>”At some point one must separate the art from the artist.”
A very valid point, and a lesson learned on my part.
>”Especially when there is no non-leftist alternative, “
Agreed, especially since there really seems to be no good guy/bad guy in the mix.
I guess I may just harbor some ill feelings from when Apple was just starting out and you had to buy, Apple software, and apple printers, and apple monitors, and apple this and that and etc etc etc., It was VERY proprietary. I actually was cheering apple on in the hopes they would become more like the IBM compats. Release the programming information so 3rd parties could build products. Allow others the info so YOU can prosper. They didn’t and Apple STILL only holds a very small (correct me if I’m wrong) 5% market share. I don’t know, has that gone up any?
Anyway, to make a long story short, I have no love for someone who says, it’s ALL mine and nobody can have any of it (which is what Jobs did). He found out (the hard way) that’s not the way to go about it.
By the way, as to market share, if you count dollars rather than units, Apple has a much more impressive recent retail share: >50% of personal computers costing more than $1k for several quarters now. That’s because it declines to sell cheap crap. You also get a superior support experience. Let me assure you, talking with a trained and cogent technician face-to-face at the Apple Store beats spending hours on the phone to Bangalore with some incomprehensible, script-reading troll any day.