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all these negative comments that seem to stem from projections of fear of failure.No. I criticise this project because it adds value to a device that we should all be boycotting.
We absolutely do not want to see the proliferation of custom, locked down SoCs on the desktop platform with each one being incompatible with each other, and limiting our freedom to run what code we want on it. That is why this project is extremely short-sighted for the future of our computing freedom.
The M1 is a locked blackbox. It is designed to take away user control on both hardware and software. These are legitimate criticism that many Apple fans try to deflect. They claim that the M1 isn't a locked down machine by comparing it with the ios platform as proof. After all, iPhones and iPads have locked bootloaders that prevent you from even running any other OS, while this is not so with the M1 computers.
That's just plain denial. Just look at what has been happening to the Mac Mini:
1. The first few Intel Mac Minis allowed you some level of customisation of both the hardware (change RAM or HDD / SSD) and software (install other full featured OS).
2. Then came the Mac Minis with soldered RAM and SSD. You could no longer customise the hardware. Software was still customisable and you could still install other OSes. (Recall that Apple even offered free drivers for another OS, i.e. Windows).
3. The current generation of M1 Mini now doesn't allow you to customise both the hardware (everything is soldered) and the software. Technically you can install other OSes, but the reality is that currently only crippled versions of Linux and xBSD is available and practically the only full-featured OS available for it is macOS.
These are clear indicators of how Apple has been working slowly to lockdown the Mac platform like their ios platforms. (Right now, projects like these give Apple and M1 publicity without harming their end goals. And so they are tolerated. Want to bet that as soon as some alternate fully featured viable OS appears for the M1, the bootloader will be locked, and the next Apple SoC will cripple it again?).
The frog is still slowly boiling - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog - to keep you in denial.
There's another reason why I call this particular project short-sighted. Remember what happened when Apple introduced the Mini with soldered RAM and SSD's? It wasn't popular and didn't sell. Apple was forced to backtrack and the next Mini didn't have soldered RAM (but the SSD was still soldered). A similar thing could have been possible with the M1 too. Apple has bet their future on the success of their ARM processors. But if people boycotted Apple Silicon desktop platform for not being as open as AMD / Intel, Apple would have been forced to compromise a bit (at least strategically for the short-term) and released more literature to make the platform seem a little more open. And we might have seen Linux and xBSD being supported on the platform by now.