If you don’t like their model, choose someone else. Why should average users who would otherwise be served perfectly well by Apple’s solution be required to be “responsible” for some subset of personal security you think denotes a “responsible” citizen from an “irresponsible” one?
Many follow their example and without push back there will be no someone else because average users my not understand consequences unless they are educated by people who do understand them. Like with many other areas requiring certain level of expertise to understand consequences of certain desicions.
> we’ve tried relying on “user responsibility” before, >Why should average users who would otherwise be served perfectly well by Apple’s solution be required to be “responsible”
Do you believe in choice? If you do then average users should have a choice whether to rely on Apple or switch such functionality off. Without having such choice people become less and less responsible. You can say they choose by buying such machines but I do not think this could be qualified as a choice just like accepting EULA. It's not really a choice.
I think if Apple was to add a developer mode to the iPhone, 99% of people would actually shut up.
I just don't think that the counterargument is completely spurious. Craig Federighi taking the stand in court and saying that Mac security is at a place they "don’t find acceptable" doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy about Apple's future plans. And so if someone says they don't want to buy an M1 Mac, even if it's open today, because they see the iPhone as indicative of the direction Apple is going, I think that's fair, even if I disagree about Apple's intentions.
By contrast, if Apple added a way to unlock the bootloader on iPhones tomorrow, this argument would immediately evaporate. :)
Apple could certainly choose to lock down future Mac iterations (though I don't think they will), but I think fears that they might retroactively lock down existing Macs are just unfounded and ignore the realities of the situation.
Of course people are free to buy or not buy machines for whatever reason; that's why I want everyone to be informed about the details. My beef is with those who disagree with this stance, and think people shouldn't buy these machines period because Apple is evil and those who buy their devices sheep, and anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken, and there is no room for having different priorities when choosing hardware because Freedom™ is the only priority that matters. For whatever definition of Freedom™ they feel like using that day.
> I think the irony would be less dramatic if the free software wasn't running on hardware constructed with slave labor.
Why do you feel the need to direct criticism of Apple's business practices at me? I do not work for Apple.
> but people's worries about the conflict of interests here is fully justified.
Then don't buy the machines and move on with your life?
> Apple and open source are not friends
Neither are they enemies. The world isn't binary. I do not exclude from my life everything that is related to everyone who isn't explicitly my friend, do you?
> their ultimate goal is to stomp you out and expand control
Ah yes, stomp us out by... building machines we can use to run our own OS? They could've just not done that and we wouldn't exist.
> just don't be surprised when your blood, sweat and tears ultimately end up being used to grease the gears of their production line.
So which is, are they going to stomp us out or are they going to embrace the extra business we bring? You can't have it both ways, you know.
> We're talking about a trillion-dollar company that doesn't release their own device drivers or schematics; it's ridiculous that we even need to finish the job for them in the first place.
I find it fun finishing the job for them. This is exactly the kind of project I enjoy doing. If you don't, then choose a different free software to contribute to.
> It's hard to see this work as "noble" in the same way other free software projects are, at least to me.
So our project is inherently morally inferior to others because you simultaneously think Apple should've done the work for us and Apple are our enemies. ????????
Seriously, this makes no sense. You know Linux itself started out as a hobby OS with no corporate backing and tons of other drivers are reverse engineered, right? Do you also think Nouveau isn't noble? What about LineageOS? What about XBMC/Kodi when it started? Freedreno, Panfrost, and friends? All of those projects are or were about bringing free software to devices designed and manufactured by giant corporations without any support.
Heck, I got sued by a multinational for bringing Linux back to the PS3, and I still don't regret it. That work got upstreamed, by the way.
That's a really good point I hadn't thought of!
It really doesn't depend on the threat at all. It's about the model of the society you wish to have and what values you promote.
It's about who you wish to be responsible : the 'big company' caring about your safety and taking your freedom on the way or you caring yourself about own safety and preserving freedom on the way. I do not really think there is a choice here because the first option will always be abused at some point.
Freedom does matter and it comes with responsibility. THIS is the main issue here. THIS is what separates society with responsible citizens from the society with 'irresponsible people' who wish to trade their freedom for 'safety' resulting in loosing both (and democracy itself after some time).