Slashdot Mirror
FSF's "Defective By Design" Targets Apple Genius Bars
mjasay writes "At OSCON this year, MySQL's Brian Aker made this bold statement: 'Microsoft is irrelevant ... We're more worried about Apple.' The Free Software Foundation appears to have caught the hint, and has turned its attention to all-things-Apple with a 'denial of service' attack on the Apple Genius Bars. The idea is to completely book all Genius Bars and then ask the 'geniuses,' over and over again, a few questions about Apple's proprietary ways (while, apparently, real customers with support issues are left to flounder). Lost in this anti-Apple fervor, however, is the Free Software Foundation's complete and conscious failure to protect the web. Richard Stallman has long felt that software that doesn't sit on his desktop doesn't affect his freedom, but isn't the opposite true? Why is the FSF focused on Apple when the bigger concern should be Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, and other web players, a point made by Tim O'Reilly recently at OSCON?" Defective by Design is just one of many FSF projects, remember; it hardly seems fair to say that the FSF has been ignoring the implications of software as a service.
You know, this isn't cool - its just damn annoying to anyone who actually *needs* to use the genius bars. This will just cause the general public to hate the FSF.
Cemil.
by large segments of the population. Immature bullshit like this. You have a point, you can advertise it on your web site, but grow the fuck up. Doing shit like this will only turn people AWAY from your message.
Monstar L
I don't care what you think about Apple or the FSF's goals, but this is blatant harassment and possibly borderline terrorism.
Maybe Apple should have guards outside every Apple store requiring everyone who enters to sign an oath swearing under penalty of perjury that they are not associated with the FSF.
I hope Apple sues the FSF into the ground for this.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
(1) Interfere with people who need tech support.
(2) Piss off Apple customers and turn them away from F/OSS.
(3) Absolutely no change in Apple policy.
I'm glad to use F/OSS on my Mac, including a great deal of software produced under the FSF umbrella, and I have released software, developed on the Mac, under the GPL. The success of OS X has created a huge new market for those who develop on Unix-type systems. Braindead stunts like this really don't help.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Whatever happened to the concept of freedom of choice? Some may not like Apple or Microsoft but to act in a manner that denies others freedom to choose the product they want does not make sense.
I would go through the education route - educate people why buying from Apple/Microsoft is bad. Also would teach about the differences of open and proprietary software etc.
Best way to deal with the proprietary companies is by the bottom line of the companies not interfering with individual rights.
Aren't there whaling ships these doofuses could be badgering?
Will the FSF complain when Apple releases a software update that makes every Apple machine hit the FSF servers every couple of minutes?
I mean, if you're going to start a DDoS fight, don't complain when someone steps up and gives you the same treatment.
ah re-check the GPLv3 it addresses the web as service point..I think a few folks forgot to read it..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Waste the time of large numbers of people who have nothing to do with making decisions for Apple, and also the time of those people who actually need help with their Apple equipment.
That'll win hearts and minds for sure.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I'm appalled that the FSF could resort to such negative tactics.
They need to be setting a good example if they are to have any chance of convincing people of the importance of free software. This just plays straight into the hands of those that wish to paint free software advocates as over-idealistic zealots with no concern for practicality -- the exact opposite of what a group like the FSF should be doing.
John_Chalisque
While trolling online can be entertaining, trolling IRL sucks. The guys working at these places are probably just trying to get by in this world - they have nothing to do with Apple's corporate decisions. They don't need this kind of harassment. And while they don't need that kind of harassment, the other people who are locked out of actually getting, you know, actual legitimate support REALLY won't appreciate this move - if anything, it'll make them hate the FSF.
The best way to make anyone else look bad, is to suceed and make yourself look better.
FSF Fails.
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
In the past I've supported the FSF. This is not what I expect from such an organization.
Denial of Service attacks (of any kind) should not be perpetrated by honorable people. Does this have the general support of the FSF? What the hell do they think they are playing at?
Want to make Apple irrelevant?
It's fucking simple.
Make something better. Something that users want to use more than Apple products.
DOS attacks on genius bars is pretty infantile. And certainly won't endear the FSF to the people they are trying to reach.
Maybe FSJ was right, they are freetards.
SteveM
Act like complete jerks and make everyone's life difficult. Then, complain when people don't listen. Stallman is outdoing himself.
Maybe it will turn out like everybody's favorite troll's alleged experience at an Apple Store. Judging by the discussion here started by one of his sockpuppets, that probably won't fly very well.
I considered for a bit the kind of person who will actually join the FSF in this stupid little stunt. Remember, this does not require the anonymity of the internet. They probably share twitter's unique worldview and thought process. Afterwards they'll claim they were insulted and yelled at. They'll claim Apple is evil and their "behavior" is just proof of that. They'll call anyone who uses Apple products is a moron. They'll write blogs about it and link to the "official" postmortem analysis for years to come when arguing about the perils of companies who dare keep their commercial advantages to themselves.
In the end, as usual, they'll just prove they're completely out of touch with reality and painfully wrong. Unfortunately no one on the outside ever seems to be willing to notify them. Too many sacred cows wrapped in too many sacred mantles.
I think I'm coming if they do this in my city. I'm a projection masochist and wouldn't miss it for the world.
Apple's not perfect by any means, but this is just going to piss people off: not Apple, so much as Apple's customers and towards the FSF I imagine.
Sure DRM sucks, but in my opinion it was the price Apple had to pay in order to get the record industry to begin to see sense.
Any, while we're at it, Apple stores suit me just fine. I've bought Apple equipment in three continents and gotten over the counter warranty replacement twice at genius bars on the other side of the planet. Show me another consumer electronics company that can do that.
(Not Sony Ericsson, they won't touch my Euro cellphone in the US)
Perhaps the point here is to piss off some overzealous security guards into escorting them out of Apple stores and turn it into an "Apple hates civil rights as well as fair use rights" scandal ?
Draco Dormiens numquam titilllandus
Having previously worked at an Apple Store several years back (and even if I hadn't). I can tell you most people will probably get a "I'm sorry I can not answer that question. Please call corporate to get answers to your question."
Unless Apple has noticed this and given an internal memo of detailed responses to give out, this is the response you will get even from a store manager or supervisor.
Some geniuses may actually give you their own personal view on things but they wont represent Apple, nor will Apple necessarily stand behind said responses.
The only benefit of this is perhaps making more Apple customers aware of what the issues are, if they happen to overhear the conversation.
If you will be participating in this, I'd recommend staying polite. Being a stuck up customer trying to stick it to the man via a part-time, full-time non-corporate employee is not going to win you many friends or make people willing to listen to your cause.
.... ... }
int main (void) {
Apple does NOT (repeat that, NOT) prevent people from developing open-source applications. The FSF's rant was just that, an uninformed screed directed at a company that doesn't play ball with the FSF's politics.
Proof: Read the first link. I downloaded some source from the 'net, I compiled it, I modified it and compiled it again, then I installed it on my phone and it works just fine.
I had an email exchange with the author of the FSF's rant, and pointed out his errors. I think he and I still disagree, but to not even acknowledge the possibility that FOSS s/w is just fine and peachy on the iphone is intellectually dishonest. Not that that will stop the crazies from apple-hating... [sigh]
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
...only nerdier!
Most of the /. crowd isn't really into free software, they just hate Microsoft. So it's funny watching the responses to this.
Apple "Genius Bar geniuses" are retail workers, no matter how gussied up an Apple Store may be.
What kind of complete morons think they will accomplish something by harassing poor retail workers that have not one iota of control over what they're being harassed about?
Well... you've got no chance of making me use the stupid "GNU/Linux" name NOW.
'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
Maybe all the 4chan guys should come here and post pro-hitler/anti-jew comments!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
""and then ask the "geniuses", over and over again, a few questions about Apple's proprietary ways..."
This will only get them thrown out of the store. Apple still has the right to refuse service to anyone in their stores. The managers of the Apple stores will see this as a disruption to their operation and those that refuse to leave when asked, will be forcibly removed. Count on it.
If the FOS community wants to compete with Apple, make the software better. Make it easier to use for the average person. Make it available to more people by getting it installed on new machines or as the default installed OS from major manufacturers, not just as a hard-to-find option from Dell. Competing on a business level will yield better results than conducting a one geek jihad against a corporation that has used free software to it's advantage. Business is tough thing for most FOS geeks to get, but if you don't 'smarten-up', throw in the towel now.
As for Microsoft being irrelevant, that sounds like desperate talk. I've heard that before from companies that were doomed by their own hubris and failed to see the looming precipice. Ignore them and they will roll over you when you least expect it.
Sig this!
become the Judean People's Front?
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
And harass some cashiers at McDonalds. I'm sure whatever OS those machines are running isn't free.
I'm getting really tired of people bashing apple as "locked down" with DRM.
Last time I checked, it was the other guy who spent upwards of a decade re-engineering their entire os with the specific purpose of DRM, causing massive GFX and audio card driver instability and feature stripping which goes on to this day.. but back on topic here: apple isn't "locked down".
Their kernel is OSS, they allow the development of third party "haxies" for their OS and official apps (see chax, synergy, etc), and their unix based system serves as a large "main-stream" market for many products which would otherwise have a much smaller user base.
This is the reason why I use osx.. it combines the benefits of OSS with the benefits of proprietary, while retaining very few of the drawbacks.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Now we watch them fade into irrelevance.
Oh, their software will still be used. But they're no longer going to be ideologically influential.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
(1) Interfere with people who need tech support.
(2) Piss off Apple customers and turn them away from F/OSS.
(3) Absolutely no change in Apple policy.
Given that the majority of Apple's operating system consists of FOSS, does that mean that Apple customers will stop buying Apple? Good!
with such juvenile tactics that the free software movement continues to fail in its efforts to gain wider acceptance.
Time to rename the FSF to the Fascist Software Foundation. BSD License FTW!
cat
Another issue in such groups is the distinction between the workers and the bitchers. A few in such groups actually keep the thing going, either through in kind goods and services or direct monetary payments. Most are just idle supporters. A few just like to complain about those who do the work. If a person is creating a useful product that is consistent with his or her cause, what gives anyone the right to complain about it. That is how that person wishes to express his or her beliefs. If you think another line of action is appropriate, do it, but do something constructive, and don't just complain or throw a party. That does not solve anything any more than Woodstock prevented babyboomers from sending a new generation to an ineffective conflict. It might be fun to disrupt Apple stores, but that will not get rid of Apple. Just like MS, a useful product must be developed to dislodge MS. For instance, Amazon has DRM free music, so Apple will presumable have a harder time selling DRM music, and the iPod lockin that is the purpose of such DRM will be diminished p The google lockin will be broken by a better search engine. MS cannot do this. Apple has no reason to do so. Those who want to dislodge much do so. Some will say it impossible, but look at the crap that investors are supporters. The difference between this crap and new search engine is that a search engine that can dislodge google will be hard to create, and so people just choose to complain instead. It was the same with MS. MS was the simple solution, so most would pay the tribute, then complain about it. As far as I can tell, firms like Apple and the FSF were the only ones will to endure the discomfort necessary to get us to the place where MS might be vulnerable.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Genius: do you own an Apple Product?
Moron: uh, um, no.
Genius: Next!
or
Genius: do you own an Apple Product?
Moron: yes, here's my iPhone 3G. Why don't you guys support XYZ
Genius: Use the source, put your app on the AppStore
cat
Don't those jerks from FSF have anything better to do? Here are a couple suggestions:
1) Write better documentation for your open source apps.
2) Create better installers that don't require me to re-complie your software to get it to work right.
3) Spend some time trying to explain what your apps do to people who DIDN'T write them.
4) Get that "Mac killer" desktop you keep talking about done.
5) Take a shower and get a girlfriend.
I don't understand. I have been told the Macintosh "just works". How is it possible that anybody "needs" to use the Genius bar? I thought the Genius bar was just, I dunno, for the coffee and the light conversation with attractive, well-dressed people.
A link that I got in my email, to the full text of what the FSF is doing here.
From TFA:
Because this is the only way to get the entertainment industry to agree to allow its content to be distributed as openly as it has with Apple, and because Apple wants to make sure it makes money.
From the link:
Jobs is the largest individual shareholder at Disney, and he could insist that its films be DRM-free.
From TFA:
As to the third question, no one cares where you go. Get over it.
Anyone who believes this, where are you right now? Boxers or briefs? How long is your penis / how big are your tits?
If you feel uncomfortable sharing these details with me, keep in mind, you at least have some idea who I am. You have no idea who's tracking you at Apple or AT&T.
What's the recourse if this douche is wrong?
The fourth question? It's not a question. At least put a question mark at the end to pretend.
That's only because you didn't read the whole question. Again, from the FSF:
If Jobs really wants to see open formats, why doesn't the iPhone play Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora video and FLAC?
Anyone who says "because it would cost money" is a moron. All of these formats have free implementations -- in fact, as far as I know, all of them have free, patent-free, royalty-free, and MIT license at worst, which means if iTunes is at all pluggable, it should take one engineer maybe two hours to add support for them, if that.
I think this is kind of an extreme action, and I can't really support it. But then, maybe extreme actions are exactly what's needed. (And maybe that's just Dark Knight rubbing off on me.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Amazing, in ten years MSFT has gone from being a monopoly with its 90% OS market share, to becoming irrelevant with its 90% OS market share. I really love the new math.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
It's sad to see this target the part of Apple (geniuses) that is filled with people who genuinely want to help people. Worse yet, geniuses are specifically instructed to not deviate from pre-written answers to a lot of these questions, thus making any sort of discussion impossible. Instead of all these fools going through all the effort of making appointments, trekking to a store, waiting for their appointment, making their speech, then trekking home, why don't they just send a letter to sjobs@apple.com? Or write the record labels that put these restrictions into place at the beginning? At least then it'll be directed towards someone who can actually effect change, and it won't be at the cost of keeping tech support from people who actually need it. As long as the Defective By Design project continues to prefer showboating to actually effecting change, I'll continue to not take them seriously. Unfortunate, given that I'm on the same side as them.
Do they contain nuts?
There should be more links in the submitted article in order to guarantee that NO ONE RsTFAs. Not that RTFA is a tradition around here.
yea. in case you forgot, back in late 90s, while all big ad agencies were crooking their nose in regard to small webmasters, site owners, google have accepted them and started adwords/adsense with them. as you can remember, this was the final sling that catapulted google to the level that it can compete with microsoft. then all big boys, who were shunning small webmasters, site owners have fired up adsense/adwords like services. this is how we came to this point.
the point of this is, actually not google, but most of the web depends on such small webmasters, content producers, publishers - ie, basically 'the people'.
its not a good idea to upset them. especially if youre dependent on them.
i dont think anyone on google would be stupid enough to do anything that would damage the web and its freedoms as we know it, for it would be a very, very bad move in regard to PR with bazillions of small webmasters/community leaders/publishers out there.
Read radical news here
Why hasn't this article been tagged 4chan yet? Yeah, that's how immature they are being. I haven't seen anyone on here agree with what they are doing yet. Go back to /i/ and stop breaking things people legitimately use, just because they don't want to use yours.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Microsoft "irrelevant"? Those are odd words for a company that still maintains a 90% operating system market share, an equivalent market share percentage for office and productivity software, and what was (till a few weeks ago) the top selling current-gen video game console in the United States.
And that's not counting Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL Server, their development platforms such as Visual Studio and a host of other profitable and well known product lines.
I agree that some of their attempts at breaking into new markets (see Zune, Windows Mobile, Live) have been failures or mixed successes at best, but to regard MSFT as "irrelevant" because headlines about them are not plastering your favorite blogs seems to demonstrate a high disregard for the facts.
CRUISE CONTROL ON.....
THIS IS WHERE ME AND THE FSF PART AFTER 15 YEARS. I FINALLY AM ABLE TO EXPLAIN WHY UNIX IS SUPERIOR TO WINDOW, I AM MAKING INROADS TO LINUX CONVERSION NOW.
FSF YOU HAVE FUCKED IT UP FOR THE PEOPLE MAKING THE ACTUAL CHANGES AND NOT JUST RUNNING THEIR MOUTHS
So when you grow up, and stop acting like children, and deliver a desktop that doesn't suck you will convert more, now I just don't care.
You are all a bunch of whackjobs, I will now form my own FSF like organization, yup, it is time to fork the project.
(replying to undo mouse-o'd mod)
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
fsck-up things for everyone else to make a "point".. kinda like critical mass gridlocks drivers on their way home on random fridays to show how fun bike riding can be. Thanks for the assist, NOT.
What a brilliantly-conceived suicidal PR campaign. I can't wait until clang/llvm reaches the point where Apple can kick the FSF's stagnant compiler to the curb. Cut that weed off at the roots.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
...most of the replies would be of the "LOL" variety.
The FSF has laudable goals. I don't dispute that.
However stunts like this will only get them lumped in with other organizations that have used their good intentions to help build a couple of super highways to hell like PETA and Greenpeace. The only reason that the FSF is targeting Apple is because anything having to do with Apple gets press. Period.
Congratulations FSF! You are now the annoying guy on the corner shouting about the end of days.
It looks like the FSF saw the tactics of PETA and the ALF and somehow liked what they saw. What a bunch of geniuses.
I am genuinely flabbergasted by this idiotic tactic. If Apple were out to sink the free software movement, their PR machine could do it without breaking a sweat. Stunts like this would be like handing them the gun with which to shoot the fish in a barrel. Imagine if the FSF had tried some shit like this with Microsoft; Ballmer would be jizzing in his pants. I sincerely hope that the more mature supporters of free software will disavow this bullshit. If the FSF has any *any* hope of appealing to the public at large, they are going about it in the worst possible way, namely by coming across as childish and immature.
Seriously. I hereby challenge a representative of the FSF foundation to speak up and tell us if any of the money donated to them has gone to this 'project'. I've donated money to them in the past, but if they think trying to block Apple's customers from getting tech support is helping... well they can do it without my contributions from now on. I donate so that they can help out with lawsuits regarding consumer freedom, not so they can create frustration and suffering among people who just want somebody to diagnose a problem with their laptop.
Congratulations guys. You'll be getting not a cent more from me until it is clear that the money won't be wasted on this kind of asshattery.
Would it really be too much to ask to at least link to a page that explains what a "Genius Bar" actually is? I never encountered this term before...
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
If what the FSF is doing is wrong, why do you feel the need to deflect attention from Apple? When did Timothy start whoring for a corporation?
You know, years ago, when .NET was first released, I predicted it was part of a plan to end the dominance of open systems. With their code signing and runtime restrictions, they were going to require special permission for developers to write "unsafe" code. Microsoft was taking the first step toward making Stallman's "The Right to Read" into a reality.
But I was wrong. I picked the wrong villain.
It has been Apple who released a revolutionary computer that is completely locked down. It took Android and the jailbreak community to force their hand, make them admit that a web browser was not an SDK. And still, over a year after they announced it would be a real platform, the iPhone is as bad as any console - you need Apple's favor to run on the device, you have to sell your work through their channel, and they can cut you off on a whim. And the crapware that all the apologists said this was supposed to prevent still makes up the majority of the App Store. It has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with control.
And you still can't buy most music on iTunes without DRM. You can't play that music on other devices. You can't even buy certain kinds of third-party peripherals for Apple hardware.
If Microsoft is Sauron, Apple is Galadriel with the One Ring - beautiful and elegant, jealous and cruel. You will not have any others before me. You will love me and despair.
What will harassing some low paid sales clerks/techs do? Besides keep people who need help from getting it? The truth is that if these groups were legitimate and had legitimate complaints, they wouldn't have to terrorize the people who are supposed to be suffering.
Additionally, if you find people who have time on their hands to do this nonsense, you found a bunch of people who are not contributing to society.
Someone's going to say that the negative portrayal of this campaign is because of the Slashdot hivemind's love of Apple, but this would be pretty fucked up regardless of who they target.
Apple "Geniuses" are there regardless of whether anyone shows up or not, and they go home when the store closes. This doesn't cost Apple any time or money to deal with. The only people stunts like this hurt are folks who can't fix their own shit and who need help.
Screwing with them doesn't advance the cause of Free Software one bit. I'd be against this if they were doing it to Microsoft, too.
Game... blouses.
"Hi, I'm Prof. Hawking's assistant, and he asked me to buy him this drink. We'll both be taking a cab back to the lab."
It's Free Software zealots against Apple zealots. If we're lucky, there will be no survivors ;-)
>They might want to take a long and hard look at
>how well the RIAA campaign of "pissing off the
>people you are trying to convert" is working.
How does something the RIAA did justify the FSF acting like a bunch of jerks? This is a story about the FSF and Apple.
This kind of stunt will only serve to get a couple of snotty kids banned from setting foot on any Apple property, while irritating anyone with legitimate needs for service or support.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Folks,
If you really care about the FSF, you would shut down this project NOW. IANAL, but I am a former anti-trust economist. It is one thing to conduct a protest (such as a picket line) against the policies or actions of a company; it is another thing entirely to interfere with the business of a company (see "illegal restraint of trade"). A court will come down *hard* on the FSF for sponsoring a DOS action on the Genius Bars. The FSF could be fined, enjoined against actions, or both. In addition, the staff of the FSF and individual participants can be fined or jailed. The money that it will cost to defend the FSF against the lawsuits could be better spent on more useful causes. While Apple's lawyers are not the Nazgul, they are not far off the mark either and Apple has shown itself to be willing and able to use them.
Besides, even if consumers are turned off to Apple, where will they go? WinCE? Symbian? PalmOS? Zune?Are *any* of those better? Get real.
For crying out loud folks, this is a true freetard idea at its worst -- an action against a company that alienates the intended audience, accomplishes nothing, and makes the protesters look like unreasonable, wild-eyed radicals.
--Paul
Hey, I have a great idea! Let's protest the fact that a computer company makes computers and software that doesn't fit our ideology by crowding their stores, pissing off a bunch of employees who are paid to answer tech support questions instead of discussing politics, and making customers who need support miserable. That attention will really help us make software free - they'll all quake in fear because of us!
As much as I admire the goal of Free Software and like the tools produced under both Open Source and Free Software terms, that's just plain stupid. What a bunch of douches.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
needs to learn that there is a difference between being a revolutionary and just being really annoying.
One changes the world, the other just makes people hate you. They seem to be in the camp of people that think that as long as people hate you, you must be doing something right.
"Free Software" advocates are getting more and more obnoxious and extreme, and they were crazy assholes to start with.
I wonder how long before we see the first Free Software suicide bomber.
>Piss off Apple customers and turn them away from
> F/OSS.
Yeah, because they were so close to switching.
If the free software movement fails to rid the world of un-free software, it won't be for lack of insulting and pissing off their would-be users.
I'm sure this is seen as some sort of civil/corporate disobedience by the promoters, but to me it seems very childish. It's mostly harassment of employees who don't set the policies, and probably aren't allowed to talk for the company about such things, anyway.
This stupid denial of services prank also inconveniences people who have legitimate need of the Genius Bar services. Who are they trying to win over, exactly, and how do they think this is going to help?
The FSF may have started with high ideals, but has devolved into just another stupid religion. The only thing I'm having trouble deciding is if Stallman is more like the pope, or L. Ron Hubbard.
With so many negative replies on the subject, how about one that explores the positive side of this action by Defective by Design?
1) Apple is an obvious choice as a target. They are firmly grounded in the proprietary tradition, and though they advertise themselves as self-conscious, individuality-above-all, etc., they are only concerned about it at the external level.
2) The hype around iPhone naturally gives the story-hungry media the other side that they so desperately want to expose. This can only benefit consumers.
3) All the "it's just a phone" people who think the iPhone rush is ridiculous will happily consider other sides to the story.
4) Steve Jobs is the largest Disney shareholder. Therefore Apple is the new face of the old media monopoly, simply put.
5) Freedom in a digital world IS digital freedom (paraphrasing Moglen). That means providing open formats and open source, which were launched for the benefit of mankind.
6) Far too many techies have been singing Apple's praises, but what they can't see is 10 years down the road. Steve Jobs will no longer be running things (most likely due to his health). Quality will drop. And every proprietary string we allowed Apple to thread in 2008 will become a tangle of rope that binds the consumer (in reality a digital citizen) to inferior Apple products.
7) Welcome to 2018, when Apple are recognized as the New Microsoft.
Apple's carefully constructed marketing bubble is being pierced.
Why is it every software developer that gives away their software (or not) is a great person, but every Open Source(TM) "advocate" (which is usually NOT the software developers) is just a complete ass that pisses off anyone and everyone they encounter like some sort of cult member?
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Anyone who says "because it would cost money" is a moron. All of these formats have free implementations -- in fact, as far as I know, all of them have free, patent-free, royalty-free, and MIT license at worst, which means if iTunes is at all pluggable, it should take one engineer maybe two hours to add support for them, if that.
The question you need to ask, is what does Apple gain by supporting these formats? That is, how many more iPods/iPhones will Apple sell if they add support for Ogg or FLAC?
A very strong argument could be made that the incremental increase in iPod sales would be vanishingly small. (Both the iPod and the iPhone seem to be selling ok without them.)
So Apple gets no real increase in sales while at the same time having to write and maintain the code to support them. And, call me a moron, but that does cost money.
SteveM
All it takes is...
FSF: "You have bad policies!!!"
Apple: "Please leave the store."
FSF: "No! You have bad policies!!!"
[Apple guy calls security - they show up 3 minutes later]
Security: "You are coming with us."
FSF: "Fine. I'll leave."
Security: "You don't have the freedom of that option. The police are on their way to arrest you for being a public nuisance."
FSF: "Can I call my mom?"
THE END
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
FSF: "We protest Apple's proprietary ways."
Slashsheep: "Shut up you hippie zealot freetards! Leave His Steveness alone."
FSF: "We protest Microsoft's proprietary ways."
Slashsheep: "Onward Christian Free Software Soldier. Stick it to monkeyboy!"
By allowing this to be promoted under their banner, the FSF just lost some street-cred with me today.
I've been in high-tech a long time, and zealots have always been a problem. People with well-founded and strong opinions who find responsible ways to be influential are great in my book. People who are obnoxious, arrogant and harmful are a pain in the backside, and should be ignored or marginalized.
Today I'm a little less proud to be a geek.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
Isn't this playing into the Ghandi tactic that people keep accusing Microsoft of falling for?
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you -- FSF seems to advocate this step now
Then they lose
If this is how it works when Microsoft tries to take on Libre software, why doesn't it work like that when FSF does it to Apple?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Missed out on the Civil Rights movement, did we?
Didn't study Ghandi and Indian independence in school?
Never heard of Vietnam-era anti-war protests?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's absolutely right that people should be polite, and we emphasized that in the handout and instructions we wrote for this. Being a jerk to someone just showing up to work after a late night at the bar doesn't help anyone. And many of the Geniuses are probably at least sympathetic to us, and they probably think the Genius name is pretty funny too -- everyone has to make a living.
Our goal is to communicate a message to Apple, and we use the communications channels that Apple has provided in order to do this. It's interesting that people criticize making life difficult for the employees when we are doing something that disagrees with Apple, but not of the pro-Apple crowd. What about the 500 people waiting outside to get in when the new store opened? I bet that "made life difficult" for the employees too. Besides, isn't a day full of conversations about DRM going to be a pretty easy day for the Geniuses? They don't have to debug anything, or deal with people who are furious about not knowing how to use their computer, or about some legitimate data loss :).
Organizations and companies are set up to deflect and channel criticism. If we don't use the tools we have -- our voices, our dollars, and our ability to organize with others -- nothing will ever get changed. Organizing a concerted effort to deliver a direct message in a respectful but firm way seems like something consumers are supposed to do when they don't like what a big company is doing. I'm honestly interested to hear all the alternative suggestions out there for communicating this message to Apple. We can't just send letters to generic customer service addresses and wait quietly. We can't just stop buying Apple products but not say why. I think we're past that point -- Apple said they agreed with us a year and a half ago and yet now they are pushing more DRM than ever.
As for taking time away from Apple customers who need tech support, that is indeed regrettable but it's also inevitable. Time is a zero-sum game and Apple only has so much of it. Any customer going to the store takes time away from another. The 500 people waiting outside the store stopped me from getting in to have the conversation I wanted to have too. The question is, who is responsible for this? If Apple stuck to what they said they were going to do about DRM, or if they spent a little more money on their support services and some executives took a slight pay cut, this wouldn't be an issue. Pointing the finger at people using the option as provided to ask salient questions about the way Apple technology functions of Apple employees tasked with answering these questions is not the right answer.
So, yes -- we hope and expect that everyone will be polite, but firm. I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to other customers but in consolation I can offer the statement that if we succeed, there will be far fewer agonizing and annoying DRM-induced computer catastrophes for all of us to deal with.
You seem to have implicitly invented a useful word (and derivatives).
Adsperger (n): Someone who advertises or engages in publicity without any understanding of how the ads will be perceived.
Adspergize (v, transitive.): To alienate a readership through poor understanding of their response.
Adsperg (n): An advert that annoys the reader not from deliberate intent, but from an inability to understand the likely range of responses to the ad.
To a lesser extent, we all act in a similar manner at times, being offensive in public. This post could well annoy people with Aspergers Syndrome. Well, I can be an insensitive clod at times, and do suspect I have a touch of AS.
Oh well. "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn." Welcome to slashdot.
I hope any nimrod who does this gets arrested for trespassing and sued for malicious interference.
Yes, Apple's imperfect, it shares the problems of any big software company (and they ARE a software company, they wouldn't be selling all those Macs if they were running Vista), but it's bent over backwards for the open source community... even when its openness made it a target, even when it's been attacked by extreme members of the community.
The iPhone is a nice phone, but that's all it is. A nice phone. It's not the next big platform (look to Android or maybe OpenMoko for that). It's not an open source development platform, but neither are most cellphones.
Ten points of hippie-cred, dudes, but this smells more of Altamont than Woodstock to me.
You know what I like the most when people who try to save the world? When they ruin it.
My point being, the FSF is doing itself a big disservice while thinking they're fighting for their cause. All activists end up occasionally doing that, putting all their weight to go in the direction opposite to where it's in their best interest to go. A bit like anti-nuclear demonstrators in the 1980s who were trying to save the planet while screwing it harder by preventing the replacement of coal power plants with nuclear power plants.
The safest way to avoid making a false move next to not making a move is yet to move very carefully.
You just got troll'd!
If they show up to an appointment at a Genius Bar without an Apple product they need help with, the Genius will just tell them to come back when they do.
If they persist with questions irrelevant to whatever product they have brought (or no product at all), then the store would be within its rights to ask them to leave. First nicely, then by calling the police.
This is going to give the FSF a black eye in the Apple community.
Yeah, just like how everyone hates the people who clogged up white-only restaurants during a sit-in. Sometimes ideas are more important than whether or not you get instantaneous gratification for your creature comforts.
I'll never donate money to FSF again. This is one of the worst things they can possibly do.
I'm primarily a mac user but at the same time I'm a staunch advocate of F/OSS. I try to promote Firefox, Ubuntu, OOo, and other such projects whenever I see an opportunity. This action makes me reconsider my efforts. Why should I help an entity when in return they try to punish users like myself? FSF's rage against Apple is misplaced and idiotic.
How about producing a mobile device that blows the iPhone out of the water? Maybe something which can be monetized to keep both the developers and users happy?
This is similar to Jesse Jackson threatening to cut off Obama's nuts. His days of race-baiting and division are coming to a close so he attacks someone who actually produces results instead of whining all the time. FSF is getting desperate now that Apple has managed to produce a closed ecosystem absent of Microsoft's ineptitude. It was easy to riff on Microsoft for all these years because the blame was merited. It's not so easy now because informed users are choosing a platform because it works for their needs despite its closed nature.
Richard Stallman is a petty dictator who is afraid of competition.
"In 'Thoughts on Music', Steve Jobs said, "it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in 'open' licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC"."
to Mahatma-Mother-Fucking-Ghandi??
Not FSF if they do this, most people seeking help at Apple's Genius Bar are first time Mac users and I'm sure Apple will let them know it was open source evangelists that made them wait. Great way to spread the word!
First, there is this statement that Richard Stallmen is "not interested" in freedom for users of remote web services. The truth is much simpler. For a long time, there was valid concern that the ability to effectively utilize existing law to sustain such a license was perhaps weaker than the use of copyleft in more direct and traditional linking and code reuse scenarios. However, this did not stop the FSF (and Richard) from producing and endorsing the GNU Affero General Public License, which does try to address this very issue:
http://www.techspot.com/news/27937-Free-Software-Foundation-releases-GPL-for-web-services.html
The broader question of the FSF this addresses is the use of direct action. Sometimes direct action campaigns can be ugly to some. I happen to personally believe strongly in direct action activism. Often direct action campaigns are NECESSARY because conditions offer no other alternative, whether we speak about what used to be political freedom in this "thing" called America, or we speak about traditional technical and social freedoms, all of which are under fundamental assault.
Is this particular campaign a form of direct activism? If so, is it an effective one? These to me are the more important questions to consider.
Why not offer to be a free Genius Bar or tech support or something like that. If you can do something faster and better than them, that's the ultimate way of trumping them.
grow up FSF. Do something constructive.
Okay, I think it's pretty obvious why the FSF (and FOSS advocates in general) would worry about Apple rather than Microsoft. Open-source software matches up pretty well against Microsoft software - comparisons always end up being arguments about licensing and the like.
But Apple excels at all the things FOSS fails at. Apple cares about the user experience first and foremost, and puts great care into designing a program's interface. FOSS software, on the other hand, tends to have graphical UIs that feel, at best, as if they were bolted on as an afterthought - no surprise, given how many FOSS people feel about GUIs. And those few that really think about the interface - say the GNOME folks - pretty much just try to copy Apple's work.
Now as to the proposed action against the Genius Bars - it's hard to imagine there'll really be buy-in from enough zealots to pull this off, unless they decide to just specifically target a couple stores in particular. And extrapolating from the few true FOSS zealots I know, it's not going to be a very good photo op for FOSS. You probably don't want a lot of these guys out there being the defacto face of FOSS to the wider world.
#DeleteChrome
No, I'm certainly not. I'm merely challenging the statement: "Denial of Service attacks (of any kind) should not be perpetrated by honorable people."
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If this really is sponsored by the FSF, then I guess it's time to cancel my membership with them. I won't support an organization that uses these types of tactics.
I've been a member since 2002.
Anyone else here live in the Dallas area and want to harass these guys back?
There are two Apple Stores in the Dallas area. One is in the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano and the other is in the West Village in uptown Dallas (for the record, the latter is more accessible by public transportation).
Who else is up for going to one of the Apple Stores in the Dallas area once the FSF's plan gets into full swing and publicly decrying, insulting, and harassing these scumbags while they're trying to harass the Apple Store staff?
Let's see how these assholes like being harassed back.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
...by being a dick to the guy at the counter. He has precisely zero influence on which codecs go on your iPod, or which artists get their music DRMed, or onerous NDAs, or iPhone code-signing requirements, or anything else Apple does to irritate the defectivebydesign crew.
I hope some downtrodden waiter that's heard one too many tirades about veal hocks a big nasty vorbis in the soup of whatever "genius" thought this campaign up.
0 1 - just my two bits
Idiotic moves like this is what keeps The linux Hater going.
So. the Free Software Foundation is now the official sponsor of DOS prankings and such asshattery? Way to go, guys. Tie up a nice service that Apple provides to its customers with a stream of bozos all asking the same questions, all outside the scope of knowledge of the help desk people you are pestering.
You have surely found an inspired way to win friends and influence people. For a followup, you can spam all /. accounts with messages asking for contributions.
Defective by design, indeed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How exactly is this really any different than the bad Vista campaign? I used to post to a number of forums online to get help with a number of Vista problems I was having. Often I got spam about how if I just switched to Linux everything would be fine. When you respond to them... they claim that you hate freedom and that somehow using Windows is not "green." or eco-environment friendly.
The difference here of course is that the confrontation is face to face and in a public forum. Second, they are going after Apple, which is beloved by the media and not Microsoft, which is generally seen as the late 90s. I grow a bit tired of people who somehow assume Microsoft is evil and Apple is good. These people are a bit out of touch with reality. The truth is that all of this is very subjective.
I really agree that if you want to promote your product over either Vista or Leopard... build a better one, make it friendly to corporate needs and market the hell out of it.
I've been writing software for over 30 years. For the last several years I've used a MacBook Pro with OS X as my primary development platform. I choose to spend my own money to have my own development environment, with tools I've purchased myself, over the Windows and Linux machines provided by my employer. Why? Because I'm more productive with my Mac than any other system. My time is valuable to me (so why am I posting on Slashdot?). That's why I'll pay for best-of-class hardware, software, and support.
I'm reminded of my college days. One of my friends had a boyfriend who would drive 10 hours each way to see her on weekends. The problem was that he had a TR7 so he spent more time keeping the car running than he did with her. That's the state of free software. The time I could be spending tinkering with Linux I'm writing code and making money, or spending time with my wife and children.
I used to respect the FSF, now I think they are a bunch of retards. They are beginning to sound like the people who don't want the forest cut down but they live in houses made of wood and play guitars made of rare wood that has been cut down.
There are probably better addresses, but these are the two I emailed:
info@defectivebydesign.org; info@fsf.org
Ask them how much of your donation dollars are going towards this asshattery, and for an official statement as to what exactly they expect to accomplish by harassing minimum-wagers and customers seeking product support.
The FSF has never been known for being particularly smart when it comes to making people not hate them, but this is simply a stunning display of anti-competence. Unbelievable.
I call FUD... Or at least exaggeration. On the FSF's page, they describe it as going in and `challenging Apple', not deliberately wasting space.
Additionally, this wasn't posted by the FSF, it was posted by an FSF member name Johns in the community section of their website...
Mod parent up.
I agree that the Apple stand-in is silly and annoying. But I'm particularly annoyed by the FSF taking a hard line on the music I listen to (not that important in the grand scheme of things), and wholly overlooking SaaS/the cloud. Despite Slashdot softening my original post (which is its right), all Rob/Timothy did is point to a summit or two that the FSF staged. Guess what? Summits mean nothing. The FSF had its chance with GPLv3 and completely let the industry down, only providing a Band-Aid after the fact with AGPL, which was not its invention and which Richard, Eben, and others all publicly stated was a minor (and kludgy) salve. I asked Eben point-blank at OSBC2007 about why the FSF had gone soft on network services (which was originally part of the definition of "distribute" in the original GPLv3) in GPLv3. His answer? They had to compromise in order to get parties like Google to the table. When was the last time you heard the FSF capitulate like that, especially to a business interest? As more and more software moves to the web, we're still without a good license to protect freedom. Instead of worrying about one company's device, the FSF should be worried about the cloud services that huge swaths of people are using...including the FSF.
Play up cross-platform compatibility - as a long time apple user we seek that out. Even MS doesn't offer full cross-platform compatibility with the Apple Products it has. (i.e. Exchange server compatibility in Entourage, VBA support in Excel 2007) Apple is just as bad with lousy compatibility in iWork.
Many Mac users are seriously looking at NeoOffcie (Open Office would be a contender once it actually is as easy as NeoOffice). Other apps that have been very tempting are Inkscape and Scribus.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Yes, it can easily take half-an-hour to reinflate a few truck-sized tyres with a 12-volt "emergency" portable air compressor of the type you see at auto parts stores, Walmart, etc. Those compressor can develop considerable pressure, but delivers appallingly low volume. A bicycle-type pump is faster.
Yes. In a way Apple sells a 'way of life'. Just like Harley Davidson. I remember a PBS segment where they interviewed a number of Harley owners (this was about 10 years ago). Most said they bought a Harley for the sound and because it's "... a Harley!" And most said they carried a tool set around and didn't mind things like leaking oil and such "... because it's a Harley!" Luckily, Macs don't leak oil ;)
Thats the problem. It's not the FSF, it's a member of the FSF blogging on their site. No one seems to get that. Look at the address: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/apple-challenge . That said, the blogger is completely insane.
block Apple's customers from getting tech support
There's the kicker right there. Fine if you want to picket outside, but it's a courtesy that Apple provides personal tech support -- not the most glamorous of jobs -- from fairly knowledgeable people who choose to use their knowledge to help people. Abusing those people (ignoring the abuse of the free service for the moment), is akin to tormenting a seeing-eye dog for fun. If the FSF supports harrassing people, it shouldn't be the poor frontline customer-facing people who don't have a whole lot of pull in the first place -- get attention the right way -- you'll want to read to the last part of the last section to see what I mean.
Disclaimer: I worked in tech support with a bunch of very knowledgeable people for about 4 years. People with that combination of smarts and willingness to help is pretty rare -- consider the (albeit at least partly justifiable) range of complaints about 'family tech support' on this forum.
This, to my understanding, is not the FSF. It's a blogger with the user name Johns on their site (Just look at the address: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/apple-challenge ) .
The conspiracy side of me wonders if Microsoft set this up. Think about it: Microsoft does some open source stuff, 24 hours later there is a lots of attention to this which all ignores that it is not the FSF but a blogger. Is Microsoft trying to pull a open source coup?
I get the feeling that if it was a Microsoft bar being held up then everyone would side with the FSF but because it's the iDrone's Apple something must be done!
WTF? Seriously?
Why not... I don't know... JUST DON'T BUY THE FUCKING THING if it pisses you off so much. Seems like a better idea to me than clogging up the "Genius Bars" - whatever that's suppose to be.
I haven't bought an iPhone because I don't like the restrictions placed on it. Seems like a no brainer to me. Why bitch and moan to Apple and try to fuck them over AND THEN TURN AROUND AND GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY? That doesn't make a bit of sense. If you're so angry with the company, why the hell would you patronize them?
I've been using OSX for the past two months, and I'm growing more and more to hate it. I really wanted to like it and went into it expecting great things... but all I've found are outdated modalities for the user interface, poor or no driver support for common hardware (not necessarily Apples fault, but none the less there it is), lack of applications, extremely poor networking support when talking to a bonafied Samba server running on Linux (which works just fine with other Linux, Windows and XBoxes), extremely poor networking support when trying to ACT as a Samba server, extremely lacking or poor "bundled" applications... the list goes on. I want to like OSX and I'm going to continue to use it in an effort to try to get past all the crap... but as it stands now, I don't see very much to convince me that OSX is anything special, like it's made out to be. So no, I won't be buying a Mac either.
My point is, the company is releasing crappy products at ridiculous price points. They are defective by design in regards to DRM, and they are defective by design by poor design. I won't give them my money, and I won't reccomend them to my family and friends. But I'm sure not going to stake out the Apple store and try to wreck their business to get them to "fix" their junk. I just won't give them money and I will convince my friends and family to give them no money either. Seems like a logical solution here...
You know what - what free alternative is there to the iPhone? I mean, seriously? Maybe there would be a real and FOSS alternative if Stallman would contribute his time to writing one instead of cheerleading stupidity like this. But hell, he still hasn't finished Hurd, and he's been working on that since I was in college 20 years ago.
You already identified one hole -- open source ogg decoding is likely very fast. At least some of these codecs do work on iPods, as proven by RockBox.
But you're also assuming that:
Apple doesn't do routine security audits -- or that this one feature would require its own audit.
Apple doesn't have a rigorous regression suite for iTunes. (Note: You specifically said regression suite.)
Apple's code -- or the open source code -- is written so poorly that integrating the two would instantly cause 100 crashers.
That basically leaves legal BS. But at this point, how much damage would they cause? It cost you almost nothing to implement it, and it'll cost you almost nothing to remove it.
I understand that it takes more than prototyping. What I don't understand is why there is such an insane gap between the prototype and the working product.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
... er, I mean genius' shouldn't they be smart enough to shrug off the DoS?
When they did this to Microsoft there was no mention. When they do it to apple everyone whines. I noticed a post where someone proclaimed that they gave money to the FSF but because of this they are going to stop. That person is a hypocrite. I think the FSF does a lot of bad things and this is just one in a long line (that doesn't support open source). Apple and Microsoft are partners in crime as far as proprietary software is concerned but when it's apple the fan boys come rolling on out.
Looks like its time for Apple developers to start submitting bugs into Linux projects.
One good deed deserves another. Lets see how buggy we can make Linux.
These guys are jerks.
Yes, because segregation, colonial oppression, and an unjust war are totally the same thing as a company making software that you don't like.
I don't like Apple's policies with software on the iPhone either. Solution? Don't buy one. There's always OpenMoko, Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, and, yes, even WinMo.
If you don't like the iPhone, don't use it... it's that simple.
Oh God! I'm so tired to read these kind of stupid things from a free software evangelist...
I even dropped a free software project because I'm tired of things like this one.
Build your world, your stuff... but let people to choose what they want to use and stop giving a bad name to your community!
Recave
You know, I'm a 22 year old developer who has always used and supported open source software but crap like this puts a bad taste in my mouth. Just like people have a right to free speech and a right to make free and open source software, people have a right to make closed sourced proprietary software. THEY did the freaking coding work, why do you get to tell them they have to make it open. If you don't like it don't use it. Stuff like this is increasingly making me feel like I do not want to be a part of the open source world and it impedes open source and free software progress.
This will only serve to confirm the stereotype that linux fanboys are a bunch of communist, anti-capitialism, anarchist, extremists.
Profit on software enables accountability for quality and support. Companies won't do that for free. And there aren't enough out of work programmers or enthusiasts to support the entire software infrastructure for free, with any sort of quality.
If your product is superior, you won't need 'evangelism' or stupid stunts like this to promote it.
Take out a freakin' ad or something.
This action is no more than a denial of service attack, and is no different that a script kiddie bringing their web site down. It will only turn real people against them.
Do these people really think that all these questions will be reported up the chain? There is no way this can make any difference.
(donning multiple layers of asbestos)
When it's Apple it's a sin, yet if it's about anyone else, it's no problem?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Going from GPLv2 to what we know now as AGPLv3 would remove the right for GPL developers to have private modifications.
Remember, GPLv3 was always an update to GPLv2 -- adding AGPL-style elements would have caused far less projects to switch to GPLv3, which was the larger goal, due to Tivoisation and other fixes in the updated license.
As I understand it, AGPLv2 was written by Eben for Affero -- a company headed by Henri Poole, who is on the FSF board. While incompatible with GPLv2, there was always a plan to migrate AGPL provisions to a GPL compatible license. Which is what happened.
The fact that the FSF sought feedback from the community on the issue shows humility, in my opinion.
Join the Free Software Foundation
IMO people do go overboard in describing anyone who knows what a computer is and what it does as "clever" or whatever and IMO a genius is someone who comes up with something that no-one had seen before (eg special relativity) not some prole who can fix a mac...sheesh
Debian FTW
Here is a link with a few addresses to send your thoughts on this stupidity:
http://www.eff.org/about/staff
Spam deserves spam.
I'd have gone to an Apple store and kicked these fucktards in the balls.
It's kind of like people who give tellers at banks a hard time when it's the bank manager they should be speaking to. Honestly, they're going to give the customer service employees a hard time - thanks a lot, like we need the help. Note to all those planning on doing this "protest": if you've worked retail, you should know what kind of day this will turn into... You'll wind up upsetting the customers and the customer service reps for your show, stressing everyone out (but mostly the Genius Bar employees - yeah, like they chose that name) who'll need to work doubly fast to catch up on their workload later. They'll offer whatever answer they know off the top of their heads - as their PRIORITY is fixing your hardware/software *problem* (as in it doesn't work as advertised, not freaking policy) and then have to go and ask their managers about any details. And they're there to *help* people with problems, not sell them anything (that's not their primary job description), market anything or play PR flack/marketing. If you want to take your protest somewhere, go to Macworld or - even better - the Developers Conference, where the media will be there anyway and it's *their* party.
This is like going to McDonald's and bitching at the drive thru attendant for the amount of fat and calories in their food.
Not only is it not productive in any conceivable manner, but the public at large will look at them as a bunch of kooky assholes who deserve to be ignored. Which is largely true.
"Let's hurt them physically!"
"Let's do the exact same thing, but to them, for doing such things makes them BAD PEOPLE, and they should know!"
"No more money from me! FSF is supposed to be against Microsoft, not Apple, it's in the EULA!"
You silly hypocrite persons. :)
The iPhone doesn't "restrict my freedom", I don't own one. Even if I did it would be my choice and I could very easily choose to buy something else. It seems to me these folks simply don't like the product and should avoid it.
Annoying the poor saps who have to work at the apple stores seems like a childish and unproductive thing to do..
This campaign is going to be catching Apple representatives lying to their customers. How is that a bad thing? It's even good for the consumers that you claim are being harmed by this. And it's not like people will waste time waiting in lines; those meetings are scheduled.
The CNET article, by the way, was idiotic trolling. For example, the author truncated out the question part of question four, then complained that it wasn't a question. Seems like the author hastily skimmed what is only a couple pages of text, then wrote his article, which would explain why he mischaracterized the campaign so badly.
What's disturbing is how many people were willing to just accept this characterization as truth without even checking. I guess that's why we see so many political attack ads.
All Apple have to do is:
Personally I'd rather the FSF didn't waste my contributions in this way.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
That sort of harassment and stupidity towards a profit-making company is no surprise to those of us who grasp Richard Stallman's outright, self-professed hatred of profit making. The FSF is simply an extension of his socialist ideology. Those who think that there's a compromise, some middle ground, between capitalism and socialism, are going to be increasingly well educated by the actions of consistent socialists who will teach them otherwise.
The iPhone's App Store provides a great system for distributing and selling software with many side benefits that have been ignored (outside of Apple). For example, what are the odds of a virus-laden program getting too widely distributed? Once detected, distribution can be immediately halted and its signing key revoked. What if you're a software author looking to earn a living and would rather not make it easy for modern socialists to rip off your work? Again, the secure signing and central distribution helps ward off casual copying.
On the consumer side, it's ridiculously easy to browse and install iPhone apps without any computer interaction. There is no such model for any other smart phone. The net result is a paucity of software, and what exists is really expensive. There is no shortage of iPhone apps, and the number will continue to grow, because it *is* such cool hardware and software (absolutely unsurpassed GUI.) Most of these apps are inexpensive, a large number cost nothing.
As a result of having better stuff, Apple is growing. If FSF has a problem with that, they should stick with emitting their propaganda rather than harassing Apple employees and wasting the time of their customers.
They've convinced me!
FSA == Defectives.
The FSF are just encouraging people to engage in a completely legal activity. Time for a cold shower - especially the guy equating it with "terrorism". FSF are right in bringing attention to Apple's disregard for freedom. I will watch the response from Apple with interest.
I usually very quick to go pro-privacy but in this case I think there is an issue that FSF is missing.
Historical evidence indicates that the assault on privacy is far greater from internet resources than localized software. That's an evolutionary process that has been seemingly missed.
As for the issues with iPhones and ITunes. Over 95% of my music is burned from CD's. They still have better sound quality than an MP3 player and I still have a greater (sense) of ownership with a physical disk.
iPhones -- hell they can make whatever rules about it they want to. I won't care until they either, don't tell me that they are tracking my every move, or decide to change their policy after I've bought a contract. I've gotten into the habit of routinely turning my phone off but usually for the purpose of being polite to my surroundings and to save power.
I don't know, I'm more worried about the big internet companies who pull all my information togething into one point of information.
Being a hardcore MySQL user, having used it and promoted it to every customer I ever had, and every company I worked for, even when it didn't had all the advanced features that it has now (I'm talking about pre V3 versions) And Being also a longtime user of DBDesigner and longtime user too of the MySQL GUI Tools (I use them since they were in the first beta stages)
I have to say I'm very disappointed with the work MySQL has done with the binding of MySQL GUI Tools with DBDesigner creating the first branch of the workbench, that never worked well in Unix, and was a nightmare to compile. Then, accepting that it was an ugly hack that couldn't be fixed and starting a new Branch that is windows-only and depends on Microsoft technologies!!, promising a Unix version with no specific date of release, almost 2 years after the windows version is working just fine, and just ignoring users on the forums asking about trying WINE to run it on Unix. A Software that got where it's right now thanks to the GNU Project. MySQL fully depends on GNU to exist, even on Windows (Starting with GCC, but it goes way beyond just the compiler). They also where they are because of the support that the community gave them, promoting and contributing code and bug fixes/reports. Providing binding to other Free Software like PHP/Perl etc.
They are what they are thanks to GNU.
And now, since a lot of windows-dependant pseudo coders that only know VB and can write crappy PHP or use proprietary code generators in their XP boxes upload their low quality code to Unix-based hosting providers, They decide that it's a priority to support this tools on Windows, so they won't loose the big RAD market arround PHP/MySQL (And I'm not talking about serious RAD for Real programmers that are sick of wasting time on simple backends, websites, and other simple, repetitive DB driven app, I'm talking about all the guys out there with no knowledge, but a lot of marketing and cheap prices that keep lowering the bar for code quality, and that Can't write code without their graphic DB Designers, their GUI-driven code generators like codecharge, and that keep flooding the web with crap like flash, ASP, activex, IE specific code, frontpage or dreamweaver pages, and other kind of crap that eventually force the real coders and real admins to fight and hack arround it to keep them working because management believes in the cheap well-sold pseudo-programmers because their IQ and knowledge is closer to the management stuff)
So they go sell whatever the market is asking for and forgot of the guys that are actually supporting their business.
Imagine, MySQL, what would happend if all Free Software applications decided to drop MySQL support and start backing up PostgreSQL instead?
Imagine no PHP, no PHPMyAadmin, no asterisk, no CMS systems like Mambo, etc, etc.
Even worse, Distros not including packages of mysql anymore.
No free code contributed by the community.
No bug fixes.
And to top it all, if someone found a bug would release a 0 day exploit instead of a bug fix.
You would be out of business in no time.
Instead, you forget about the people that helped you, and release your tools only for a platform that belongs to a company that is the number 1 enemy of FreeSoftware, and also competes with MySQL (or at least tries) with they shitty SQL Server?
Bad move guys.
I'm more worried about the insiders than about our enemies.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Er, you might want to check that. Darwin hasn't been open source in a long time.
Yeah, not since OS X version 10.5.4 ...
Oh wait, that's the current version.
The source, PPC and Intel (gasp! that's unpossible!) for Darwin can be found at Apple - Darwin - Releases
Perhaps you just need a bit more practice with this new "Google" thing. I'm sure you would have found it on your next search.
SteveM
Ironically, Apple's refusal to license FairPlay DRM to its competitors has done more to kill the viability of DRM than any campaign by the FSF.
To recap:
RIAA to Apple: "You must use DRM on the iPod!" ... time passes... Apple utterly dominates the sale of music online...
Apple: "Okay"
RIAA to Apple: "Uh, how about letting your competitors use your DRM solution? We want to weaken your market power so we can gain the upper hand".
Apple: "Sorry, no."
And thus the music industry was forced to move to unprotected music formats.
Apple: ok, FSF, you are right. Here's what we are going to do.
We will ask every customer to switch to GNU/Hurd.
But of course YOU will be in charge of the support.
Hey, come back! What's wrong?
{{.sig}}
I think it is an illusionary distrust of FSF towards Apple. I hope Apple wont jump on FSF now :)
If FSF imagination does not match reality where Apple simply rules, then they have no right to do such a ballant arguing.
They should get HURD released first :P
What they make that people want to buy is software.
Their business model is to sell hardware at a high margin, but people *buy* the hardware because of the software. They wouldn't spend 40% more than a comparable pc or handheld if it was running Vista or Windows CE.
This is not a rare model, either. Cisco hardware is not exceptional, people buy it because it's running IOS. Cisco is a software company with a hardware business model. Network Appliance hardware is nothing special, but you can't run the Filer software without it. They're another company with a hardware business model.
I've not been an overly big fan of the GPL for years, not because of the licensing. I found the GPL to be a fair license. I found it nice to work with for projects where it's saved me hours of not having to recode the wheel. I find the sharing of code back to be a fair cost of barter economics. But it's the politics of the bigwigs in the movement that has always kept me at an arms length and never fully embracing the GPL wing of the OSS movement. Folks like RMS want all software to be their way: the GPL way or the Highway. This is really no different than Microsoft or Apple wanting it their way or the highway. To them, I don't think it is no longer about freedom as it is choosing their way.
Frankly this was one of the reasons why I adopted FreeBSD as my server platform of choice years ago. I get the freedom without the politics. Instead of sending money to the FSF, I buy a set of CD's or DVD's with each release to support the FreeBSD and OpenBSD projects.
I've been hired to integrate several systems into 1 POS system. Originally that project was going to be run on Linux based systems. Come monday, it will be BSD. Or maybe even designed for OSX on Mac Mini's. After all, Java and PostgreSQL run on Mac.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Apple corporate offices: 408-996-1010
Bug reporter: http://bugreporter.apple.com/ (requires free online Apple Developer Connection membership)
I'm a Mac developer, and when we developers have a problem with Apple policies (no forum to discuss iPhone amongst ourselves due to NDA?) we file bugs at the bugreporter.
These channels might result in the message getting to people who actually have a say in the policy. Of course, Apple's free to not listen.
And it preserves their customers' freedom to get help with their products.
This is about freedom, am I correct?
I'm a little puzzled.
Though, being a former Microsoft Windows user now converted Apple, I'm biased. The first thing that occurs to me is how much OS X has done for the desktop. I see some distributions out there mimicking what Apple does in some ways.
Once you start using one, you feel like you've been in the stone age (in my case, with Windows).
Yeah, Apple does have a crappy track record when it comes to their "public image" - I once got a posting "moderated" (read: deleted, hand slapped) for being critical of their neglect in the iPhone area. But despite that, I look around and see how much Apple has done for the consumer market... and well, that's just good ol' fashioned capitalism.
I remember a time when they weren't doing so well. And now the tables have turned. I say good for them.
SO... I'm interested in more specificity about the original article here - why attack Apple? I've actually used the Genius Bar before (yeah, I just couldn't figure it out on my own) and they were really helpful; no complaints here. I'd be pretty pissed off if some lunatic were wasting their time, making me wait, with their ranting about corporate policy - where clearly the poor guys in the Genius Bar have nothing to do with it. That argument needs to be taken to Cupertino.
Okay, I'm done ranting. I just love the Apple product line. Since recently converting to the product, I've been much, much more productive and generally very happy at using the desktop once again.
blah blah blah ... 90% of what market? The server market? Get real. Anytime I see that 90% figure I assume that you're comparing Microsoft to Apple and RHEL/OpenSUSE. When is anyone going to count the 30 slackware servers I ran for nearly 10 years.
The same shit's true at home, nobody will ever count the 4 computers I am currently running Linux on. Just because most instances of Linux are hard to count doesn't mean you can just ignore those boxes when you talk about the operating system market.
Mod down.
This is why the FSF never has been, and never will be, taken seriously.
Keep tilting at windmills, dudes. I love to point and laugh at stupid people.
Did you read the article? This is about Apple's DRM GPS, and proprietary formats on the iPhone.
Join the Free Software Foundation
Maybe they took their cue from Greenpeace. Attack the company that's always the center of tech news in order to piggy back your concepts onto their popularity. Never mind that Microsoft's abuse of it's monopoly has set back the desktop computer about 10 to 15 years, let's accost the company that people actually went out of their way to choose!
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
I find the irony of any oraganization associated with MySQL criticizing someone else as being "Defective By Design" completely hillarious. Judging by the quality of MySQL itself, it seems to me that "Defective By Design" is in fact their own software development mantra. --The Dan
Sorry, who's associated with MySQL?
Join the Free Software Foundation
Apple will actually take note of these questions, and instruct the genius bars to simply pass out a flyer with the company line to anyone who asks, and then take the next customer in line.
Some zealot will probably spend a half hour or more in traffic on the way to their appointment, burning 12 gallons of gas in their 1975 Pontiac (because they refuse to buy a newer car because it has proprietary software), only to be dismissed in 30 seconds by an Apple employee...
What a complete waste...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
User: I'm having a problem getting my sound card to work with Linux.
FSF Genius: That's GNU/Linux, you insensitive clod! NEXT!
User: I'm having a problem getting my sound card to work.
FSF Genius: OK, which distro?
User: Fedora...
FSF Genius: NEXT!
User: I'm having a problem getting my sound card to work with Debian.
FSF Genius: OK, are you using stable, testing or unstable?
User: testing. I needed the newer version of Firef...
FSF Genius: NEXT!
User: I'm having a probl...Oh my god, don't you ever shower!
FSF Genius: HEY, DON'T JUDGE ME, OK? NEXT!
User: I can't get my sound card to work with Debian Etch stable.
FSF Genius: Well, you have the source code. Fix it yourself. Oh, and make sure you send your changes back to us, OK? Buh-bye. NEXT!
It's a very dark ride.
I was seeing a TV program tonight about the history of the car bomb.
In the context of the history of one car bombing in the US, the program related how many students were furious about the Vietnam War and became politically involved either in demonstrations, political activism and, regrettably, even a few in acts of terrorism.
That got me thinking: were are all the protests, demonstrations and outrage in the young of today? How it comes that the pair of asshats liars that are Blair and Bush got re-elected? How it comes that the recording companies pull all the stunts they do and nobody bats an eyelid?
And here, in this very thread I got my answer.
Everybody cares tremendously about their shiny iPods, crippled and expensive iPhones and eye candied powerbooks. There is no outrage at having been had by Jobs & Co. who basically dictate what you can do with the music you buy (sorry, rent) or the hardware you paid for. The wonderful new phone is yours, but well, not really, because you will do as you are told, which is why the scumbag companies you support with your money can go and bribe politicians: so you can get your toys, but only in the ways the manufacturers want.
As soon as somebody pickets the precious genius bars (gosh, how you guys can support such idiotic names) all what matters (cultural freedom basically) goes out of the window.
Lets Keep our Apple stuff, and gosh, by all means keep using the "genius bars" (hideous name if there was ever one). We deserve that organizations like the FSF disappear (go ahead guys, stop your membership, who is going to defend your technological sorry asses then?).
We clearly don't need the FSF since the circus part of the equation in our modern societies is very neatly covered.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Hm. This is why I don't pay for a subscription to slashdot. (scratches ass) ok, time to haul out the trollbait. Just be sure to wash your hands after sprinkling it around.
Ok, let's play it out:
Why are people leaving the industry again?
An organization dedicated to promoting open sharing of code among tech professionals has gone horribly wrong. Now, they decide that disrupting a legitimate business that many people love will make them somehow relevant. Have they been drinking the Kool-Aid at Greenpeace?
Apple owns 10% of the market, yet FSF believes that they must be targeted for attack, disrupting tech support for hundreds of non-techies who just need to know how to set up their printer. Why? Because Apple isn't doing everything that FSF wants.
For shame, FSF. You've lost all support from another old-time hacker who once believed in you.
ron lussier / lenscraft / fine art giclee prints/ sausalito / ca
Seriously, they can't be serious about developing Hurd if they don't have a MySpace profile. No wonder it's taking so long.
The FSF always needs some publicity stunt to justify its existence and keep themselves in the public eye.
This really shows them to be the assclowns everyone was afraid they might be...
Way to go Stallman! Open source moves along without you just fine so continue demonstrating your irrelevence.
The fact that the FSF is not focusing on google and yahoo, etc is simply not true. After talking to Brad Kuhn, Executive Director for the FSF, he stated more than 18 months ago that the FSF considered google and other web-based businesses major threats/targets for action. Although google often donates and supports free software projects, their actual contributions are minimal compared to the revenue that they generate from use of free software. Further evidence is found in their 3rd revision of the gnu public license adding a provision to require the open sourcing of server side applications exposed through client side interactions.
If they keep the genius bars stocked with spray deodorant and soap, the feetards won't come anywhere near it.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
And it preserves their customers' freedom to get help with their products.
When you said NDA on a supposedly open platform, freedom went out the window. That is lock-in, plain and simple.
You wonder why people are still jailbreaking or buying Nokias enmasse. Here is your answer.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Just because it is Apple does not justify measures taken by similarly restrictive vendors.
On the consumer side, it's ridiculously easy to jailbreak, install, and use unrestricted iPhone apps without any computer interaction
Fixed that for you. That also takes care of the other paragraph on the BREW-like App Store.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...while they collectively clean your bank account with you in jail.
While they get off relatively clean, you're serving time for multiple accounts of assault and battery.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.