Richard Stallman's personal site.

http://stallman.org

For current political commentary, see the daily political notes.

Why you should not buy Apple computer products.

Apple iThings pioneered a new level of restricting the users: they were the first general purpose computers to impose censorship over what programs the user can install. Apple practices Digital Restrictions Management in many other ways too.

Apple exploits the app developers mercilessly, aside from a few stars whose role is to give a misleading impression of what developers can expect.

I can't sympathize much with those app developers, since they are making proprietary software. They all deserve to fail. However, that doesn't excuse the way Apple treats them.
Apple is a major patent aggressor. Here's a rather absurd patent that Apple will surely use against other mobile computers. This joins many other patents which Apple is already using to attack free software.
Ebooks with DRM won't work on an iThing that is jailbroken, due to intentional sabotage by Apple.
E-books with digital handcuffs are products designed to attack your freedom, much like the iThing itself.
Apple practices censorship. Here are a few examples.
- Apple demonstrates the arbitrariness of its censorship by blocking an app that tells people with text messages when US drone attacks kill civilians.
  The author said that this app was meant to raise awareness. I hope Apple's censorship of it raises awareness.
- Apple censors information about abortion providers.
- Apple's mail service silently censors the mail people send.
- Apple deauthorized a Wikileaks access application, using censorship to support censorship.
- Apple censors iTunes ebooks — banning all mention of Amazon.
  
  People should not do business with Amazon, which mistreats authors, publishers, its workers, and its customers. Ms Lisle's presupposition that the goal of success is all that matters is not admirable.
  
  However, that doesn't justify Apple's censorship.
  Of course, publishing in iTunes was already bad for other reasons, such as DRM, and requiring users to use nonfree software.
- Apple banned from iTunes the erotic novel, The Proof of the Honey, saying it was because of the cover.
- Apple censored a game for the iThings called Angry Syrians, which is a political parody of Angry Birds.
  Apple said it was "defamatory or offensive" — to the dictator Assad, apparently.
Repeated acts of censorship are not the only reason to condemn iTunes. We should refuse to buy from iTunes because it requires nonfree software, imposes licenses more restrictive than copyright law, and often imposes DRM.
Apple spies on its users, and helps others spy on them.
- If you carry a cell phone, it tells Big Brother where you are. Apple wants to hand out the information too.
  Using the lever of "You have a choice, but unless you say yes, your old activities will stop working" is something that Apple has done before, with malicious "upgrades". Apple ostensibly doesn't force people to accept the new nasty thing; it just punishes them if they don't.
- Apple left a security hole in iTunes unfixed for 3 years after being informed about the problem. During that time, governments used that security hole to invade people's computers.
Apple persists in disregarding the widespread blatant abuse of the workers that build its products.
- Apple uses sweatshops in China to build its products.
- Sweatshops are good for Foxconn (and for Apple), but not for workers.
- An undercover journalist reports on the horrible conditions in the Foxconn factory that makes iThings: still horrible in 2012.
- Foxconn closed schools and forced the students to work building iThings.
- Working conditions at Apple's other Chinese suppliers are even worse than in Foxconn.
Apple turns a blind eye to environment in China.
Although Apple has joined EPEAT again, it does not cover the iThings — only the Macintosh.
Apple practices planned obsolescence for the iBad — in just two years.
Apple pioneered techniques for avoiding the US corporate tax (even though it is far too low) in order to pay next to no tax.
The loopholes that Apple uses would be closed, if not for the political power of business. "Free trade" treaties give business increased power to block such changes, so we must abolish them to break business's power.
Apple store staff are taught twisted psychological manipulation.
The mere practice of referring to service staff as "geniuses" is dishonest already.
Apple lures people into the business of developing apps with visions of the great wealth that a few of them get. Most just fail, often losing a substantial investment.
Anyone who intentionally develops proprietary software (i.e., does not respect users' freedom) deserves no sympathy, but that doesn't excuse Apple for luring people into it. Some of them would not have tried to develop proprietary software if not for Apple.