[OT] Re: iPod support in Linux

[Mario Vukelic]

On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 20:05 +0100, Avi Greenbury wrote:
> I'm not pissed at his reply so much as at the implication that if I use
> Linux I must have some vendetta against companies who don't look towards
> complete total integration. Yes, I prefer things that work with everything [...]

I didn't see such am implication, but that's between you two :)
I just saw a pretty matter-of-factly statement (if, IMHO understandably,
a bit irate) that supporting the companies who hamper interoperability
will just lead to more of this nonsense. Hard to argue with that.

> [...] but I don't feel strongly enough about it to turn down something that
> does the job exactly as well as I want it to because it wouldn't work on
> someone else's system. 

This is very shortsighted (not to speak of selfish). Are you aware that,
e.g., many of the linux wifi drivers actually came from the BSDs, who
were forced to develop them because they couldn't use the binary blobs?

If everyone doesn't care, nobody has support for anything.

> I'd imagine that someone that does would go with a BSD licensed OS,
> given the greater degrees of freedom for the user

I assume you compare the BSD license to the GPL. However, the user has
the same rights with both licenses. The GPL states specifically that use
is outside of the scope of the license.

The only difference is for developers who want to distribute code they
didn't write.

> and the specified aims of OpenBSD.

You mean like "[...] our efforts emphasize portability, standardization,
correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography."???

> I bought my iPod because it works so well with Linux. I plug it in to Amarok
> and they talk to each other. When I bought it, there was little else of a
> similar capacity that would work like that. 

I am sure you must be pleased that Apple invested your money wisely into
more restrictions.

> Now that this has changed,
> if I wanted to replace it, I'd have to look for something else that does work easily with Linux.

Yeah, like only EVERY player that simply supports the USB mass storage
device protocol. Hard to find, indeed.