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Comment by manholio | Hacker News Reader

> MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers

That is, if they want to subsidize with their own wallets the dominance of consumer-hostile computing that open source was created to avert.

Except for development such as this here, which aims at liberating users from a closed platform, I would have a philosophical problem to buy such hardware purely for my convenience.

Let's not fool ourselves, when proprietary hardware from platform giants like Amazon and Apple becomes dominant killing open ecosystems, the end of road can only lead to consumer coercion, regardless if a negligible fraction of users would be able to still run Linux on such hardware.

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Eh, Apple is merely not documenting their M1/M2 hardware as much as they should be; nothing is intentionally locked down in any way, their bootloader explicitly and intentionally supports booting alternative OSes, nothing requires being signed by Apple, etc.

Compare that to what's going on in the non-Mac world, with Pluton and SecureBoot stuff, where hardware is being cryptographically locked down. Or compare it to nvidia, who is intentionally making it impossible to make a good FOSS driver. Yet people have no problems buying thinkpads from Lenovo or nvidia cards from System76.

I'll take "undocumented hardware which needs to be reverse engineered, but once that's done we have a great driver and stuff just works" over "undocumented hardware which refuses to run unsigned software and the user can't install their own signing key" any day.

Yeah, if you can afford a Macbook, you can afford a Framework.

I hear framework laptops can be quite loud though? With ARM Mac laptops, you have the choice between a machine which literally doesn't have a fan, and a machine which has a fan that's turned off unless you're maxing out both your CPU and your GPU for sustained periods of time (and even then it's just a wind sound, not a high pitched whine). The machines are great about coil whine too, which has been an issue for some PC laptops I've used even when their fan is off.

I use a framework and the laptop definitely isn't loud. The fan is off most of the time and even when running it's actually rather quiet. It might be running more than on an M1 (though I don't have personal experience), but it's far from annoying.

The framework is not at all competitive with a MacBook.

I don't think they are really targeting the same people.

Can't you make your argument without the fallacious roping-in of Amazon? Apple isn't Amazon. Also, if Macs are actually as hostile to consumers and to open-source computing as you claim (and boy, is this ever an old and tired claim at this point), why is Linus still working so very hard and enthusiastically to support the platform in question?

In regard to proprietary hardware, it is my assertion that Apple and Amazon are essentially making the same move: throw money they obtained by dominating their respective markets into closed hardware development that will allow them to lock into their market dominance in the future by limiting consumer choice. You might disagree but there is nothing fallacious about this line of reasoning.

If you are looking for a fallacy take your argument from authority: if Linus does something then it cannot possibly be wrong. Which doesn't even get the point I'm making above, where I clearly contrast developing FOSS for the MacBook which is clearly a good thing (what Linus is doing), with buying a development MacBook for convenience, thereby putting your money to work against software liberty.

Except we clearly see that Linus has bought Macs over and over again. Presumably because they're the best tool for the job and he likes them. And you still have failed (like everyone else) to make any real argument that Apple is somehow warring against "software liberty". Promoting your own platform doesn't amount to doing so, certainly.

Again, what Linus does and doesn't is not relevant for a discussion about morality - unless you are starting a religion centered around him as a moral model.

Fyi, the App Store license is deliberately incompatible with the GPL.

There is no such thing as "App Store license".

I was referring to the terms and conditions Apple imposes on developers that wish to publish software on the App store.

Luckily you're not required to publish software on the App Store. Many developers sell direct from their website these days.

How is it deliberately incompatible? How is VLC on the app store while claiming in its about page to be GPLv2 licensed? What specific language in the GPL or App Store T&C is incompatible?

You have to declare you own the intellectual rights of the underlying code, a thing GPL does not grant. You can of course dual license your own code but you cannot own code released by someone else under GPL, and you cannot publish it in the App Store. It would be an absolutely trivial change for Apple to make their store friendly towards opens source and there have been multiple protests about this.

I think projects like VLC request some sort of copyright waiver from contributors so they can relicense in the future, or simply ignoring the TOS, and exposing themselves to summary deletion.

There, this explains it, VLC actually is dual licensed under MPLv2 as well according to it’s about page. Thanks for clearing that up

Maybe Linux UX is user hostile, eh?

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