Linux’s iPod Generation Gap (Red Herring)

Apple's price for making apps like iTunes work on Linux would be for Linux to be changed in such a way as to make iTunes' DRM very difficult to hack, with "protection" all the way from the app through the kernel to the drivers.

Better no iTunes than that. And other than iTunes, the iMac already works on Linux.

If you would prefer to compromise your freedom, then by all means feel free to do so, but do not act as though this obliges other users to follow the same path.

If you feel such a strong need to have restricted content in Linux, why not contact the creator(s) of said content? After all, they're the ones getting your money, and would have a vested interest in making the content more convenient to enjoy.

I hope I'm not misunderstanding your post, this is also somewhat a reply to the discussion as a whole.

No. I'm suggesting that we should question an opinion of a person that told us once that open source is the best thing since sliced bread, only to change his mind because an MP3 player isn't included in an _open_source_ distribution due to the fact that it is - surprise - _open_source_ and therefore cannot legally ship it.

If ESR so wants proprietary software because it does something he wants out of the box, he should then consider running Windows or Mac OS X. This is where he can find all those things, I guess.

> Linux is still mainly an OS that appeals to *nix developers because it fails to deal in a practical way with intellectual property issues that do not fit neatly into a GPL framework.

Sorry, but that's not entirely true. No open source licence will help you when it comes to licensing patents from MP3 patent holders. They simply won't let you distribute such software under any open source licence, because then they would be giving away to everyone their patent. So, this is not limited to GPL only.

Which brings me to my point again: ESR told us open source is the best thing since sliced bread. Now he's telling us that it's not, as long as he can't play his MP3s on a distro downloaded off the 'net. Does not compute... Sorry :-(

Linux doesn't aspire to be anything. It becomes what people want it to be. It will continue to become what the people who make it want it to be. If you're one of the people who make it, make it how you want. If not, you're a parasite, welcome aboard and suck quietly with the rest.

Free Sofware idealism *is* long-run pragmatism. Claims one should prefer "pragmatism" over "idealism" are usually just a socially more acceptable way of saying, "I want this feature, for *me*, now."
If pragmatic at all it is only short-term, for a very limited group.

>What of the fact that erstwhile nearly bankrupt Apple has used a pragmatic hybrid OSS model to become what Linux aspired to be a decade ago?

Linux never aspired to anything except fun, and as it turns out, most developers are not having fun with proprietary bits.
Two decades ago GNU aspired to set out to create a Free operating system, and for most intents and purposes that operating system is a reality, with only those elements that are protected by laws sustained by businesses with insanely profitabel business models missing.

Apple has become what Microsoft aspires to; an operating system that gets free labour and goodwill for being open on one hand but really keeping everything proprietary on the other hand.

>because it fails to deal in a practical way with intellectual property issues that do not fit neatly into a GPL framework.

Trademarks are working out nicely.
Software idea patents are being dealt with accordingly.
Copyright has been enforced succesfully already.

But it's hard to tell what you mean if you use vague misleading umbrella terms such as "intellectual property"

>There is a place for FOSS idealism, but don't let it make us myopic.

There is a place for "pragmatism", and it's right where it should be. Users can install software that cannot be distributed together with free software or which is restricted from redistribution by regulations on *their* own computers, which, in a way, is what the whole game is about; that a user can be the master of her own hardware.

History tells us trading gold for mirrors and beads is not a profitable venture in the long run.

I don't care about Linux being ready for the masses. I care about it being ready for me (which it has for over 10 years), and for being ready for people who pay me to work with it (which it has been for over 5 years). There's enough of a critical mass that Linux isn't going away any time soon.

Personally, most things that are "ready for the masses" I don't want to have anything to do with. That's not elitism, just a matter of personal taste. If something fits my needs or my tastes, I don't really care how many or how few other people like it or don't.

> What of the fact that erstwhile nearly bankrupt Apple has used a pragmatic hybrid OSS model to become what Linux aspired to be a decade ago?

Nearly bankrupt Apple? They had a few $billion in the bank and little debt when they bought NeXT. (It's just that with W95 out and Copland foreshadowing Longhor^wVista in terms of development delays, the "analysts" thought Apple was a goner.) NeXT, er, Apple then just tweaked up NeXTOS with an updated kernel and gave it an Apple paint job. OSS was a sideshow for Apple, always has been.

> There is a place for FOSS idealism

Idealism? Nay, pragmatism. I tend to avoid buying anything (computer related or not) that will lock me into a single vendor, or which doesn't allow me the option of fixing it myself or modifying it to my own ends. I regard that as part of the basic freedom to do whatever the hell I want so long as I don't hurt anybody else. Alas, far to many of "the masses" not only don't care if somebody else can tell them what to do or not to do, they actually prefer it. Fine, for them there's Windows, or MacOS X.

(My first reaction was "Why did Pat Murphy hit Cadigan?", but I see from Charlies writeup what you meant...)