No GPL Apps for Apple's App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: No GPL Apps for Apple's App Store

#91

Post by Stormbringer » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 9:40 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #85

quadhome wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doctors don't sell medicine, plumbers don't sell pipe, why should developers sell copies of binaries rather than hours of work? Because selling copies is far more scalable and profitable?

I think the question is why users put up with having software that doesn't suit their needs and that they can't fix themselves of hire someone to fix it (like they would do with a bad plumber). It's simply because they don't know they have an option. The GPL proposes to give users that right. Since I am in that uncomfortable user position a lot, I am all for it.

Users don't fix software, developers do.

Re: No GPL Apps for Apple's App Store

#92

Post by Stormbringer » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 9:42 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #84

Stormbringer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas your definition is enormously abstract. I do get it. Just because I don't share your sad devotion to that ancient religion doesn't mean I don't understand it. I think you need to go do some research. There was a good bio on RMS that came out ~10 years ago, you should go read it.

Why does RMS's bio have anything to this discussion? I am talking about the rights of users to be independent from the programmers who write the code they use, not the beliefs of someone who happens to agree with me on some subjects (and disagree on others) I think your, to use some of the language you so cleverly brought up, sad misunderstanding of the dynamics at play pretty much demonstrates you don't enjoy a soli…

Whoosh

You really don't get it.

Re: No GPL Apps for Apple's App Store

#93

Post by prodigal_erik » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 10:53 PM UTC

Stormbringer wrote: post #91

rbanffy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is why users put up with having software that doesn't suit their needs and that they can't fix themselves of hire someone to fix it (like they would do with a bad plumber). It's simply because they don't know they have an option. The GPL proposes to give users that right. Since I am in that uncomfortable user position a lot, I am all for it.

Users don't fix software, developers do.

The question then becomes, can a user hire any developer for a fix, rather than being at the mercy of the original vendor? This right not only keeps hourly rates more reasonable, but also takes away the vendor's incentive to use bad designs that lead to customer lock-in.

For a perhaps overused metaphor, I wouldn't buy a car with the hood welded shut.

Re: No GPL Apps for Apple's App Store

#94

Post by saurik » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 2:15 PM UTC

brisance wrote: post #71

saurik wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) a/b: The original poster explicitly stated "on Apple's open source website", to which I also explicitly limited my statements. 1) c: Unfortunately, this is not generally true: Apple keeps an internal fork of WebKit that has numerous abilities not in their public trees, which happens to be why Android and WebOS both have totally incompatible mechanisms for adding multi-touch support to JavaScript despite iOS having…

4) I'm sorry, but this has been my impression as a toolchain integrator and distribution vendor. LLVM, which only even supports two platforms (although having seriously broken semi-support for ARM) is often stated to be "catching up" in correctness to gcc, but is not there yet. The opinion that LLVM is somehow epic is something you only hear from incredibly pro-Apple developers. I mean, even Apple's port of gcc expli…

Compilers can be surprisingly "incorrect" and yet still be usable in production. I've routinely been forced to work with compilers that generated incorrect code in numerous situations, and I've simply cataloged and avoided them.

(Interestingly enough, the compiler in question that generated incorrect code so often that I had a catalog ruleset of "things not to do" was llvm-gcc, when I was first deploying Cydia and Telesphoreo to the jailbroken iPhone community. However, that was a while ago, and LLVM doesn't have those shockingly bad issues anymore.)

(It was just a few weeks ago, though, when chpwn started trying to get Cydia compiling with LLVM and kept getting "internal compiler error" on what seemed like some reasonably simple C++.)