than proprietary software because there are more people working on it and those people want to create a good program. Of course it is more ethical than proprietary software but "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" (Isaac Asimov, Foundation).
When apple offers an operating system with at least half the rpms and configurability as let's say SuSE and when they preinstall a bash, Camino/Firefox/Mozilla and KDE or Gnome as a second desktop environment I consider buying it. Oh, and they should really think about adding one or two more mouse buttons. Using always this combination of keypad and mouse is annoying. ;)
None of things you want to see fit in Apple's philosophy, so they won't provide it. However, all of these things are easily done, because Apple know that some of their users want the flexibility. IIRC, multi-button mice have worked with Macs since OS 8.6 - just plug one in and it works. Did you try plugging one in?
Well, it was a school computer.
If this is really your philosophy, then I don't think you'll be purchasing a Mac even if "their OS gets better". Buy one anyway, and run Ubuntu on it :-)Use free software only. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Unfortunatly I don't have that much money.
-jim
Happy Hacking, Robert Himmelmann
Use free software only. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think.
-- /usr/bin/fortune
