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FSF Rattles Tivo Saber At Apple
Ohreally_factor takes us back to Friday when both the iPhone and the GPLv3 were released. "This article at Tectonic suggests that Apple's iPhone might run afoul of the GPL. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF is quoted as saying: 'Today, Steve Jobs and Apple release a product crippled with proprietary software and digital restrictions: crippled, because a device that isn't under the control of its owner works against the interests of its owner. We know that Apple has built its operating system, OS X, and its web browser Safari, using GPL-covered work — it will be interesting to see to what extent the iPhone uses GPLed software.' Might there really be GPLed code in the iPhone? It's well known that OS X built on BSD, which of course uses the BSD license. Webkit is based on KHTML which uses the LGPL."
You replied to someone with the word 'MacFanboy' in his handle Do you really expect any logical arguements to work? Fanboy = religious zealot. Apple can do no wrong, ever, in this person's eyes.
That being said, I'm not sure whether the FSF has any grounds to make any accusations at all. Rest assured though that if they did, MacFanboys everywhere would find a way to explain/excuse it away.
So the iPhone isn't for you then. You won't buy one. I do have one serious issue with your list of rants. Your cell phone provider NEEDS to know where you are at least within the radius of a cell tower. That's kind of how it works. They may not need to store that info, but cell phones don't work without it. That said, I (and most people) aren't that paranoid, but if you are, then you have the option to not use the iPhone.
Finding other idiots on
The FSF is starting to sound a lot like M$. Unsupported and undocumented software/license threats.
I'm not sure that "it makes it harder for criminals to get away with crime" is a compelling argument to me. Seems to me an equivalent of your argument is "I don't want to put a license plate on my car, because then someone can see who went to a given location". So again, how does this change the status quo? And, please compare and contrast this to the (real) benefit of emergency responders being able to find you when you dial 911 from your cellphone, but don't know where you are? You'd be surprised - I've been on an awful lot of wild goose chases looking for people who called in themselves or for someone else, with a bad location; it's a tremendous waste of time of a lot of people to play "find the accident", and Crom help you if you give up and they turn up dead somewhere the next day. "Well at least their privacy was fully intact..."