The Computer Revolution Has yet to Happen • Hacker News Board

Re: The Computer Revolution Has yet to Happen

#81

Post by zepto » Tue, Jan 26, 2016, 4:42 AM UTC

type0 wrote: post #80

_ph_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not have to open up the whole system - there are some good reasons for limiting the access of applications to the system part of the filesystem and the bare hardware. However, Apple also very much limits the ability to run e.g. Squeak as an app on IOS, you might run it, but not download source code over the internet. And if you read the Anandtech iPad Pro test you can see how much software is held back by…

Ipad dumbs down personal computing by doing things in this way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o (Alan Kay talk, 14-15min)

I love Alan Kay, but he's just wrong there.

And since the PC and Android are not locked down - why don't we see the magic there?

Re: The Computer Revolution Has yet to Happen

#82

Post by scintill76 » Wed, Jan 27, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

interpol_p wrote: post #36

scintill76 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GNU toolchain (or whatever) is licensed to run on any hardware that you can possibly use it on, which will often be cheaper and more accessible than a Mac. Xcode requires Mac OS, which is only licensed for use on Apple hardware. You can buy used Apple hardware fairly cheaply, but I think that post still has a point about relative cost.

I'm not suggesting that hardware can't be cheaper. I'm saying that if you define free software as software that must be available on free hardware, then there is not much free software at all.

Maybe nobody will see this, but consider this thought experiment: You have a replicator like from Star Trek, which can make any computer that exists now, at zero cost (say it uses garbage you were going to throw away.) Presumably if you copied an Apple machine, it would not legally be a true licensed Apple machine, for the same reason that making unauthorized byte-for-byte copies of digital files does not create additional licenses to use them however you'd like. If Xcode's license requires licensed Apple hardware, it can't legally be run on that machine. On the other hand, FLOSS compilers could run on that, or on a free/libre hardware design that is not even in a grey area to replicate.

While the analogy is maybe a bit silly or different than what was originally said (interpreting "free of cost" more like "libre"), I think it illustrates a real difference that is relevant.

(Btw, I don't actually know Xcode's license -- maybe it only needs Mac OS for technical reasons, not licensing reasons, in which case it could legally and practically be run on any sufficiently correct Mac OS emulator.)

Re: The Computer Revolution Has yet to Happen

#83

Post by anonbanker » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 11:08 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #81

type0 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ipad dumbs down personal computing by doing things in this way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o (Alan Kay talk, 14-15min)

I love Alan Kay, but he's just wrong there. And since the PC and Android are not locked down - why don't we see the magic there?

Windows 10 is a walled garden.

Android is Google's walled garden by default.

There is no magic in walled gardens.