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The coming civil war over general purpose computing

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Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#41

Post by parasubvert »

veidr wrote: post #18
parasubvert wrote: post #13

The issue I have with arguments from folks such as Cory is that they presume too much in favour of openness. Many prefer to be regulated rather than have to make decisions on every little detail, that's arguably the whole Apple appeal in a nutshell vs. Linux, and why it's so productive. (Distros like Ubuntu arguably do this too at a much smaller scale.) Cory is effectively advocating "technology survivalism", where n…

> Apple's restrictions have little to do with controlling device owners I would think you were making a joke if not for the earnest tone of your post. But, come on, that is a ridiculous statement to make. We had free as in freedom, free as in beer, and then Steve Jobs came up with free as in "freedom from porn". You appear to buy into that doublespeak redefinition of freedom without irony. The Soviet Union made a sim…

You seem to be under the impression that phones once were free & loose, and then Apple locked them down. Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them, and what features were used. Apple opened devices up to a level never before seen - no more carrier crap pre-loaded, and a serious push to improve data pipes and 3G availability throughout North America. Not to mention an app marketplace NOT controlled by the carriers, and an web browsing experience that doesn't require you to be snooped on by WAP gateways.

Do you not still see the (baseless) grief Apple gets from carriers about how their phones are "data hogs"? Or how the media breathlessly claims the retina display is going to clog up all of our bandwidth from higher resolution video and pictures?

Phones were always locked down heavily, Apple blew up that up to a large extent, but not completely, of course, as they are in business.... But today's variety of walled gardens are mostly untouchable by the carriers.

> Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".)

No, the restrictions are all about curating an experience. Suggestions require choice. Most people don't want to make choices on how their phones work, they want to be handed experience with most decisions made for them, and for popular variations to be tweakable. "Opinionated software".

> You may not install apps that don't pay Apple 30% of their revenues.

Well, yes, they are capitalists, shame on them.

> You may not install apps that compete with Apple's favored apps.

That sucked, I agree, but that's changing. Chrome is out for iOS. Alternative Email clients are out. Apple generally is known for good customer service according to most customer satisfaction surveys, and presuming these people are semi-rational beings, that usually implies Apple actually listens to them (eventually).

> I'm saying freedom doesn't what you think it means, and I don't think even Frank Luntz could make it mean that.

You seem to be confusing political freedom with freedom to violate others' property.

Firstly, you do realize that you have political freedom -- people are completely free to jailbreak their phones, no police will come after you. If you violate your carrier's T&Cs they can fire you as a customer, but that's due to years of historically poor regulation of telecom in the USA.

Secondly, none of the software you use, that you haven't written, is owned by you. All owners of that software have a restriction on your behaviour with that software, including free or open source software. You have never been completely free when you use software. Thus, degree of openness is just a feature. Apple is trying to find a balance that people care about. Naturally developers & technical folks don't like losing the freedom to tinker, while most people couldn't care less. Apple needs to maintain a developer community that tinkers, though. So it's a balancing act.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#42

Post by parasubvert »

maxerickson wrote: post #24
parasubvert wrote: post #13

The issue I have with arguments from folks such as Cory is that they presume too much in favour of openness. Many prefer to be regulated rather than have to make decisions on every little detail, that's arguably the whole Apple appeal in a nutshell vs. Linux, and why it's so productive. (Distros like Ubuntu arguably do this too at a much smaller scale.) Cory is effectively advocating "technology survivalism", where n…

So why don't they build in an escape hatch? It would be simple enough to have a very annoying warning when the user turned off the lockdown.

I think over time they have been building many escape hatches. If enough users want it, they'll build one big one. So far, though, I don't think there's a lot of evidence that users really care, other than technical folks.

Carrier restrictions, on the other hand, will always be there to some degree, unless Apple decides to buy a US or Global carrier, and upend the market. That will suck in some ways (more concentration of power) but not in others (they'd change practices in favour of a better user experience, to move people to them).

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#43

Post by gizmo686 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #39

This misses the mark, as I've said before. Privacy is the #1 problem; just as computers and the internet make it trivially easy to copy other people's IP (agree with the existence of IP or not, it's a fact of the modern marketplace), it also makes it easy for other people to monitor you, whether those others are governments, corporate proxies for governments, corporate proxies for private interests, or private actors…

I've always viewed privacy and user freedom as 2 sides of the same coin. The lack of privacy on the internet is not because of the nature of the internet, it is because when you go to a website, you send unnesasary information that you are not aware of, and the current model is that the website owns your data.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#44

Post by gizmo686 »

nirvana wrote: post #28
fmstephe wrote: post #7

When I read articles like this my fears always move straight to a future where it has become harder to program for play. I appreciate that this concern is somewhat superficial compared with some of the issues raised in this article, but I feel profoundly grateful to be able to tinker with computers in my spare time. I feel this more deeply than the fear that my music collection might not survive a computer upgrade or…

This is one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Apple, despite all the misguided gruff they get here. Apple always ships free (or near free) development tools with their systems. In the Apple II days it was built in to the ROMS. Nowadays on the Mac AppStore you can download Xcode, for free. (though at one point I think it was $5 for some reason.) You can develop any mac apps you want, and run them to your hearts content…

Assuming you are correct about non app-store distribution, you still have the problem that few users will ever find those other distribution systems when the app-store is so close and convenient. This can be contrasted with most Linux package distribution systems. From the end users perspective, they work the same way as the app-store (except that most don't have a payment mechanism, and they handle dependencies). However, in addition to the officially supported repository, it is a simple checkbox, in a readily accessible menu, to enable the community supported repositories.

If these repositories are not 'free' enough for you, they make it easy to add 3rd party repositories. This would be the same as Apple letting you integrate non-Apple app-stores seamlessly into the app-store app. Admittedly, at this point we are back in the realm of more advanced users, however the distributions make adding 3rd party repositories as easy as I can imagine (you just need to put the URL in the user-friendly menu). And, once you add another repository, you need to go out of your way to where which repository you are installing from. Assuming Apple does not change their app aceptence policies, and don't have a less strict repository that can be checkbox-enabled, it does not seem difficult to believe that 1 or 2 3rd party stores would gain widespread use. It is even more believable when you look at how common jailbraking is. Now replace the concerns about warranties, bricking, hacking with comfort by how well supported it is.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#45

Post by abecedarius »

parasubvert wrote: post #41
veidr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's restrictions have little to do with controlling device owners I would think you were making a joke if not for the earnest tone of your post. But, come on, that is a ridiculous statement to make. We had free as in freedom, free as in beer, and then Steve Jobs came up with free as in "freedom from porn". You appear to buy into that doublespeak redefinition of freedom without irony. The Soviet Union made a sim…

You seem to be under the impression that phones once were free & loose, and then Apple locked them down. Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them, and what features were used. Apple opened devices up to a level never before seen - no more carrier crap pre-loaded, and a serious push to improve data pipes and 3G availability throughout North America. Not to mention an app marketplace NOT controlle…

An iPad is not a phone. An iPod Touch is not a phone. Even on phones, many, maybe most, aspects of the lockdown have nothing to do with carriers' interests. Apple has decided it likes being like a carrier; its relation to users has changed from computer company to jealous boyfriend.

(I'm not getting involved beyond your first paragraph.)

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#46

Post by msg »

Rainbows End: "No User-Serviceable Parts Within". Technology is depicted as black boxes all the way down. Cars shut down when driven outside of sanctioned roads. LARP content unavailable unless you have the rights.

Reflections on Trusting Trust: "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." The proposal is that Trusted Computing is supposed to defeat this truism. I have my doubts.

I hope that we will be able to do irreparable damage to Trusted Computing and make it untenable. This large jail will be broken out of like all the others.

We already live in a world where the rich can buy new legs and survive HIV better than the poor. The poor are already shamefully misused by social, legal, and economic systems stacked against them. Adding computers just adds a more explicit level of control.

The solutions to the new problems are the same as the solutions to the old problems: enfranchise the poor, make government responsive to them, give them the tools for mobility and independence. The hackers will continue opening the technological ways. As a kind of Gotterdammerung last resort, the printable gun, the darknet, PGP keys.

And that means that the problems are more scary because of future shock and culture shock than anything else. They're Hollywood nightmares about the future, but the future turns out to be, good and evil, the same old thing.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#47

Post by tree_of_item »

nirvana wrote: post #28
fmstephe wrote: post #7

When I read articles like this my fears always move straight to a future where it has become harder to program for play. I appreciate that this concern is somewhat superficial compared with some of the issues raised in this article, but I feel profoundly grateful to be able to tinker with computers in my spare time. I feel this more deeply than the fear that my music collection might not survive a computer upgrade or…

This is one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Apple, despite all the misguided gruff they get here. Apple always ships free (or near free) development tools with their systems. In the Apple II days it was built in to the ROMS. Nowadays on the Mac AppStore you can download Xcode, for free. (though at one point I think it was $5 for some reason.) You can develop any mac apps you want, and run them to your hearts content…

You keep repeating this stuff about JavaScript having access to the "full iOS UI" but that's completely false. The only way JavaScript developers will be able to write first class mobile applications is if Mozilla's efforts succeed; Apple isn't helping at all.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#48

Post by novalis »

parasubvert wrote: post #40
novalis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So actively enforcing a way for the carrier to exploit for further income doesn't bring preferenciality when being picked up by said carrier as a middle stage profit model enabler ? Should we all show this good will towards all brands and just call all lock downs the greatest neutral thing ever because they are clearly just the bios chips makers fault ? Who wins with stuff like that. It's not like those sorts of acti…

I think you're reading more into my statement than was there. The carriers in the USA, and their behaviours, are reality. They enforce restrictions. Therefore, phones are restricted. If you root your phone, and use features your carrier don't want used, they can fire you as a customer. Apple enabling features or apps that get you fired won't win them any fans other than hardcore technical folks that want to live on t…

In reality, whenever a brand enforces to not allow software that can use the hardware in perfectly normal expedients, it isn't just "protecting" customers from being "fired". It is simply enabling abusive carrier behaviour and that is a negative when you consider its data pseudo-segmentation those charging practices are built upon.

"Apple enabling features or apps that get you fired won't win them any fans other than hardcore technical folks that want to live on the edge." <- that looks lifted from a 90's hacker movie. You have this passive aggressive streak that cuts your reasoning off just when you would be able to identify a brand/carrier plot to squeeze customers income while the tech could be used without over charging for pseudo differentiated services. But whatever rocks your boat, if you like thinking of it like a big-brand protecting you from the big bad carrier, go ahead. Let a brand that allows for this sort of thing have a free pass, it's your call.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#49

Post by ekianjo »

nirvana wrote: post #28
fmstephe wrote: post #7

When I read articles like this my fears always move straight to a future where it has become harder to program for play. I appreciate that this concern is somewhat superficial compared with some of the issues raised in this article, but I feel profoundly grateful to be able to tinker with computers in my spare time. I feel this more deeply than the fear that my music collection might not survive a computer upgrade or…

This is one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Apple, despite all the misguided gruff they get here. Apple always ships free (or near free) development tools with their systems. In the Apple II days it was built in to the ROMS. Nowadays on the Mac AppStore you can download Xcode, for free. (though at one point I think it was $5 for some reason.) You can develop any mac apps you want, and run them to your hearts content…

There's no such thing as "near free". Free is a boolean variable, either it is free or it is not free.

Apple does not distribute any free tools to develop and run software for their systems, period. If you want to be a free hacker, it's Linux or Windows, currently. And as another person responded to you, you cannot use the UI elements via javascript and all. Get some docs, seriously.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#50

Post by statictype »

nirvana wrote: post #28
fmstephe wrote: post #7

When I read articles like this my fears always move straight to a future where it has become harder to program for play. I appreciate that this concern is somewhat superficial compared with some of the issues raised in this article, but I feel profoundly grateful to be able to tinker with computers in my spare time. I feel this more deeply than the fear that my music collection might not survive a computer upgrade or…

This is one of the reasons I'm such a fan of Apple, despite all the misguided gruff they get here. Apple always ships free (or near free) development tools with their systems. In the Apple II days it was built in to the ROMS. Nowadays on the Mac AppStore you can download Xcode, for free. (though at one point I think it was $5 for some reason.) You can develop any mac apps you want, and run them to your hearts content…

It's not $99 to distribute apps. It's $99 for putting software you wrote on any device, including the one you purchased and own. Yes, it may be still less than the cost of dev tools for other archaic platforms but please don't spin this as Apple doing a favor to the community.

The iOs toolchain is business friendly (in that it's great for developers using it to make a living) but its absolutely not hacker friendly or tinkerer friendly in any reasonable way.

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