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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
(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.
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.
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.
While I agree that the concept used here is very silly and could likely do more harm than good, I think perhaps the moniker of "borderline terrorism" is a bit overblown. Perhaps there needs to be a Godwin v2.0 with terrorism as the focal point.
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?
this is blatant harassment and possibly borderline terrorism.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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
Most of the /. crowd isn't really into free software, they just hate Microsoft. So it's funny watching the responses to this.
Crap like this stunt are what make it difficult to have any kind of serious discussion of the merits and drawbacks of using open source software without being branded a Luinix Zealot. Seriously, if you're going to advocate freedom you should at least understand what the word means. It shouldn't mean that everyone is required to produce and use exclusively modifiable software. It should mean that everyone has the right to choose the best software for their intended outcome.
For example, there are Linux distributions which don't carry any kind of closed-source or proprietary software in their package managers. I respond to that by choosing not to use those distributions. I don't campaign vehemently against them and ignore other possibilities. Right now I'm on Windows because it works for me and what I want to accomplish. The FSF sounds like an organization which would desperately like me to not be free to choose Windows. I tried Ubuntu, and it just wasn't my thing.
Can these zealots at least acknowledge that it's possible for more than one opinion to exist in the world?
SRSLY.
The assholes doing this don't care about that. They think they will impress Apple by wasting time and money. They think they will influence Apple's customers and bring the customers to their side.
Basically, the people doing this are self-righteous, arrogant, stupid assholes.
And, unlike so many who support them, and some of those who oppose them, I am willing to stand behind my words because I am not a coward, anonymous or otherwise.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
If you can't tell which word is being used improperly in the above sentence, then having it explained to you won't help.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
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...
does that mean that Apple customers will stop buying Apple? Good!
If you're a Microsoft fanboy, then I have nothing to say to you.
If you're a UNIX/Linux supporter, however, you need to realize how important Apple has been to you. By maintaining a just-large-enough marketshare during the past two decades, Apple has kept alive the idea in the general public that Windows isn't the only possible operating system, keeping the door openn for Linux. Every ad for MacOS is also an ad for "not Windows" and therefore an ad (in part) for Linux and Unix, an ad which the Linux/UNIX community can't afford to run by itself. Everytime a group of Apple fans force a company to support a second operating system in their organization, they make it easier for Linux users to force them to support three.
Apple products aren't perfect, but they are good enough to hold off the behemoth, and that's been worth something.
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.
Nothing takes âoeone engineer maybe two hoursâ to add support for. Software engineering in a professional environment just doesn't work that way.
Moreover, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora and FLAC are uncharted waters: if anybody was going to decide that, actually, maybe one of them DOES infringe on a patent or two, who better to target than Apple? Go after the one with the deepest pockets. With MP3, MP4 and Apple's own CODECs, they know pretty much exactly where they stand.
Perhaps they could dispatch Apple Legal into doing a risk assessment for it, but by the time you've got that and had the code written, integrated, tested, and so on, you've likely spent far more money than you'd make back selling the iPhone to the three people who care deeply about Ogg Vorbis support but don't care about the rest of the OS being closed.
In other words, supporting those formats makes absolutely no sense to Apple.
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.
Yeah, after paying Apple $99 for the priviledge, and forcing every one of your users to do the same if they wish to retain the point of using Free Software, or if you don't want to go through Apple to distribute your app to anyone willing. But of course, that's just "politics", and I'm a "crazie" who's "intelectually dishonest" for even mentioning that, right?
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
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."
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.
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
It took Android and the jailbreak community to force their hand, make them admit that a web browser was not an SDK.
That's a wild & unsupported claim. A much simpler hypothesis is that the SDK wasn't ready to ship, the App Store wasn't ready to go live, and the browser was just used to placate developers and buy some time.
Your interpretation may make the jailbreak community feel great about themselves, but it fails the law of parsimony, don't you think?
(Occam's Razor)
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
No, you're talking about conditions that don't affect the freedom of the software.
Apple isn't required to supply what you demand, just the same as you're not required to purchase what Apple offers.
Sorry if the real world intruding on your fantasy is painful, but suck it up, you'll get over it.
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.
Jesus H Christ.
I had thought this was just a splinter group deciding to go it alone. I had thought that sanity would prevail, and that the FSF would step in and say "Sorry, we made a mistake". I hadn't for one minute considered that the FSF would simply abandon the moral high ground and deliberately go out of their way to harass Apple's customers like this.
But John Sullivan (Hi John!) is the manager of operations at the FSF. I now have to assume this is an official policy of the FSF, and an indicator of how the FSF intend to "communicate" with Apple from now on. Boy! Look how far the mighty have fallen. Such a pity. The FSF used to stand for the high ideals of freedom (that's freedom for everyone, John, not just for those politically-aligned with yourself).
Here's a suggestion, John, let those of you who oppose Apple's policies stop buying Apple products, and don't "keep quiet about it", shout it from the rooftops, declare it on your websites, start (non e-) mail campaigns, whichever method you like. I suspect you've been doing all that, and no-one who hears your message cares about it - that's the cold hard truth of the matter. So now you're going to go out of your way to interfere in and hassle these people who are ignoring you. Way to go, John, that'll get us all on-side.
And I love that second-to-last paragraph ...
alternatively: The suffering of other people is a useful tool that I can use to try and get my message some more metaphorical airtime. As used by tinpot dictators throughout history.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Hah, no. I have AS and I found your post funny as fuck. Certainly can imagine a few decent uses for "adsperger", where companies have grossly failed to comprehend who their market are and fucked up in that vein. McDonalds' advertising a burger with "I'd hit that" a while back springs to mind.
I write bullshit
God, what a terrible thread.
No, you're talking about conditions that don't affect the freedom of the software.
They don't, but they do make the GP's point about F/OSS being "fine and peachy" on the iPhone highly questionable.
Apple isn't required to supply what you demand, just the same as you're not required to purchase what Apple offers.
Nor am I required to be quiet about the shortcomings I see in their platform. Your point, again?
Sorry if the real world intruding on your fantasy is painful, but suck it up, you'll get over it.
Tell that to the Apple fanboys, who still can't acknowledge that their platform is *not* equivalent to their competitors, who put far less obstacles for Free Software to work on their devices.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I would like to point out that in general, the FSF is historically quite competent at spotting issues before they become a real problem. As far as I can tell, one of the large issues that this campaign is trying to address is Apple's overzealous use of DRM its products. This is IMHO a perfectly legitimate criticism and worth making at least a little fuss about. Fortunately that is exactly the path that it seems they seem to be pursuing.
Quite frankly I simply cannot see this translating into much more than a handful of zealots that randomly poke their head in and raise (hopefully) completely valid and fair questions, thus making it a talking point within the Apple employee structure. If enough of the bottom/middle rung employees start buzzing on about it, then that eventually bubbles up to the higher levels. Not to mention that it probably gives the "Apple Geniuses" something other than the endless queries of "why doesn't my ipod work anymore?" to discuss with their "customers".
In short, I'm a bit disappointed to see such an overly serious stance taken against the FSF for this move. Let's not forget that they are also making many many POSITIVE changes to the software industry as a whole, and to claim that they are shortsighted may be a bit shortsighted itself. ;-) Then again, the FSF have given me many a facepalm moment as well. The bottom line though is that although I may not believe this to be the single most worthy cause of the FSF or the perfect way to be doing going about it, it isn't necessarily the wrong way of going about it.
That's because it is "cool" to hate Microsoft.
Apple is very careful to avoid making "not windows" ads, they always say "not PC" ads. Every Apple ad is anti-linux, it claims the PC is fundamentally flawed. If you go to apple's website, they always say their software is for the PC or Mac, but the "PC" is always Windows only, never linux. They don't even seem to recognize Linux exists, outside of a couple spots in their developers section. There is no place on the site where they even explain that there is no Linux versions of any of their software. Apple recognizes Linux exists a LOT less then Microsoft. Apple's only recognition is "Xserve is better then Linux servers"
Well, let's see...
* OSX' core (Darwin) is actually open source. The NT core (last I checked) is not.
* There's a huge diff between (basically) racking up phone time w/ script-drones to register valid complaints from folks who were more often than not actual consumers of MSFT's products -- and crap-flooding real tech-support folks' time (as opposed to simple script-drones) by people who more often than not don't own a Mac.
* Since when was Apple ever convicted (or even credibly accused) of abusive monopolistic practices?
While it would be hella nice if Apple got around to open-sourcing Aqua and all, at least they've open-sourced the core of OSX, they publish all of their API's (and go way out of their way to help you through 'em if you get lost in there), and have actually been instrumental in helping to break the whole media DRM bullshit in the first place (as in, if Jobs' hadn't pushed for and got DRM-free music and video concessions from the RI/MPAA cartels, when do you all think that would've have actually had any hope of occurring?)
And yeah, it sucks that they go out and sue the occasional company who installs OSX on a non-Apple box... yet they don't ever bother the hobbyists who do it in far larger numbers.
I'm not trying to paint Apple as being in league with angels or anything, but on the relative evilness scale, they're pretty damned low compared to their competitors, y'know?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"3. Apple didn't open source the core of OSX. It already was open-sourced. OSX uses the BSD core. Apple had to release its fork. This is the license NeXT agreed to when they based their OS on BSD."
I think you might need to go read the BSD license sometime, Apple most certainly could have taken BSD and closed it's source - as can anyone. Instead, Apple released the source to their OS core under a license similar to Mozilla's.
Microsoft on the other hand have taken many BSD userspace tools, closed their source, and removed attribution - yet no one seems to claim that NT is BSD or criticizes the decision to close the source of those tools. Perhaps Apple should have taken that route.
It's also a bit of a stretch to suggest that Apple just took BSD and stuck it under a different license. Last time I looked BSD wasn't a microkernel OS, and didn't use the same subsystems for drivers and inter process communications. If Darwin is just a ripoff of BSD, then Linux is just a ripoff of HURD.
This analogy fails because someone with a genuine problem is getting genuine help. You're effectively DOSing Apple support channels for a couple days. By your argument, a DOS attack on Yahoo is no different from a search request because both take Yahoo's resources away from my search request.
What you're doing here is a petite version of burning the village in order to save it.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
They're a computer company: they sell the hardware + system as a package (it's called a "Mac") ,similar to, but more open than, a console maker).
They don't sell OSX except as part of a package or as an upgrade to a Mac you bought previously.
They also sell other systems: iPod and iPhone for example. And some accessories like iLife and iWork.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.