On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 01:43:54PM +0200, Mirko Boehm wrote:
Personally, I dislike that we are singling out Apple. I understand that others do not agree, but the actions of Apple are not different from those of TiVo, Microsoft, Google or others. In my opinion, what Google does with Android damages Free Software more than what Apple does with it's proprietary OS.
I suggest not naming any company, it also shines a bad light on us.
We considered this when drafting the original text. In most FSFE communication, we're quite careful about naming companies - we do it only when necessary.
The booklet's intended audience are people who aren't very interested in or knowledgeable about technology. In order to reach them, we need concrete examples. That means naming names.
I'd be very happy if we can find examples for DRM in widespread consumer products that are made by companies other than Apple. If we can, let's use them to replace some of the Apple examples.
But we need products that are common in Europe, hence TiVo is out. If we want to say "the device that you're holding in your hand today sucks, because...", then the various iDevices are hard to beat as examples.
Can we find others?
That said, I don't agree that naming companies shines a bad light on FSFE. Sometimes a company does something wrong, and then it's our job to say so. We do this in a professional and serious fashion, but we still do it.
Best regards, Karsten