Can someone look at a calendar and see what year it is? Because the Macalope’s concerned his recent Deep Space 9 binge-watch has created some kind of temporal flux and thrown us back in time.

Writing for BetaNews, Derrick Wlodarz brings us “8 big reasons Apple should let Mac OS X onto the PC.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Stephen Perteet.)

Dax: Judging by the antiquated state of discourse in the media, Benjamin, I’d say we’ve arrived in the very late 20th century!

As an IT professional by day, it's a question that has confounded me for some time.

Like, almost exactly twenty years?

How come Apple doesn't allow PC users to install and run OS X on the hardware of their choice?

Because if they let people run their operating systems on other companies’ hardware, they’d either have to go out of business or find another, sleazier business model to go with.

Are we done here, or…?

I know very well there are business reasons it doesn't allow it.

Oh, well, as long as you’re OK with them going out of business then we can have a reasonable discussion of the issue clown horn banana peel donkey pants.

But I wanted to step back and take a more holistic, almost philosophical approach to this debate.

If your holistic physician prescribes something that will kill you but help some of his other patients, seek a better holistic physician. Also, call the AMA. And probably the police.

I'm a tinkerer at heart, and can't stand the closed nature of the hardware around Apple's computers.

You know what? That’s fine! Good for you. The Macalope has long loved swapping drives and futzing with the internals of various machines he’s owned over the years. He understands the appeal! But at the same time, the MacBook Air he’s typing on right now is the best computer he’s ever owned, so…

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don’t expect Apple to support your hobby at the expense of its business. If the entire computer market were controlled by one company that offered a handful of tightly controlled devices then, yes, that would be a problem. But as we are so often gleefully told that both the Mac and iOS have vastly smaller market share, why are we even having this discussion?

So that I can get it out in the open, I'll fully admit my curiosity on this subject stems from my own personal objections for why I have never purchased an Apple computer.

I’m biased and I’ve lost all sense of reason on this issue. Hear me out.

Nnnnno.

We’ve been through this about a thousand times. You want to mess around with or make your own computer and you have choices for how to do so: Windows or Linux. If they suck in comparison to OS X then maybe your problem is with Windows and Linux and not with Apple.

Others, like Richard Stallman, go much further in outlining the reasons they refuse to buy Apple…

Before eating something pulled off their own feet.

Wlodarz needlessly devotes over 3500 words to detailing his eight reasons, all of them predicated on Apple going out of business at the end of reaping the adoration of people who will probably never spend a dime on their stuff anyway.

You might want Apple to do this but Apple should not do it.