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And yet, the market has spoken, and here's why:

Only technology monarchism has been able to deliver a good user experience.

The organized chaos of OSS has delivered excellent technology but a piss-poor user experience by comparison. I can't imagine using Linux as anything other than a web-netbook without having a thorough understanding of it, and the UI still blows by comparison with anything by Apple.

Microsoft's UIs aren't that great, but that's because Microsoft's corporate culture is a lot less monarchistic than Apple's. Too many cooks in the kitchen. A fundamental requirement of good aesthetics is to have someone who can say "no" repeatedly to "ideas" that just clutter everything up. Minimal is a synonym for good.

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When it comes to computing, it seems to me that most people would rather have a pretty prison than freedom.

Mostly because freedom is not really accessible for most people, in matter of computing.

You can have freedom to install what you want, the way you want... only a minority ultimately knows how to. The rest is left without a clue in front of their supposed freedom.

When the iPad is presented to people, of course it's no "revolution" to most of us. But for the regular person, it's an easy way to access something which they could have had difficulties to access, before. At this point, choice matters less than the actual possibility to use something, even if this thing is framed and safely guarded, for most.

There are some people who do think freedom and accessibility can coexist; interestingly enough, some of the very people whose work Apple built on (but focusing more on the accessibility part of their work). For example, Alan Kay and Ted Nelson have both long pushed the idea that computer systems can be both hackable and user-friendly / broadly accessible, rather than having to be split into a dichotomy of consumer-appliance versus hackable-nerd-toy.

"pretty prison" is a nonsense term. For millions and millions of people, OS X and iOS and the relevant hardware are not prisons--they give them the freedom of the Internet, of usable software and of easy to use hardware to do what they want to do. Without commercial computing vendors, many people wouldn't be able to use a computer and would be a lot less free.

Freedom for 0.1% does not trump freedom for the masses and RMS is just engaging in shameless self-promotion.

A closed computing environment isn't a prison. I have the choice of using an iPad or something more open. If I choose an iPad and later wish for something more open, then I can replace it with a more open tablet or a laptop. I find the implication that I "prefer a prison to freedom" disingenuous and off-putting.

OK, so it's only a prison to the extent you use it.

Better not let your important data get locked up in any non-portable formats though. A literal prison is far easier to release someone from.

It's not a prison even if you do use it. The defining characteristic of a prison is that you cannot leave it. I can stop using an iPad any time I wish.

And yes, important data should not be locked in non-portable formats. At the same time, I've never found myself in a situation where I simply could not extract important data from a non-portable format into a more portable one.

Stallman doesn't need market approval.

If you are a shareholder it is a legitimate point, but the FSF's concerns are far deeper.

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