Richard M. Stallman is glad Jobs is gone

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2011 at 02:31:34PM -0400, Alejandro Imass wrote:
> It's nicer than many others. Their technology is sound and they use a
> lot of Open Source. MacOSX is practically based on FreeBSD and you can
> run most of FBSD's ports on the Mac using MacPorts. We interchangeably
> use Debian and Ubuntu Workstations with Mac workstations and FreeBSD
> servers. I think each one has it's strengths and weaknesses,

Yes, but the big part of Apple these days is the iphone, ipad and ipod
devices.  The Mac bit is largely irrelevant.  And with the App store
for Macs now around and some of the changes that are going into Mac OS
X, it appears that the Mac as a desktop machine may actually be heading
towards the level of control of the iphone and ipad.  Maybe not entirely,
but they sure seem to be considering it.

> What we don't use _at all_ is crapy Microsoft software or any Oracle
> products either.

What does that have to do with Apple and their stupid policies?  I despise
both of those too, but for different reasons.

> I personally see Apple as Open Source friendly and their products are
> really high quality. Don't get me wrong though we love Linux and we
> also love cheap hardware, but we also love Apple.

Nothing open source is permitted on any iOS device.  It all must go
through the app store and the app store does not permit source code to
be included.

> Besides, I don't know what rms is complaining so much about Steve
> Jobs. For example he opened Next Step with Sun and created Open Step
> from which GNU Step directly derives. I remember using GNU Step with
> Linux when Gnome and KDE where in their infancy, and where do you
> think many ideas for the latter came from?

Xerox PARC.

And according to a friend of Steve Jobs interviewed on CBC Jobs was not
at all interested in having next step be part of an open unix future.
He hated the idea of anything open.  Jobs loved being in control.

> All the zealotry is really stupid. Maybe we should we stop using
> TCP/IP or the Internet because it was built by and for the military?

I think Apple's technology is great.  I hate their restrictions on how
it can be used.  So in fact this is the exact opposit of that.

If everything to go on the Internet had to first be approved by the
military, the Internet would not be something we would want to use.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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