Apple - the lesser evil, but still evil

[archerships]

I like Macs. The OS allows me to switch seamlessly between open source and proprietary software, both Windows and Mac. Since it’s based on FreeBSD Unix, it’s both more stable and secure than Windows. Apple puts a lot of QA time and money into making sure everything works consistently. And I like Apple’s design aesthetics.

Unfortunately, however, Apple often still behaves in ways just as evil as Microsoft:

Parallels and VMWare, the respective makers of Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion virtualisation solutions for the Mac have both admitted that they will not support Mac OS X virtualisation in their software.

The reason isn’t technical though, as the two companies probably know how to make this work without the need of Apple.

The problem is that neither Parallels or VMWare want to strain their relationship with Apple by adding this feature without the Mac-maker’s consent and, by the way, violating or encouraging to violate its current user license agreement as well as Apple’s copyright regarding the protection system the company has developed so as to prevent Mac OS X from booting on anything that is not a Mac.

Virtualizing Mac OS X would allow PC users to run this system in a window or on full screen mode, which is probably one thing Apple doesn’t like.

However, it would also be an interesting feature for the enterprise and professionals markets, as virtualisation is used as a flexibility enhancer for easily creating or simulating secure system environments. This technology has been clearly embraced by the Enterprise market during the past two years and is now widely used for production purposes.

Original: craschworks - comments

Comments

[madbard.livejournal.com]

How is wanting to preserve your hardware revenue "evil"? Apple's business model is based on the assumption of OSX being tied to Apple hardware. (As evidenced by their cancellation of the clone program in the 90s.)

All those features and high-quality design you laudit are made possible by Apple's business model. TANSSAAFL.

[crabbyolbastard.livejournal.com]

How is wanting to preserve your hardware revenue "evil"? Apple's business model is based on the assumption of OSX being tied to Apple hardware

Not anymore really since they have gone to INTEL based systems...

[tacit.livejournal.com]

Apple is still a hardware company, not a software company. Apple makes its money from the sale of computers, not Mac OS.

Apple does this because it feels, with some justification, that the survival of the company is at stake. If people can buy cheap Dell systems and run Mac OS on it, Apple's Mac sales will likely founder. Every hardware company that has attempted to change its business model to be an operating-system company on commodity hardware--every one, Be, NeXT, DEC, without exception--has failed. That business model is suicide.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I don't think wanting to increase one's revenue via hardware sales is evil per se. What's evil is the means by which Apple tries to do so.

In my opinion, it's evil to use the threat of violence to prevent someone from using their own property in a peaceful manner. I think so-called "intellectual property" laws are akin to other forms of protectionism, like tariffs and professional licensure laws.

I also disagree that most of Apple's features and high-quality design are due to their insistence on preventing Mac OS X from running on other hardware. In fact, I think that's the single stupidest strategy Apple has pursued over the years. They went from controlling over 50% of the PC market to controlling less than 3%. Over that same time, Microsoft, by virtue of their willingness to allow their OS to run on any hardware, ate Apple's lunch.

Most of the features I like about OS X--its security, stability, and the plethora of open source apps available--result from its reliance on the underlying FreeBSD operating system, which is not tied to any particular hardware plaform. Apple's prior proprietary in-house OSes were buggy and crashprone.

The ease of use and consistency is nice, but I don't think hardware lockin was necessary to achieve it. Ubuntu seems to be coming along nicely on that front, and I expect that it will only become better.

[tacit.livejournal.com]

Intellectual property laws are no different from tangible property laws. Too often, those I see opposing intellectual property seem to want a free ride off the labor of others. If I create something with my hands, it belongs to me; I can do with it as I please. Yet according to the logic of those who oppose intellectual property, if I create something with my mind, anyone who wants to should be free to profit from my labor. If I record music, anyone who wants it should be able to take it for free; if I write a computer program, it should be possible for anyone who wants to to use it. Why is it so difficult to recognize that the things I make with my mind are just as valuable as the things I make with my hands, and that I have the right to say what I do with the things I create? Is it just because an MP3 of music can be copied easily but a chair can not? Is that the only difference?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Intellectual property laws are no different from tangible property laws.

Intellectual property laws are quite different. For example, suppose you make your own hammer. I fully support your property claim to that hammer, since the theft of the hammer would do you harm, and since your ownership of said hammer does not prevent me from buying, making, or using my own hammer.

Now suppose you get a patent on the idea of a hammer. Now, you not only claim a property right in your own physical hammer, you claim the right to prevent me and everyone else in the country from using our own property to buy or make a hammer-shaped object. I claim it is both ethically wrong, and economically unwise to allow the government to enforce such claims.

If I create something with my hands, it belongs to me; I can do with it as I please.

Not under the current regime. There's a wide range of objects you might create that others would claim as their own.

If I record music, anyone who wants it should be able to take it for free; if I write a computer program, it should be possible for anyone who wants to to use it.

Yes, indeed. New works in science, literature, music, and the arts build on the accumulated work of others in times past. Intellectual protectionists retard that growth by getting the government to restrict others from re-using and building upon past works. Who knows what scientific advances we've missed because the transaction costs of negotiating the patent maze were too high?

Why is it so difficult to recognize that the things I make with my mind are just as valuable as the things I make with my hands, and that I have the right to say what I do with the things I create?

Because you are claiming a property right not just to your own physical property or your own body, but you're also claiming a property right to the minds, body, and property of everyone else in the nation.

Is it just because an MP3 of music can be copied easily but a chair can not? Is that the only difference?

That's a big part of it. Suppose that you owned a Ferrarri. Currently, physical Ferrarri's are costly to create. If I stole your Ferrarri, you would be harmed a great deal, because it would cost you many thousands of hours of your life to replace.


Now imagine for the moment that I invented a duplicator gun that could recreate physical objects as easily as we can duplicate intangible goods now. And suppose that I used my duplicator to dupe your Ferrarri. Have I "stolen" your Ferrarri?

Now suppose that you made money by charging $100 bucks a day to rent your Ferrarri. Obviously, with the advent of duplicator gun, your rental business would disappear. After all, why rent a Ferrarri from you, when I could just duplicate one just as good?

Now suppose you went to the government, and demanded that the government kill anybody who dared to use their duplicator guns to dupe your Ferrarri. Should the government enforce your monopoly claim so you can go back to making money renting your Ferrarri?

[tacit.livejournal.com]

Intellectual property laws are quite different. For example, suppose you make your own hammer. I fully support your property claim to that hammer, since the theft of the hammer would do you harm, and since your ownership of said hammer does not prevent me from buying, making, or using my own hammer.

Now suppose you get a patent on the idea of a hammer. Now, you not only claim a property right in your own physical hammer, you claim the right to prevent me and everyone else in the country from using our own property to buy or make a hammer-shaped object. I claim it is both ethically wrong, and economically unwise to allow the government to enforce such claims.

That is a misstatement of the way patent law works. If I patent a particular hammer, you are free to make your own hammer for your own use. Wht you may not do is sell, rent, or distribute hammers that use my design.

Yes, indeed. New works in science, literature, music, and the arts build on the accumulated work of others in times past. Intellectual protectionists retard that growth by getting the government to restrict others from re-using and building upon past works. Who knows what scientific advances we've missed because the transaction costs of negotiating the patent maze were too high?

At the same time, creating intellectual works is very difficult. Those who spend the time, effort, and money to do so deserve to be rewarded for their labor; the notion that I can spend effort and money to create something new, only to have others use the fruits of my labor without rewarding me, is absurd. It's simply Communism under a different guise. We live in a society which says that people deserve to enjoy reward for the work that they do.

It is absolutely true that new works build upon existing works, which is why patents and copyrights do not exist in perpetuity. It is also absolutely true that the current state of copyright is a ridiculous mockery which stifles future innovation; the notion that a copyright lasts for the lifetime of the person who created the work plus seventy years is absurdist protectionism, nothing more.

But that does not mean that intellectual property laws are inherently bad. You say "Who knows what scientific advances we've missed because the transaction costs of negotiating the patent maze were too high?" I say, in a society where a person spends millions of dollars and years of effort to invent something new, only to have everyone who wants to freeload on his creation, what incentive is there to create anything new at all? When people do not reap the reward of their work, then people no longer have an incentive to work. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" does not work. Those who benefit society by creating something new that people value and find useful deserve to be rewarded for it. Without that reward, innovation stops.

That's a big part of it. Suppose that you owned a Ferrarri. Currently, physical Ferrarri's are costly to create. If I stole your Ferrarri, you would be harmed a great deal, because it would cost you many thousands of hours of your life to replace.

Now imagine for the moment that I invented a duplicator gun that could recreate physical objects as easily as we can duplicate intangible goods now. And suppose that I used my duplicator to dupe your Ferrarri. Have I "stolen" your Ferrarri?

No. I am not harmed.

But you have stolen the benefit of many decades of skilled and dedicated work by thousands of engineers, and many hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, and the cumulative product of tens of millions of man-hours of work, from the people who work at Ferrari. If everyone starts using your duplicator gun to zap copies of my Ferrari, you can expect that soon there will be no new Ferraris any more, because it makes no sense for Ferrari to spend two hundred million dollars and a hundred thousand man-hours of labor to create a new model Ferrari only to have you take it without compensating them for it.

It has definitely been my experience that those who do not like intellectual property laws invariably do not realize or appreciate the time and investment it takes to create anything new.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

That is a misstatement of the way patent law works. If I patent a particular hammer, you are free to make your own hammer for your own use. Wht you may not do is sell, rent, or distribute hammers that use my design.


Fair enough. But threatening me with death if I try to "sell, rent, or distribute hammers that use [your] design" is a restriction of my property rights is it not? After all, prior to the grant of your patent, I would be perfectly free to sell, rent or distribute hammer-shaped objects to anyone I pleased.

Those who spend the time, effort, and money to do so deserve to be rewarded for their labor; the notion that I can spend effort and money to create something new, only to have others use the fruits of my labor without rewarding me, is absurd. It's simply Communism under a different guise. We live in a society which says that people deserve to enjoy reward for the work that they do.

If I spend millions to build and stock a hardware store, do I therefore have a right to prevent anyone else from starting a hardware store in my town? After all, if I'm not guaranteed monopoly profits, what incentive do I have to invest that money and hard work?

I say, in a society where a person spends millions of dollars and years of effort to invent something new, only to have everyone who wants to freeload on his creation, what incentive is there to create anything new at all?

Yes, inventors and artists would not be able to make money the same way they are now. But that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be an incentive to invent and create. Hell, how profitable are most artists and inventors now, even with our draconian copyright regime? See below for more on this.


If everyone starts using your duplicator gun to zap copies of my Ferrari, you can expect that soon there will be no new Ferraris any more, because it makes no sense for Ferrari to spend two hundred million dollars and a hundred thousand man-hours of labor to create a new model Ferrari only to have you take it without compensating them for it.


No new Ferrarris? None whatsoever, for all eternity? Don't you think that people might come up with other ways for financing new designs, even if they could not rely upon patents? Prizes, for instance. Bundling design services with other goods and services that are excludable. Tips. fundable. Serialization.

Keep in mind that, like parents who send their kids to public schools, users of alternative payment schemes must currently pay twice. Once, in the form of taxes, for our current patent and copyright scheme. And again, for the overhead required for any new payment scheme. Right now, it's much easier for creators to go with the default system. In the absence of copyright and patents, however, there would be much greater incentive to create and use such alternative financing schemes.

But even if the elimination of patents and copyrights reduces the financial incentives for innovation, how do you know that the reduced financial incentives are not outweighed by the concommitant reduction in the costs of negotiating, purchasing, combining, and distributing new innovations? How do you know that the benefits gained by giving a monopoly to the Ferrarri designers is worth restricting the property rights of every duplicator owner nation-wide?

[tacit.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. But threatening me with death if I try to "sell, rent, or distribute hammers that use [your] design" is a restriction of my property rights is it not?

Now that's a little over the top. Most cases of patent law are civil, not criminal, matters, and there is no death penalty for patent infringement.

After all, prior to the grant of your patent, I would be perfectly free to sell, rent or distribute hammer-shaped objects to anyone I pleased.

And if, prior to my patent, you invented a hammer that was similar to mine, then your hammer would be "prior art" and my patent would be invalidated.

No new Ferrarris? None whatsoever, for all eternity? Don't you think that people might come up with other ways for financing new designs, even if they could not rely upon patents? Prizes, for instance. Bundling design services with other goods and services that are excludable. Tips. fundable. Serialization.

It's interesting to me how closely these arguments mirror the arguments I hear in favor of communism. The tacit assumption is that, well, you know, if we just tinker with the underlying system in just the right way, we can get rid of capitalism (or in this case, intellectual property) and still have an economic system that works.

I don't buy it, simply because in most cases the cost of real innovation is so incredibly high. The promise of a decade and a half of exclusive right to market something new is the only thing that can realistically pay for the cost of high-ticket innovation. Consumer-level stuff might be financed in other ways, maybe, theoretically, perhaps, though that has not been demonstrated; but I doubt the same is true for all forms of intellectual property.

Essentially, your argument appears to me to boil down to nothing so much as resentment at being told you can't do whatever you want to do with the sweat from someone else's brow. If you're so concerned that my design for a hammer infringes your right to make and sell hammers, then invent a new kind of hammer yourself! At that point, I suspect your attitudes on intellectual property may change. :)

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Now that's a little over the top. Most cases of patent law are civil, not criminal, matters, and there is no death penalty for patent infringement.

All laws, civil or criminal, are ultimately backed up with threat of violence. If I lose a patent lawsuit, I'll get fined. If I refuse to pay the fine, deputies will show up to confiscate my stuff. If I resist, they're authorized to shoot me.

[tacit.livejournal.com]

If I lose a patent lawsuit, I'll get fined. If I refuse to pay the fine, deputies will show up to confiscate my stuff.

That's the common perception, but surprisingly (and I speak from experience here), that is not the way it works.

In a matter of civil litigation, if I sue you and I prevail, the court issues a court order for you to pay me whatever damages the court decides are appropriate. At that point, the court's involvement in the issue ends.

If you refuse to pay, no deputies show up at your door and no police storm through your windows. Collecting on the court order is my responsibility, not the state's, in a civil issue.

There are things that I can do. If I can find your bank account information, I can go to your bank with the court order in hand and ask that they put a hold on your assets until you pay me. in certain cases, if you have tangible property such as a house, I may be able to (in some places) attach a lien against your property, which does not force you to pay me, but does prevent you from selling the property to someone else until the lien is discharged.

If you have no money and no tangible assets, I'm screwed. i can not recover the judgement and can not use the law to compel you to pay.

There are private investigators who specialize in collecting civil penalties against a person who refuses to pay; they usually work by auditing that person's public financial records in an attempt to locate that person's bank or other tangible assets, then attempt to go through the bank. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. And again, if you have no money and no tangible assets I can locate, and you refuse to pay, that's the end of it. The police do not get involved.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

And if I do have tangible assets and refuse to pay you?

http://www.co.grayson.tx.us/JPs/Precinct02/suits.pdf

"...B. The Plaintiff may ask that a Writ of Execution be issued to the Constable or Sheriff to collect the Judgment from you by levying on certain of your belongings. This may be filed thirty (30) days after Judgment.

C. The Plaintiff may obtain an Abstract of Judgment from the Court and file it at the County Clerk’s office. Interest accrues against the Judgment at 10% per annum or other legal percentages as stated in the Judgment until paid.

D. The Plaintiff may file a Writ of Garnishment suit either at the commencement of a suit or at any time during its progress. This type of suit is used to garnish money, equipment or assets belonging to you, even if they are being held by a third party..."

Just as I wrote, "...If I lose a patent lawsuit, I'll get fined. If I refuse to pay the fine, deputies will show up to confiscate my stuff..."

And if I refuse to cooperate with the deputies, they have the authority to shoot me.

Ask yourself, if civil judgments were not ultimately backed up by the threat of violence, who would bother to pay them?

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

I don't think it counts as evil, but it's definitely presumptuous to assume that you have a right to any given business model and the profits that derive from it.

Try it with your customers sometime. See how far it gets you.

"But my business model is based on the assumption that you'll keep paying me because, y'know, I'm me, and not because I actually work better than the competition!"

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I've seen articles for booting Mac OS X in VMWare on Windows, but nothing on booting Mac OS X in VMWare on Mac OS X. Do you know of such a thing?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

If you would be so kind, where might I find articles on how to get Mac OS X virtualization working with VMware on Mac OS X? A fairly extensive web search revealed a number of articles explaining how to do it with VMWare on Windows, but none that I could find that explained how to do it with VMAWare on Mac OS X. Thanks in advance for any assistance you may wish to provide.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

No, I'm trying to get multiple OS X instances running on OS X.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, though it's still in Beta.

[fishsupreme]

It's the same sort of misguided market definition that has been the bane of so many companies over the years. In order to avoid cannibalizing their chief line of business, they give up their future.

Microsoft sees itself as an OS company. Thus, Windows sales are sacred, and any stupid, shortsighted decision can be justified if it preserves Windows sales. Office won't run on Linux, because that could hurt Windows sales. .NET is prevented from becoming truly cross-platform, which would kill Java, because that could hurt Windows sales. Virtual PC has all sorts of lame idiosyncrasies that make running Linux under it a pain, because making it easy to virtualize Linux could hurt Windows sales. In short, all of Microsoft's great or even potentially revolutionary products are crippled in order to support the Windows monopoly. While this maintains the cash cow, it also utterly eliminates any possibility of the explosive growth Microsoft used to see, and also entirely binds the company's fortune to one product that, frankly, is probably not going to last forever. Windows cannot survive a paradigm shift away from the standard home/corporate desktop.

Apple sees itself as a hardware company. Thus, hardware sales are sacred, and any stupid, shortsighted decision can be justified if it preserves hardware sales. Apple has the best desktop OS currently available, bar none. However, they won't sell it on commodity PCs, thus depriving themselves of 95% of the market. What's more, since businesses don't buy Macs, but only far-cheaper commodity PCs, Apple disregards the features that would be required for enterprise adoption -- the directory services and centralized management infrastructure that could make a Mac-based large company viable. After all, it's consumer features, not enterprise ones, that sell more Mac hardware. But out of fear of hurting the current revenue stream, Apple intentionally cripples their software, ensuring they maintain their 5% market share forever.

Both companies seem not so much evil as myopic. They could be so much more. Both would learn to make money in the new world where everyone runs Mac OS X on their desktop, running .NET software developed with Microsoft tools, accessing Linux servers administered with Microsoft directory services. But that world is different, so the fact that it would be better for customers all around is disregarded.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I think your analysis is spot on.

Note that my use of the word "evil" is perhaps too loaded. I don't view "evil" as an either/or phenomenon, but as a graduated scale, with say, gassing the Jews at one end, and lying to my Grandma about how often I go to church on the other.