I understand where your coming from Sean but I also appreciate the fsf’s position on this and all the work they’ve done campaigning against drm and I dont just mean sitting at a computer, I mean getting out there and involved in social activism, protesting etc.

The original article made me chuckle with statements like this:

“This is the phone that has changed phones forever,” Mr. Jobs said.

We agree. A snake oil salesman not satisfied with his business of pushing proprietary software and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology into your home, Jobs has set his sights on getting DRM and proprietary software into your pocket as well.

Thanks for sharing your opinion Sean.

I haven’t held a iPhone, but from what I’ve seen and read the interface is revolutionary in it’s simplicity and ease of use – which is typical of Apple – and it just plain works (initial App Store hiccups notwithstanding). It will end up with an impressive range of useful apps.

I probably won’t get an iPhone, but I’m considering getting an iTouch as I need a small media player and web device (although no flash gives me concern).

And I’m sorry, but the Freerunner is just plain ugly, and I doubt very much whether it just plain works. If my experience with Linux on the desktop is anything to go by then I will spend a significant amount of time trying to get things to work on it and trawling web forums for support. I’m willing to do this, but the rest of the world outside the geek community isn’t – they just want to get things done. They just want a device that works, is easy to use and has lots of apps.

Unfortunately things in life aren’t always black and white. There are often two sides to any story, and we have to accept the reality that there are plenty of good reasons why people will buy Apple products, whether we like it or not or believe in it or not. Certainly until the FOSS community can come up with a competitive alternative.

And as long as FOSS advocates like the original author of this post rant like an extremist and accuse Jobs of creating a “prison” and look down their noses on users who are “duped” into buying non-FOSS products the FOSS world will remain on the fringes and be slow at attracting supporters.  This is how to make enemies, not friends.

Shame, as I believe in the FOSS philosophy.

Signed… your friendly neighbourhood devil’s advocate. :-)

p.s. It took me 4 attempts to post this comment. I was forced to use OpenID when I put in my Wordpress.com blog – there should be an option to use it manually. I was pushed a page that told me that I had to log on to my Wordpress blog (that’s not very free!) and that page had no links, and then after all that Open ID didn’t authenticate. I think I just proved my point. :-)