On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:22 PM, Stefan Monnier <[email protected]>wrote:
> > However, no, I don't think the average person cares whatsoever about the > > approval process, drm (beyond playing their mp3s on another device) or > > anything else to do with this. I think this is evident in the sales > > figures, let alone if you talk to the average non-geek about it. > > Agreed. That's the scary part and the reason why the FSF is really > concerned about all this iPhone/iPad business. The computer world > is moving away from traditional computers (laptop/desktop) where people > who care about their freedom are well-served, towards smartphones and > web-clients which use far-away internet services to store and compute > (Google Docs, Facebook, you name it). It is becoming very difficult to > keep control over your own documents, data, ... > At the same time Apple is able to create these markets. I'd say most iPhone owners first smartphone was an iPhone and the tablet market was never able to take off. History has already shown us that being first to take off doesn't mean that in the end you'll have the majority of the market. I think increased exposure to new computing paradigms is a good thing. Average users don't care about approval processes, they do care when their mate has a killer app that they can't get due to the platform they are on. > > > I am not an apple fanboy, I use linux nearly exclusively. However, we > > just have to look around to see which way the wind is blowing, and I > > think our "app store" is a great feature the FSF should be using to > > counter apple's marketing. "Need to edit photos? There's a .deb for > that". > > I can't imagine the FSF advertising such a thing, but Ubuntu could. > > > This is all about marketing, not hardware or software or anything > > else. The consumer is taught to love these things, that they are > > a sexy sexy thing to own. Nothing else matters beyond perhaps price > > and availability. > > Actually, the hardware is well-designed (maybe not from a hardware-guy > perspective, I wouldn't know about that, but from a user perspective > it's small light, sufficiently powerful, with good battery life); and > the software is also similarly well designed: it seems to be > sufficiently reliable, it's usually very reactive, consistent, > predictable, flexible enough for many/most uses, yet minimalist enough > to get up to speed very quickly. > > They're not the only ones who can do things right, but there is some > real quality behind the marketing: marketing alone is never sufficient. > > > Except to geeks. I agree it is our place to talk about it and make > > a fuss, but I don't expect that will change anything, and we will > > march further and further down this road of closed fascist > > software distribution. > > If it were only for the device, I wouldn't care so much. The problem is > that it is linked to a change in distribution of things like music, > books, videos, which have turned from being physical objects, to being > purely electronic and with DRM several important uses become impossible > (and often illegal, thanks to all those new brain dead copyright laws). > > > However, hopefully someone else will be marching in the other direction, > > maybe it is android, maybe it is openmoko or someone similar. It is > > windows vs linux all over again, but now on the mobile side, and with a > > different competitor. > > I wouldn't count on Android: it's open source and couldn't care less > about users's freedom (at least most/all Android phones seem to follow > similar locking ideas as the iPhone's, so in the end you end up just as > free as if it were an iPhone). > I'm biased, but all the same no such locking exists. You can install an app from anywhere on the Android platform, even create your own market. If you see any locking it's at the carrier level. > > > You notice you can't buy a netbook running linux anymore at major > > stores? > > Yes, the companies who were selling them have discovered that it's not > good business (they got *really* high return rates). Two reasons for > that: > - GNU/Linux is not good enough at advertising itself so currently to > most people. Where Apple manages to survive the "oh no, this only > runs on Windows so it won't work on my machine", GNU/Linux tends > not to. > - GNU/Linux systems still aren't nearly as user friendly as they'd need > to be for that kind of market. Windows may not be better, but that's > compensated by the awesome number of people around you who have some > knowledge of it and can help you out when you have a problem. > > Basically, when a user has a problem, there are 3 possible cases: > - he's using Windows, in which case he'll blame himself and look for help. > - he's using Apple, so he'll blame the fact that what he needs is > unjustly favoring Windows. > - he's using GNU/Linux, in which case he'll clearly lay the fault on > this Open Source idea. > > > Stefan > _______________________________________________ > mlug mailing list > [email protected] > https://listes.koumbit.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mlug-listserv.mlug.ca >
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