Irony is not probably not the right word, hyprocrisy probably not either, but Mac seems to be more and more open source people’s dev platform of choice.

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/10/01/mac_open_source_java/

You’re both obviously right. The paradox only applies to anti-Microsoft folks.

I don’t know if you expressed your self clearly enough in your original posts. It seems that many people commenting here are missing your point (“Hip posers using Macs to fight the Man”, if I got it right).

Maybe you should do a follow-up?

Open Source Software: Of course I am generalizing. We are discussing a vast library of software. It won’t apply to every last bit OSS, but to the software that I use on a regular basis, I think it does. To name a few of the OSS I use that fall under at least 3 out of 4 of the reasons I use OSS: Pidgin, AdiumX, Firefox, Thunderbird, Handbrake, Transmission, Subversion, Mercurial, Apache, Python, Java, Perl, PHP, Linux, OpenOffice, Cyberduck, SSH, Audacity, GPG, Eclipse, VNC, VLC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Vim… like I said, just a few.

Programming Languages (open source and/or free): There are so many programming languages available, my reasons are generalized towards the programming languages that I use or have used. For example: C, C++, Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Java (just to name a few) run on at least Windows, OS X, and Linux. That covers Not-Bound-To-A-Single-OS and, well, Free (both in use, tools, etc). One can argue about ‘great’, fine.

I think Kari (comment posted previously) is on the right track…, “I believe the paradox you describe is only with these ‘Microsoft-protestors’”. If someone hates Microsoft simply because they are closed source, using a Mac doesn’t exactly make them look too smart.

Glad you found/like the blog. It’s not as active as I would like it to be, but it *is* pretty nerdy (‘nerd pickup lines’ is the most frequently used search term that bring in random visitors to my blog).

Now I’m off to play Gears of War on my Xbox360.

My opinion on your different points:

Apple hardware: okay for everything but weight

OSX: I agree

Open source: completely disagree, it really depends on which open source software you’re talking about. Plus it’s in most cases far from easy and hardly free (consider the total cost of ownership in enterprise environment deployments). I think you’re too quick on striking generalizations.

Open source programming languages: great, it depends on the language and what you want to do with it. Again, your stance seems to be a generalization to me.

Apart from our petty disagreements (because I think Apple is everything but an opened company), I just discovered your blog and I love it! Just can’t help finding nerdy / geeky attitude blogs to be the best

Nevermind that the kernel and most of the cli tools are open source, along with webkit and a number of the frameworks they provide, free. Just forget all that.

Why I Choose Apple Hardware: Size, Weight, Performance, Style

Why I Choose OS X: Beautiful UI. Stable as rock. Unix-like behind the scenes. Solid command-line.

Why I Like/Often Choose Open Source: Quality, Good, Easy, Free. (You don’t have to be an open source hippie to like open source software)

Why I Choose Open Source Programming Languages: Great, Free, Not-Bounded-To-A-Single-OS.

Also…I don’t have to hate Microsoft to use another operating system and programming languages. I simply feel I am more productive in OS X and Linux than I am in Windows.

There isn’t a ‘free software on a mac developer paradox’. Plain and simple.

That is not to say, that Microsoft doesn’t employ closed strategies as well, on e.g. mobiles, the xbox, or the future surface-platform. And while Silverlight is cross-platform, you could argue that the most comprehensive development for it can only happen on a PC, at least for the moment. Before you shoot me, see point 8 here.

And as far as open-source developers go, I know very few that have a full-time job coding free apps (and I do include open source in those). Either they have a second job, or the business-model revolves around other related services that generate revenue. Either way, you have to ask yourself, how did they afford a mac in the first place? If they are students, that doesn’t count.

I also don’t want to stereotype a specific group into a category, which is why I think this post is particularly getting negative comments. Macs are however, in my biased opinion, pretty great platforms to be comfortable on. You can choose the Mac OS, which, again in my opinion, an elegant working-environment, and you can virtualise or dual-boot into other platforms, not to mention hack the web. And you have top-notch hardware (mostly) to work with.

Notwithstanding that Macs look cool and many geeks probably hope that it will score them chicks (oops I did generalise there…)

Peter> fair enough

What so closed and secretive about Apple? Well, can you use Dell hardware with Mac OS? How many Apple employees blogging do you know? I could go on like that forever.

I believe these people are ridiculous.

Hence the title. That’s it as not all open source developers are stupidly against proprietary and commercial. I do believe there are excellent open source and proprietary bricks of software and pragmatic people (some of them hacking open source code on a Mac not because they hate Microsoft but because they love Macs) know what they want and for what reason.

Some people take software and hardware brands religiously. I firmly believe these are stupid. Not the ones who choose the tools best suited to their needs independently of their brand.

Writing software is one thing, the tools you choose to do so with are irrelevant, nothing about choosing a commercial tools makes you look ridiculous, especially when they are blatantly superior and rather affordable.

Taking Ruby on Rails as an example, I’m sure that’s a pretty laudable effort, and none of the main developers certainly “look ridiculous,” even though they all use OS X, and TextMate… which is pretty understandable if you’ve ever used TextMate.

Now, back to work…

Apple products certainly aren’t free, but the company is definitely open-source friendly. Consider:

1) Linux compatibility

2) The OpenDarwin project

3) Apple is the single biggest commercial contributer to FreeBSD

4) Many other things (actually there’s a whole web site: http://www.opensource.apple.com/ )

By the way, what exactly is so “closed” and “secretive” about Apple? You didn’t really explain that point.

Apple is the largest Open Source developer in the world. Who are you going to go with instead, Microsoft?

But, don’t despair. There is GNUStep, which is an open source implementation of Cocoa (http://www.gnustep.org). It’s a bit rough comparatively, but it’s basically there. There are even some cool things being done with it like Etoile (http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/blog/).

So, while I do use a Mac, I’m hoping for a Free system as good or better than the Mac. The realization of Etoile and GNUStep would go a long ways toward that end. There’s a ways to go, but it’s an attainable goal.

There’s no paradox. Hardware is never open, it’s always sold by a commercial vendor.

As someone else mentioned, most of us think that Apple makes the best hardware, so that’s what we use. Simple as that.

You can install whatever you want on the laptop. Either use OS X, and go wild with MacPorts and install all the unix free software you want, or go all the way and dual-boot with Linux, for example.

Julien> I don’t know anyone that uses any other OS on a Mac laptop than Mac OS. Sometimes, people (like me) have secondary OSs (I use Vista & Ubuntu as secondary OSs but my primary is Mac OS X). I agree with you: the advocates of Free Software who run Mac OS X are totally inconsistent.

Kari> 100% in line with you

Steve> Steve, you know, many of the software developers who develop free software with commercial tools really look ridiculous… Your whole comment misses the point.

To be a consistent free software developer, according to you Jeremy, the developer must build his/her on computer using free/GPL hardware and using a free/GPL software? Your stance on free software orthodoxy sounds dangerously like Richard Stallman. And yeah, if you really want to be philosophically hard core free software guy a la RSM, you’re right that Macs are out of the question.

I don’t buy your defintion of “closed environment”. Take a look at Adium. I mean, that’s a piece of software that is impossible to develop on Windows or Linux, because it depends heavily on the frameworks available on Mac OS X. In my opinion, it’s the poster boy for all the right reasons to develop on Mac. Other example I’d like to point out is Delicious Library and Wil Shipley. I mean, a book cataloging software for Mac? How niche is that? (Which reminds me, does someone remember the cataloging software Microsoft demoed with Vista betas? What happened to that?)

I believe the paradox you describe is only with these “Microsoft-protesters”. If the reason to be a free software developer on Mac is that it’s a cool and kick-ass enviroment, this paradox does not exist?

Most of the guys running Free Software on a Mac, or not using Mac Os X, but rather Ubuntu, or Debian or any Linux flavor they like! They are using a perfectly integrated machine, with, as Thomas said, a great autonomy, design, general good quality of the components. An Apple (machine) is not different at all from any other PC in terms of ‘openness’.

However, those using Mac OS X are a lot less consistent, even if developing Free Software doesn’t mean rely only on free soft!

I am sure that most of the Free Soft guys are not complaining about commercial soft : they just think that 2 ways are possible and can live together (probably like every other thing in life!)…

And OSX is based on Darwin kernel which should be kind of open source (i don’t know the exact license, but the source is available)

And Mac laptops are not just cool, but still have the best quality/size/autonomy/price ratio

(since my 1st g4 ibook )