Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs

#121

Post by steviesteveo65 » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #66

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone died though. The polite thing to do would probably be to say nothing at all ...

Why should people be stifled just because somebody died? What exactly are we concerned about? Steve Jobs becoming disgruntled, rising from his grave, and sucking the blood of virgins during the night? This "dead people are off limits" thing is a relic from the superstitious dark ages. If we can praise the actions of dead people, we can criticize them too.

Sounds like we seriously need to get some of that superstitious dark ages politeness back ASAP.

I think XKCD had it right -- people should have to listen to their comments read aloud before they're published on the internet.

Re: Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs

#122

Post by steviesteveo65 » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #57

timmyd wrote: post #26

It's interesting - I question why Stallman felt the need to say anything. Have some respect in death - and even if he chooses to ignorantly portray himself as an arse by continuing to poor criticism on someone 1 day after their death - I put this to you. If Stallmans "dream" of "everythings free" truly prevailed. Most of the technology that we use would never have been invented anyway. The capitalist nature of societ…

There is nothing about death that demands respect. Anyone can do it, and eventually we all will do it.

This brutal rationality about death guff misses all sorts of points. People dying makes other people feel sad, it's just how the world is. Everyone dies and yet it's still a big deal.

It's really hard to explain to someone who doesn't get it why death is a big issue but if you don't take into account that death is a sad thing for some people you just end up looking like a dick at the funeral.

Re: Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs

#123

Post by richcollins » Sun, Oct 09, 2011, 5:06 AM UTC

marshray wrote: post #94

richcollins wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His claim is that the negatives outweigh the positives and that its a good thing that Steve Jobs no longer actively influences computing. I can't disagree with this sentiment more. Making technology that people can actually use is far better than making unusable technology that is open.

But it's a false dichotomy. There's nothing inherent about usability that requires jailed computing. I submit two examples: 1. The Apple Mac was unquestioningly a pioneer in computer usability. Yet it didn't need a kernel that refused to run apps that weren't "approved" with a cryptographic signature from some central authority. (Yes the original Mac case was closed but there was a high voltage monitor in there and i…

I didn't say it was a necessary condition for usability. I said that Jobs positives greatly outweighed his negatives and that it is ridiculous to claim that it's a good thing that he's no longer influencing technology.

Re: Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs

#124

Post by koko775 » Sun, Oct 09, 2011, 7:54 AM UTC

pasbesoin wrote: post #43

You know, I have some feeling surrounding Jobs' passing (while I never met him, I've known a number of people who did -- mostly from 20+ years ago), and I've appreciated the tributes. But there is also the desire and need to discuss it in context. Some respect may well be warranted, and there may not be the need to rush headlong into critical analysis, but Jobs' passing does promote a lot of attention and focus that…

Well, more accurately, Safari was born from KHTML. WebKit was Apple's massive retooling of it, and was widely acknowledged as superior to KHTML (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and in time replaced it. However, your point isn't necessarily invalidated, as iirc the changes were simply dumped in one large mass rather than as patches.

Additionally, OS X was created from NeXTSTEP, which - again, if I recall correctly - was built on a licensed, proprietary UNIX, so claiming that using BSD for the underlying system in some way took something away or co-opted it, as opposed to made use of it as the license allowed, seems slightly inaccurate.

That said, while I am a big fan of Apple's APIs I am astoundingly opposed to the App Store's walled garden - I surprise even myself, a self-professed fan of many things Apple - with the complete and utter disdain with which I view the terms of the App Store. It really is a jail, and it's a huge problem for the company I work at. Other than the BS about how some of our content might offend sensibilities according to some nebulous standard of western values (disclosure: I work at a company that streams anime), the policies applied seem to do little else than stifle competition.

tangent:

With Siri, I see something bad as well. It seems that controlling the user experience of search - the user experience, the anointed services - leads down a path where it is not the search providers with the best results or presentation which win, but the one which Apple anoints with their approval. Apple seems to think that producing the device entitles them to applying rules which enable Apple to step in and compete with an advantage on things which are not their core competencies. I think this is dangerously close to anti-trust territory, in which a monopoly (not bad by itself) could be abused to foster anti-competitive acts.

/tangent

Re: Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs

#125

Post by pasbesoin » Sun, Oct 09, 2011, 5:36 PM UTC

koko775 wrote: post #124

pasbesoin wrote: post #43

You know, I have some feeling surrounding Jobs' passing (while I never met him, I've known a number of people who did -- mostly from 20+ years ago), and I've appreciated the tributes. But there is also the desire and need to discuss it in context. Some respect may well be warranted, and there may not be the need to rush headlong into critical analysis, but Jobs' passing does promote a lot of attention and focus that…

Well, more accurately, Safari was born from KHTML. WebKit was Apple's massive retooling of it, and was widely acknowledged as superior to KHTML (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and in time replaced it. However, your point isn't necessarily invalidated, as iirc the changes were simply dumped in one large mass rather than as patches. Additionally, OS X was created from NeXTSTEP, which - again, if I recall correctly -…

You are right, I incorrectly conflated Webkit with KHTML. It is really KHTML that I had in mind.

I seem to recall that OS X ultimately picked up -- sigh, I'm getting old; was/is it the Open variant? -- BSD when Apple's own kernel efforts became too unwieldy. Yes, portions of the "higher" ecosystem are in more significant degree Apple -- and NeXT -- productions, but the root of it all, so to speak, became BSD. Unless I'm wrong -- corrections welcome.

How many of us remember, with the "walled garden", a few years ago a number of... "appeals" reaching Jobs personally, who not entirely infrequently intervened to override a bureaucratic decision made by the organization? That is a significant factor with this walled garden. Whatever else one thinks about him, Steve had really good taste in these matter. The walled garden worked as well as it did, in once sense, because ultimately it was Steve's garden.

With Steve's passing, that oversight passes to a fairly walled off organization. And we all know, or should know, how well organizations do with such decision making, over time. And have at least a nagging intuition about the coincidence of increased secrecy with increasingly bad decisions.

This is one aspect that, I think, bothers a lot of people about Steve's passing, whether consciously or sub-consciously. Steve developed an organization that worked very well for Steve and with Steve at the helm, the ultimate arbiter. With him gone, it's not at all clear that this direction -- and effectiveness -- can continue.