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"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it.""Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it."Posted Aug 28, 2012 21:28 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)In reply to: "Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." by wahern Parent article: Look and feel lawsuits, the second time around
Apple is a one-stop-shop for best available features. By buying Apple products, you are financially supporting a corporation that abuses the US legal system to crush competitors. You're also promoting a vision of computing that would take away our freedom. Maybe you don't see it that way, or maybe you don't care, but that's what you're doing.
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"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 8:37 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
And the choice is what? Buying a pre-installed Windows PC? Is MS any better than Apple?
I don't see how I have a choice :-(
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 23:21 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Is MS any better than Apple? Oh yeah. Microsoft is trying to be evil, but it does not really knows how. Apple is the original "evil company™", most underhanded tricks Microsoft have learned from Apple. In the end Microsoft is just a cheap imitator which in this case is good. Ok, maybe not good (incompetent evil is still evil), but at least it's better. Much better.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 18:22 UTC (Thu) by ThinkRob (subscriber, #64513) [Link]
Well you could build your own or purchase from a vendor that sells systems without Windows (they do exist). Or you could get a refund for your Windows license. Or you could purchase one generation behind the curve and get used hardware.
There are options.
But even if you do purchase something with Windows on it, you're still providing less money to a company that (as of 2012) many would argue is less "evil" than Apple. Maybe not historically, but IMHO in the last couple years Apple's been a lot more hostile in ways that harm more users than Microsoft has.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Sep 1, 2012 14:42 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
There are Linux vendors, e.g. ZaReason, System76, R Squared. They're small and don't have nearly the influence with ODMs that Apple does, let alone Dell, HP, Lenovo, and the rest of the usual MS Windows vendors.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 9:55 UTC (Wed) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] By buying Apple products, you are financially supporting a corporation that abuses the US legal system to crush competitors. You're also promoting a vision of computing that would take away our freedom. Any for-profit corporation will try to maximize the profit, and of course they will use all legal means at their disposal to do so. It keeps amazing me that people seem offended by this. Samsung is one of those corporations, by the way, just like the evil empires of IBM, Dell and any other vendor out there. Of course, they won't all act the same way to reach the same goal. In this instance, Apple clearly must have thought they had a good case by enforcing their patents. It would however be silly to think that Samsung collects patents for any other reason than to prove ownership of some intellectual property, so they could do exactly the same. It seems so obvious that this is not about the behaviour of the players, but the rules of the game.
Personally, I don't care about the freedom that would allow me to go inside an iPhone or Galaxy S and change a perfectly fine tool for making phone calls into some half-broken word processor. I do care about the freedom that allowed Apple to take Free Software and put it in its operating system, so that I could do the things I want to do. That's the other thing that keeps amazing me: the narrow definitions of "freedom" that people entertain to describe what they think is "right".
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 10:13 UTC (Wed) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
> Any for-profit corporation will try to maximize the profit, and of course they will use all legal means at their disposal to do so. It keeps amazing me that people seem offended by this.
That isn't true. Or at least doesn't have to be. Regardless of what you may have been told, corporations are made up of people who follow their own agendas and codes of ethics. The corporate form may be somewhat grotesque in the USA at the moment, but expecting companies and their employees to rise no higher than "whatever gives the highest return on investment" is ridiculous (not to mention depressing.) We can and should expect much more.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 10:41 UTC (Wed) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Of course it doesn't have to be. But it seems that that's the way it is.As a side note, you may find this interesting.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 12:48 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
The way it goes is that everyone can point the finger at everyone else. So, if a corporation does bad things, they can blame their shareholders who apparently demand big dividends and a continuously rising share price because to do the right thing would supposedly cost the company money and disappoint the shareholders. They can also blame the "consumer" for wanting products that are cheap.
Meanwhile, the shareholders - frequently institutions investing on behalf of others - can insist that they're merely demanding a "fair return" for their clients. I'm sure some of these people actually don't care that bad things are done in their name (for example, I once read once about shareholders shouting down critics of corporate policy at Nestlé shareholder meetings), but others would probably rather just not know. Some of these institutions operate pension funds and thus blame the average person for wanting a nice pension.
What we should be doing is denying these people the opportunity to do things in our name, whether as a customer or as a member of a pension scheme or other fund. That might mean that compromises have to be made, but it also means that the people playing the above games also have to clean up their act.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 18:24 UTC (Wed) by jackb (subscriber, #41909) [Link] Some of these institutions operate pension funds and thus blame the average person for wanting a nice pension. Close, but not quite. The "average person" in the US doesn't have a pension. A small minority of the population in the form of state and local government employees demand pension and health benefits which require mathematically-impossible rates of return to fund. The vocal shareholders which demand growth at any cost and force companies to focus exclusively on the next quarter's earnings report instead of long term viability are entities like CalPERS.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 31, 2012 13:08 UTC (Fri) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
Very well said. There is far too much making of excuses for unethical behaviour by corporations (which are in fact made up of people, who are responsible for that behaviour. Call them on it when you get the chance.) 'The law says we have to amoral scumbags' is both wrong, and unacceptable as an excuse.
People here might like Apple hardware (and software integration), but I can't believe any of us is denying that their current behaviour on look and feel is unethical. I'd like to think that most of us understand that their attempts to make all non-apple-approved modification of hardware or software impossible is also unethical.
Mind you, Microsoft's current attempt to make it impossible to boot an alternative OS on any Windows-running ARM-based device are just as bad. They had been looking a lot less evil recently.
I too am saddened by the number of geeks and Free Software hackers who make very little effort to dogfood in software or avoid the most egregious suppliers of hardware. I know it's annoying sometimes, but everyone who could have done something about it using Adobe's flash and PDF readers is one thing that has caused 10 years of damage to the open Web. We largely have ourselves to blame on that front. That's just one example. Take the same attitude with locked-down computing from Apple (and MS) and computing is likely to look correspondingly bleaker in another 10 years.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 29, 2012 13:51 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Any for-profit corporation will try to maximize the profit, and of course they will use all legal means at their disposal to do so. That's correct. Now let's move to your next sentence: It keeps amazing me that people seem offended by this. Getting offended by unethical behaviour and punishing corporations that use it is the only way to keep corporations even modestly ethical. If the only thing they try to do is to maximize their profit, then it is an absolute necessity to punish them financially when they do something unethical. That is, after all and by your own admission, the only leverage we have over them. Samsung is one of those corporations, by the way, just like the evil empires of IBM, Dell and any other vendor out there. Certainly. But specific situations demand specific action and in this specific situation, if consumers don't punish Apple then Apple will punish consumers. I don't care about the freedom that would allow me to go inside an iPhone or Galaxy S and change a perfectly fine tool for making phone calls into some half-broken word processor. Just because you don't care about a specific freedom doesn't mean you have the right to take it away from those who do care. I do care about the freedom that allowed Apple to take Free Software and put it in its operating system, so that I could do the things I want to do. If Apple follows the rules, then I'm perfectly fine with its using free software in its systems... that's not the issue.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 12:01 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Getting offended by unethical behaviour and punishing corporations that use it is the only way to keep corporations even modestly ethical. My point was that the system needs to be reformed. Whether the kind of punishment you propose is going to accomplish that remains to be seen, but I think the point that Samsung would fill the void left by Apple is a valid one. The other point I was making, which I feel you didn't fully understand, is that both producers and consumers have freedoms, and that claiming that any of these outweighs another is not as obvious as some people make it seem. Ultimately, the rules we have come up with decide these matters, whether we like it or not. If what you say is right, and Apple violated these rules, then surely you can point me to a source that goes beyond "the rules are stupid so Apple is wrong". The rules ARE stupid, and that's why we need to change them.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 1:52 UTC (Thu) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link] Samsung is one of those corporations, by the wayIs it? All my interactions with Samsung have been pleasant and all my interactions with Apple have been unpleasant, going right back to 1984 (auspicious date, that). Maybe your experience is different.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 11:30 UTC (Thu) by regala (subscriber, #15745) [Link]
clearly, you have no clue
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 11:43 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Please, educate me!
Freedom and the rabbit in the hat Posted Aug 30, 2012 13:45 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Personally, I don't care about the freedom that would allow me to go inside an iPhone or Galaxy S and change a perfectly fine tool for making phone calls into some half-broken word processor. I do care about the freedom that allowed Apple to take Free Software and put it in its operating system, so that I could do the things I want to do.Perhaps you will miss your freedom when the next Apple OS update supports only installing apps via the Apple store. It is perfectly legal to do such a thing (until proven otherwise), and Apple will not hesitate to abuse the legal system to prove it. Getting 30% off all Mac software purchases will make Apple shareholders happy, and most people will not care anyway, just as you; Apple will sell it to customers as an improvement in security, family safety and system cleanliness. Hey, we all win!
Freedom and the rabbit in the hat Posted Aug 30, 2012 19:22 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Why would you think that I don't care about being able to freely install software on OS X? Because I make the distinction between a phone and an operating system?Perhaps I misunderstood, or perhaps I didn't explain properly what I meant. Or maybe you are simply jumping to conclusions. In any case, I think I have made my point and will politely bow out of this discussion.
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 31, 2012 8:34 UTC (Fri) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]
> Any for-profit corporation will try to maximize the profit, and of course they will use all legal means at their disposal to do so. It keeps amazing me that people seem offended by this.
It's the current state of affairs, yes, but it's a very recent development, it seems.
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/the_shareholder_fallacy/
"Historically, corporations were understood to be responsible to a complex web of constituencies, including employees, communities, society at large, suppliers and shareholders. But in the era of deregulation, the interests of shareholders began to trump all the others."
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 16:39 UTC (Thu) by aaron (subscriber, #282) [Link] By buying Apple products, you are financially supporting a corporation that abuses the US legal system to crush competitors. You're also promoting a vision of computing that would take away our freedom. So buy used hardware and run Linux. If you must, cover up the logo with a Tux sticker. Honestly, I haven't bought a new electronic gizmo in I don't know how many years. Which makes me wonder: is it morally better to buy stolen ideas from Apple and Microsoft than to buy stolen laptops from CraigsList?
"Indeed, we enthusiastically buy their hardware and port our systems to it." Posted Aug 30, 2012 16:45 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
It can be argued that doing so props up the market for second-hand Apple hardware. If I know I can sell my Apple laptop at the end of its life for a reasonable price then I am more likely to put up with paying a higher price when I buy it new.
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