Well, Venus, I knew that you were typing a post about freedom and GNU/Linux as soon as I saw that you were responding
.
All that means is that I know your persona pretty well by now =P.
But anyway, as far as the iTunes debacle goes:
Free, un-DRM'd audio, that.. at the same time is digitally purchased, is a great thought, but the record companies/artists need to agree. iTunes would not be NEAR what it is today if Apple wasn't offering some sort of DRM on their audio files. When it comes to music, while freedom is a nice concept, few of the digital services that feel strongly about freedom will ever get the support of the record companies they need, to make their digital stores take off! I buy CD's 99% of the time, as I get better audio quality, and the audio data HAS to be there unencrypted.. but EVEN THEN, they find ways of making it hard to get to. The point is, while nice in concept, the corporations that sell music, or...oh god, movies(now w/ 2x the DRM
), are super paranoid about letting their consumers get near the product that they bought. Despite the fact that, if it can be watched/heard, it is
possible to at least get a very close analogue representation of the original.
Next, I like Linux, for all the time that I have used it.. and cumulatively I have used it quite a bit now. But I keep giving up on it, as it.. it is what the user wants it to be.. now that's general, and in a sense, that is what GNU/Linux/Freedom/etc.. is all about, right? But there's quite the learning curve,
if you want to exploit a Linux Distro. for all there is. Some Distro's are extremely simple to use! But ..why would I want to use it, when I can do more, customize more, etc.. with Windows. Now, that would be entirely untrue if I knew a whole lot about Linux, and that Distro, but without learning quite a bit about it, ..it really doesn't do much for you. I use an OS for what I can do with it, and in Linux' case, I could probably do quite a bit more, in time, but until I'm ready to devote the time that's needed, I'll continue doing more in the environment that is simpler to grasp a hold of! I can exploit nearly all the stuff that I'd like to, in Windows(not EVERYTHING, but WHAT I'D LIKE TO), running off of prior knowledge, and only slight learning. GNU/Linux/Freedom/etc.. in general leaves the doors much more wide open, but Windows has made things
easier for me to customize, without making me feel like a slave in a idiot-ized, and limited GUI.
