As much as we like to stay away from letting real-world politics bleed over into our ongoing discussion of tech politics, I found an interesting essay over at The Economist’s “Democracy in America” blog that draws a parallel between Apple’s Mac/iPhone user-friendly ecosystem and the Microsoft Windows freer-but-more-chaotic ecosystem and how that lines up along the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum of real-world political division. They don’t mention Open Source in this essay, but I’m sure it could make an interesting addition to the discussion. The essay’s main point is that, in governance, attempts to make life more user-friendly for citizens usually ends up giving them less freedom of choice, and a certain segment of the political establishment will reliably oppose such moves. The idea that the tradeoff between choice and usability persists into the world of governance really set me to thinking. What kind of country would you rather live in? An Apple one, a Microsoft one, or an Open Source one?The Economist essay takes a crack at the issue through the lens of the current US political obsessions, health care and financial industry reform, noting that more consumer “freedom” often just results in consumers being victimized by sophisticated corporate predators or failing to take adequate precautions and harming themselves or others. Likewise, the availability of 999 nearly-identical sound cards supported under Windows doesn’t really benefit users, and increases the chances of a user picking a really crummy one whose drivers will make the system unstable. And Windows’ support for ancient APIs might be welcome to ISVs or ossified IT departments that depend on them, but creates a headache for everyone else.
As we discussed in a previous user-friendliness article a few weeks ago, if you make things too user friendly, it can be the tyranny of the over-simplified. Let’s just say the word “iPhone” and leave it at that. Truly, if we’re going to rank computing environments in order of user freedom, you have to break iPhone and Mac out into separate categories. But let’s face it, even though once you have a Mac, you’re free to do pretty much whatever you want with it, a big part of the Apple user experience is the frustration of finding the machine you really want from among Apple’s necessarily-restricted product lineup. And you can make a Hackintosh, but that makes you a psuedo-outlaw. To tie it back to health care, it’s like trying to pick a doctor when you’re in a nationalized system or a restrictive private HMO – restricted choice.
The Wintel PC ecosystem, like most methods of government, developed largely by happenstance and accidents of history. Microsoft is like the governments of most countries: it wants to serve and please you, not least so you’ll keep giving it money; it can be incompetent and inefficient, corrupt and jealous of its power; in the end, it gets the job done, but you’re always wary of counting too much on it, because it can always let you down. But despite the flaws, Windows is flexible and runs on a staggeringly-vast array of hardware. But never forget that Windows isn’t really made for you. Microsoft’s masters are the OEMs and large corporate IT departments. Developing an OS for end-users is just an economy of scale. Likewise, a government must serve many constituencies, and some are more influential than others. The most influential ones can easily distort the whole system to the detriment of the common citizen.
Then there’s Linux. It’s sort of like the Utopian Anarchy. It works really well for small groups of enlightened people, and really shines when it’s used for a carefully-delineated purpose. Utopian anarchy works really well for organizing a potluck barbecue among neighbors, and also for a webserver. Here’s where this silly analogy breaks down a little, or maybe becomes more interesting. Linux is mostly used in two vastly different scenarios. It’s used as a server and workstation by highly-skilled people who are heavily engaged in its inner workings. But vastly more people these days use Linux everyday in a very different way. They use it when they’re using Gmail, or any number of other web-based apps, or even just plain web sites, or in their DVR, or other appliances. They don’t even know they’re using Linux, and they have no control whatsoever over its inner workings. They’re wholly dependent on the efforts of a remote and mysterious overclass of administrators. Because of its impenetrability, is Linux really more like an Oligarchy (or even a Theocracy?) It’s really a theocracy where it’s relatively easy to be admitted to the priest class, but the vast majority of citizens never bother, because the government is so benevolent and gives them free web apps and records TV shows for them.
So what kind of operating system would I want my government to run? Well, my political philosophy is a little hard to sum up. I’m a Centrist, strong social libertarian, fiscal conservative, anti-authoritarian, internationalist, pro-free trade, moderately anti-war, but also sort of an elitist, anti-populist who really does believe that some people are smarter than others, and I value reason above emotion. I prefer a strong constitutional republic to counter the minority-persecuting tendencies of direct democracy. I never have anybody to vote for!
I think that places me right in the middle of a triangle between Mac, Windows, and Linux. I think that to some extent it’s logical that government be practiced by a trusted elite of sysadmins who make sure my shows are recorded on time and that the email never goes down, but that these sysadmins must be accountable to their users, their policies transparent, and access to the levers of power be strictly meritocratic, so if I want to participate in the process there will be a variety of ways that I can engage in civic participation. I would prefer that the government wouldn’t stand in the way of OEMs manufacturing a wide array of peripherals and configurations, but as a consumer, I would appreciate if they would act as a watchdog and provide some oversight of the marketplace so the vendors can’t use their superior access to the courts and influence with the government to prevent me from getting good information about which products are good and which aren’t. But, heaven help us if the Government ever tries to set up a strictly-access-controlled App Store. That’s when we take to the streets.
an OS should be a tool you use to get things done with, not the basis for an ideology for fanboys to debate as if they were fighting the final war between good and evil.
Edited 2009-10-01 02:22 UTC
And yet, that is exactly what has become of operating systems in general (and not just by the “fanboys,” but also by the often-selfish developers/companies behind them).
Company gains too much control (through illegal means, I might add), people get annoyed, and create an OS that they feel is “better” and give a license that allows modification/fixing of code by third-parties (BSD/GPL). It’s sad, but if anyone ever tells you that this is a perfect world, they’re full of dog shit. And if companies were a little more “open” in the first place (*ahem* Microsoft, Apple…), we could be spared if this shit. But no, highly-restrictive legal mumbo-jumbo EULAs are here to stay, so there will always be a desire for freedom (or at least not be treated like unethical asshole thieves).
Edited 2009-10-01 09:10 UTC
Not realistic. As long as people will have to share scarce resources (communities/participants, developer time/focus/priorities), i.e. “always”, they will dispute different priorities and preferences as to what is the most beautiful/pleasing and efficient/rational way to do their work.
Politics will follow humans wherever they spend/invest most of their time, so the Operating System is the new Nation.
Freedom > Central Planning > Managed Freedom
I really dislike using American health insurance as an example of freedom. It is not.
1. Doctors hold a monopoly over practicing medicine. Perhaps valid for quality reasons, but this is not freedom.
2. There a million and one regulation mandating certain types of insurance, and drug companies…
3. There’s price controls. Medicare pays a fixed amount. No doctor is going to offer a cheaper price than medicare.
…
So how can you claim it is free? Or an example of liberty?
It is as I call it, managed freedom.
I will agree to this statement
central planning is better than managed freedom.
The Canadian health system is better than the American health system
However, neither is as good as a free society. Singapore while not free is freer than both and offers some of the best healthcare in the world.
Windows is simply managed freedom.
Edited 2009-10-01 02:41 UTC
The problem with a “free society” is that most people wouldn’t know how to handle freedom when they got it. Total freedom is total anarchy, and would be the end of civilization itself.
really?
can people handle school choice? Alberta, Sweden, Chile, British Columbia.. hmmm.. apparently they can and society does not collapse!
Can people handle drugs? Hmmm, Holland isn’t collapsing.
Can people handle sexual morality? Hmm, yep, society is not collapsing as sexual freedoms have arrived.
Can people have guns? Switzerland, Finland, even USA. Despite the rhetoric, crime in the USA is not that much higher (as in orders of magnitude) than other western countries with more gun laws.
Yep, looks like people can actually handle freedom.
You don’t grasp what a totally free society would be, do you? No rules, no regulations, no laws. If I want to kill someone because they insulted me, in a totally free society, I’ve every right to and no law can stop me. Managed free choice is one thing, total freedom with the complete absence of law or other governance would, indeed, be the end of civilization. We would live like animals, pure and simple, until someone rose up from the masses to take control yet again and the cycle of civilization would repeat.
No, that is anarchy which is the antithesis of a free society. A free society has limited but necessary regulation, laws and Government to keep order and provide basic services like national defense, fire and police and nothing more.
This is what made the US unique at one time but has now been replaced with a bastardized hybrid that is even worse than socialism or pure unregulated capitalism.
The ideal system would be one where the amount of wealth that one received was directly proportional to the value of goods and services one was able to provide to everyone else. The more good one did, the more and better quality goods and services one produced and gave to others, the more one would receive oneself. The more damage and harm one caused to other people and the more one consumed, the poorer one would be as a natural and unavoidable result.
In such a utopia one wouldn’t need laws or enforcement or jails, as everyone would naturally be best served by doing some good for someone else.
People have no idea how to set up such a system.
It is the basic idea of capitalism and a free enterprise economy, with money as the medium of exchange, but no real-world economy comes even close to this ideal.
“Artificial scarcity” for example is where a company can end up making a huge amount of profit from carefully rationing out copied bits of paper and or plastic that cost five cents each to make and yet are sold for a hundred bucks each copy, or the entire Advertising industry where the objective is to get people to desire things they don’t really wnat or need, and another example is where lawyers can make a very good wage out of suing other people for no good reason … that is a prime example of where the real world economy has gone horribly wrong.
Edited 2009-10-01 06:11 UTC
Hey, you just invented communism :>
(the one Marx designed, not the one Lenin implemented)
You just described how things used to be in the US, and some of the ideals that were followed for a long time. That has obviously changed over the years, and mostly in the last century as greed has become the norm. Unfortunately in this day and age, it is the person with the money who gets to make the rules. I could go on and on and fully explain what I mean, but there is not enough space to do so here
No, that is anarchy which is the antithesis of a free society…
Anarchy does not mean chaos. It means lack of overall government. an -> not, archos -> authority. There can be stability and even rules without having a government.
I’m not disagreeing with the gist of your post (in fact, I mostly agree with it), it’s just that I’m partial to some anarchist philosophies, and I don’t like the word being equated with some kind of everything-goes, might-makes-right apocalyptic society, when that’s not what it means.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anarchy
Edited 2009-10-01 23:30 UTC
Um… dude, we are animals.
In a society of complete anarchy you would indeed be free to kill someone for insulting you. There family and friends would also be free to kill you right back. As you say, there are no laws so there is no law against retribution for your homoside. Unless diplomacy was raised to the level of important in clan ruled pre 1800s Japan, would you be so quick to murder over an insult knowing that you’d get killed right back?
I’m not going to argue over dictionary definitions of freedom.
If you think freedom means the freedom to kill someone just because they insulted you… well then we don’t speak of the same freedom
I’m not an anarchist nor would I ever risk plunging society into such an unknown. An anarchist or even extreme libertarian state might be workable. I just don’t know enough to risk society on trying it out.
However, I do think maximal liberty is essential and the best way for all people.
The fear mongering of those who fear liberty is just that… fear mongering. Society does not collapse when freedom is introduced and we can see it by the countless examples through the world.
These are not theories. These are real world, tried and true methods. Gun ownership, school choice, free speech, sexual freedom, drugs… simply do not destroy societies as the fear mongers say they will and do not necessitate coercive government control and this government control rarely if ever solves the issues raised in fear mongering.
Forcing kids into public schools does not produce social harmony.
Drugs wars do not stop people from using
…
That’s all I’m saying.
Anarchy as political idea is NOT CHAOS !
Its merely An-archos, without state !
An idea that communities band together as needed.
Id say that OpenSource is the Anarchy of OSes.
Libertarian paternalism?
No, Windows is an operating system.
Edited 2009-10-01 04:05 UTC
What I mean by managed freedom is there is the appearance of freedom. But the society does not actually want that freedom. So they try and manage it.
For example, the recent bank bailouts are an example of managed freedom.
Society does not want to deal with bank failures…
Nor do they seem to want to heavily regulate banks…
Yet, rather than nationalizing or heavily regulating the banks to prevent such failures, they simply choose to let the banks run wild with freedom, but they try and manage that to make sure no banks fail.
As to windows is managed freedom… well this is an odd article comparing OS to freedom
Windows is like the US banking system.
It’s a free for all and everyone can go nuts writing applications and drivers and Microsoft just tries to manage everything and hold it all together.
It’s not as cohesive and centrally planned like Apple.
It’s not as free as open source which is total freedom in the software world.
Nothing is a perfect example
Point is with the way society is going, HE WHO CONTROLS THE OS, CONTROLS THE PEOPLE !! Its the emergence of communism all over again, the fight to control the means of production (?)
Edited 2009-10-01 22:46 UTC
Where I can get things done quickly while being cool without having to wear a pretentious black turtleneck.
If by “getting done” you mean only doing the simplest tasks, or perhaps playing several mp3s backwards and forwards at different speed, and at the same time, without skipping — only that each instance of the app crashes when playing back to the start of the track and nags you now and then for not having paid for it.
Come on, BeOS is/was cute and all, but politically it’s like one of those utopias in which everything that annoys you has been removed from the beginning — along with almost everything you need. And when you try to build on it, you notice that most new building blocks cost money and are still only half-baked anyway.
BeOS, if it were a political ideology, would be a Libertarian utopia: no taxes after the initial cost of citizenship, but you’ll have to pay through the nose for even the most basic service, or do without it at all. And of course it wouldn’t last.
I think that BeOS, in this game, is one of those fringe political movements that never caught on, and has pretty much been discredited, but that some people cling to with great fervor.
I was actually thinking of BeOS when reading the description of yourself as a centrist – since the developers of BeOS took a similar philosophy of trying to take the best bits & pieces from other OSes while trying to avoid their negative aspects.
Has the whole world been sucked into this Stallmanesque mindset that operating systems/computer software somehow represent a political and moral worldview?
Drawing parallels between Apple/Microsoft and Freedom/Fascism only dilutes the concept of political freedom, and produce an army of insufferable douches that equate “iPhone” with “civil liberties”.
And with health care being the issue de jour (Iraq, so 2004!) we are given an insightful comparison between health care and sound cards!? This is plainly perverse.
Computers are a tool. Develop software on a computer is a choice. Don’t want to develop for iPhone? Walk away, do something else; the consequences not participating are not that serious.
Agreed
The part that really gets me is how people will proclaim that computers are a tool and arguing over one OS development and implementation versus another is all a waste of time. Then that same person turns around to argue over competing sports teams as if people over-paid to play a children’s game in a pure entertainment industry are somehow more relevant and practical. After all, operating systems are those silly little things that effect how one can use there computer for work or play while the tangible product of a spectator watching two ball teams on a field is..?
Sure, when it’s Liverpool vs Manchester, Leafs vs Canadians or Yankees vs Red Sox it’s all good but we must go out of our way to decry the absurdity of debate over Operating Systems. Would GM vs Chevy be more relevant maybe?
This not directed entirely at you, it’s just something that’s come to mind over the last few weeks with a higher number of “your all stupids for talking about computer systems” type comments.
I certainly don’t decry a debate over operating system as absurd! And I’m all for a debate/argument about X vs Y, based on their respective merits.
The line must be drawn when moral judgments are being passed.
You wouldn’t be labelled a fascist or enemy of freedom for supporting Team A over Team B. But somehow software design and licensing has become a political/moral/religious issue, typified by stores such as this one.
I do agree that the labeling with extremes doesn’t help a great deal. At the same time though, buy GM and your a good American but buy Honda and your unpatriotic even when the machine is manufactured at the car plant down the street that employs most of your neighbors.
The product of a spectator watching two ball teams on a field is money put into the pockets of the teams owners. Nothing more, nothing less.
I mostly agree in that. But you should also remember that politics is related to almost everything, and the choices made in the world of IT and operating systems are often related to politics (in other words values, economics etc.) too. Software is developed and used by people, and people are political beings.
Even though you could say that software and operating systems – in themselves- are neutral, just tools, it would have quite big political consequences too if, say, more governments started favouring open source software and operating systems instead of depending on certain kind proprietary software like is the case nowadays. That is also why there is so much lobbying happening for this or that software philosophy in the politics.
I guess the open source kind of society would be transparent (as in the people will have an insight into the government and their agencies in what they do and why), municipalities or counties could easily adapt the way they do things so that it more fits their needs, and if you have the ability and want to, if you have an idea on how to improve things you can fairly easily get things done and hopefully someone will follow suit and make use of your improvements (or help you). It would also be very important for them how to store information, it has to be stored in a way that has an open specification, so that if the vendor would go under, you’d still be able to retrieve any and all of your information (even after years of neglect).
Some societies are transparent, but most seems very rigid and bureaucratical in how they do things.
I think bureaucratic systems can still be transparent. It seems more like the current approach is to convoluted the bureaucratic process as much as possible to A. keep ‘commoners’ from navigating the red tape unaided and B. spread the power between squabbling layers of management. Transparency also threatens politics because it suggests honesty and accountability rather than that nifty curtain of secrecy that can be used for things like selling a war on rumors of WMD.
A fully open source system is a utopian idea, I think, and it would only work if everyone played the same game. That means such a system would swiftly end up being terrifyingly authoritarian because it would require vigorous policing: since by ordinary inclination no one would live up to their rulers’ fantasy ideas of human nature, citizens would have to be made to, in fact re-educated to – for their own good. Hmmn, I think we’ve been here before. Utopian political projects always end up as hell.
Apple sounds far too much like a benevolent dictatorship based on the cult of personality. Benevolent, that is, provided you don’t cross il duce. His legal department will be swift to apply the castor oil if you do. Thanks, but no. We’ve been here before, too.
So that leaves Microsoft. Huge, sprawling, deeply capitalist, in love with marketing, overall probably closest to the way we actually live now, in the West anyway. Walking down the Microsoft product line – all those barkers touting wares on the basis of brash promises, bling, allure, legal trickery, small print, many hidden catches, with a design life of only 3-5 years – is very like walking down a modern shopping mall anyway.
So I think I’d choose Microsoft. Not because I like it but because it’s closest to reality and the one most likely to leave you alone to get on with your life – provided you pay your taxes, of course. The freedom to be let alone is the one worth defending. Just don’t ask me to like tax collectors.
The issue in OSs is choice, and its relation to intellectual freedom.
In the Apple model you have an OS which is tied to hardware from a particular source. Then you have applications which can only be bought from an Apple app store. Music (read books and papers too in future) can be bought only from the content store, and once bought, cannot be accessed on any other devices than the Apple devices. Yes, unpurchased material can be transferred on to the devices. For the time being at least, but that could be changed by the next update.
This model is the enemy of intellectual freedom, and it is no accident that the Guardian, an Apple shop and generally an Apple supporter, also contains a large body of columnists who write pieces claiming that we do not want to be able to choose doctors, hospitals, food stores. Its just too confusing and painful for us.
At bottom this model says, for the company involved, that it wants 100% of the pie, even if the price is for that 100% to be of a small slice of the total market.
The MS model says that it wants 100% of a defined piece of the market, and is prepared to engage in product tying to get it. The borders may change, as when browsers became included. But basically it is prepared to give up whole areas of the market, particularly hardware and non-OS software, in order to retain a firm grip on a bit of it.
The result is no apps or content stores, no hardware locking, greater number of apps and content availability. Its better, but its the difference between a malevolent and benevolent dictator. Both are dictatorships, both are undesirable. MS is a lot better, but its not nice.
Linux, well, its a third way. It is curious that the left never takes any interest in Linux as an economic phenomenon. It shows that the profit motive and narrow self interest are not the only motivators, and that Western capitalist societies, given a certain level of income, can accomodate behaviour which is not reducible to the old left wing categories. We have people working for the public good, sometimes in companies which are shareholder owned, distributing their product in ways reminiscent of community relationships. It is a very interesting social phenomenon, and one which, in Marxist terms, ought never to happen.
It is also by ideology and practice on the side of intellectual freedom in a way that the other two in their different ways are more or less opposed to. This is what we should particularly cherish and support about it. This is its real importance, and its a political as well as a technical issue.
I think this view is a bit shallow in that it assumes if someone writes an application and chooses to not reveal the source, he is only motivated by profit. There are folks who code for other reasons than profit, but they also like getting paid for their work. And if they don’t have hardware, support, or coffee mugs to sell, they’re gonna charge for their apps. Nothing wrong with that, IMO.
I guess my point is that there’s nothing wrong with being motivated by profit, so long as you don’t turn into a douchebag and lose your integrity by trying to get lots of $$.
Edited 2009-10-01 10:49 UTC
Dude, I want the source, that’s the whole point. As a programmer, the moment something crashes out on you, and you can see how to fix it and you fix it, you sold on the idea. For me it was when a java video processor crashed out when processing some broadcasted (read dirty) data, I could see where and why it was crashing and quickly put a fix in and carried on. In the closed world I would have had to give up on that tool or video. Or better still, when something lacks a feature you want, and you can put it in. Better still when you put your changes up stream and they are taken.
The fact it doesn’t cost anything is a result of the source being available. But for some of the open/free software, there is a buyable version for those who want support of some kind in traditional customer manner. Companies buy software for the same reason, in the free software world they by support, but that’s semantics.
Was your reply in response to what I posted? If so, I don’t see the connection.
Edited 2009-10-01 16:50 UTC
I like where your going with this but in terms of MS, I think it’s more than 100% of a defined piece giving up non-OS software. The OS is big but the office suite is bigger for them. Then there is sharepoint and exchange along with the various server system packages. Media players and game consoles. Zune and the it’s associated media content source. MS may be willing to only dable in hardware a little but on the software side it’s still a computer in every home and office and Microsoft’s software on that computer. They’d likely happily buy Adobe and Autodesk to obtain ownership of those software users since they have in the graphic and architectural segments what MS has managed in the office and platform segments.
That might be a somewhat benevolent government but it’s one that would constantly be looking for more to become involved in and demand taxes for.
I do like rum, especially mix with coke, bit lemon and ice cubes. Rum is nice thing, it can mixed with almost anything liquid, it gives punch on cocoa and caribean flavor on tea. But I wouldn’t mix it with battery acid, it won’t make my car battery any powerful or get myself more drunk.
Same can be said on this article.
Apple and MS are the same sort of companies with different product focus.
Both are proprietary.
Linux is charity.
None of them are a metaphor for political ideology.
They are all made up of capitalists, useful idiots, and the politically oblivious.
What a horrible article; this is right up there with the car analogies because it is taking a simplistic understanding of politics and retrofitting it into something that has nothing to do with it.
The best way to describe the OS world is this; it is a country with lots of little cities with city councils. Each with its benefits and downsides – the difference is that there is one city council that is completely different. If you live there and plan to move you have to buy everything new again because none of it conforms to specifications that all the other city councils have agreed to.
The other city councils have attempt to come to a truce with this large city but the city has adamantly refused to support even the most basic standards. The smaller city give up and try to implement compatible facilities so that people can transition to the their cities but either find that they aren’t 100% compatible or they’re sued by the big city for patent violation.
Your OS is your brain in the future. The current robots are branded to do certain things right now that follow instructions of real time human response.
I dont see anything wrong with the company having that much control over anything. Pick your side right now while you still have choice and the knowledge to do so. Open source rebel against anti freedoms, but the biggest freedom in open source is Choice. This is used to distinguish the difference from sheep and wolf vs the evil shepherd.
Get over being human already. Your mind is slave to the OS.
This essay was first written by Neal Stephenson in 1999.
In The Beginning Was The Command Line
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
Why all the focus in politics in choosing the “right” solution. Why not use Apple’s model where it makes sense (military and other vital government services, possibly healthcare), Windows when it does (emerging industries and markets), and Open Source where it’s best (universities, education, etc., possibly healthcare). Some programs need to be strongly directed. Newer industries need to be allowed the freedom to compete in the Windows model. When that industry matures (and one or a few companies dominate), it’s time for openness and standards (Open Source). In government’s interaction with older industries, they have either broken up monopolies, or established utilities at that point. In software platforms, Open Source is another option – heck a GPLed Windows would even work for Microsoft at some point (I see no reason for them to open the source for office, even if document standards are needed). Of course proprietary software vendors always wait too long to do that – Sun did with Java, Adobe is arguably doing that with Flash, etc. It needs to be opened while there is still respect for the platform – in the case of Adobe Flash, now is that time.
Back to the point, I don’t see why we have to pursue some odd kind of broad utopic vision for what kind of system to use, and force everything to align, when it’s clear we can just use them each where they fit best.
The problem is, we live in society. What intellectual stuff is available and how it may be used is increasingly determined by the business models which govern how we buy and use our computers (including ebook readers and mobile phones).
This world is defined by what we can buy or get, how we buy and pay for it, who we get it from, and how we can use it.
So one vision is, you buy it all from company A. Company A operates a content and application store, and you get to use whatever they allow you to, and you get to load it onto your choice of their hardware. This is a world in which the gateway to content and applications is the company you buy your computer from. Or rather, its the one stop shop you buy it all from, and you do not get to go outside this shop.
The other vision is that you get to buy or source stuff from wherever you want, its not locked to any particular hardware or software, you can run your software on the hardware of your choice….and so on.
So, as a for instance, buy ebooks from wherever you want, using a web browser and credit card, not an iTunes. Buy your apps from anyone who will sell them to you. Again, using a browswer and credit card. Run your software on any hardware you choose to buy from anyone. Read your books or play your music on the platform of your choice.
In this world, no-one tells me what to read or what software to run, or what to run it on.
Now, in this world, you do not have to buy your stuff from anywhere in particular. You want to buy it all from Apple, for instance, you can. But if you don’t want to, you are not restricted.
The point is that a social environment of the second type is freer than one of the first type, and it is so because there are fewer gatekeepers to getting or publishing information or applications. Its a better social environment in a political sense. More open, less likely to be dictatorial, less likely to be at the mercy of secrecy and concealment. Its more like the ideal of the Western democracies.
The world of the one stop shop is fundamentally controlling and restricting. It gives power over information to other people than the user or creator. This is what is wrong with it, and this is why which business model prevails in the computer industry is politically important.
The bookshop model is the right one. I write what I like, I self publish or find a publisher, I buy books used or new wherever I like, and pay for them with cash or cards, or I borrow them. I read them in the bath, the garden, my study, a library. With or without my glasses. I lend them to my friends. I do not have to have an Amazon ebook reader, buy from the app store and only from it, be unable to lend or resell, be unable to transfer and read on another reader if I feel like it. No, because go down that route and in the end, we will have Amazon (or Apple) telling us what we can read or listen to.
It matters. It really matters what the social model is. Its not just a case of different sectors doing what they feel like doing, or one model is good for some not others. One model is really really bad for society. Because this is about intellectual freedom and freedom of access to and use of information.
I agree with most of what you said to some degree. I think though that with emerging technology, as with emerging industries (which always follows new technology), you do have to wait for some amount of maturity before the industry, and the consuming population, are ready to settle down on a standard – an e-book format for example. I think we’ll get there, and probably rather quickly – and it may take government involvement (probably will). But we aren’t there yet (well, maybe in office document formats 😉 ).
I really don’t think that comparing Operating Systems to Politics serves any purpose except maybe a thought provoking one. In that aspect it was a really good article.
Wow! I couldn’t provide a better description of my political beliefs even if I tried to. Now there’s two of us. Wanna form a party?
Agreed. I come to this site for OS related news where technical merits can be discussed, not for politics.
This thread seems to be all-out political, so here I go. Let’s start with a bit of terminology, from merriam-webster.com:
Anarchy:
Main Entry: an·ar·chy
Pronunciation: \ˈa-nər-kē, -ˌnär-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek, from anarchos having no ruler, from an- + archos ruler — more at arch-
Date: 1539
1 a : absence of government b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2 a : absence or denial of any authority or established order b : absence of order : disorder <not manicured plots but a wild anarchy of nature — Israel Shenker>
Anomie:
Main Entry: an·o·mie
Variant(s): also an·o·my \ˈa-nə-mē\
Function: noun
Etymology: French anomie, from Middle French, from Greek anomia lawlessness, from anomos lawless, from a- + nomos law, from nemein to distribute — more at nimble
Date: 1933
: social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values; also : personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals
— ano·mic \É™-ˈnä-mik, -ˈnÅ-\ adjective
I know there’s some overlap, and the term “anarchy” is widely used in ordinary speech as a synonym of “anomie” (or “anomy”), or “social chaos”; but I think it’s both more etymologically correct and more useful to keep them separate in the context of political philosophy.
Monarchists, democrats and anarchist, all of them realize that some coexistence rules are needed. Monarchists wonder who will make those rules, and they answer: “let’s pick the wisest man!”; democrats wonder how will society pick the rulers and keep them in check (republicans) or how society will make the rules without rulers (direct democrats), and their answer is: “The only thing we can all agree on is how many of us favor each option, so let the majority decide.”; anarchists don’t want to commit to a ruler or a rule-making process, they just wonder what those coexistence rules may be, so that almost everyone can accept them and a peaceful, civilized society can be built on them.
Many anarchists propose a more or less socialistic organization, or fail to go beyond the isolated individual.
Then there are libertarians, who tend to stress the freedom of the individual in front of the State. Neither are all anarchists libertarians nor all libertarians anarchists. There are several libertarian currents, of which a very influential one is that of minarchists, who want a minimal government to protect property rights through its monopoly on violence, but let everything else to the market.
Market anarchists (also called anarcho-capitalists) are libertarian anarchists who favor private property rights and free association, including free trade. In this kind of society aggression (offensive violence or its threat) is never accepted, and retaliation (defensive violence) is the way to prevent it. When people disagree about who is the aggressor, they can try to sort it out by themselves or agree on an arbitrator; at worst, they may end up fighting, but the key point is that none of them is granted the right to a monopoly on violence, which defines a government.
I’d say most sources of today’s social friction, like disagreements on dressing codes, lifestyles, noise standards and gun control policy, could be eliminated in a libertarian society through fenced communities with internal bylaws, which people can freely join.
The thought of making analogies to governance and operating systems is flawed in the ways it’s being presented here by most people.
The answer is even though the way applications are handled can be shown in this way (apple app store control, Windows installation and hardware freedom, Linux hardware, code, and installation freedom); the OS systems themselves are either ruled by a corporation (MicroSoft or Apple) or a BDFL such as Linus Torvalds in Linux or by autocratic committee in systems such BSD or Haiku. The only argument to true freedom i can see in the scenarios of the later entries is in that the source code can be forked and ruled by another BDFL or committee if you get frustrated by a WILLNOTFIX answer.