On Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 04:42:56PM -0600, cgc wrote:

I've never once thought that they were 'keeping artists captive' or run into 'a "cool" monopolistic attitude' (those are absurd characterizations you haven't backed up with a shred of fact btw).

Gee, this is getting so OT. I write more OT stuff on this list than I should.

Apple provides a good platform for the artistic community, which is "captivated" since the introduction of the Macintosh II; many artists, if not most, are still using Apple's products. That's a fact, at least in my part of the world. The Apple image is carefully crafted to let people believe they are more "artsy" when using products from Apple, even for surfing the web or listening to music. Many cool looking computer products are inspired by Apple design. Apple is a reference. An icon.

The Apple "solution" is a hardware and software bundle. They chose BSD to create a very good OS, that they can sell without releasing the source code. To ensure that they have the ultimate solution, they also bought companies with killer products for artistic vertical markets, that might otherwise have released versions of their software for other OSs.
Already satisfied clients, who accept that sort of business, won't try to look elsewhere. That's what I call a "cool" monopolistic attitude.

Some consider that normal business; that's fine with me, but I'm simply not one of their clients anymore. I hope my motivation to reject Apple business is not too absurd; it mostly has to do with free software issues, not specifically with Apple, although I switched from Apple to Gnu/Linux partly because of PD.

After reading that jahshaka page I get the feeling that the entire story isn't being told and perhaps they fellow was really fishing for a free paid developer account because why else would he call about one?

He did like you: he asked for assistance, but they refused to help, for whatever human reason. He was pissed off by one person at Apple, whose job is also to represent the interests of Apple. It's very plausible that Apple doesn't want to help a single developer trying to create a free software application that could compete with their products. Gem is not a competing product...

They are quite simple to set up online, and Apple offers a free one that give you access to all the development tools.

You mean "free as in beer"? No thanks, I'm driving. :-)

The two final paragraphs throw credibility out the window completely. I mean really: ' free [Apple users] from the Tyranny of Evil Men and Software Dictatorships' is right out of the ranting of the most fervent ideologue.

He shows his age, but he'll hopefully use better words later; maybe that's his first contact with a strong corporate culture. He's not dangerous, don't worry. Ideas are good sometimes, even funny ones...

I was actually going to look into the possibility of working on the Jahshaka project, but that rant has made me strongly consider avoiding these people.

For what fervent idealistic reason? ;-)

Marc