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| Wozniak calls for open Apple |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-05-14 18:28:41 |
| "I think that Apple could be just as strong and good and be open, but how can you challenge it when a company is making that much money?", Wozniak told a crowd in Sydney, according to ITNews. They'd score so many brownie points the internet would explode. |
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| Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By tidux on 2012-05-14 19:22:23 |
|
1. Reverse the ban on GPL software in the App Store and Mac App Store. The GPL only requires making the source available at no cost to people who have the binary, which could be as simple as putting a working link to the source repository in the application's "about this app" message. 2. Set each iOS device to jailbroken by default. Most users are, quite frankly, morons that wouldn't know how to take advantage of the added functionality if you mailed them a thousand page printed manual going over every possible action in explicit detail. 3. Remove any remaining DRM from the app stores, iTunes, and iBooks. Seriously,they're not popular because of lock-in, they're popular because of convenience and selection. 4. Open source the rest of the operating system and all the Apple software. Again, this doesn't mean you have to put download links on apple.com to download bootable Darwin images, but it'd help. Darwin for ARM would be especially cool, as it would give GNU/Linux some competition in the embedded world. 5. After #4, there's no penalty to using GPLv3 software, so for the love of Jobs, update bash, gcc, and any other software you've let stagnate. 6. Remove the gray area and make Hackintoshing explicitly legal. A limited hardware lineup like Apple's is never going to meet everybody's needs - why not sell an operating system to the rest? $30 for a pure open source OS with superb vendor support and tons of commercial applications is entirely reasonable. If all of this happened, I'd get an iPad tomorrow. Seriously. |
 - Score: 7 |
| RE: Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By lmprods on 2012-05-14 19:43:38 |
|
> If all of this happened, I'd get an iPad tomorrow. Seriously. Instead of responding point-by-point, I'll just respond to your final statement. So your point is that Apple should reverse every policy that has contributed to its success over the last 10 years, and then you'll spend $500? |
| - Score: 6 |
| Facts ($$$) prove that closed works |
| By Shamster on 2012-05-14 19:45:26 |
|
Via it's financial success, Apple has proven that you can keep your hardware and software proprietary if the marketing and quality meets the needs of end users. This doesn't mean that there are no crashes, that there are no security issues, or even that it's the best operating system and hardware combination. The reasons people make purchases are a lot more complicated than simple facts and right now, Apple has tapped into the right combination of efforts. There is simply no justification to gamble on the effect of an "open" company right now. Edited 2012-05-14 19:52 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By Radio on 2012-05-14 19:54:08 |
| You know, I can think of a lot of ethical, moral, technological wrong ways to be extremely successful in business. Crippling your product, blocking interoperability, taking a huge cut on any transaction done on your platform, etc. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By shmerl on 2012-05-14 19:56:49 |
|
> blocking interoperability Apple is a master of blocking interoperability and lock-in. If something they should gain some decency to use more open standards (USB, free codecs, no DRM and so on). Edited 2012-05-14 19:59 UTC |
| - Score: 12 |
| RE: Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By Gullible Jones on 2012-05-14 19:57:10 |
|
#4 is never going to happen, and frankly I'm fine with that. IMO though, the best thing Apple could possibly do for its business model would be to sell a version of OSX for PCs, and try to make their way into the mainstream PC market. OSX has an enormous usability advantage over Linux, and plus brandname appeal, and it's just pretty. I'm telling you, if they did this, they could crush Microsoft overnight. P.S. You forgot #0: "Use some of those immense cash reserves to give a decent paycheck to the workers you've been gratuitously exploiting." Seriously. |
| - Score: 11 |
| The modern Apple takes a dump on Woz |
| By kragil on 2012-05-14 19:58:36 |
|
Modern Apple is a Jobs company, it is all about marketing and design. Engineering and openness are not important anymore. Macs are just PCs in nicer cases etc. They don't give a rats ass about what Woz is saying. Edited 2012-05-14 19:59 UTC |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: Facts ($$$) prove that closed works |
| By Radio on 2012-05-14 20:08:46 |
|
Facts prove that you can keep your software open-sourced and even if it is top-notch quality, that single quality makes it the best operating system: millions of linux servers and supercalculators, millions of Android phones (and others) with features and hardware iPhone users can only dream of at every price point, tens of thousands of machines, robots, planes, copters, capters, whole PhD projects powered by Linux and Arduino. All that without discontinuity for the last twenty years and counting. Just take that "facts" that suit you more. Live happily ever after in your confirmation bias bubble. Now, maybe, if you are a bit curious about the real details of how people buy, you may be interested in taking design and marketing lessons. That should clear a few things up. But never, ever, mistake a "trend" for a "sound success". |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By bassbeast on 2012-05-14 20:15:12 |
|
I'll only respond to the first one which is easy...they can't use GPL V3, sorry. To be compliant with GPL V3 thanks to the TiVo clause they would have to open ALL DRM so that one could compile and use the app on any apple device which would destroy the market. After all one could argue its their control that has kept the Apple appstore a hell of a lot cleaner and malware free than the Android appstore which has been hit by one bug after another. So i'm sorry friend but if you think Apple, which like it or not has a history of tight grained control of their devices, is gonna give up ALL DRM just to allow GPLed apps? sorry, not gonna happen. Personally I would not be surprised if the opposite becomes true in that all appstores will simply ban GPL so you will either have to have the ability to offer it under another license or not at all as in the case of VLC. I have noticed that more new projects are refusing contributions if you don't sign rights away which tells me the days of "everyone can contribute" will probably end up dead. After all if you can't get your app into the Apple or MSFT appstores what good is it? Between those two companies you are looking at probably 90%+ of the devices on the planet! So as much as i like old woz i just don't see an "Open Apple" ever coming about. they make too much money with the current model and are in fact last i checked the biggest corp on the planet. does anyone really think they are gonna risk such a successful model to please such a small group? after all their customers don't seem to have a problem with the way things are judging by the lines around the block when a new iDevice is released. if it ain't broke? |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Dear Apple, here's how to fix iOS and Mountain Lion: |
| By jebb on 2012-05-14 20:18:54 |
|
> The GPL only requires making the source available at no cost to people who have the binary, which could be as simple as putting a working link to the source repository in the application's "about this app" message. Not even at no cost, mind you, at "no more than your reasonable cost". However it does require YOU (you being the distributor, not the original programmer who maintains the cvs/subversion/git), to provide the source for, I think, a minimum of three years. Meaning Apple would have to maintain a source repository for GPL programs they offer. A link to somebody else's repository is not good enough, as far as I understand. |
| - Score: 1 |
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