On Oct 7, 2011, at 11:46 AM, michael perelman wrote: > I do so because Apple's products are seductive, but I think have many > negative aspects -- enclosing what would be better as an more open > system.
I've seen that criticism too. But I'm not sure what "more open" means. There are 2 categories of devices Apple sells. Desktop work devices and mobile media devices. Desktop work devices are pretty much as open as you'd want them to be. You can run all your GPLed applications on them, build them from source. You can store all your media DRM free and use it on any portable device you want. You can erase OSX and run anything that physically runs on the chip (unlike machines that will come pre-installed with Windows 8 - MS calls that a security feature). There is nothing "enclosed" on this machine. And more than that, why, in the extremely competitive market that is consumer HW, should Apple be "more open" when other makers are certainly not trying to be "more open" ? Now, about Apple's mobile devices. Why use "closed" when the other obvious term is "integrated". The devices propose controlled environments so that the consumer gets a "it just works" user experience. I don't hear industry critics talk about how coffee makers are so enclosing things that would be better as a more open system ? Or a TV set ? Or a DVD/BR player ? Why would a media device be less closed than other commonly used media devices ? I'd love that if you could develop on the "would be better as a more open system" because honestly, I don't see what "better" means here, even though I use free software as much as I can, I try to promote the use of open formats as much as I can and I have a whole bunch of media data that I use on all the devices that I have (Apple or not). Jean-Christophe Helary _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
