I'm very fond of Apple's business stance; my concern is not with it, but with their technological stance. Apple products are built on lock-in; they are proprietary and closed, not open. Frankly, at this point they're not even really all that good (in fact, sometimes embarrassingly bad — something not limited to Apple!).
I want the freedom to tinker, the freedom to review, the freedom to extend. That's why I use Linux.
Locked and closed compared to what? What makes Android what it is to most people is a bunch of closed sourced Google Services and a bunch of closed sourced binary drivers. That are so closed that not even Google was able to upgrade some of their Nexus devices because they were dependent on closed source drivers.
Pfffft. Yeah there's "nothing stopping you" except for everything.
You can't get rid of the window manager, the Finder or the Dock. Heck, you can't even stop Finder from running in any supported way and even if you manage to, you can't replace Finder in every program to open or save files.
You can't replace the Dock because Apple won't let you modify a private API for describing available screen space. Every Dock replacement has the same bug - windows end up behind the replacement dock when you maximize them.
Even Microsoft gives you hooks to change things like the Taskbar, Explorer and so on where Apple gives you nothing.
Yes thanks, that's what I was laughing about. You can attempt to run such a system, but since nobody does (and for good reason) all your tinkering will be in vain and you'll have a fairly useless system. Enjoy that!
You can't actually tinker with the things that you want to use though, can you? Nope. Again, Microsofts offerings simply outclass Apple here - they've got hooks to let you modify just about every interface in Windows whereas with Apple you have to resort to basically re-building your entire OS for the right to tinker.
Apples offerings are simply not tinker-friendly and everybody knows this, notwithstanding desperate attempts from the Apple-faithful to disagree.
> The Finder isn't used to "save files".
Yes it is. The GUI components for every "save file" operation in almost every existing Mac app are absolutely sourced from and tightly integrated with Finder.
So I just showed you how you could do it with links and because "no one does it" that means it "can't be done". Have you thought that the reason "no one does it" is because most people don't want to muck with their systems and just want to get stuff done?
You want to "tinker with the kernel" but you are complaining about modify a plist?
I didn't say that I wanted to tinker with the kernel. I want to tinker with the Finder, the Dock and the actual window manager that everybody uses, not XQuartz which nobody uses.
You showed that in order to tinker with Apples stuff you have to completely replace Apples stuff. That's hilarious!
If you go dig into my comment history I have several comments where I praise Richard Stalman and his commitment to open source. He is the zealot (and I use that word with both positive and negative connotations) that open source needs.
But I have to ask what ARE you running then? Intel? AMD? What about your phone?
If your going to make this argument in this way you better have a Stalman like response. If you are running closed source in your stack then your argument is selective.
Everyone is running closed source somewhere, even Stallman. He says in his web page describing how he does his computing that he uses credit cards sometimes, uses closed source software running on public computers that he doesn't use often, and doesn't consider anything that doesn't regularly update it's software a computer.
You might be in favor of Stallman's compromises but he has a selective argument just like everyone else.
In the case of FaceTime, it's VirnetX that's to blame. Apple's pledge to open-source it ran hard into a lawsuit from VirnetX that required Apple to redesign and still currently has them paying $439M to VirnetX for patent infringement.
I want the freedom to tinker, the freedom to review, the freedom to extend. That's why I use Linux.