Yeah, a new controversy.

English Open Chat
1

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/10/steve-jobs-stallman-dissenting-view.html

or read this

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/Richard-Stallmans-Dissenting-View-of-Steve-Jobs?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)

Personally i think RMS is right in the points he made. After days of
glorification reality sinks in.
Well, everyone has his own sentiments about this.

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2

I have mostly avoided saying anything much about Jobs, mostly because I don’t care to express disagreement at such a time.

I agree with RMS, though I don’t share some of his (RMS’s) ideology.

I have never owned any Apple products. I have used them, but I don’t much like them. My reaction to the initial MAC was that it seemed to be locked up so tightly that you could only use it as an appliance for doing things that I had little interest in doing.

I’ll grant that Jobs had marketing skills. His products all seemed to emphasize style over substance, and to be overpriced for what they did. But Jobs was skillful at creating fads with them. More power to him for that. But his products were not anything I was ever looking for.

3

I don’t think this is a new controversy; I well remember in the 1980s when I first tried a Mac I commented on how locked down it was to doing things a particular way. Dare I say that that is some people’s impression of the new Unity interface in Ubuntu? There will always be those who believe they are helping people by locking things down and people who will accept a locked down offering because it appears to simplify things for them.

I don’t think the issue with Jobs is that he locked things down because other people do that; until I discovered Linux I was toying with Apple because it offered a better experience than Windows. I think the issue is that he used FOSS in Apple and did not give back - a key example being the KHTML code that went into Safari. But he isn’t the only sinner in that area by a long way. So I think it is unfair to pick him out and not point the finger at others who have done the same if not in such a high profile way.

4

to be fair: KHTML and Safari… it came back. It is the Webkit engine, which you also can use in Konqueror. Webkit is better in terms of Javascript and speed - my impression.

But back to topic:

My impression is that there are just two ways right now: either glorification or ****ation. I do not agree to much things, RMS says.
Also here: why bother? I mean, yeah, Jobs has locked down devices and with that maybe ripped off a lot of people. But they wanted, right? They fell for good marketing. And I am honest: I also from time to time think about buying a Mac.
But is all this really so important? I mean the fact that there are certain companies who lock their users down? When the user is that stupid and lets them do this?

Of course, education in these things, freedom and so on is important. But doing this as RMS does it, puts off a lot of people, who then do exactly the opposite of the goal.

Saying nothing would have been better. But on the other hand: it brought some publicity for RMS… :smiley:

5

On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:36:02 +0530, steffen13
<steffen13@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> to be fair: KHTML and Safari… it came back. It is the Webkit engine,
> which you also can use in Konqueror. Webkit is better in terms of
> Javascript and speed - my impression.
>
> But back to topic:
>
> My impression is that there are just two ways right now: either
> glorification or ****ation. I do not agree to much things, RMS says.
> Also here: why bother? I mean, yeah, Jobs has locked down devices and
> with that maybe ripped off a lot of people. But they wanted, right? They
> fell for good marketing. And I am honest: I also from time to time think
> about buying a Mac.
> But is all this really so important? I mean the fact that there are
> certain companies who lock their users down? When the user is that
> stupid and lets them do this?
>
> Of course, education in these things, freedom and so on is important.
> But doing this as RMS does it, puts off a lot of people, who then do
> exactly the opposite of the goal.
>
> Saying nothing would have been better. But on the other hand: it
> brought some publicity for RMS… :smiley:
>

…and that’s the whole point of it all, from RMS as well as apple.
personally i never used any apple device and don’t know steve personally,
so none of this really touches me. every death is tragic for those close
by, and at the same time part of life.

–
phani.