This Time, the Bad Guy is Apple
Posted by: Rea Maor In: Apple and MacOS - Sunday, September 16th, 2007News has broken on Slashdot of Apple’s new policy to lock Linux out of the iPod. And it’s amazing to see the crowd, normally cheering Apple, turn on them in favor of Linux. And here is Linux being attacked by Apple instead of Microsoft, for a change.
This works by inserting an encrypted hash which locks the iTunes playlist to that iPod, making it impossible to modify the playlist with third-party software. This effectively makes the iPod a pretty brick if you install Linux on it.
What gives over at Apple? Their media player is free to download; as long as you buy an iPod, why should they care what software you run on it? Not to mention that BSD, a close relative of Linux, powers much of Apple software technology. The truce between Apple and open source has been seriously breached, and I for one think that open source has been betrayed.
If you are a fan of both Apple and Linux, you can give them some feedback here. Also, if you want to help crack this, the source site gives a chat room to discuss this issue: log into irc.freenode.net and /join #gtkpod.
I believe that cracking the iPod to run Linux on it (or BSD, or Windows, or Plan Nine from Bell Labs if you want to) is not the same legal and ethical problem as piracy. With Apple, you’re buying physical hardware; once you own it, it should be your right to use it for a planter box if you want to. This is the same thing as buying a computer and being told you can’t run certain software on it, even though you’re doing nothing illegal.
It is a terrible shame to see Apple do this. Linux and open source fans have long been an ally of Apple; many of them say that they have less of a problem with Apple’s half-proprietary strategy than they do with Microsoft. Even some of the most die-hard Linux zealots I know admit that at least with Apple, you get something for your money.
I mean, has everybody seen the demos for running Linux on the iPod here and here? Or the one where you can play Super Mario on it? Or the one where you can play Doom on it? Doesn’t Apple know that this is the best advertising in the world for them?
But if they want to be mean and restrict it to just a music player, well, I guess that’s how it has to be. How typical of a proprietary company; limiting the usefulness of their products.
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September 16th, 2007 at 15:27
oh exactly. you are so right!
i have no idea why apple begins to turn out as such an “bad” company as microsoft is.
i am glad i have an ipod video that i can fill with music on linux. that was the killer feature to buy an ipod! now i would buy another product…
from now on i will not apply any firmware upgrades! when they continue the way they chose these days they will probably “lock” other ipod models too…
September 16th, 2007 at 16:30
Your facts are off. It’s not about installing Linux on the iPod, it’s about synching the iPod with third-party software (including programs on Linux like amarok). This story has nothing to do with replacing the iPod’s firmware.
September 16th, 2007 at 18:12
They’re a little greedy now that they’ve done away with the DRM, and now that people are getting wise on how to reverse engineer their products, they’re getting a bit antsy about the exclusivity of their hardware and software, currently they have a lot of proprietary parts and software and they’re trying to hold a monopoly on it so that you have to buy their products, as opposed to an alternative.
With respect to the IPod, they know that Linux is truly a really free operating system, and just about anything can be altered or reverse engineered - so they don’t want to lose any control over their products and thus they’re trying to limit what we can do. Shame on Apple for this, but unfortunately this won’t receive the attention it deserves.
September 16th, 2007 at 22:20
[...] LINK [...]
September 17th, 2007 at 2:29
Oh no they DIN’T. Apple, I renounce thee. We shall see how things go in the future, but for now, we are done. Fuck you.
-A Former Mac Fanboy
September 18th, 2007 at 6:12
Way to not read the Article. This indeed has nothing to do with running Linux on the iPod, it’s just using the iPod with linux. Regardless, the hash has been cracked:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/09/17/135205.shtml
Apple does however, encrypt their firmware, which does stop Linux/RockBox et al being installed on it. But they’ve been doing this since the launch of the second revision Nano’s (i.e Before the iPod Touch and widescreen Nano were launched)
September 18th, 2007 at 21:31
Why bother with all this syncing anyway? I just use my Samsung mp3 player (You’ll have to pry the cash out of my cold dead hands to get me to buy an iPod) just like a mass storage device. Copy and paste using Konqueror (or Explorer on your Windows box) is just that much faster and easier. Heck, my buddy Manny even gets his iPod to work nicely with Explorer somehow.
Instead of complaining about the awful practices of Apple, let’s rise up and either not use their products or just hack them like we all know we’re already going to do.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:21
Seconded.
December 28th, 2007 at 21:27
Yes…let’s rise up…or not.
The reason Apple is playing these “games” is because the iPod is a loss-leader. They’re selling it at a loss hoping to make up the difference $1 (or 1 song) at a time. This has more to do with Amarok vs. iTunes than the iPod and Linux.
I’m really not sure when this “loss leader” strategy shift occurred as iPods used to be the most overpriced crap out there - but just try getting an 80GB MP3 player for the price of an iPod Classic! Best of luck!
February 8th, 2008 at 4:59
I’ve been watching Apple for awhile now, and IMO they’re not so different than Microsoft in terms of behavior. Think they’re warm, fuzzy and truly care about their users? Only if you pay 2-3 times for the same PC hardware.
Look if Apple was really concerned about the computing landscape, and providing good products to the masses, they’d be selling OS-X on PC. Aside from the BIOS, there’s no reason why they couldn’t. And to top it off, they’d make tons of money, and solve one of the biggest issues (the biggest IMO) in desktop computing today: Monopoly of Windows (which leads to crappy product due to no competition).
The simple fact of the matter is, most OEM’s aren’t willing to raise the ire of MS, and lose their sweetheart deals on the OS (which makes up a majority of their bottom line), without some support structure in place for the OS. Apple could provide that, and in turn force MS to release good usable software.
However, this would pretty much dry up their hardware market, and also give OS-X a much larger market footprint, which would mean that crackers would start to write all the forms of nastiness you now see on Windows platforms.
Personally, I see absolutely no difference in the greed level of Apple and Microsoft (as an added bonus, look up how many times Jobs has gotten in trouble for giving himself stock and trying to cover it up).
That said, I still think OS-X is the best desktop platform out there to date, it’s just a damn shame I’ll never use it as I’m not willing to pay 2-3 times the cost of the underlying hardware for the OS.