You can also decide to give the money to other computer vendors that actually care about BSD.

I don't know, like Tuxedo,

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Infos/News/OpenBSD-6-3-cu...

>This statement is a bit presumptuous

It's not. Anyone who has followed the last 10 years of Apple devices knows what works and what doesn't.

"Presumptuous" meaning it presumes what a user will want to do with a computer. In this case, the computer comes with no display, no keyboard, no mouse, no trackpad, etc.

I'm not following. Are you saying that one can use an Apple router with an alternate free operating system and it still functions as a router ? I'm not aware of any such project. At least openwrt does not support the Apple router. As for what users would want to do, that is a moot point since there are common expectations for devices based on the specs and form factors. So, why would you buy a $2k laptop to use it as an inefficient, buggy, and underpowered headless linux server (assuming you get networking working)?

"I'm not following."

I agree.

The "alternative OS" is the OS that Apple used for its AirPort Extreme router, and which it borrows heavily from for the MacOs userland. Apple writes some software itself, but it also takes a significant amount of source code straight from "alternative OS" projects. To be clear, the OS projects I am referring to are not Linux nor is the computer that is the subject of this thread a "$2K laptop".

Do you mean to imply that those things are known not to work?

There have been many Apple devices where all those mentioned things (if present) work under a non-Apple OS. So as usual the truth is somewhere in the middle. From my Linux experience there are a lot of well working MBP models from this time span. And Minis.

I'd like to point out that the dmesg indicates a M1 Mac Mini. There is no display, no keyboard, no mouse, no trackpad, etc. I think there may be a 3.5mm headphone jack, though.

Yes, the Airport routers used various NetBSD versions as their OS. However the wireless drivers where, at least for some versions, proprietary.

I'm just really curious and don't have a dog in this fight against/for ability to do as you will with a product you purchase.

A) a hypothetical device, let's not call it a computer, but similar, exists that asks you politely by means of something like a license not to modify it even though it would be possible to do so pretty easily.

B) another device, this time a hypothetical CPU that is next to impossible to modify with any degree of ease since it requires nanoscale tools.

Why should there be a fundamental difference in a person's ability to modify one of the above, but not the other? Just because the laws of Physics don't allow mere mortals to so (not at least without a highly sophisticated nano fabrication lab) doesn't seem like a very convincing principled answer. Is there a stronger argument?

Intent is important in law and in most people's moral principles (acknowledged or not). It seems to me that going out of your way to make the things you sell easier to repair is supererogatory, but going out of your way to make the things you sell harder to repair is bad and wrong, even if two companies did those two different things and reached the same end result.

>Why should there be a fundamental difference in a person's ability to modify one of the above, but not the other?

Because one could trivially modify the first, and people do all the time (and screw the law), whereas the second is, as you said, "next to impossible" to modify even if you want it.

>Just because the laws of Physics don't allow mere mortals to so (not at least without a highly sophisticated nano fabrication lab) doesn't seem like a very convincing principled answer

In what universe do "the laws of physics prevent this to be done easily without millions of dollars" is not a convincing answer?

> Apple used an "alternative OS" for their Airport routers: NetBSD. Kernel was around 6.x if I recall correctly. Seemed like Wi-Fi worked preety good, maybe even "flawlessly".

That’s a nice strawman you got here. AirPort routers shipped with NetBSD, and it was officially supported. But good luck getting macOS to run on that — macOS would count as the “alternative OS” for the AirPort.

Maybe running MacOS is not that important to me. Maybe I am just interested in the hardware, not the Apple OS.