Interview with Bernard Leach (iPodLinux) (LinuxInterviews.com) [LWN.net]

LinuxInterviews.com talks with Bernard Leach about the iPodLinux project. "Nowadays, having an iPod is like having a car. Everybody has one. You can see them on the street: those cute little white headphones, mouth muttering the words of a song, head moving on the rythm of the tune. But who sais iPods are stuck with proprietary firmware? The iPodLinux Project is offering an alternative: run Linux on your iPod. Run games, movies on a Nano or turn older generation iPods into... something more. Let's take a look at what iPodLinux can do and what the main developer (Bernard Leach) has to say in this interview."

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Interview with Bernard Leach (iPodLinux) (LinuxInterviews.com)

Posted Nov 1, 2006 11:18 UTC (Wed) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]

"Nowadays, having an iPod is like having a car. Everybody has one."

Consider a bicycle and a montly ticket for the underground as an alternative. Only people who do not care about the environment, the climate change, and other peoples health own or use a car. I don't like iPods, but compared to cars, they're relatively harmless.

Your point?

Posted Nov 1, 2006 18:10 UTC (Wed) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

In the U.S. cars are (unfortunately) essential for everyone unless
they're in a dense city like New York. So probably 80% of American
adults have one.

On the other hand, iPods are nowhere near that popular (I'd guess more
like 10% of adults), and the original comparison was just silly.

Your point?

Posted Nov 2, 2006 0:41 UTC (Thu) by withaar (guest, #4201) [Link]

Off topic, but without wanting to be very nasty: most people do not live in the US.

Your point?

Posted Nov 2, 2006 8:39 UTC (Thu) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]

My point was: "Everybody has one (car)" is wrong: In my hometown (~3.4 Mega people, Europe) only 50% of the households own a car, muss less an iPod. In the U.S. cars might be useful, they seem to be dispensable in e.g. rural areas of Africa. The point of linuxinterviews.com was "iPods are very popular now", which is true. But when mobile phones get all the multimedia stuff integrated, iPods will be dispensable - just like cars.