So about AMD being "freedom friendly"

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/28/14OPcurve_1.html

Oops...

 

DRM is good for consumers. Honest. It means more things will be available, it won't restrict us.

 

Ummmmmmmmmm...

 

It's getting to where there's nowhere to turn anymore... AMD is backing DRM by locking out frame buffers and such nonsense, and Intel developed HDCP. ATi is owned by AMD (thus being already mentioned), and nVidia releases no open source graphics drivers at all. I don't wanna buy a PC because I know it will come with Windows (now Vista... ugh), but is it really better to buy a Mac when they use TPM to ensure that you can only run THEIR OS on THEIR computers? Every time I think things are starting to look up (Dell using Linux, another Linux distro making it big), I get another kick in the teeth by something like this. It's enough to drive a sane man crazy...

 

I totally agree =)

 

as much as apple are the "kings of DRM", at least they don't lock you out of installing other operating systems on your machine. (see the post about Vista-only BIOS troubles in this forum)

More and more I'm leaning towards making a Mac my next laptop purchase. They seem to do laptop things very well, like suspend to RAM/disk. I hardly use the functionality on my notebook because it draws so much power and takes quite a bit of time.

But then I think about all my OGGs...

 

*wacks head on desk*

WHY WHY WHY!!! I completly agree with Notebook_ftw. Why do this? Not everyone who uses computers is a pirate, so why treat us all like pirates.

 

Now, we need Open Source Hardware!
Free us...

 

The problem is : Who will provide the finance ?
I'm sure the media industry people (who are ready to go as far as suing a 10 years old for what she committed when she was *seven*) will not like this.
I even feel that they might have forced the reluctant hardware developers into this.

 

I'm right there with you. I really want my next purchase to be a Mac for several reasons. Firstly, it doesn't come with Windows. But by the same token, as you said, they don't outlaw or discourage you from running competing operating systems, and in fact provide you with ways to do so. They're not out there trying to run Linux/BSD out of the world, and their recent leaning toward anti-DRM is promising as well. But at the same time, iTunes is one of the biggest reasons that DRM is in the place that it is now, because it got so popular, and their stance on vertical productivity by merging their hardware with their software and blocking everyone else out is really disheartening. I can understand why they do it, and there is a certain amount of quality that you get because of this stance, but it still doesn't seem right to me. It's all very confusing...

 

"Some of them will pirate software. So, we're cripple everyones machines, so when they do pirate, they're already punished."

I'm really getting sick of this. You know you're in trouble when the "freeest" platform you own was produced by Sony...

 

If enough people make some noise about it maybe AMD will re-think their approach. After Apple and Microsoft announcing that they will try to remove DRM it's hard to believe that AMD will not follow suit.