I’ve long been an advocate of Free Software. I’ve been a card-carrying associate member of the Free Software Foundation since 2002. I’ve been writing GPL software since 1993. The Mac is a thread woven through the tapestry of my life. For many years, Apple’s combined offering has been impressive enough to keep me paying for both their hardware and their software. But lately their software has been getting weaker (and more restrictive), to the point where I’ve found myself researching alternatives, even on Mac OS X.
- Safari? No thanks, I choose Firefox (and later Camino).
- iChat? No thanks, AdiumX talks to everyone, not just your business partners.
- QuickTime? No thanks, VLC plays everything, and in full-screen.
- Terminal? No thanks, iTerm has tabs.
And so forth. In fact, I spend the vast majority of my time using these and other open source applications (Carbon Emacs, Colloquy, Audacity, Seashore, Python, and a variety of command-line tools). Why keep running them on an operating system that costs money and restricts my rights and my usage?
(I would like to point out that it is entirely Apple’s choice that their operating system does not run on my new Lenovo ThinkCentre. I’m not saying it was a bad business decision — they are a hardware company, after all — but it is particularly galling to realize that if I bought a new Mac, I would be subsidizing the development of an operating system that contains code whose sole purpose is to lock me into a specific hardware platform. I realize that most people don’t look at it that way, but there it is.)
And what about those wonderful Apple programs that I haven’t replaced with open-source alternatives? I loved iPhoto until my iPhoto database got corrupted one day, and I lost all my ratings, keywords, and albums because that information is stored in an undocumented binary black hole. Yeah yeah, I know about AlbumData.xml. That has its own problems, and in my case it was already corrupted by the time iPhoto noticed. I’ll give them some credit for trying.
Similarly, I loved iTunes until my iTunes database got corrupted, too. Once again, I lost all my ratings and about two dozen well-thought-out interlocking “smart” playlists. And once again, all of the irreplaceable metadata was stored in an undocumented binary black hole. Yeah yeah, the XML backup again. iTunes even helpfully offered to restore from it… except that it didn’t restore any of my aforementioned metadata, so it’s not really a backup, is it? “A” for effort, “D-” for implementation.
Meanwhile, I’ve already been stung by iMovie’s lack of support for Edit Decision Lists. Luckily I never got locked into Keynote. (I’ve been using S5 ever since I got burned by PowerPoint.) And don’t even get me started on the iTunes Music Store and the ever-increasing number of tie-ins in each new version of iTunes.
I’m creating things now that I want to be able to read, hear, watch, search, and filter 50 years from now. Despite all their emphasis on content creators, Apple has made it clear that they do not share this goal. Openness is not a cargo cult. Some get it, some don’t. Apple doesn’t.
You may think that this is all some sort of after-the-fact rationalization of my non-Apple purchase, but my coworkers (and my wife) will attest that I’ve been complaining about these issues for a long time. A few months ago in Austin, I monopolized an entire table of friendly coworker bar banter with a rant about Apple’s lock-in. And astute readers may recall that I’ve been wary of iPhoto and iTunes for years.
In many ways, the tale of my switch is more of the same old story. Mac OS X was “free enough” to keep me using something that was not in my long-term best interest. But as I stood in the Apple store last weekend and drooled over the beautiful, beautiful hardware, all I could think was how much work it would take to twiddle with the default settings, install third-party software, and hide all the commercial tie-ins so I could pretend I was in control of my own computer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to my eye Apple isn’t beautiful anymore. I’ve worked around it or ignored it for a long time, but eventually the bough breaks.
You should watch out for iCal too.
Comment by Peter J. — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 3:19 pm
But those Macbooks are so tempting!! Is there equivalent hardware out there that runs Linux well?
Comment by Jason — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
I’m buying most of your arguments - they make sense. However, I’m not sure what to make of the corruption issue. You mention how iPhoto and iTunes databases have gone foom for you, and how’s using an alternative application going to solve that? No data format, open or not, is immune to corruption, and backups are the answer for this (which I know from earlier posts you’re right on top of), even if it’s a (rare) plus that such a format is documented. I suppose that a reasonable case could be made for apps that don’t keep separate metadata databases, though.
Another thing that gets me is that you mention that Apple is with OS X developing “an operating system that contains code whose sole purpose is to lock me into a specific hardware platform”. Are you absolutely sure that by buying a ThinkCentre, you’re not somehow doing the same thing? (If you aren’t, isn’t it a bullshit argument? It’s a good assessment of the situation, but if you’re switching from one vendor that does it to another vendor that also does it, it’s not a good argument.)
Lastly… I agree with your wish that data should continue to be editable. Open data formats ease the task of keeping everything readable (and editable) in the future. However, there’s this: make your own data format. Not saying it should appear in big products you ship or that it even applies to this, just pointing it out because I think it’s an angle that often goes uncovered.
Comment by Jesper — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
I believe you are a) fooling yourself a bit if you think any of those things are going to get better in Linux and b) not doing enough back-ups.
So you switched to Linux because it’s less work to get everything to work just like you want it? Sorry, but that does sound like post-purchase rationalization to me :-) Just last week, it took me about four hours to get exactly to the heavily customized, X11-heavy, Darwin ports-abusing development setup I had running before. Getting rid of “commercial tie-ins” in OS X takes about 2 minutes, if you don’t count QuickTime, which you aren’t using anyway. And why don’t you just back up your data? A corrupted file is a corrupted file, no matter what format it is in. If you are not doing daily incremental backups at the very least, you might just as well keep your stuff in RAM and pray the cat never trips over the power cord… Also, last time I checked, OS X didn’t have a monopoly on random data corruption ;-)
Personally, iTunes Music Library.xml and it’s iPhoto equivalent are more than enough to make me feel safe, they contain all the data I’m ever likely to need.
Comment by Michael Ströck — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 4:10 pm
Ever hear of a backup?
Name me one piece of photo software that does not have a proprietary method for storing metadata? Oh and by the way iphoto stores your photos in an open format that any computer can read.
Ever try using a piece of software that can recover your itunes and iphoto libraries?
I feel you have some good points but otherwise you a spewing some real crap here. I have yet to ever loose an Iphoto, Itunes, or even any data on my mac because I back it up.
Comment by Marc Ray — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
This is just ridiculous. You’re complaining and complaining about how none of Apple’s formats are “open” enough for you, but then you blame them for data corruption, when these problems could have been easily fixed with a single backup and wouldn’t have been fixed by Apple using XML? You say that Apple’s tools aren’t good enough, and you’ve had to go out and find alternatives. Lots of Mac users do the same thing, to varying degrees; I use Adium instead of iChat because I think it looks nicer, for instance; and we’re not on our blogs moaning about it. You say you don’t want to go through the hassle of tweaking the OS on the new machine, installing 3rd-party software, etc. What exactly do you think you will be doing with Linux when you install it on that fancy ThinkCentre? You’ll be tweaking MORE, configuring MORE, installing MORE because NOTHING is as packaged and polished.
Just come out and admit it, to us or at least to yourself. You’ve been looking for a way to switch to Linux for a long time and you’ve finally built up enough excuses. Enjoy your time with Linux, and when the endless Google searches to fix some miniscule package dependancy version problems finally drive you away, you will of course be welcomed back.
Comment by Anonymous — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 4:46 pm
I tried iTerm a while back and had problems with it. I am sure it has improved since then, but I have not missed tabs since I learned about using GNU screen with Terminal.
Comment by David Lindquist — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 4:59 pm
It’s not the OS that restricts your rights or your usage, it’s the software (and even there you could argue that iTunes is in fact perfectly capable of “open” standards like mp3, aac, xml). Nothing prevents you from running other applications. Mac OS does NOT restrict your rights per se. Not even iTunes does, iTunes is not necessarily the same as the iTunes Music Store.
And when on earth has Safari started to become “more restrictive”?? They have become more and more open about the source code (up to the point where you can download nightly builds), its standard support is top notch and they are handing in non-standard extensions for review to WASP and W3C.
Another good example: Terminal. So it doesn’t suit your needs (it has no tabs). That’s not restriction, that’s not vendor lock-in, that’s simply just not the best-suited app for. Nothing more, nothing less. The solution: use another program (which is what you did).
One of your arguments is right, though: why subsidize an OS/apps you do not use? That is a valid argument, although I suspect you are trying not to use Mac OS X for the wrong reasons.
I agree that Linux is a perfectly viable alternative to Mac OS, but your reasoning as to why is bordering on b/s. Linux is a great system, I am using it for different tasks myself. But it is not the hands-down better system for end users and certainly not for content creators.
Comment by Oli — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:00 pm
I don’t entirely disagree, but half your gripes are more feature related than content-philosophy related. iPhoto & iTunes both structure their underlying libraries in simple, logical, orders in the filesystem. Library corruption might be a problem in so far as albums/playlists/ratings, but not in terms of rebuilding one’s library. I can rebuild my iTunes library any time by dragging the iTunes Music folder onto a fresh install and everything’s there.
Adium versus iChat? Personally I’d like to encourage the big IM players to link their systems on the backend, not have a client that has to know and keep up with every new and changing IM standard.
QuickTime versus VLC? Same thing. QuickTime’s much nicer. VLC encourages everyone and their brother to use a different codec for every friggin’ movie out there. There’s something to be said for standards.
Comment by Kevin — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:03 pm
I don’t find the arguments for dumping what clearly used to be a pretty devoted enthusiasm to Apple. (I may fit too closely with yesterday’s “Mac Fanboy” epithet.)
The whole thing does make me curious about some of the Linux alternatives, which I generally have not been since a half-hearted attempt to install Yellow Dog linux on a PM8500 a few years ago. In my world it always seemed that linux might be a pretty good alternative to windows, but to a Mac? I thought that the linux/unix crowd (beyond the zealots) wer coming the other way.
I’m going to test drive this Kubuntu using Parallels VM per somebody’s post yesterday.
Comment by Bret — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:16 pm
Err… that’s “don’t find the argument compelling”
Comment by Bret — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:17 pm
I actually agree with a lot of things you’ve said. An errant dump of data or a premature end of write with an undocumented, non-inspectable chunk of data is much worse than the same corruption in an open format or at least a format implemented within a Free Software package.
At a certain level this all comes down to how you view personal responsibility for your data. You can obsessively backup your data (which apparently every daringfireball reader who likes to troll does) or you can trust that with a non schizo backup cycle and some source code (or sane text based file formats) you can recover your state after a non catastrophic file corruption. Different strokes and all that.
That said, I work on a mac but I backup to a Debian box. There is a reason for that relationship.
Comment by dm — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:21 pm
Does linux require any less tweaking and twiddling than OS X? From what I’ve seen it requires the same amount or more, and in more complex ways.
Comment by Anonymous — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:25 pm
I don’t understand the vitriol. The theme of Mark’s last few posts (as well as others from the past, all linked here) is that he is seriously committed to the long-term preservation of his data. With that in mind, using proprietary software with proprietary library or data formats is ultimately a losing proposition regardless of your backup & recovery strategy because you can never be certain that your data will be readable at any given point in the future. Mark’s position strikes me as wholly rational; using proprietary software or data formats, on the other hand, constitutes an act of faith — one that I am admittedly engaged in. (And speaking from experience, keeping a backup of iTunes Music Library.xml around didn’t save me when my iTunes library self-destructed.)
Regarding Terminal, QuickTime, iChat, etc., I think Mark’s point — and it seemed like a secondary point — was simply that those bundled features of OS X were no longer selling points for him as he preferred using alternatives.
Comment by jacob — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:34 pm
“You can obsessively backup your data (which apparently every daringfireball reader who likes to troll does) or you can trust that with a non schizo backup cycle and some source code (or sane text based file formats) you can recover your state after a non catastrophic file corruption.”
That’s not trolling. It’s reasonable advice from people who probably have seen one to many occasion of catastrophic data loss. These things happen remarkably often. Unless your harddrive is immune to head-crashes, user-error, theft, fire, Mountain Dew spilled on laptops, etc., you are fooling yourself. Either that, or your data is not important in some way, in which case you’re just luckier than some other people. You’ll change your mind when one of those things happens to you, as I did few years ago when my laptop drowned in said Mountain Dew.
Comment by Michael Ströck — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:38 pm
I was very annoyed with iPhoto until I realized that it lets you export your albums as files with the names and tags. That’s the best way to make backup DVDs without losing info (along with backing up the xml, of course).
Comment by Jeremy — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:39 pm
Kevin:
“QuickTime versus VLC? Same thing. QuickTime’s much nicer. VLC encourages everyone and their brother to use a different codec for every friggin’ movie out there. There’s something to be said for standards.”
From a user standpoint, I prefer VLC because it “just works.” The interface isn’t that great, but fullscreen more than makes up for it, and it plays any crazy file (and region-restricted PAL DVDs) you might have.
Comment by Jeremy — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 5:51 pm
I really don’t understand people who say that. I’ve come across *plenty* of files that VLC won’t play. And it occasionally crashes, too.
Comment by Karl von L. — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
Well, I guess that it’s all in the personal experience. I think QT can play more files than it used to, so if it didn’t cost $35 (I think) to play full screen, I’d probably use it.
Comment by Jeremy — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 6:33 pm
It’s funny, for me the situation is almost opposite. I was never a Mac user. I desperately wanted to be able to use Linux instead of Windows, and put in lots of time trying to get that to work, but there are some applications I just needed to run that don’t run on Linux (and I was not heppy with the Linux-native alternatives). Last year I got my first Mac, and to me I get all the compatibility I wanted with a great GUI and a chrunchy *nix center. I still have Linux on my old PC, but since I never touch it in favor of my PowerBook, I don’t use either OS that is loaded on it.
Comment by Tony — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 6:52 pm
I applaud your principles, although I’m not taking the same approach you are.
I hope you’ll update now and then with information about the applications and approaches you pick on Linux, and how they relate to your goal of long-term viability for your data.
Comment by Dan Ridley — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 7:19 pm
The issue of closed vs. open formats seems to be one more akin to religion than science. Both iTunes and iPhoto store the important data in open formats (i.e., jpeg and mp3) but the user-added meta-data is, admittedly, less open. Then again, I wonder which Linux photo storage and manipulation application that also includes the storage of meta data and smart lists you plan on switching to? Likewise, which music application?
You’re not the average computer user — if you were, you wouldn’t have this blog — and you *may* be able to make this work for you. However, most people have long since resigned themselves to paying on a regular basis for the technology and some are willing to pay a little extra for something that *just works*. OS X, the iApps, and the many, many other professional quality software fits the bill for many of these people.
I think you’re also speading a little F.U.D. here by implying that Apple’s “closed” systems make your data less secure in the future. Compared to what exactly (actual, not theoretical)? Most of what we’re creating digitally now will likely be difficult to read in 10 years, let alone 50. That has nothing to do with closed vs. open formats and everything to do with the speed that technology is changing, poor archival backup and storage methods, etc.
Comment by Tim Swan — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 8:01 pm
EDL’s in iMovie? it costs £59 and that’s with a load of other stuff, learn to do backups.
Comment by Martin — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
I commend Mark’s decision. It was reached based on experience, thoughtful reflection on that experience, and a desire to preserve the past well into the future.
I am a Mac user, but I also run Debian PPC and SuSE PPC on this machine alongside OS X. IF I had Mark’s skill set I would likely dump OS X and Apple hardware in favor of Linux/*BSD, too. Ironically, it’s been a solid text editor that keeps me from moving to Open Source altogether. (Emacs and VIm? I’m too old to remember a whole new set of arcane and complicated keystrokes/commands.) In any case, I’m certain to watch Mark’s progress and am eager to read more about his experiences and reflections.
As an aside, I see that you work for IBM, Mark. Why in heaven’s name did they dump OS/2? Talk about a phenomenal operating system that combined the power of Windows and Linux with an Apple-like ease of use . Boy, do I miss OS/2 Warp. (Anyone have an aging PC they’d like to send my way?) Talk about flexibility! OS/2 Warp, especially 3 and 4, now THAT was OS!
Good luck, Mark. And thanks for helping to cook up a tantalizing feast.
Comment by J. De Salvo — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 8:50 pm
You Macheads need to chill out. Apple does alot of cool things with OSX, which is what linux should be today.
But they insult everyone’s intelligence with quirky charges and marketing lameness.
Why do you have to pay $35 to watch full-screen video after paying a premium price for your computer? Why is an application like iWeb, that would be useful for many people, nothing more than naging adware for .Mac? Why is it so unintuitive to backup iTunes metadata?
OSX is much better than Windows XP and is better than Linux in many areas. But valuing your freedom over a better UI or slick hardware is a valid factor for making a computer purchase.
Comment by Brian Duffy — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 9:07 pm
Pretty rough life if you have to worry so much about the ratings on your music, eh?
This sounds like old Dave Winer material but with less purpose. I mean it sure stinks that your library ratings got trashed but gosh, using a bullhorn to talk about your next consumer purchase isn’t exactly something that’s courageous or brave. Just motor on dude and leave others out of it.
Comment by robert — Friday, June 2, 2006 @ 10:40 pm
I messed with Linux for about 6 years of my adult life. This was during college (and a time after) when I had time to burn on configuration and RTFM to actually figure out out how to configure things. I no longer have the time to spend on this, so my next best alternative is OS X (still the *NIX goodness mixed with “it just works” so I can get the job done day to day with no fuss).
From what I gather, that being your loss of music & iphoto ratings, you really didn’t lose much. It’s not like you lost your entire library of music, photo data, or videos! (which bit for bit is a far larger percentage of your data). I understand that metadata is a valuable thing to waste, but consider it in historical terms. How many times have you changed the technology of your music library over the past 50 years (or your entire life)? Did you replace every record with a cassette? Every cassette with a CD? Every CD with a MP3 for every song?
I totally understand the desire for data integrity, but give the technology the benefit of the fact that these computers we are using are still relatively new technology. I understand the frustration about software that breaks. Keep some historical perspective though when you spout off hyperbolic about what you think about the current state of affairs. You do work at IBM after all. You could convince some very important people to make changes that could have a large effect on this technology. Also keep in mind that all information existing forever is a good thing really isn’t. All that does is pollute out reality with stuff that isn’t relevant.
You say, “but it is particularly galling to realize that if I bought a new Mac, I would be subsidizing the development of an operating system that contains code whose sole purpose is to lock me into a specific hardware platform.” This code locks OS X onto a piece of Mac hardware. It locks your data files onto a piece of Mac hardware no more than Microsoft’s .doc format has locked .doc files onto intel hardware (I’ve been reading .doc files happily on my mac for 3+ years) or OGG-Vorbis locks you out of using an iPod.
You also say, “how much work it would take to twiddle with the default settings, install third-party software, and hide all the commercial tie-ins so I could pretend I was in control of my own computer.” Are you kidding!? I’ve spent entire weekends downloading, compiling, and configuring Linux to my liking. At my work we got two brand new Intel Macs (an iMac and a MacBook Pro) that took me all of one day (8 hours) to configure both computers to my liking. OS X beats Linux in configuration time hands down.
Comment by Dave Woodward — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:25 am
I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with John Gruber’s synopsis, and I can’t help wondering if it set the tone for the comments I’m getting from his readers. Focusing on some minor data corruption and completely missing the big picture. Who the fuck cares if I have a perfectly preserved copy of an undocumented, binary black hole called “iPhoto DB” (or whatever)? What good does that do me now? I still can’t export it to any useful format, and I still can’t read it in anything but iPhoto. Ditto iTunes; it’s a minor issue meant to illustrate the larger problem. Meanwhile, Gruber says not one word about iMovie’s lock-in, Keynote’s lock-in, QuickTime’s brain-dead nagware, and oh yeah, that whole iTunes DRM thing.
John’s a smart guy; I know he’s capable of writing the article that needs to be written about these issues. As for the rest of you… “three monkeys, ten minutes.”
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:30 am
I’m interested in specifics. You’ve clearly given this a lot of thought before your moment of epithany in the Apple store. So lets try and be productive here.
Specifically, what differences or changes to Apple’s Software would have kept you in the fold? Now that you are embarking on a life without, rather than within, what changes or differences would bring you back inside? (I’m presuming that having made the switch it would take more to bring you back.
No generalities, you’re too savy for that, so a list of detailed changes please. If nothing else it would provide an interesting marker to see whether Apple moves closer to what you want in the coming months/years or continues to stray further away.
Comment by Christian Stewart — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:52 am
> This sounds like old Dave Winer material but with less purpose.
You must be new here.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:53 am
> a list of detailed changes please
Stop doing this. Stop doing this. Stop doing this.
Stop doing this. Stop doing this. Stop doing this.
Fix this. Fix this. (At least the part towards the end about not shitting all over the Net.) Fix this.
Let me export my iTunes ratings and playlists. Let me export my iPhoto ratings and playlists. Let me export my iMovie edits. Document all of your undocumented file formats, and finish documenting the semi-documented ones. Let me export my iDVD themes and import them into DVD Studio. (That one is almost criminally asinine.) Fix QuickTime so it actually plays all the video formats in common use, including that evil DivX-in-an-AVI hack (which still doesn’t work DESPITE QuickTime recognizing both the container format AND the video codec).
Fire this guy. Seriously. The head of open standards and open source at Apple is… a *marketing* guy. /me shakes head slowly.
This is not a complete list by any means, but it should give you an idea of what they’re up against. These are not small problems, and they are not implementation bugs that can be fixed by well-meaning, hard-working engineers.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 1:44 am
I don’t quite understand that crack. Don’t buy anything from the iTunes Music Store, and you’ll never be subject to their DRM.
iTunes works fine with music ripped from CDs, or downloaded from the internets or whatever. As far as I can see, your objection to it is about it having corrupted some metadata about your music collection. A fine complaint, but I’d like to see an open-source alternative that half as nice to use, but more resistant to such data-corruption issues. As to portability, what metadata that’s not in “iTunes Music Library.xml” do you need to preserve? That looks plenty portable to me…
In the case of iMovie, I don’t understand your lock-in issue. Where are you forced to use a proprietary data format, either for input or as output for the final product?
Quicktime? I paid them the $35 (a negligible amount of money, on the scale of the decisions we’re talking about), and the nag went away. VLC’s OK, but there are a number of commonly-used codecs that happen to be proprietary.
KeyNote makes me bang my head against the wall, so I shan’t defend it, though the things that bug me about it are probably orthogonal to the things that bother you about it. I don’t expect my presentations to still be useful 5 years from now, let alone 50.
(Despite my complaints, the combination of LaTeXit + LinkBack + Keynote, as crappy as it is, blows the competition out of the water.)
We could go on, but I think the real test is whether you end up preserving the ability to dual-boot into Windows on your new Linux machine. Most home “Linux users” I know spend a surprising amount of time booted into Windows, which doesn’t sound much like liberation to me …
Comment by Jacques Distler — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 2:10 am
“Let me export my iPhoto ratings and playlists. Let me export my iMovie edits”
Export and then use it where? Is there a standards body for this kind of thing? Which video editor saves files in an open format? Which one? And does photo editors have the exact same feature set for their files to be fully interoperable?
I’m not sure Photoshop’s PSD format is open, if it is, they seem to be adding features on every revision at Adobe’s will (damn you Adobe!) so every photo editor should save in PNG and agree on the same exact feature set yes? so files will work flawlessly anywhere? Beautiful vision you have, but you gotta admit, its kinda utopian naive. Of course we are all but monkeys ‘cept you and John Gruber (and how come he is exempt from being called a monkey, damn you John for being human!!! waahh!! grunt-grunt uh uh ah ahhh aaaaahhh!! )
Comment by ed — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 2:35 am
Why is anyone having a go at QuickTime? It supports more ‘open’ and cross platform / universal formats than just about anything else. Even Apple push H.264 as their codec of choice, compared to MS and their own WMV. I’ve had fewer problems with QT than Mplayer or VLC or anything. Yes, the $35 is annoying and it should be free, but whatever, really.
iTunes will play back any MP3, AAC, WAV or AIFF file, including those bought digitally from stores that don’t have DRM. It is also worth noting that iTunes is the only ‘mainstream’ music store that is cross-platform. You can also export your library (xml) and song lists (text).
So, iMovie doesn’t support EDLs. God dammit, if only Apple made a video editing application that COULD import an iMovie project and then EXPORT and EDL. They really should do that you know… eh? oh! [http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/specs.html] Of course, that bastion of amazingness, Windows Movie Maker (which is what iMovie is in competition with), is a fully open, stable, cross-platform editing system. I hear that Speilberg is using it for his next film.
DVD Studio Pro does import iDVD projects.
You can export your iPhoto library, I expect in the same way as you CAN export your iTunes library.
So, iWeb pushed .Mac. Shocking. Oh, wait. It is the simple integration that makes the products great in the first place. I get your point, though. It is a shame that iWeb is the only website creation and publishing tool on the Mac platform.
Pages and Keynotes are based on XML, aren’t they? Is Word’s .doc or PowerPoints’s .ppt any less proprietary? No. And anything you do in Pages or Keynote looks a hell of lot nicer and is produced a hell of a lot quicker. Show me another presentation programme which has the quality of Keynote’s themes, or its export options (Flash, HTML, QT, PDF).
Any data anywhere can get corrupted. That has nothing to do with open/closed. That has to do with bits and bytes. Then again, what the hell can you do with binary! That is SO closed!
Comment by Gareth — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 3:12 am
iMovie is a consumer level, fun, easy to use application. Expecting it to support EDL’s is irrational at best. I use FCP and have for several years and, to date, have had no reason to ever use EDL. QTPro should be free, or at least include full screen as standard, but it plays almost all video material that gets thrown at it. The only things it fails to play are mangled Mpegs with bizarre audio codecs, sometimes the fault is with the person who created the video, not the player itself.
There are many things Apple could do a lot better, they do Unix better than most, and of course you are free to choose but some of your reasoning is, well, unreasonable.
peace!
;o]
Comment by Martin — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 4:51 am
I think that you’re talking shit. Really !!!!
Mate BACK UP BACK UP.
Of course no lock in with M$.
Linux requires nay demands that you know the terminal and all of the desktops are Windows wannabes.
Comment by ghostdog — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 5:30 am
Good luck with the switch. It’s kind of funny that you’ve switched from Apple to Linux? Whereas jwz has switched from Linux to Apple. He cursed Linux for the time sink that it is (for him).
Comment by Singularity — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 6:20 am
John Gruber wrote a *very* short post that ultimately brought traffic to your site, and now you’re disappointed with him and upset that people could possibly question your motives and intentions?
Don’t post on a blog if you don’t want opinionated responses.
Comment by Anonymous — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 6:25 am
One problem with the Mac is that, if you want to legally run the best software available, you need to dish out some serious cash. Cash I don’t have. Not just for Photoshop and the other big guys but for NetNewsWire, TextMate, the Omni apps, and so on. So with Linux you can at least know that you can get the best applications that are available for it 100% legit. Just check a box in Synaptic.
I’ve probably spent a few decent sized paychecks on Mac shareware (the stuff I actually use all the time) but sometimes it gets to be too much. So, I use hacked shareware and warez all the time and it makes me feel dirty. Nearly every Mac user I know is a much bigger warez hound than his Windows counterpart. Hell, there are even monthly, easy to use database releases with GUI interfaces (iSerial, SerialSeeker) for the Mac that just contain serials and methods for hacking programs.
On the other hand, the Mac software you have to pay for usually does have a free equivalent. That free equivalent is usually not as good. In Linux, all that you have is “free equivalents.” But I’m sure with time more free software like VLC and Firefox will be developed where the bestest is also the freest.
Comment by jun — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 6:59 am
I do think Gruber’s write-up was a bit misleading; this isn’t about backups. As I mentioned in a comment on Mark’s initial post yesterday, I’ve been a full-time Linux user for about six years, and I think in that time I’ve learned to take a lot of things for granted that I don’t have with various Apple products. For example, in order to get my music collection onto my shiny new iPod, I had to translate it all from a free, non-encumbered format to a proprietary, patent-encumbered format — my iPod can’t play Ogg files.
If I were to throw away the original Oggs of all that music, I could quite literally be up a creek at some point in the future; even if I had backup snapshots of my music taken every ten seconds, I might lose the ability to listen to it if tools which handle the format they’re in ever stopped being actively developed and licensed. On the other hand, I have the source code for the Ogg Vorbis codec, a compiler, and a guaranteed right to be able to use both without restriction. I’m still going to keep backups, of course, but this transcends the mere loss of bits on some drive or other, and it’s somewhat sad to see people missing that point.
Comment by James Bennett — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 7:18 am
Having worked in a library which collected archival materials, archives in digital formats were received. It is a noble idea that one can read work and data 50 years from now, but it isn’t realistic. Technology changes so quickly, that even 10 years from now, media that is now thought of as cutting edge could be unreadable. Anyone remember the 5 1/4 inch floppy? An archive was even received in which the whole computer was donated, files and all. Problem was, no-one knew how to use it, and it was only 10 years old at the time.
Comment by Anonymous — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 7:54 am
Free formats like OGG are good, but I want my data in a format that may not be ideologically correct, but is very likely to be widely supported in the future, regardless of the business and technological events to come. You’re going to be able to play MP3s and AACs in the future, no matter what. (Provided that nonDRM music isn’t outlawed or something.) MP3 players are not going to go away, barring some major catastrophe. The billions of MP3 (and probably AAC now) files on people’s hard drives guarantee that.
An average computer user today, though, would have a tough time figuring out VLC, or Quicktime plugins, etc, to play an OGG or a FLAC. Some hacker will always be able to create an OGG player if there’s not one around. But I couldn’t. I’d rather just stick with a format for which no hackery will be necessary.
Ubiquity is more of a guaranter of objective openness than copyright and patent status.
Comment by jun — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 8:09 am
> iMovie is a consumer level, fun, easy to use application. Expecting it to support EDL’s is irrational at best.
Translated into English, this says “iMovie is a loss leader that we use to get people to buy our other products. Lock-in is just the cost of doing business this way, suckah.” The fact that you even refer to it as a “consumer-level application” shows that you accept this artifical dichotomy and have already resigned yourself to being screwed unless you pony up for the “pro-level application”.
The rest of this thread is so full of misinformation and missing-the-point malapropisms that I’m too depressed to refute them point by point. H.264 isn’t open. MP3 isn’t open. As far as compressed audio and video is concerned, I can count the number of open formats iTunes supports with both hands tied behind my back. Oh, but woohoo, it’s cross-platform (but none of them are open, either). PSD isn’t open but luckily I don’t use it. DOC isn’t open (and their new “open” XML schemas are patent-encumbered) but luckily I don’t use those either. (You people *do* know about OpenDocument and Open Office, right?)
And apparently I should just suck it up and buy QuickTime Pro, Final Cut Express, and a dozen other shareware utilities so that my Mac can be as functional as a 100% Free Software alternative. Hey, suddenly the “cost” of switching doesn’t seem so high, thanks for cheering me up!
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 8:35 am
Mark, yesterday you made a pretty nasty comment about “Mac fanboys”, suggesting that Mac users are unreasonable folks.
You do realize, I hope, that you’re coming across as just as much of a “free software fanboy”? Yes, sometimes open source is useful, but, really, it’s not the end-all, be-all of the world. MP3 is standardized, and is open enough. H.264 is open enough. Patents *aren’t* evil. Yes, there are some bad patents out there, but without patents, we wouldn’t have very much progress.
What the open-source zealots often fail to realize is that we live in a capitalist society, not utopia. People have to have jobs to live. People have to make money. This is what the patent system is for.
Ultimately, best of luck to you in your decision to go to Linux, I hope it works out. I did Linux myself for a few years, but ultimately using my computer was too much like *work*. That’s not what I wanted. If you’re comfortable with it, then good.
But you need to realize that most of the world doesn’t agree with you. Free (as in speech) software is not a moral imperative. Capitalism is not evil. Sure, if unchecked, it can do bad things — but what system can’t? Apple hasn’t locked me in in any way — my photos are jpegs (an open-enough format). My music files can be played in any number of players. I could export my NetNewsWire subscriptions as OPML and use them in any other feed reader. TextMate and BBEdit don’t make my files impossible to edit in other applications. Safari in no way locks me into anything. Neither does Mail.
Like I said, use whatever makes you happy. But realize that most people will see you as an unreasonable extremist on the “free software” issue — because it’s *not* an issue to the vast majority of people.
Comment by Yuda — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 9:43 am
Hey, this may have been said a few different ways already, but your problems had nothing to do with the file format, no matter how “open” a format is, it certainly isn’t incorruptible. Backups are a fact of life on any OS. An OS nowadays seems as much a personal choice as a dogma or lifestyle. Do whatever suits your fancy. But “open” breaks, too. Don’t delude yourself.
Comment by b — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:19 am
Umm..last time I checked I can take out my jpegs out of iPhoto, pull out my calendar data from iCal, push pdfs out of Keynote + Pages, take my mp3s with proper ID3 tags out of iTunes, and take my mbox files out of Mail. But what about tags, ratings? Well who cares. I still have my data. That is good enough for the majority of people. Except open source fanatics.
And exactly how many devices out there can actually handle this so called “open compressed formats”? Name me one that you would actually buy? Some of us actually prefer our media on other devices than an IBM POS.
Comment by Sunny — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:24 am
> MP3 is standardized, and is open enough. H.264 is open enough.
And we’ve come full circle! Hooray! This comes right back to my original post, and my Freedom 0 post that I previously linked to. The reason I used Mac OS X (and Mac OS 9 before that, and 8 before that, and 7 and 6 before that) was that they were “free enough”. Now they’re not (for me). Your mileage may vary. I think I’ve sufficiently explained my reasons why, and frankly, if you’re thinking in terms of “is this open enough for me?” then I’ve already succeeded (as I explained in a different context in Aftermath).
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:27 am
Be more careful with your terms. “Open” and “free” do not mean the same thing. H.264 is open. MP3 is open. Just not free. This is a distinction that makes a difference.
The complaint about having to buy software doesn’t hold up. Free software is available for the Mac. Lots and lots and lots of it. Lots and lots and lots. You can feel good in Linux that your rich neighbor doesn’t have some spanking new program you can’t afford, I guess. But now instead of one guy getting Photoshop and the other guy being stuck with GIMP, everyone has to be stuck with GIMP. Whoopee.
The lack of commercial software support means that Linux has less software choice than the Mac. It doesn’t have to be either/or, all free or all commercial. There can be a healthy mix with /quality/, instead of ideology, deciding what wins.
Comment by jun — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:30 am
Perhaps people are misinformed and missing the point because you set out to write a post about why you’re switching away from Mac OS and ended up semi-ranting about why you dislike Quicktime, iMovie and iTunes. I’m no Quicktime fan, but Apple has done nothing to stop me installing VLC Player. I love Photoshop, but if I had a bee in my bonnet about open source I’d use Gimp on X11, which Apple has not only not prevented me from doing, but actively encourages.
If you want to make an argument for open source don’t do it by trying to make Apple out to be the evil empire trying to lock you into their freebie apps - that only brings out the trolls.
Comment by Anonymous — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:32 am
I agree with Yuda that it’s unreasonable calling everyone “Mac fanboys”. (However, I don’t agree with everything Yuda said.)
It’s universally accepted that QuickTime Pro is spectacularly clusterfucked penny-wise-pound-foolish crippleware on Apple’s part. No one’s calling iMovie or iDVD capable either - I’d call them both polished and spectacularly diverse when comparing with other programs that can do the same as far as basic track editing goes, but I wouldn’t call them capable. That iTunes exports only a list of your songs and not its associated statistics sucks, and that they hide away useful features in .mac sucks even more.
At the same time, I find that most of the system is capable enough that I’m not all that worried about its shortcomings. I’m aware of them, and I hate them, but they don’t overshadow the fact that the combination is in my eyes better than anything else offered.
I think everyone else who criticizes Mark needs to desperately read about how his world works. Freeness is an utmost concern at every single step. I don’t necessarily agree with him about the level of his devotion, or with his attitude towards the BSD license, or about the *current* software landscape of his new primary venue, but I respect his opinion, and I respect his arguments for making the switch.
Comment by Jesper — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:44 am
Mark, with regards to #51: H.264 is open enough, and so on. Yes, you made this argument in Freedom 0. Yes, I agree with it. However, which is the widely-implemented, just as good/better, open, Free alternative to the H.264 codec?
Comment by Jesper — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:50 am
Mac hardware is now the most flexible choice in running software. They can run Mac (obviously), Windows and Linux. You can get all your open+free warm fuzzies running a Mac, usually inside Mac OS X. Anyhow, Good Luck With That–especially with the media aspects.
Comment by Anonymous — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 11:28 am
A bit ironic that you bought anti-linux hardware:
http://www.crn.com/sections/infrastructure/infrastructure.jhtml?articleId=188701277
Comment by Anonymous — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 11:33 am
> And exactly how many devices out there can actually handle this so called “open compressed formats”? Name me one that you would actually buy?
My existing iPod, for starters.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
I don’t know why I read all of these comments on a Saturday, but I found a lot of them interesting.
Mark, good for you. The points you raise are valid. I think data lock-in is a bad idea and as a “mac fanboy” i cheer your assault. I wish you luck. I hope Cupertino is listening.
A couple of points: Aren’t popular propreitary data formats likely to be readable in the future? Patents expire, and there is certainly a business for conversion. This is not to say that they’re a good thing. Just to say that practically speaking, by joining the herd you offer yourself some sort of security.
I wonder if OSX relying more and more on sqllite based storage engines will help in the future?
Comment by Phil — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
My computer is not anti-Linux, although I admit that Lenovo’s relationship with Microsoft is stronger than IBM’s was. All of its components are compatible with Linux, requiring no restricted or proprietary drivers.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
> Be more careful with your terms. “Open” and “free” do not mean the same thing. H.264 is open. MP3 is open. Just not free. This is a distinction that makes a difference.
This is a fair point. It’s easy to be lazy with such terms when arguing with people who won’t ever understand the difference. Still, it was lazy on my part, and you’re absolutely right on all counts.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
> Apple has done nothing to stop me installing VLC Player
I addressed this precise issue in my original post. I use so much open source software already on Mac OS X, and the remaining non-open-source software is what gives me all the headaches. So why stay? I don’t need a reason to switch; I need a reason to stay. Apple’s offering was compelling enough for a long time, but it’s just not anymore. To me. Your mileage may vary.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
All this talk about how much data you want to back up, but never an answer to the question “Why?” Do you need your iTunes metadata 50 years from now? If so, I pity you and your obsession.
Comment by NomeDe — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:43 pm
I respect your choice, it makes sense, but i cannot fully understand the reason of your rant. I assume nobody forced you to use iApps, Keynote and others? Also I assume that Apple didn’t prevent you reading the freakin manuals. So if you did, how in the world it took so long to understand that you cannot export into free formats etc? I would understand if your profession where shoe salesman or Taco Bell clerk, but as an IBM employee …
Comment by Peter — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:54 pm
> All this talk about how much data you want to back up, but never an answer to the question “Why?”
Ah, you’re in the wrong thread. You want Long-term backup.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 12:58 pm
> Safari in no way locks me into anything. Neither does Mail.
Seeing as how I never mentioned Mail (and you’re the first person to mention it), I should point out that Mail in Tiger no longer uses the standard mbox format. It auto-converts everything to an Apple-specific, undocumented .elmx format (one message per file, apparently to facilitate searching with Spotlight). This is one of the first migration issues I researched, and the solution is emlx to mbox converter.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 1:09 pm
> Patents expire, and there is certainly a business for conversion.
Well, seeing as we are now just in the infancy of software patents, it would not at all surprise me if some larger companies that hold a significant patent portfolio (like, oh, my employer, but also Microsoft) started lobbying for patent terms to be extended right about the time some really juicy ones are about to run out.
But sure, I see your point. There are lots of DOC files in the world, and there is obviously a business in conversion. And sure, there are lots of open formats that ended up being dead ends. Still, if you’re already aware of these issues, then you must admit you’re just living on borrowed time. Sure, Open Office (finally) does a good job importing various types of MS Office files… current ones. I predict that there will be a long lag before they can do as good a job with the .docx files that Microsoft is inventing for Office 2007, if indeed it is legal under the DMCA to reverse-engineer those at all. (Yeah yeah, the “interoperability” exception. Let’s see how well that all turns out.)
This is kind of getting off-track, since I’ve long since given up on Microsoft Office and converted all the proprietary documents I cared about. But it’s the same general concept. I have 500 GB of iMovie video that I’ll probably end up spending extra money to export properly. In the short run, it was probably worth the time/hassle/cost tradeoff to use iMovie, even knowing that I would have to convert it somehow later. In the long run, the utility of all non-free software approaches zero. It’s just a question of when you cut the cord.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 1:23 pm
Apple definitely has a problem with openness and data preservation. It’s been bothering me too.
In my experience you’ll typically see that Apple software will read open formats, but write a proprietary format. Sometimes they allow exporting to open formats, but since those aren’t the “native” formats the product works with, you have to explicitly re-export the file every time you touch it. Sure, Pages will export a PDF for me via the print dialog. But the editable source material remains in a proprietary format.
Disk Images: read an iso, write a dmg. Mail: import from mbox, write to a custom undocumented directory format. iMovie: import an mpeg, write a proprietary project file. Finder: read documented “FinderInfo” metadata, write .DS_Store. And so on. Worse still, use FileVault, and you’ve just encrypted every byte of your data (including open data) in a proprietary format that you cannot rescue from any other machine or with any other tools than Apple’s.
And no, folks, just because it’s a pseudo-XML plist or you can reverse-engineer it, that doesn’t mean that it’s open.
I have 15+ years logged myself, including five years working as an engineer for Apple on Mac OS X. I know people there who really do believe in the power and importance of open formats. But it’s spotty because openness is not a corporate mandate. If anything, when there is a corporate mandate it’s a mandate against openness. They guard their IP so fiercely that they guard things they shouldn’t, like file formats. Worse, even if an engineer creates a readable file format that could be made open, management will push back against getting it documented publicly because they don’t see the benefit in it.
Apple needs to turn that attitude around and realize that openness must be a two-way street. Until they do, I have to say you’re justified in switching away.
Comment by Drew Thaler — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 1:53 pm
Given that you want apps that use an open format, could you list the Linux/FSF applications that you are replacing the OS X equivalent apps with? I’m curious. VLC obviously, what are you iPhoto, iMovie, and iTunes replacements?
Another question. Why not run Linux, like an Ubuntu distro, on Apple hardware? Is it just the price?
Comment by Scott — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
It all boils down to using whatever works for you. But one thing that seems to be left out of this discussion is having the technical savvy to use whatever you want. I’m not a computer savvy person, but because Apple provides easy to use software, I can do stuff of high quality I couldn’t do anywhere else. Some people don’t think technically. More power to open source. But also, more power to Apple and any other company that can help someone like me look like I know what I’m doing.
What’s with all the arguing about what people want to use? It’s like telling someone they should like they’re favorite food. Or, have a favorite food for that matter.
Comment by Rick — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
I can certainly understand the philosophical points that you’ve illustrated here, and I can respect them to a certain degree. But honestly, I don’t think I’d take the same path. I find that every single time that I want to set up a Linux machine as a workstation of development box, I NEVER feel happy with the way things are configured. There’s always something that’s a little broken, or not working perfectly. One often ends up trying multiple OSS alternatives to get certain functionality going. While it might give one a clean conscience at the end of the day, I’d say the productivity hit for me is simply not worth it. It may be for you, and perhaps your configuration needs are satisfied in a minimum amount of time with minimal tweakage later, but I find OS X much more friendly in these regards. Pretty much everything that’s built in is supported and works rather well. There are flaws and sometimes things blow up, but it’s not nearly as bad as XP along those lines, and that’s why one keeps backups. Both iTunes and iPhoto can be simply backed up (with whatever utility) or you can burn them out to a disk internally, which I seem to recall keeps a decent amount of the metadata. Personally, the solution that I prefer is to use an operating system like Apple’s with whatever software on top, be it closed or open, whatever the best tool for the job is. I feel like it’s easier to get a satisfying work environment using this methodology and OS X.
Comment by James Snyder — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 3:19 pm
> what are you iPhoto, iMovie, and iTunes replacements?
I will have a followup post once I settle into my new desktop (it’s still in the mail at the moment), but briefly, here the ones I’ve settled on for the moment, with the alternatives I tried listed in parentheses:
Photo management: DigiKam (F-Spot)
Music playing, ripping, syncing, organizing, podcasting: amaroK (RhythmBox, Banshee, JuK)
Audio editing: Audacity
Video playing: Totem (VLC, mplayer, Xfmedia)
Video editing: Kino (Cinelerra)
DVD ripping: XDVDShrink (k3copy, acidrip)
Most of these come with Ubuntu or are easily installable from the repositories with the graphical package manager. (Here is a pre-packaged version of Cinelerra, for instance.)
Several of these are widely considered to be better than their iLife counterparts, specifically DigiKam (instead of iPhoto) and amaroK (instead of iTunes).
Anyway, there’s a lot of really good, really friendly, really stable Free Software out there these days. If your last experience with Linux was a few years ago, you’ve pretty much missed the tipping point. Which is not to say that everything is perfect, but I have a lot more faith in this community to improve and innovate than I have in Apple or Microsoft.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 3:40 pm
I share Mark’s concerns about long term preservation of my data, and have for quite a while.
As a result, I don’t use the iTunes features like star ratings that aren’t written back to the individual mp3 files in the form of ID tags. As a result, I don’t use iPhoto to manage my fotos, instead using PhotoGrid - a simple folder structure foto browser. As a result, I store my text in rtf and pdf files.
My data should be readable as long as applications can read mp3 and jpg and rtf and pdf files. And you’ll have to pry my Mac from my cold dead hands.
Comment by Chucky — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 5:14 pm
Jacques:
There isn’t even a trace of it here; no installed Windows, no install disc, I don’t even have a serial or activation code or whatever it is that they use these days.
Having to test web pages in Internet Explorer is the only motivation I have to change anything about that, but so far I’m getting away with remoting other people’s Windows boxen using VNC to get the job done.
Yuda:
On balance, patents contribute at most zero to progress.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
My ThinkCentre comes with an 80 GB hard drive with Windows XP preinstalled. I’ll be removing that hard drive before I ever even plug it in, and replacing it with a 750 GB Seagate Barracuda (which has already arrived, and has me itching). The original 80 GB will go in a static bag, and sit on a shelf somewhere in case I need to sell it for some reason. I will — literally — never see Windows boot on this computer.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 6:59 pm
“I use so much open source software already on Mac OS X, and the remaining non-open-source software is what gives me all the headaches. So why stay? I don’t need a reason to switch; I need a reason to stay.”
Speaking as a full-time linux user and an occasional Mac user (mainly because I need to test web UIs in Safari as part of my job), i can tell you that the Mac desktop environment *does* make using free software (such as VLC) a much nicer experience.
My main desktop environment these days is Gnome in Ubuntu, and while it’s usability has been making huge strides, it’s not quite as usable as the Mac yet, but it is getting a lot closer (Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake), released a few days ago, is another pretty big improvement, although I am struggling with a hardware compatibility issue).
BTW, One of Ubuntu’s advantages is a fairly usable bug tracker, which makes it easier to actually get issues fixed.
Comment by Michael Bernstein — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 7:30 pm
Mark,
Thanks for listing your replacements for iTunes, iPhoto, and for video. I’ve started using Ubuntu on my MacBook and have loaded those to see how they compare to both the Apple and third-party competition. For me it’s a balancing act — how much time am I willing to devote to getting the software to work in the way I want it to vs. sometimes costly apps that make my professional design and photography work easier but might have lock-in. For my business, I haven’t seen any open-source software that wouldn’t make the switch to Linux a huge blow to my productivity.
For a couple of years now I’ve alternated between iPhoto and iView Media Pro for managing my photos. Right now I’m pretty happy with both of them — iPhoto for a 50 gig personal photo database, and iView for a larger business-realted one. For me, it’s the integrity of the actual images and the core metadata stored in them (not what I’ve added) that has the greatest value, and these are always available as JPEG’s, TIFF’s, or RAW. Same with my 80+ gigs of music.
I can certainly understand where you’re coming from when thinking about what your data will look like in 50 years, though at times you seem almost spiteful toward Apple in the last couple of posts. I hate data lock-in, but I think OS X and the many, many, apps that I’m productively running on it outweighs the negligible risk that I can’t get most, if not all, of my data exported to a forward-compatible, open format when it comes time.
And yes, I have 2 hard drive backups and a set of DVD’s, just in case.
Please let us know how the transition works for you.
Tim
Comment by Tim Swan — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
This is in response to a comment from so long ago that I can no longer find it. It’s entirely possible that I hallucinated it. But in the general area of iPhoto’s “undocumented binary black hole”, and comparing that to a real example from a comparable Free Software alternative…
digiKam maintains its database of your albums and images and tags and so forth in a SQLite database called digikam3.db in the root level of your designated Pictures folder. From a state of complete ignorance, I (a) figured this out, (b) installed open source SQLite administration tools, and (c) taught myself how to use them well enough to get it to spit out the complete digiKam database schema. In 15 minutes. I am quite confident that given another 15 minutes, I could install Python bindings for SQLite (which I’m sure exist in the repositories) and write a Python program to output my album lists and tags in any format I desired.
I never said that my choices were right for everyone, but I think Linux and I are going to do just fine.
Comment by Mark — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 9:43 pm
A full-featured photo-management tool you may be interested in is F-Spot. Downside: pulls in a whole heck of a lot of dependencies (It’s written in Mono, the Free implementation of C# and .Net).
Another very interesting tool is imgseek (written in Python).
In neither case have I looked at them closely enough to know how they store their data.
Not for photo management, but still a very interesting tool (for stitching together panoramic photos): hugin.
Comment by Michael Bernstein — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
apt-get install python-sqlite
Comment by Darryl — Saturday, June 3, 2006 @ 10:52 pm
Okay, so maybe I’m being as brain dead as Gruber, but I’ve read your article twice, and it still sounds like a whine about data loss. Maybe, that’s because we have different definitions of what “lock-in” means. Cause, I use: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, QuickTime, iCal, and Address Book, and I don’t feel tied into any of those applications. I also use Keynote and don’t feel tied down, trapped, or otherwise tormented by it.
The truth is, while, I’ve often wished Apple would provide additional export options for it’s various data, I can honestly say, that despite my complaints—I’ve never been hindered trying to get my data from one application to the next. I try third party software frequently, and I’ve rarely had to do any extensive work to get data from any of the fore mentioned applications into something new. iTunes and iPhoto both allow exporting of meta-data into text, unicode, or xml formats which includes ratings, comments, and other data.
Of course, that could just be because I’m use to working so much harder, for example when my clients send me their ancient PC, often Microsoft data formats that even new Microsoft products won’t read correctly; that’s work. Extracting data from any of the iLife or iWork applications, including Keynote—not so much work, especially if the original applications still opens the file. But if not, and I have a backup, well then general a quick script- mine or someone else’s works pretty well.
I can understand the argument for open formats, I just don’t think Apple’s proprietorial formats are that restrictive—for my needs. I have tons of data needs. I’ve already maxed out a terabyte of data storage for music, movies, television shows, pictures, and data—and that doesn’t count hard drives stored in active computers, burnt CDs, DVDs, or old tape drives. That’s purely external hard drives; and I’ve already projected for another terabyte within the next year—and it would be more if I didn’t weed, weed, weed on occasion.
For me, my actual media is more important than the metadata, so having all my photos, music, and movies organized and stored in their original format is key–so iTunes, iPhoto, and even iMovie fit the bill here. Metadata is secondary-I don’t won’t to reproduce it, but better it, than the video I spent 40 hours working on; or a weeks worth of photos, or a couple hundred dollars worth of music. But that said, for iTunes, and iPhoto, I’ve never had to reproduce my metadata (well once on my iPod, with an improperly defined sync, that overwrite a few hours of data from my laptop with only basic meta tags from my iPod). Otherwise, the auto-backup or my manual exports from the application of the data have always worked well.
Now, I’ll acknowledge that I have work habits that compliments Apple’s failings–or things I wish were there; but since I know my little habits are still less work than those required for dealing with many other applications; I’ll take them.
Comment by allgood2 — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 12:21 am
Okay, I can’t say I agree completely with all your reasons for switching, and for me the Mac way works (proprietary formats and all), but I guess to quote Sheryl Crow, “If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.”
Good luck; let us know how it goes.
Comment by Nick — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 2:44 am
Ditto.
I just switched to SuSE 10.1 after 12 years on a Mac.
Activated Xgl and loving every minute if it.
Get a good nights sleep now too: open source, open formats, ’nuff said.
Comment by Fergus — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 8:04 am
1. Backup nightly no matter what OS you use. Duh.
2. Use Open Source when you don’t like a standard Mac app for whatever reason.
3. Nothing Apple makes is in a “locked” data format. That includes Quicktime. I know $35 is oh so much money but there are free apps that give you full screen Quicktime.
4. Enjoy the goodness that is tightly coupled Apple OS and hardware.
Comment by me — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 10:05 am
> Nothing Apple makes is in a “locked” data format. That includes Quicktime.
You do realize that .mov is an Apple-proprietary format, right?
Comment by Mark — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 10:24 am
I’m almost surprised that you didn’t just buy Apple hardware and then try to install something besides OS X on top of it.
Comment by Bob Aman — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 12:35 pm
I read most of the comments, especially Mark’s. The following pops into mind:
1) You guys are so right at the level of abstraction, but come on, using free software only totally hurts eye. It is inconsistent, lame and rip-off.
2) Mark made “teh” step years before me.
3) Paris Hilton would never get in terms with MySQL.
Peace.
Comment by angelday true — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
Interesting discussion. Just for your reference, but I am using Windows XP without any major problems. :-)
Comment by quirkyalone — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 2:12 pm
I have to agree with Mark on the openness-slash-freedom issue.
At the federal agency where I work, we recently had a seminar on licensing. Perhaps the point was to discourage the use of unlicensed software within the agency, but it really made me much more likely to buy or use software that is licensed under the GPLv2 and the upcoming GPLv3. All you have to do is actually READ what the licenses say on the software that you already have, and you can see that you are going to be up a creek if the vendor decides to cut off (legal) use of an existing software version and any proprietary file formats that are associated with it.
I had some files that were saved in formats from then-current software on 5 1/4 inch floppies. When everything moved to 3 inch floppies, the reason I didn’t migrate the data was because THE THEN-CURRENT APPLICATIONS COULD NOT READ THE OLD FILE FORMATS. This happened again as I started migrating from floppies to CD-R for archival storage. As your applications or even the versions of the same applications change, your ability to access documents saved in earlier file formats is gradually lost, and with it, so is your ability to access YOUR data.
Patents on software and file formats were *never* a good idea. Software should be covered by copyrights only, and file formats should usually be open. By open, I mean that anyone can implement without restriction an application that reads, processes, and writes in said format. One of the things that comes to mind is the ODF vs OpenXML so-called open file formats issue. Because of the patents and patent licenses around OpenXML, your BSD or GPL licensed application is unlikely to be legally able to use that format. If you have a file in that format and the patent-holder decides that no one should legally be allowed to use it any more, you just became a “software pirate.”
Patents expire, but companies are constantly lobbying for extensions.
I’m not a Mac user, although I am currently considering purchasing either a couple of the new Intel Macs or (more likely) G4 models. This discussion has been an eye-opener, coming so soon after the licensing discussion at work. I will want to see whether Apple is more concerned with the customers who buy their products or the MPAA/RIAA associations.
Comment by W^L+ — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 3:19 pm
“Patents *aren’t* evil. Yes, there are some bad patents out there, but without patents, we wouldn’t have very much progress.
This is a very economically naïve opinion and where software patents are concerned, it is simply incorrect.
Comment by P.L.Hayes — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 5:03 pm
Mark, I was wondering when you were going to apply the principles of Freedom 0 to Apple ;) . The fact is that if you care about Freedom, deciding on Apple vs Linux, MP3 vs Ogg, iTunes Music Store vs allOfMP3.com…. is a no-brainer (at least for me): you always choose the “freeest”.
Comment by didier — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Mark, glad to see you back in action — maybe this thread is a nice reminder why you wanted another hobby that didn’t involve angle brackets? ;-)
Anyway: do you use any sort of financial management software? MS Money, Quicken, or the like? I still haven’t been able to find a slick replacement for my copy of Money (even after having switched to a Mac a year ago). Have you found any compelling offerings from the OSS community?
Comment by Ken Walker — Sunday, June 4, 2006 @ 10:45 pm
Mark,
.mov is just a container (much like AVI), it holds standard MPEG-4 audio and video now, in addition to any other format you want. It goes beyond what AVI can do though. This data can be extracted very easily with several free programs, or QT itself.
In addition there are several sites documenting the QuickTime .mov Atom, etc.
Good luck with your switch, but like others have said, I think you’re trying to show off more than anything.
-Timothy
Comment by Timothy Brown — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 2:20 am
I know how frustrating data loss can be. I think your irk is more about what you could have done with hindsight… that wonderful skill we all possess
Comment by Steve A Harold — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 5:17 am
Forget the VM, just download the “install” CD and boot off it. It uses your RAM to create a temporary “hard drive”, and you can test a fully working OS without even mounting your hard drive, let alone installing anything.
Comment by Abhi Beckert — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 6:05 am
> do you use any sort of financial management software? MS Money, Quicken, or the like?
No. I used Quicken for about 2 years, about 10 years ago, when it was the only way to do online banking through my bank. I dropped it as soon as humanly possible and have never looked back. What a wretched, wretched piece of software that was. Perhaps it’s improved in the last 8 years. Anyway, I’ve never seen the need for such software. I manage my investments and banking accounts through a browser, which offers all the functionality I need.
Comment by Mark — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 8:33 am
No, it’s gotten much worse and much harder to use. It still does a terrible job of downloading statements from any bank I’ve ever tried to connect it to.
I read somewhere that Google has released Picasa for Linux. I didn’t look much into it, so I don’t know if it has any distro-specific dependencies, but when I was on Windows, that’s what I used.
Comment by Tony — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 9:39 am
> Google has released Picasa for Linux
I tried it in my VMWare Player sandbox. (Yes, I installed Windows software running under Wine under Linux under a virtual machine under Windows.) digiKam with the Kipi plugins pack blows it out of the water.
Comment by Mark — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 10:39 am
One minor note: iTunes plays videos, fullscreen, for free.
Comment by brian — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 11:00 am
I noticed that Kaffeine wasn’t included in the list of video players you tried, and I thought I’d toss out the name in case you hadn’t run across it. It’s a KDE frontend for XINE, and I’ve been pretty happy with it. Development on it seems to be pretty lively too.
Comment by Avdi — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 12:50 pm
“One minor note: iTunes plays videos, fullscreen, for free.”
But is iTunes open source?
Are the media format(s) that most iTunes users use on a daily basis open and free formats?
Does iTunes run on Linux without WINE?
I shouldn’t have to PAY for a closed source operating system just to use a closed source program to open closed source document and/or media formats.
I’ll go with Linux and free/open software ANY DAY vs. closed source!
It’s all about philosophy, which IMO most people don’t understand let alone hold to.
I don’t CARE what shiny applications exist on a commercial FOR-PAY operating system, if it isn’t free and open source then it doesn’t have a philosophy that I agree with.
Comment by Weaving Freedom — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 1:00 pm
Something I’d like to adressed by Mark is the issue of Mac OS X itself especially the GUI. For me all the progress both big linux desktop environments made in recents years doesn’t come near Aqua’s beauty and ease of use - yet. So switching isn’t an option for now for me. Mark’s opinion seems to be different. Why? More funcionality over ease of use? Freedom over beauty? Or simple »good enough, I don’t care«?
Comment by Tim — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 1:38 pm
W^L+:
Yeah. Reminds me of a piece by JWZ. I was going to give some choice quotes here, but they would spoil the story’s flair for would-be readers and I don’t have the heart to do that to it. Piece is short too, so just go read it.
PS.: Mark: your Javascript live preview, like every other one on the planet, is broken.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 1:55 pm
> What a wretched, wretched piece of software that was. Perhaps it’s improved in the last 8 years.
No, as Tony pointed out, it still sucks. We’re using MS Money mostly as a register for our transactions and then pull a budget report out of it on a monthly basis. Our bank only gives us access to 6 months’ worth of transactions online, so it’s good to have a local copy, but I do wish there was a good open alternative — the thought of storing all that data back to 1999 in a proprietary MS format gives me chills.
Comment by Ken Walker — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 1:56 pm
“For me all the progress both big linux desktop environments made in recents years doesn’t come near Aqua’s beauty and ease of use - yet. So switching isn’t an option for now for me.For me all the progress both big linux desktop environments made in recents years doesn’t come near Aqua’s beauty and ease of use - yet. So switching isn’t an option for now for me.”
IMO there’s nothing beautiful about paying to use closed source. Ease of use? I have several senior citizens using Linux with both the Gnome and KDE desktops and they sing nothing but praises about Linux. If they don’t have a hard time using it, why should you? These people can’t even use the command line yet they use Linux everyday and love it.
Ease of use and the Grandma FUD:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=187412&cid=15462368
Free and open software are the roads leading to ease of use for everyone, without having to pay someone for the operating system (and perhaps additional software).
Comment by Even Grandma Uses Linux — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
There is GnuCash
Comment by David Lindquist — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 2:00 pm
Welcome!
You finally did it; you decided that you valued your Freedom over some mere convenience. I run GNU/Linux on my Power Mac, too. Both my PMac G4 and Pentium 4 run Ubuntu Linux, and my PMac G3 B&W (w/ CPU upgrade) runs Yellow Dog Linux. I see no reason to go back to Mac OS…and definitely not Windows.
I liken the comparison to that of flashy, but expensive to maintain, cars like BMW 5-series and Mercedes E-series, vs. something like the Honda Accord. All three of them will get you from Point A to Point B. The BMW and Mercedes have lots and lots of “gee-whiz” features and surely boast quality engineering. They feel *great* to drive! But what happens when they break? You pay through the nose. But that Honda Accord? *Anybody* can work on a Honda Accord; you don’t need special shops with all sorts of special wizardry gear to do it. A good backyard mechanic can do it (yes, I know one who does, and he’s very good at it). That, the lower purchase price, and the legendary Honda quality, are why it’s so much less expensive to maintain…and why Honda cars became and remain so popular here in the USA.
OS X is the BMW/Mercedes. GNU/Linux is the Honda Accord. I’ll take the Accord any day. And if someone offers me the BMW/Mercedes, I’ll accept it and immediately sell it to buy an Accord and make some home improvements with what’s left over. :-) Likewise, if offered, I’ll accept OS X, immediately put it for sale on eBay, pick up the latest Yellow Dog or Ubuntu, and buy some extra DRAM or more hard disk for my box. :-)
Comment by Sum Yung Gai — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 6:51 pm
> For me all the progress both big linux desktop environments made in recents years doesn’t come near Aqua’s beauty and ease of use - yet.
I will agree with that. I’ve had a Mac as my primary workstation for 15 years (and an Apple IIgs before that, and an Apple //e before that). I developed Mac software back in 1993-95. I owned (and still own) a copy of the original Apple Human Interface Guidelines book, and I refered to it religiously when I wrote my own programs. The best Mac software has always been more beautiful, elegant, and user-friendly than the best software on any other platform. Part of it is the sheer beauty of the icons and windows and such, and part of it is the “plug-and-play” plumbing, which for many years has been superior to any other platform.
But a funny thing happened recently. All the lower-level stuff “just works” now, as well as Macs always have. I can boot off a live DVD of Ubuntu Dapper on my work laptop (an IBM ThinkPad T42) and everything works with zero configuration — wireless, accelerated video, sound, even the ThinkPad-specific buttons for controlling the volume and brightness. I can plug in my digital camera and a dialog immediately pops up and offers to import my photos. I can plug in my external Plextor PX-716UF dual-layer DVD burner and burn a DVD. This is not theoretical fanboy hype; I actually did all of this over the weekend.
Yeah, the UI still isn’t as slick as Mac OS X, even the “full” desktop suites like GNOME and KDE (although KDE does have a lot of eye candy). I’ll be the first to admit that the OS X interface is slicker. But on the flip side, there are a *lot* of things you can do out-of-the-box on Linux that require third-party software on Mac OS X. A keyboard-based application launcher (OS X needs Launchbar or QuickSilver). System-wide theme changer (OS X needs ShapeShifter or ThemeChanger). System-wide notification system (OS X needs Growl). Multiple desktops (OS X needs Desktop Manager). Ubuntu also comes with a feed reader, a BitTorrent client, an IM client (that talks to *every* service), an IRC client, a VNC client, a full-screen video player, and a complete office suite that saves your documents in an open ISO standard by default (and can also read and write MS Office files). This is not fanboy hype either; all of these things really work, and I actually use them on a regular basis.
Oh, and it’s all free as in beer *and* speech.
Comment by Mark — Monday, June 5, 2006 @ 8:46 pm
Since I made a similiar switch from Apple to Ubuntu, I’ll explain my rationale on a level that has nothing to do with cost - let’s talk about what really counts - money.
Everytime you buy a Mac, you are buying into a system that is interdependent. An OS welded to a specific matched set of hardware. The advantage of this is that it’s going to run - and it’s going to run perfectly. It’s going to be light years more stable than any Windows box because Apple is in control of the entire fabrication process of the box. It’s a perfect marriage.
You pay for this marriage however. Over the years, I’ve counted up the number of boxes I’ve shelled out money for. The price for “Thinking Different” has summed over $15,000. That was starting with an Apple //c in 1985, to an SE/FDHD, IIsi, 7200, 7600, 5300cs (gods), Powerbook G3 (WallStreet), and a Quicksilver G4, being my last. Along the way, I bought many processor upgrades from Sonnet.
Now let’s talk about software. Everytime the operating system increments, it introduces changes that require third party vendors to update their software, which in turn they ask you to pay a fee for. This little circle has added up to over $9,400 over the years. What makes the process of software on the Mac more painful is because you’re dealing with a platform that has less market share, and you have to beg, plead, and threaten vendors to port their software to the platform. When they do, you pay a premium for it. Think I’m kidding? Go to any CompUSA and compare the price of Halo (the original) for the Mac and the PC. Everytime Apple increments the OS, you pay that $129 slap. If you have the iLife or iWork suite, you’re going to get another $79 slap both ways - no upgrade paths. That’s been annually on average. Quicken is the same way. The package is now so bloated beyond recognition that I can’t justify using it anymore - I just balance my checkbook! Every major bank has their statement online in real time, so one has to ask the question, why bother with any type of checkbook program to begin with?
If you’re a gamer, you already know that you’re going to have to run an XP box. That has it’s own associated set of costs, but it can be controlled a bit more because a) Windows XP hasn’t been updated in several years, and b) once you have a decent graphics card and a large hard drive, you don’t really need to make many changes because it’s just a gaming box. Apple only gets the “best” of the games plot ported - at a premium cost.
For me, switching to Ubuntu was an epiphany. I put together an Asus A8N8-X Deluxe (might have the model wrong, but whatever. You get the idea.) with 1 GB of RAM, Nvidia 5700LE, 250 GB HD, DVD-RW, and Athlon 2700XP inside an Antec case for about $500. Since I haven’t performed graphic design work in years, my need are quite simple. I email, IM, and web browser. I tinker with various open source packages, and play with LAMP models. I hack at firewalls. I balance my checkbook.
I enjoy tinkering inside the operating system. When OS X came out, the 10.0 release was horrid, but got better as things progressed. 10.2 was widely stable. However, it was getting “perfect”. It ran, and you didn’t need to mess with the underlying OS. It did everything you needed, and didn’t need to be tweaked.
It got boring.
Look, I was one of those people that liked hacking with the Extensions Manager is OS 9. I could look at everything in that folder, and tell you what it was and what other parts were needed. I lived for it.
I was a graphic designer for many years. My experience tinkering under the hood to fix problems that cropped up led me into my current field - IT. I’m present a Unix/Linux administrator. I was also an Apple Certified Technician for many years. I said my final goodbyes to the Apple platform in March, with a final sendoff - I bought a RAID card for my Quicksilver, and setup a RAID 0 partition. I run the OS, and only open source packages on it. I rarely turn it on. My brother and his fiance spend more time on that box than I do.
You can find me in the corner, hacking away on Dapper. My checkbook is in Moneydance now.
Oh, and one final word to those who think Linux isn’t ready for the desktop: My mother was overdue for an upgrade from a grape iMac 333. She’s retired, and has a very specific set of needs - she emails, types a few letters, and scans old photos. I bought her a refurbed GX260 slimtowever, (it came with 512MB RAM)stuck a CD burner in it, along with a 15″ Acer flatpanel, and a cheap $12 modem. All that for around $650. She’s been running Breezy for the past six months.
Goodbye Apple - thanks for all the fish! :-)
-Les
Comment by Les — Tuesday, June 6, 2006 @ 7:00 am