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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

#71

Post by nicholassmith »

ekianjo wrote: post #49
nirvana wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, Apple does distribute free tools to develop and run software it's in the distribution of the software that you need a license and only if you want to share it with people running Mountain Lion who don't understand how to open something unsigned.

https://developer.apple.com/xcode/ 'Download Xcode 4 for free.'

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#73

Post by protomyth »

Sadly, I believe a lock down of computers is inevitable. Look at what happens when there is a security incident or some perceived violation of privacy. Lots of press and a visit by your company's C-level executives to Capital Hill so lawmakers can put on a circus. If you believe Android will continue to be more open than iOS, then I would just say a couple of more visits to DC will cure that.

I wonder how many fortune 500 address books kept in Outlook of their salespeople were uploaded by an Windows app? Put the machine in your pocket and the cries for safety and privacy win. These Post-PC devices are amazing tools except for the people who make them sing and dance.

I really would love a open hardware platform just for programmers.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#74

Post by demallien »

runn1ng wrote: post #60
nirvana wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To even be able to sign your application to run on OS X, you need to pay 99 dollars. And agree to Apple's terms. You have to agree to pages of Apple's terms if you want to let anyone to run your thing on iOS. "You only need a $99 membership, which is pretty affordable, compared to the past when it cost $500-$5,000 for such suites of software." - where do you get these numbers? You can put your software for free on so…

To even be able to sign your application to run on OS X, you need to pay 99 dollars. And agree to Apple's terms.

This is pure FUD. You only need to sign apps if you are planning on distributing them as pre-compiled binaries, and even then the end user can deactivate gatekeeper in case you haven't signed your app.

If you are writing apps for yourself, you can just compile normally, and deactivate Gatekeeper on your system. This holds equally if you wish to distribute your app to friends and family (telling them to deactivate Gatekeeper...). If you want to distribute to strangers, you may have a tougher time convincing them to deactivate their security to run your app though.

Of course, even if the above wasn't true, this would still be a strawman. The vast majority of people capable of programming well enough to want to distribute their software are more than capable of putting together the 99 bucks needed to get a developer certificate.

where do you get these numbers? You must be too young to remember actually having to buy Turbo C / Visual Studio / Metrowerks, but the parent post is absolutely correct - historically professional-grade developer tools have been quite expensive. It is only relatively recently that we have had the luxury of these tools being available for free.

YOU are the one doing distortion field Seriously? And this advances the debate how?

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#75

Post by snowwrestler »

statictype wrote: post #50
nirvana wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is not true. If you think it is, please provide a link to the Apple dev documentation that proves it.

I'm not an OSX developer myself but plenty of my friends and colleagues have written "scratch the itch" Mac apps for themselves without paying $99.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#76

Post by snowwrestler »

ekianjo wrote: post #49
nirvana wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Xcode is a free download. The Apple development documentation is available for free on their website. You need to register in both cases but it is a free registration.

In addition, Macs ship with a certified compliant Unix interface, and a wide variety of developer tools such as a powerful CLI shell (only recently added on Windows), compilers, vim, etc.

And unlike Windows, Apple donates quite a lot of their code to open source, including the kernel of their OS. Does Windows do that? I don't think so.

http://opensource.apple.com/

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#77

Post by demallien »

abecedarius wrote: post #45
parasubvert wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

There is a spectrum of openness when it comes to computing devices. At one end you have computers that are very open, with all of the problems that come with that, and at the other extreme you have fixed-function devices such as printers. In between, you have things like game consoles, smartphones, and other mobile devices.

iDevices are more closed than computers, sure, but they are much more open than say a Nintendo DS, whose SDK costs an order of magnitude more than iOS devlopment. This is as it should be, as iDevices are more flexible than a games console.

Viewed as a continuum of openness, Apple's products seem to me to be exactly where you would expect them to be. You could argue that they should be alittle more open, some even argue that they should be more closed, but overall their success in the market would seem to bear out the theory that they are roughly in the right spot.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#78

Post by snowwrestler »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #6

I just watched the whole thing. I liked how Cory Doctorow acknowledged that some of these problems he didn't know the answers to but he seemed satisfied just to get the conversation started. Near the beginning he flashed a picture of an iPad as an example of a device that records everything you do and there is nothing you can do about it. I had never thought of that; instead I had viewed the iPad as a nice little dev…

I'd be interested to see some hard proof that an iPad "records everything you do."

I think Cory was making a theoretical point that unless you can open the thing up all the way to the firmware, you can't know "for sure" what it is doing. (An argument than Stallman has made for decades BTW).

That is very different from saying, conclusively, that an iPad is recording everything.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#79

Post by snowwrestler »

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…

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

It's worth pointing out that Apple allows free (beer and speech) apps in the iOS App Store, and in fact most of the apps are free (as in beer). They are not making any money on those--to the contrary, they are an expense that Apple incurs.

Now, it's true that to get a free app into the App Store, a developer must pay their $99 to get their app signed. But--that still does not make Apple any money from device owners.

Code signing is a well understood security for verifying the integrity of end-user software; this is a plausible explanation for the app distribution lockdown of iOS, especially since that is Apple's own explanation.

And of course the App Store on the Mac (and code signing in general) remains optional.

Re: The coming civil war over general purpose computing

#80

Post by ivansavz »

At around 51:30, there is an off-topic question from the audience, which leads to an great answer:

Q: What can you say about making a living writing things. Will you advise it?

A: If you want to make a living writing things I would advise you to stop trying, because that is a bit like saying “I want to make a living buying lottery tickets”. Sounds like a If you don’t have a plan B for earning a living, you have the wrong career. Writing is a very very high-risk entrepreneurial venture that almost everyone who tries it fails at. Some people have succeeded using CC and some fraction without using CC, but they are rounding errors against all the people who try to earn a living with writing.

Ouch! As a founder of a textbook startup it makes me wonder on this Monday morning. I guess he is talking specifically about writing fiction. Textbooks must be OK, Right?

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