Sure you only use Linux and GPL. Sure you’re down with LAMP and know Perl. Why, then, did you buy an iPhone? As Nik at TCIT points out, the App Store is so enmeshed in DRM and closed source policies that you basically cannot give away your software without Apple’s permission.
Apple has wrapped the iPhone SDK in enough licensing, security controls and right management that it would make the Microsoft Active Desktop team blush. The phone and platform that is certain to soon take second spot behind Symbian in the smart phone market is also the most restricted and closed. Applications can only be installed from a single source, iTunes, and open source applications and distribution is near impossible. How do you install an iPhone application without iTunes? Where are the community advocates arguing for a standard interface, openess and free code?
Now Apple is planning to offer special methods for creating and uploading apps to iPhones for educational and non-profit institutions but you still have to use iTunes to pop those files onto your phone. Nik posits that Apple may, some day, release all applications via the App Store, allowing Apple to become a “gatekeeper.” It will also kill our first-born sons and make them into beef jerky.
I for one welcome our glossy masters. Given the difficulty of downloading mobile applications in the past – multiple sites, odd billing systems, inability to browse large collections efficiently – the App Store is a godsend. Sure it runs through iTunes, but I’m willing to accept a little control for a streamlined and efficient method for app transmission.
Nik also discusses the openness of the kernel:
It should be very possible to attach a simple BSD license to code, and if a large company utilizes the effort from others in a way that is unacceptable – the market should be able to sort that out, we simply wont buy it. The community needs to do more than just wear their support for openess and standards on their sleeves (and on their laptops). The problem with Apple is that the blind demand is driven by a distorted reality, so those same developers who poured thousands of hours into the BSD kernel now turn around and purchase an iPhone running that code, but it is now tied up in DRM, licenses and restrictions placed there by others.
Now that’s a good point and one I will not refute.
Android FTW
“The problem with Apple is that the blind demand is driven by a distorted reality, so those same developers who poured thousands of hours into the BSD kernel now turn around and purchase an iPhone running that code, but it is now tied up in DRM, licenses and restrictions placed there by others.”
How is that different than any other hardware / software manufacturer or popular web site these days? Cisco, Microsoft, Digg, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and of course Google??? Look at all of those companies that are making shit tons of cash off of a lot of open source software. It’s hard to buy anything related to tech these days that’s not running some form of open source code. What about all those other big businesses that leverage it, make a killing, but give absolutely *NOTHING* back to the community *cough*Cisco*cough*. It’s a problem in the industry that’s nowhere even close to being Apple specific. And if you want to throw the FUD around and point fingers then I suggest you boycott every manufacturer who doesn’t pay dividends back to the projects that their products are based on and/or leverage. You’ll have a lot of time to read books at that rate. Advocation through spinning your words is pretty f’in lame… This guy’s right up there with Peter Ha… Ass.
–windexh8er
I don’t see what the iPhone code has anything to do with open source fan boys?
Most people who use FOSS on the desktop settle for a closed source phone.
This article makes little sense.
Ummm check out MS Mobil Total acess. 1000’s of free downloads, and 1000s of pay downloads. Been up since my first smart phone 4 years ago. Productivity, personal, finanace, web browsing, security, fun, ringtones wallpapers, themes the list goes on and on. This first attempt by Apple is admirable but not up to par yet with what Microsoft is offering and has offered for years.
Masn the reality distortion field of Jobs is at times increidible grown folks denying what is already out there and pushing subpar products that ohhhh everybody has to have.
Sheesh
The App Store may be the only “official” way to install applications but it isn’t the only way. Installer.App is a very popular application for the iPhone. Jailbreak your phone using one of the easy tools like ZiPhone, http://www.ziphone.org/, and you’ve got a well written and managed application system in Installer.App.
Dozens of open source and shareware applications and themes are available through this system. Anyone is free to host or release their applications without having to deal with any DRM.
Some people may not like having to run software to hack their iPhones but because of the hard work of some people they have the option to do so.
Chris
In practice it will take years for Apple to reach 1% of market so I don’t think iPhone is something we have to care about.
The problem for Apple is that normal people is much more computer literate now than they were 5 years ago and the guy that 5 years ago said “uhhh ipod is great!” no says “uhhh, Apple is trying to cheat me with the iPhone”.
I think iPhone is going against Apple’s image in the long term since they offer a product that can’t compete with Nokia or LG or Samsung or Motorola in price/specs.
@Crash — we’re talking about the underlying code of the phone here, not all of the apps per-se. I’m not sure you’ve ever actually used the iPhone, but out of the box the 2.0 AppStore has apps in all those categories. I had been forced, in the past, to carry a WinMo phone. Not impressive in comparison. Centralized software distribution is the first of it’s kind on a mobile platform — you might take it from the perspective that Apple has total “control”. That is true — but it’s not all just because they want “control”, a big part of that architecture is because Apple wants a unified experience like the rest of the services they offer. Distortion field? Both M$ and Apple play that game, it’s just too bad that Microsoft sucks at it (i.e. no product they can amp up — WinMo? No Vista? Hell No. Don’t be mad — use what’s better. ;)
@Shamar — You are a complete idiot to put it nicely. “…it will take years for Apple to reach 1% market” — Are you sure you know how to use your Windows95 machine on the Internet? Apple is already in the double digits for market share in the smart phone space. Computer literate? WTF does that have anything to do with phones? I’ve read your last remark like 10 times now and still have yet to find any sort of logical sense contained within that sentence. There’s a very good chance Motorola won’t even be a player in phones over the next few years.
1. Who said Linux users rushed out to buy and IPhone. I know I didn’t
2. Isn’t this the point of the BSD license under which that BSD kernel is licensed (hence the name BSD)? What does this have to do with Linux users or the GPL? Or do you not understand the two agreements…
3. As someone else pointed out most Linux users have a proprietary cell phone so whats special about the IPhone.
Oh…you got your fanboys confused. I see now. Carry on.
@Phil
1.) Very good point, this article is making an assumption on data he pulled from his rear end.
2.) I forgot to mention that, OS X did exactly what the BSD license allows.
3.) ditto
It should be very possible to attach a simple BSD license to code, and if a large company utilizes the effort from others in a way that is unacceptable – the market should be able to sort that out, we simply wont buy it.
That’s not how it works on the planet where I live, which is called “Earth”.
The BSD developers group DOES attach a simple BSD license to their code, and after Microsoft and Apple takes that code and creates proprietary binaries out of it the code is NEVER seen again. The binary contains a few text lines mentioning the BSD and the author’s name. The changes they made to the code NEVER make it back to the BSD so additions and improvements added by MS and Apple never improve the original BSD code. On planet Earth we call that exploitation. But, in exchange for seeing their names in places most users wouldn’t know how to find, so cannot see, that seems OK with them.
“We won’t buy it” as a deterent obviously hasn’t worked. It hasn’t stopped either MS or Apple from adding abusive DRM restrictions, using the code to call home with users personal info, or WGA kill switches from being employed to prevent users from enjoying that FREE BSD code… or at least it was free to MS and Apple. What will it take for “we” to get upset and actually NOT buy those products?
BSD code is free to Apple and MS, but everyone else has to pay through the nose. Try to use that “free” BSD code yourself and you’ll find Apple trying to turn your first born into beef jerky. Ask Pystar… they are in Apple’s meat grinder right now.
BSD and its spinoffs have failed to achieve a public acceptance that is anywhere close to that achieved by Linux, despite the fact that BSD had a 15 year head start on Linux. Nothing else except the difference between the BSD and the GPL licenses explains so clearly with that is true.
IMHO most people – and especially linux users – don’t like to be told what they should like or not. The pick their favourites themselves. I use linux at work and on the server, because it works better. I use an IPhone because it is the best phone at the moment. If there will be a better phone build on open software, I will switch, but not because of people telling me I ’should’.
John Biggs has managed to present and quote an article full of righteous indignation, but unencumbered by the thought process! Hooray Beer!