> Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious advantages, things just work, etc.
This is just false.
iOS is a walled garden. The Mac is not by anyone’s definition.
This is just false.
iOS is a walled garden. The Mac is not by anyone’s definition.
You are just trying to make a definition of walled garden that isn’t what people generally mean so you can include MacOS within it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26230338
Windows and MacOS have the same entries in the table which means it’s not a walled garden as defined in the piece.
You can run whatever you like on Mac Hardware.
You can run whatever software you like on Mac OS.
Installing MacOS on computers you haven’t licensed it for is just that.
It’s not free software. It is commercial software.
You are conflating the concept of commercial software with the concept of a walled garden.
Commercial software is the software for which developers get money. It can include free software, too. It has nothing to do with the license or the topic we are discussing. You are conflating the concepts here.
Walled garden in general is a convenient system, from which a user can hardly escape when the users wants to. This is exactly what Mac license does. Wikipedia has Mac OS as an example of a walled garden. I did not make it up myself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walled_garden_(te...
The Wikipedia article does mention Mac OS, but does not, anywhere, use it as an example of a walled garden.
Here is the definition from the page you link:
“A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This is in contrast to an open platform, wherein consumers generally have unrestricted access to applications and content.“
This definition is simply not true of Mac OS.
A 2008 Harvard Business School working paper, entitled "Opening Platforms: How, When and Why?", differentiated a platform's openness/closedness by four aspects and gave example platforms.
Platform provider (hardware/operating system (OS) bundle), Mac OS: closed
Platform sponsor (design & intellectual property (IP) rights owner), Mac OS: closed
Tl;dr:
It's not a walled garden in all aspects, but it definitely restricts users in a significant way, depending on your use case.
Notably for some reason you chose not to include the part where they also say about Mac OS:
Demand-side use (end-user): open
Supply-side user (application developer): open
It is not a walled garden in any way that they define a walled garden.
Here is the definition from the page you link: “A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This is in contrast to an open platform, wherein consumers generally have unrestricted access to applications and content.“
It doesn’t apply to Mac OS.
Restricting installation of the operating system itself on other hardware just isn’t part of the definition.
No matter how much you selectively copy and paste from a Wikipedia page, it will not say what you claim it is saying.
Trying to say any restriction of use means a walled garden is akin to saying any software that isn’t completely free is a walled garden.
That just isn’t what the term means.
By the definition I quoted MacOS is an open platform. The provider of MacOS (Apple) doesn’t have control over access to applications and content.
It is not a walled garden in any aspect, even by the definition you yourself provided.
Installing OS itself is restricted by commercial license. But the platform is open.
You are trying to make the definition fit, but it just doesn’t.
I cannot access my OS and all my applications after changing the hardware or using a VM. Do you call it “unrestricted access to applications”? How is this unrestricted if there are restrictions? This is not an open platform by the original Wikipedia definition, more so by my definition. One cannot escape from Mac OS after using it, because all apps will not work (without the legal OS). My SSD dies, I cannot event replace it. All I can do is to pay $$$ to Apple to help me.
No - why would you imagine that?
The article mentions MacOS and by it’s own definition the conclusion is that MacOS is not a walled garden.
It would be weird to think that merely mentioning an operating system in a discussion about walled gardens makes it into a walled garden.
> I cannot access my OS and all my applications after changing the hardware or using a VM.
This is obvious bullshit. Your application and OS still work just fine.
Nobody is telling you what you can and can’t run on the operating system, or on the hardware it is running on.
That’s what the Wikipedia article defines as a walled garden, and has nothing to do with the licensing conditions of the operating system itself.
As to needing to pay certain people for hardware repair, that is also simply not true, and is not relevant to the discussion about walled gardens.
There is nothing preventing you from having your SSD repaired or replaced by anyone with the capability to do it.
By your definition, Linux is a walled garden because you can only run Linux binaries on Linux.
See how this makes no sense?
There’s nothing wrong with you preferring GPL’d software. But that doesn’t mean that everything else is “walled garden”.
This is just bullshit (if one uses your wording). Every new Apple laptop comes with glued SSD.
> By your definition, Linux is a walled garden because you can only run Linux binaries on Linux.
This is absolutely not what I am saying. The problem is not in the compiled binaries. The problem comes when I want to escape the Mac OS walled garden. I can run Linux or Windows in a VM on any operating system and escape its ecosystem any moment in this way. All apps will work in the VM. Not so for Mac OS. I don't think you are even trying to understand my reasoning. Instead you are finding every possibility for a tangential reply having nothing to do with my point.
>It would be weird to think that merely mentioning an operating system in a discussion about walled gardens makes it into a walled garden.
Then please tell me what the example of Mac OS with word "closed" nearby is doing in that Wikipedia page? Does it indicate that Mac OS is an open ecosystem?
In the sentence “Mac OS is not a closed system”, the word ‘closed’ is near the words ‘Mac OS’.
I assume you don’t think that sentence means that Mac OS, is a closed system.
Generally, when words are ‘nearby’ other words you have to read the context to understand why they are there.
> Does it say that Mac OS is an open ecosystem?
Yes, it does say that it’s an open ecosystem.
In the parts of the table describing the ecosystem it has the word open in the rows for MacOS.
Obviously you can see that.
You are absolutely right. Let me quote it for you, so that you understand the context:
"Harvard Business School working paper... differentiated a platform's openness/closedness by four aspects and gave example platforms".
Then, in the table you can see that in 2 out of 4 aspects Mac OS is a closed ecosystem according to the published research. I am astonished by Apple fanboys who cannot accept flaws in Mac OS, even if it's clearly explained by respectful independent researchers.
>In the parts of the table describing the ecosystem it has the word open in the rows for MacOS.
All four points describe the ecosystem, not just those which you choose. Again, quote: "differentiated a platform's openness/closedness by four aspects".
The two on which Apple is rated as ‘open’ are the criteria which the article’s definition uses to determine whether a platform is a walled garden.
You are using a definition of walled garden to mean ‘any level of closedness’.
This is not what a walled garden means, and not what the article says.
If you want to use a private definition, by all means do so, but the article doesn’t have anything to do with your private definition.
For the third time - here is the definition from the article:
“A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media.”
The table shows that Mac OS is open when it comes to applications, content, and media.
The definition is clear, and Mac OS is not a walled garden by the definition. The table supports this conclusion.
Glued components are common and do not prevent repair - what has that got to go with anything?
An emulated VM obviously doesn’t allow a binary to escape the platform because of course you still need the platform, and the binary is still running on the platform so nothing has ‘escaped’.
As I say, your point is just about what hardware you want a license to run MacOS on, which is nothing to do with whether it is a walled garden.
Seems to me like a whole lot of arguments about Apple involve changing accepted definitions of things or using different standards for Apple versus others.
Apple does enough things wrong and I'm perfectly willing to accept those things and understand when people are frustrated by those things. No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain about them.
Since I agree with you, I assume this is aimed at the comment I’m responding to it, and those like it, rather than me.
Totally understand why people might prefer Linux/ Windows/ Amiga/ whatever. People should just enjoy what they want.
It goes both ways. I'd add that atleast the "Apple-haters" have more of a standing in defending open computing standards and demanding Apple be open too.
Also - why does hating Apple give anyone any right to demand anything from them?
Why not demand more from people who are actually working on Open computing?
So you think ignoring facts and making nonsense gives you credibility so long as you hate the right people?
Maybe in your own head.