False idol?
Confrontational advocate of the open source computing model, Richard Stallman, blogged his own version of a eulogy for Steve Jobs last week. As a line item in his political notes section of his personal website, Stallman wrote, “Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died” and “We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective”, among other negative comments.
On one hand, I guess this sentiment can be expected from the man who has dedicated his life to opposing software patents and the idea of commercial operating systems. Apple’s business model is diametrically opposed to Stallman’s vision of computing. Furthermore, as the media reports on his comments and reports on them, I suspect most reporters will simply express shock at Stallman’s rudeness, rather than taking the time to see the point he’s trying to make.
On the other hand, I think Richard needs to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Open source is alive and well regardless of anything Apple creates, and OS X itself has its roots in the open-source BSD Unix operating system. The computing world is big enough to accommodate multiple business models, and it’s foolish to take up a crusade to make all software free, open source for all situations. Specifically, I take issue with Stallman’s comment about Jobs’s computers severing users from their freedom. If anything, Apple succeeded in enabling millions of people to take part in the computer revolution. While Linux may indeed enable some poor college students to obtain their own functional personal computer on a very tight budget, limited finances aren’t the only reason people get left behind. Apple makes the computer approachable in ways the Linux community doesn’t. Steve Jobs always felt an Apple purchase should be buying into an entire “computer experience” versus simply taking home a product in a box. Long after the sale, Apple customers are welcome to schedule free appointments to learn how to use the company’s products in their retail stores, and they even offer a summer computer camp for kids. Even the pairing up of the Mac hardware and operating system as one purchase is part of that concept, because the OS X operating system performs more reliably and predictably when it’s designed to work with only a limited number of system configurations.
If the Jobs and Wozniak duo didn’t come up with the first Apple computer in 1977 with the skills and determination to market it, where would we all be today? If it weren’t for the success of the early 8-bit computers, practically all “me too” responses to Apple’s product launch, would IBM have ever bothered making the original IBM PC?
Stallman’s a zealot, pushing his idea of a computing utopia on everyone, while refusing to acknowledge that true freedom means freedom to develop software for commercial profit, as well as freedom to give it away to all takers.
When I went onto his site the first thing I though was this just reeks of “I’m right, you’re wrong, if you don’t think like me just shut it”. It just seems so arrogant, from the ‘Don’t use Facebook (It’s evil bla bla bla)’, the massive amounts of really unfounded propaganda, and the whole crappiness of the design of the site which just seems like he can’t be bothered.
This isn’t a personal attack on him, and if he reads it don’t take it personally because I’m not saying you are like that, it’s just my impression from the info, and I understand that not all people will agree with me or might interpret it that way, but he just doesn’t sound like the sort of person I’d like to be friends with!
As an avid Linux user, I can’t help but agree with this comment. I don’t have a lot of experience with Apple Products and I’ve heard some nasty criticisms of those products from some people, but attacking it on the basis of it being copyrighted software that is sold for profit, and is popular, is just dumb. (What? Does he expect the copyright system and modern capitalism not to be applied to computer products?) Especially when you consider all the other legitimate criticism that could have been brought up about Jobs’ behaviour and practices.
Plus without Jobs nicking the ideas from Xerox (which frankly the company wasn’t very effective at marketing or getting out there) we wouldn’t have had the graphical user interface that is now an essential piece of modern computing. And I don’t know about Mr. Stallman, but all of the Linux OSes I have worked with or seen screen shots of use a point-and-click GUI that has its roots in what Apple developed.