Cory Doctorow, You Are a Consumer, Too
I saw a-the-Rally Fighter, an open source car in Austin. This is what the "finished" interior looked like, more or less. That's what Cory Doctorow wants you to drive.
Okay, not really. I can't be too mean to Cory. I've got too much respect for him. He's plucky, and the world needs pluck. In fact, I'm basically writing this to him, in public, because he's so sharp it pains me when I disagree with him so vehemently.
But when I read his post, "Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)", my head swells with sadness and I leak confusion from every orifice.
I don't like DRM. I think it's a fool's game.
I don't prefer a closed ecosystem for applications without a way to unwall the garden
I don't like that it's illegal to install a different operating system on an iPad.
These are legal issues. They are issues that should be fixed by legislation and by judges. Donate to the EFF, because they put the pressure in the right places. It's money well spent.
But you know what won't change these things? Refusing to buy an iPad, the stage for some of the most exciting software of the last decade. Nor will using Linux on a Lenovo laptop. It definitely won't help to sneer at everyone who is excited about the iPad, warts and all, and explain to us that we're dupes. And it is a sneer. It's talking down to hundreds of thousands of people who probably already know your position by heart. You may not read it like that, Cory, but I'm telling you that's how it comes off.
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