So why shouldn't I buy an iPod?

[.t.]

Recently, a thought I had (like this: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=225994) spurred me to write my essay, "So why shouldn't I buy an iPod? (http://www.tibsplace.co.uk/essays/So%20why%20shouldn't%20I%20buy%20an%20iPod.pdf)". It tries to discuss the consequences of using DRM and closed source software, and what the lack of Ogg support does. I am now very pleased to see open source firmwares for devices such as the iPod, and those that support Ogg.

[croak77]

It an IPOD. Who cares. Most people don't. They just want to listen to their music.

[Brunellus]

It an IPOD. Who cares. Most people don't. They just want to listen to their music.
I do.

The success of free software--up to and including free codecs like ogg vorbis and ogg theora-- depends on users' adopting them and voting with their pocketbooks.

Free software goes nowhere if the community doesn't support it wherever possible.

[croak77]

I do.

The success of free software--up to and including free codecs like ogg vorbis and ogg theora-- depends on users' adopting them and voting with their pocketbooks.

Free software goes nowhere if the community doesn't support it wherever possible.

So I take it you don't own an Ipod? What BIOS are you running? What kind of cellphone do you own?

All I'm saying is an Ipod is strictly optional. You don't have to buy one. I haven't nor do I plan to buy any portable player. Not because of DRM or the firmware but because it's just another needless consumer electronic which I don't need.

[Brunellus]

So I take it you don't own an Ipod? What BIOS are you running? What kind of cellphone do you own?

All I'm saying is an Ipod is strictly optional. You don't have to buy one. I haven't nor do I plan to buy any portable player. Not because of DRM or the firmware but because it's just another needless consumer electronic which I don't need.
I have an iRiver H340, whose factory firmware did ogg vorbis natively. That was the main thing that drove my purchase of the device.

[.t.]

So I take it you don't own an Ipod? What BIOS are you running? What kind of cellphone do you own?

All I'm saying is an Ipod is strictly optional. You don't have to buy one. I haven't nor do I plan to buy any portable player. Not because of DRM or the firmware but because it's just another needless consumer electronic which I don't need.
I wanted to run Ogg.

I care about BIOS. I even went so far as to write to Intel asking about why their chipsets and BIOS code was so closed. They had a feeble "customer services" reply.

More to the point, did you read the essay? Do you have any other criticisms?

[GuitarHero]

So I take it you don't own an Ipod? What BIOS are you running? What kind of cellphone do you own?

All I'm saying is an Ipod is strictly optional. You don't have to buy one. I haven't nor do I plan to buy any portable player. Not because of DRM or the firmware but because it's just another needless consumer electronic which I don't need.

A lot of people like you dont realize how many ipod alternatives there are. I too own an iRiver. BIOS is hardly a choice at this point because there arent really many options. And there are linux cell phones.

[The Soundophiliac]

I would have wanted ogg support when I bought my iPod, however, I hadn't found a decent player with 20GB+ of storage space. Now I'm in the search for a new player and still haven't found one.

I realize that most people don't have 40GB music collections of which at least a portion they would want to carry with them, but I do. Does anyone here know of such a player that would support ogg and flac (a lossless codec is a must to me) and have the storage space? Until I find one, I really have no alternatives. That's why I should buy an iPod

Sorry to hijack here a bit.

[John.Michael.Kane]

I would have wanted ogg support when I bought my iPod, however, I hadn't found a decent player with 20GB+ of storage space. Now I'm in the search for a new player and still haven't found one.

I realize that most people don't have 40GB music collections of which at least a portion they would want to carry with them, but I do. Does anyone here know of such a player that would support ogg and flac (a lossless codec is a must to me) and have the storage space? Until I find one, I really have no alternatives. That's why I should buy an iPod

Sorry to hijack here a bit.


JetAudio COWON Model A2-30WH
JetAudio iAudio X5 Model X5-60BL they make others, and they support ogg.

[.t.]

I would have wanted ogg support when I bought my iPod, however, I hadn't found a decent player with 20GB+ of storage space. Now I'm in the search for a new player and still haven't found one.

I realize that most people don't have 40GB music collections of which at least a portion they would want to carry with them, but I do. Does anyone here know of such a player that would support ogg and flac (a lossless codec is a must to me) and have the storage space? Until I find one, I really have no alternatives. That's why I should buy an iPod

Sorry to hijack here a bit.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=225994 for those of you looking for devices with Ogg support. It's just further down the topic list.

Any chance of a comment on my writing?

[John.Michael.Kane]

.t. while i don't use an or own any portable players.I can understand your frustrations,however. I thought rockbox was a way for endusers to have an opensouce ipod.

[Pekkalainen]

I dont like your use of the term "intellectual property". It is tricking people into thinking that patens, copyrights, trademarks and such are similar when in fact they are not! Please keep these issues separate. And also call DRM for what it really is: Digital Restrictions Managements. It has nothing to do with our rights as customers, it is only about restrictions.

You also overused commas a little, the sentences sometimes got very advanced and difficult to follow. Otherwise it was all good, you succeeded in explaining why iPods suck :)

[.t.]

SD-Plissken: Yeah, I just discovered RockBox today
Pekkalainen: Thanks, however, I use intellectual property collectively because there are things about most of the constituent that I don't like.

I'll bear both your comments in mind when I come to edit my current version.

...

Which I have now done.

[croak77]

More to the point, did you read the essay? Do you have any other criticisms?

Yep...I don't understand the part about Stalinist Russia. Are you comparing Ipod users to people who lived under Stalin?

The part about the 15th Century King, what King? What law? Or did you just make that up?

And CSS, if you don't like CSS, dont buy dvd's.

Edit:

I'd say it's extremly hypocritical of you to lecture people on what they should buy/use when you don't follow your own advise. I know you are going to say "I don't have the money to buy a new player" and "I bought it before I knew" but those are poor excuses. You seem to have money to buy cd's and dvd's. Or if you really don't have the money to buy a cheap ogg player then maybe you should just recycle your current one. Or sell it and go without one. If you are going to lecture people, you should practice what you preach.

[The Soundophiliac]

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it.

I read your text. I do like it, however I disagree with a lot of it.

Firstly, thinking philosophically, you can't say for a fact that DRM is bad. I do think so as probably do all of the forum users, however protecting the content authors'/creators' rights is fundamentally a good thing. It does limit the freedom of the user but that might be a justified sacrifice. Actually, your text didn't really imply anything to the contrary to what I've just said. So no criticism there and I assume you agree with me.

To look at things from the practical point of view, I think we are doing quite alright in the area of digital media and there are a lot of more important things to fight than DRM. Although DRM might be inconvenient, it hasn't interfered with my life in any way. OK, you can't copy an HD-DVD legally but I don't think that's unreasonable.

From an even more practical point of view, I believe there will always be methods of circumventing DRM as there always has been. I believe the DRM algorithms used with HD-DVD has already been cracked. Even more reassuring is the fact, that on the playback and computing technology today, it's impossible to prevent the copying of lossless audio.

Also, I think the iPod is a good product and so is OSX. They might be the best in their respective areas. They were developed in a propietary model which seemingly does work quite well. Propietary software is not evil (software patents are, I've noticed these are sometimes mixed).

In the case of the iPod, Apple does provide you with fairly foolproof soft- and firmware, which they have written and which they are capable of supporting. They can guarantee it works. You can use alternative software and firmware and I don't believe Apple has actively done anything to prevent users from using alternative software. They haven't released specs or info on the iPods hardware to help programmers but they might have their reasons or the people in charge just haven't thought of it. If neither those are true, then my point is moot.

BTW, here in Finland schools and such have always had to pay royalties for viewing the media publicly as the media is generally intended for private use. That's not unreasonable, is it?

Ok, now that I look at what I wrote, I realize that a lot of it isn't relevant and it really isn't constructive criticism. I support agree with you on many things and It's a good essay. I've written far too much.

[.t.]

croak77: I'm saying that in Stalinist Russia, freedom of expression was very much restricted, with an effect much like closed source software has on the computing world. Development was hindered. Unfortunately, unlike the USSR, the proprietary software world has not collapsed, but thrived.

With respect to the 15th Century King. Well, I've researched that a bit better, and here is the updated excerpt:
However, in the 17th Century, King Charles II (by royal prerogative) passed the Licensing Act 1662 that began to control the copying of books. This was the first instance of the notion of copyright. In 1710, the 1709 Statue of Anne was passed instigating Parliamentary protection of the copyright of books and other written materials.

[croak77]

I could be wrong, but I thought the Licensing Act 0f 1662 was more about censorship then copyright. I thought Charles II wanted control over what was published after the Charles I vs. Scots/New Model Army/Oliver Cromwell.

The Statute of Anne is acutally an example of copyright law done well. It was passed as protection against cheap imports mostly Scottish. The statute granted the author or proprietor excluisive publishing rights for 21 years. I would argue that they got coyright law right. They granted a reasonable amount of time to the author but not an unlimited amount.

Edit;
My knowledge on this particular subject come from Lawerence Lessig's fine book; Free Culture

[.t.]

That is very interesting and I may have to read that book. Thank you. However, I don't think I'll change the essay, as I was just pointing out the point at which the notion of copyright arose, and what stemmed from that.

[Polygon]

and even if you install an alternate firmware for your ipod, if you dont like it you can just take it off, or go back into windows/mac and use the ipod updater to completly reformat the ipod and reinstall the stock firmware.

but rockbox (which i discovered today) works fine. it may not be as pretty, but it does play music.

[hanzomon4]

Delete

[hanzomon4]

but rockbox (which i discovered today) works fine. it may not be as pretty, but it does play music.

Rockbox can be pretty

http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbgaab.jpg http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbg6a.bmp http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbg1a.bmp http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbg8b.bmp

[BarfBag]

The iPod is a fine piece of hardware. Don't close your minds to it just because it doesn't support open source technology out of the box.

That being said, I would never get one.

[.t.]

Why's that?

[Polygon]

Rockbox can be pretty

http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbgaab.jpg http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbg6a.bmp http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbg1a.bmp http://solutions-i.org/julius/images/jbg8b.bmp


WOW... thats nice! i guess its because i have a ipod mini.. so it looks kinda ugly.