David Lyon wrote:
> It's not so much that Linux is dead, but rather it is perhaps finished.
>
> The computers 'to-die-for' now, are no longer the Windows machines
> but the Android and Apple computers.
>
> Clearly, they both are Linux derivates. So in a way, commercial Linux
> won out.
>
> There's little that really can be done on an activism front. Because
> that is just appstore or whatever they call it.
The activisim actually needs to be stepped up.
The linux people like myself who fled windows in the mid 1990s did
so for reasons of Freedom.
Apple and its Apple appstore is an even more constrained and shackled
garden than windows ever was.
I'm using Linux instead of Apple because:
a) I don't like the fact that hardware that runs Apple's OS is
only available from one manufacturer. This sitution is bad
for consumers, because Apple can charge consumers however
much they like.
b) Apple's move to control everything that runs on their hardware
is bad for software developers because Apple has control over
what software is and is not presented to Apple's customers.
That means the software developer has to toe Apples line or
face being removed from the appstore.
c) Apple's move to control everything that runs on their hardware
is bad for a whole bunch of freedom related issues. Apple has
in the recent past blocked gay and lesbian ebook literature
from the appstore. Who the fsck made Apple the gate keepers
to what can and cannot be read?
Quite honestly anyone who runs Apple hardware and software should
take a really good think about the logical conclusions to Apples
rapidly increasing market share because there will come a time
where removing Apple from the top rank will be far, far harder than
the removal of Microsoft.
Erik
PS : Eben Moglen is well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORNmfpD0ak&feature=share
--
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Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/
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