Devil's Tower is taking a lot of flack for making a sort of Meta diary on differences between the nature of technology choices that are made lefties vs. righties. This is absolutely a relevant post to make, although DT may not go in to all the depth that the issue contains, there is a major dichotomy that goes beyond logos and UI. These issues go to the very heart of the political ideas that are central to the progressive movement. Freedom vs. Autocracy, Corporations vs. Individuals. We may be in the middle of a debate over escalation and a supremely early ramp up to the '08 election cycle, but to focus solely on these issues is to effectively reduce the entire progressive movement to a single issue voting bloc. Its important that the community as a whole stay informed of these issues that are often out of sight and out of mind, and to those of us who pay attention to these things, it was heartening to see a front pager even mention the issue.
(Disclaimer: I am not nearly geeky enough to be writing this diary, but no one else seems to have taken up the call)
Let's start with a quick review for anyone who might not already be familiar with the players in the arena. There are essentially three fully matured operating systems available in the consumer arena: Windows, Linux, and OSX/BSD (BSD?!? you say, just wait, I'll explain).
Microsoft's Windows line is the dominant player in the industry, it is the proprietary behemoth with the most powerful lobby and hordes of leashed lawyers. Windows XP accounts for ~ 85% of the world's user base, trailed by Windows 2000 in a very distant 2nd. It's other products account for an additional ~%2.[1] Microsoft famously does not play well with others. The EU has been giving M$ (As they are known in the non-MS friendly world) a hard time over their continuingly monopolistic practices for years, but their policies don't seem to be moving at all, other then to be more proactive in harassing their user base about licensing issues (Has anyone else had to go through the fun of having a legitimate install of XP fail the Genuine Advantage Validation? It's good times)
Microsoft has a history of trying to screw the consumer under the name of "Trusted Computing." This is an excellent example of the same kind of double-speak that gave us the "Clean Skies Act." It is a partnership between the biggest heavyweights in the computer industry, including MS and Intel, to lock smaller players out of the market and enforce copyright even in cases that violate fair use and sanity.[2]Software that isn't "signed" somehow or validated would not be allowed to run at the same time as software that is. Corporations would essentially be in charge of your computer, making it a lot more like television, where you get a few choices, but for the most part you are told to sit down and shut up. Big businesses (read RIAA, BSA (Business Software Alliance), MPAA) with political clout have clear interest in lobbying to make such initiatives mandatory in the name of reducing spyware, spam, and, or course, to protect children from pornography.
MS's practices clearly mirror the practices of the Republican party: paternalistic, monopolistic, and autocratic. The things that offend many of us about republican policies are the same things that move a few of us to wean ourselves away from the overbearing paternalism of Microsoft's OS platforms.
Windows Vista is rife with digital rights management technologies that are quickly sprinting down the path to a future where corporations effectively own your computer. I don't really want to focus on them right now, but you can take a look at them here if you're interested. [3] It's going to make your computer slower and less secure than it needs to be while offering you... nothing.
Mac's OSX is a version of BSD, a sparsely used operating system famous for the BSD license, "There is no warranty." This is not the exact wording of the license, but it is what it boils down to, and thus Mac was perfectly legally allowed to take BSD and mold it to it's whim. Both BSD and Linux are based on Unix, which has essentially become a carefully developed set of models, standards, and definitions that are well known to provide stable, versatile systems. BSD's development could fill many books, but the fact that OSX is based on a Unix opens its doors to the Free and Open source communties, which have long favored Unix platforms.
Software licensing is a big deal. Most people never have to think about it, but the rights that are allowed by the developers of a new music file format and the level of documentation provided by a vendor of, for instance, office productivity software, determine how creative people are allowed to be with said technologies. Closed software allows crappy products that have already attained market leadership positions to maintain them by shear momentum, stullifies creativity, and stalls technological progress. Just as an example, the "3-d Desktop features" promised by Windows Vista have always been available in OSX and have been available for years in Linux, better and faster, but most people have never seen them.
Microsoft has a strong interest in keeping consumers stupid and complascent, just like the Republican party, and thats why I think Devil's Tower was perfectly justified in placing a discussion on the philosophical differences between MS and it's competitors on the front page.
[Addendum] This was not meant to be a diary about Macs, per se. I actually don't use one. It is a comment on the political relevance of our OS choices, just as other people write about the political relevance of our food choices. I also didn't make any personal comments about Bill Gates' or the Windows operating system itself. The political agenda of a corporation matters.
Hardware lock-in as practiced by Mac will be NOTHING compared to the headaches and loss of freedom implied by TC initiatives, IMHO, but it is still a pain in the ass and probably the majority of the reason Apple continues to lose so very hard in the market place, despite having a superior, again IMHO, software product. MS takes their position beyond their own product to damaging the entire market place, whereas Mac has made a questionable design decision, that being that they won't be bothered to try to support every piece of hardware produced and they won't have other people trashing their brand name with poorly supported products. It isn't really a very predatory decision, as far as I can tell. Or maybe it is, and it just isn't very successful at it.