[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Claude Rubinson]

I'm probably just fanning the flames but I want to +1 what Shawn's
said.  You're free to choose a non-free OS or desktop environment or
whatever.  That's part of what freedom means.  But nobody can
reasonably claim that free software development has "failed" to
produce a successful desktop environment (whatever that vague term
means).  There are simply too many of us running Linux- and/or
BSD-based machines as our daily desktop machine to make such claims
carry even the scent of plausibility.

I'll also point out in the interests of wild speculation that I've
been running the same "desktop environment" (fvwm + bash scripts that
I've cobbled together and improved over the years) for more years than
I can remember.  (It's been at least 6 years since I stabilized on
this set up and probably more like 7 or 8.)  So, that was back in
early OSX/WinXP days?  Sure, I've invested some time in writing,
maintaining, and updating the shell scripts.  And I've tweaked the
design of the user-interface (usually on days when I was home sick in
bed).  But I'd speculate that--as a proportion of the time that the
system's been running--my time investment may be lower that somebody
who was running an early OSX or WinXP system back then (and, has been
continuously updating it since then).

It would be interesting to try to come up with some way of measuring
the amount of time that an individual spends tweaking, updating, and
otherwise improving his or her system.  My point is that I don't think
that it's at all clear that people using a "polished" OSX or Windows
system are getting the return on their time investment that they
think.  Not over the long term, at least.

And, finally, I'll just point out that I could care less what anyone
else is running.  Run whatever you want.  As long as I can run what I
want.  But the freedom to run whatever I want is typically not in the
interests of companies that base their livelihood off of the
production and distribution of non-free software.  That's what I worry
about when I hear about people moving from a free-software environment
to a non-free one.  And it should be something that you're concerned
about too because under capitalism, monopolies are a Bad Thing (tm)
for everybody (except the company with the monopoly, of course).

So, if you're going to support non-free software with your dollars,
I'd just ask that you also support free software in the same manner
and make a contribution to the EFF, FSF, or some other free-software
organization.

Claude