Re: [PLUG] <compumike:#plug> dude debian rocks!

["Mike Leone" <turgon@mike-leone.com>]

> So by using Apple you are in no way "free from a standard controlled by a
> single entity", as the main hardware (and accompanying firmware, I
believe)
> can only be built by/purchased from Apple.

>Rubbish. The ROM (OpenFirmware, based on Sun's OpenBoot, also open),
>and most of the hardware buses (PCI, USB, SCSI, EIDE) are entirely
>open standards, and Apple builds hardware (mostly) compliant to
>them. Hell, even the processor architecture is an open standard.

 In order for it to be an Apple (the reasoning went "So with Apple using BSD
and free software and at the same time all of the Linux apps compiled to run
on BSD makes for an excellent system free from a standard controled by a
single entity"), you've gotta buy the system FROM Apple; otherwise, you just
have a generic PowerPC-based system; not an Apple.

Substitute "Dell" for "Apple", and "Intel-based" for "PowerPC-based"; you
wouldn't call a system built from generic Intel-based parts a Dell machine,
would you? Aren't ALL PCs based on pretty much open standards such as PCI,
USB, etc? The BIOS may not be, however.

>Remember CHRP?

Nope; what's that?




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