* I don’t know how well pay-what-you-want pricing works. Radiohead is not a fair sample due to the immense interest in what they do. A variable price range seems logical though, perhaps even paying for better quality. At the end of the day though, our problems are in restricting us, not paying. We should pay for content if the creator wants it.

* I do have to take issue with the accusation that Apple makes poor hardware. I was at a marketing meeting with Dell to purchase a VM server cluster, and the Dell folks noticed a lone Xserve (Apple server) sitting on the desk. They laughed at it. We mentioned that we’ve had no major issues with OS X server & they admitted Apple at least made fine consumer electronics. And it’s true. The iPhone is brilliant (hardware-wise). The Macbook Pro has the best build & screen quality I’ve seen, and I’m in the position to purchase quite a bit of hardware for work.

Nevertheless, you bring up good points. Except the hardware one.

My main concern is the FSF getting too dogmatic and forgetting to understand the world as shades of grey.

With the exception of the App Store, it is not true that Apple forces DRM on anyone. Podcasts on iTunes don’t have DRM, small bands, even yourself if you record in your garage, can release music on iTunes without DRM. It may apply to movies; I’m unaware of how one publishes movies to iTunes but I know via video podcasts, one can use non-DRM formats.

While it would be a good idea for Apple to demand non-DRM in an ethical sense, economically it’s suicide. The more pragmatic approach is to do exactly what was done with music: start with DRM and widdle it away over time as these older corporations start to feel safer in the digital age.

That said, I agree with you: new groups need to publish; the old companies can’t keep up, and are hurting us. And hopefully, those new companies will use open formats.

Also, how can you say it’s just about the content creators when there’s no way for people who make their own content to share their creations without also having to have Apple’s DRM forced on them?

I realise the FSF and the GNU etc. are also stupid with laws and licences. I mean if you look at the GPLv3, then technically if you have a program under that licence and make a rule in your house about anything, you’ve broken the terms of the GPL. It’s poorly worded and therefore also crap. It’s a very hard thing to get the balance right between openness and reasonable protection from theft and imitation, but it’s that reason that seems to be lacking.

You needn’t put an ’s at the end of “Chris’s” — to start.

Also, can you please e-mail me as soon as possible?

Me love you long time.

P.S. I agree with the sentiments of this post.

Please correct me if I’m wrong but last I heard, it was difficult to do various free actions with Android, such as acquire root, recompile the kernel, install sshd. Again, please correct me, but I believe Android is actively set up to prevent such things, not wholly unlike the iPhone OS.