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The Pendulum Swings, Again

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#51

Post by MatthewPhillips »

burgreblast wrote: post #33
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #11

It's an interesting view of history, but without providing your reasoning for why you think the pendulum is about to swing again I have to assume that it is not.

Rather than assuming that it's not you could concede that since it has moved in the past, and it may move again. But pragmatically, what to do about it? I don't think answers such as "don't buy" proprietary or closed source has any effect, since enough others do and will continue to do so. One option may be to (continue ?) to develop unrestrict[ed |ive] software that is more desirable than the closed equivalent. But…

Not really. Consumer software is still a young enough industry that a couple of data points are not enough to draw definitive conclusions on. There are plenty of industries that began with a period of openness but eventually settles into an oligopoly due to cost, patents, and government regulation. Look how hard it is to DIY a laptop, and that's part of a relatively open system.

The government (by which I mean political interests) want to regulate the internet badly and are just waiting for the opportunity/event to occur that allows them to form enough of a consensus to do so. You can't put the genie back in the bottle completely, there will always be open computing and open protocols, but the idea that computers will always be a platform from which "a couple of kids in a garage" can launch a revolution; I think that is far from a sure thing.

> But pragmatically, what to do about it? I don't think answers such as "don't buy" proprietary or closed source has any effect, since enough others do and will continue to do so. One option may be to (continue ?) to develop unrestrict[ed |ive] software that is more desirable than the closed equivalent. But as we know, that's not easy.

What was it about the web that made it more desirable to Prodigy, AOL? I'd love to see accounts from insiders in the industry at the time that that disruption took place. It's easy to say in hindsight that the web was better but why did people at the time think it was better?

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#52

Post by jacquesm »

ReadEvalPost wrote: post #31

I know there's a lot of hype around the Raspberry Pi, but it's interesting that you would mention it as a key component of open systems when it's a perfect example of half-closed: * The BCM2835, the microprocessor used on the board, is not available to be purchased by hobbyists * The full data sheet for the BCM2835 is not available without signing an NDA with Broadcom (and presumably that only happens when you have a…

Those are excellent points, when I get home later I'll update the article. That's a big oversight on my part, thank you.

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#53

Post by jacquesm »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #51
burgreblast wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than assuming that it's not you could concede that since it has moved in the past, and it may move again. But pragmatically, what to do about it? I don't think answers such as "don't buy" proprietary or closed source has any effect, since enough others do and will continue to do so. One option may be to (continue ?) to develop unrestrict[ed |ive] software that is more desirable than the closed equivalent. But…

Not really. Consumer software is still a young enough industry that a couple of data points are not enough to draw definitive conclusions on. There are plenty of industries that began with a period of openness but eventually settles into an oligopoly due to cost, patents, and government regulation. Look how hard it is to DIY a laptop, and that's part of a relatively open system. The government (by which I mean politi…

You're right, I should have enumerated the reasons why I think that we may have one more chance in the near future, I will do so later.

And I agree that it is far from a sure thing. I wished it was.

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#54

Post by benjamincburns »

Silicon Valley Homebrew Mobile Phone Club [1] represent! Back in 2006 I started a similar project to TuxPhone that I dubbed OpenCell [2]. I'd been working with GSM modules for a while, and my motivation was "This WinMo phone I have sucks. I sure do hate carrying around a cell phone, MP3 player, and camera all the time - I know I could build one device that'd just do it all."

Unfortunately as a student I didn't have the funds to see this to the point of reality, and the iPhone was launched in January 2007, essentially making my effort look like a steaming pile of shit. That said, technology has come a long, long way since then. 3D printing, inexpensive reflow soldering equipment, and stacked DDR packages make this goal pretty attainable compared to when I launched my efforts. I'd love, love, love to see efforts like this revived.

  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Homebrew_Mobile_Phone_Club
  [2]: http://web.archive.org/web/20080927003526/http://widgetry.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#55

Post by sp332 »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #11

It's an interesting view of history, but without providing your reasoning for why you think the pendulum is about to swing again I have to assume that it is not.

I think that the ‘openmoko’ phone was an (too) early attempt at forcing a reversal. The raspberry pi may be a key component here (it shares a lot of its heritage with a large number of smartphones)...

If my observations are correct then such a swing is about to happen, and this time we had better get it right. Things that point in the direction of a swing are an increasing awareness of ordinary computer users with respect to their privacy and who actually owns all that data. The fragmenting of the smartphone and tablet markets will lead to some more openness and at some point all the bits and pieces to create true open hardware will fall into place. FPGAs, 3D printing and some more ingredients will make it possible to generate very capable hardware and versatile on a relatively small budget. A mobile platform consisting of a standard phone/3G/wifi module, an FPGA and a standard touch screen would be pretty formidable and is almost within reach.

The whole paragraph is a list of observations and reasoning.

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#56

Post by SoftwareMaven »

protomyth wrote: post #41

I think the article misses one of the fundamental reasons that mobile is a closed environment: fear. It seems we treat things we can put in our pocket as more personal and much different than the twilight zone we expect out of computers. I am sure, at some point, a program uploaded the Outlook address book of some Fortune 500 sales manager to the internet without telling him/her. Any problem or security breach in the…

Then build a modern day Atari 800 / C64.

Isn't that what Raspberry Pi is? A very simple, understandable, eminently hackable computer?

That does make me wonder: if I could get 35-40 of them for my kids' high school, would they put them to use? Or would three be as valuable as 40, since only the kids who are like I was would care?

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#57

Post by veridies »

ivix wrote: post #4
kamme wrote: post #2

The most interesting fact for this swing is that it's not only software that is changing... As noted in the article: if you wanted a computer in the old days, you put it together yourself. That changed and putting together a new computer yourself is unimaginable (I'm not speaking about assembly of components, but soldering the whole thing). Recently cheap(er) 3D printing, Arduino and the Raspberry Pi put hardware on…

Not at all. Hardware is becoming more and more obscure. 5 years ago many people could and did swap components in their PC. Now try doing that with a modern smartphone or laptop. Don't confuse the chatterings online about RPi etc with any kind of general movement. The vast majority of computer users now use sealed hardware boxes, and that proportion is increasing.

Do we care? I'm personally much happier with open software and formats, but my Ubuntu laptop can easily read a .docx written by MS Office a Windows 8 machine. I can run many programs and games under WINE. And I can still tweak whatever I like. Meanwhile, people too busy, uninterested, and uneducated to want to change anything can use a simple, elegant, functional platform.

As long as our software is continually developed and is supported (which is why UEFI is so scary), I don't see why we should object to black box computers.

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#58

Post by adestefan »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #45
protomyth wrote: post #41

I think the article misses one of the fundamental reasons that mobile is a closed environment: fear. It seems we treat things we can put in our pocket as more personal and much different than the twilight zone we expect out of computers. I am sure, at some point, a program uploaded the Outlook address book of some Fortune 500 sales manager to the internet without telling him/her. Any problem or security breach in the…

> I think the article misses one of the fundamental reasons that mobile is a closed environment: fear. It seems we treat things we can put in our pocket as more personal and much different than the twilight zone we expect out of computers. Mobile is closed because Apple is closed, were wildly successful when they entered the market, and everyone else followed suit. There success wasn't due to the closed nature, but a…

Mobile is closed because the network providers are terrified of letting devices that they cannot control on their network.

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#59

Post by nessus42 »

burgreblast wrote: post #43
nessus42 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet people still cheer for them, even though as far as openness is concerned, Apple makes Microsoft look good. And it was only 12 years ago that people hated Microsoft with a passion for being an obstacle to innovation, The reason why people don't hate Apple the way that they hated Microsoft is for three reasons: (1) Apple actually makes a great product, unlike Microsoft at the time. (2) Apple innovates unlike…

Disagree. MS was the incumbent 800 lb gorilla, and was proposing locking up identity and payment for the great new space of internet--blocking all new comers. Whereas Apple's actions were framed as underdog & come-from-behind. Today, MS is still characterized as a villan, but now with a bumbling "Home Alone" veneer. Never mind that Apple, Google and FB have long overstepped MS's original passport plans with more even…

How does that disagree with what I said?

Re: The Pendulum Swings, Again

#60

Post by nessus42 »

chii wrote: post #36
nessus42 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet people still cheer for them, even though as far as openness is concerned, Apple makes Microsoft look good. And it was only 12 years ago that people hated Microsoft with a passion for being an obstacle to innovation, The reason why people don't hate Apple the way that they hated Microsoft is for three reasons: (1) Apple actually makes a great product, unlike Microsoft at the time. (2) Apple innovates unlike…

you can't call android a monopoly. thats like saying server is monopolized by GNU/linux.

You make it sound as if there's any doubt that Google will continue to control Android for the foreseeable future. There is none.
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