Hacker News Up In Arms Over iPhone
Apr. 10th, 2010 01:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiat_knoxI've been watching the gathering shitstorm on Hacker News with mild amusement.
The subject of this storm: Apple, and the new iPhone SDK license agreement. Specifically, Section 3.1.1:-
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Adobe Flash. Nada. Adobe are screaming. Clojure - screwed. Scheme - dead. One article describes Steve Jobs as "mad."
But then, this is a time for madness. People are experimenting with firewalls, paywalls, all manner of bas laws - all to try and kill the upsurge in creativity and ingenuity that has sprung up, all over the world, since 1995.
People are scared that everybody around them is potentially a bigger genius than they are, and potentially could get richer than they are, and so to hold on to their power they set up these stupid rules.
And they expect people to play by those rules, instead of writing their way around them and leaving them sprawled in the dirt, obsolete.
The fight is on, people. May the best minds win. And right now, it's all to play for.
The subject of this storm: Apple, and the new iPhone SDK license agreement. Specifically, Section 3.1.1:-
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Adobe Flash. Nada. Adobe are screaming. Clojure - screwed. Scheme - dead. One article describes Steve Jobs as "mad."
But then, this is a time for madness. People are experimenting with firewalls, paywalls, all manner of bas laws - all to try and kill the upsurge in creativity and ingenuity that has sprung up, all over the world, since 1995.
People are scared that everybody around them is potentially a bigger genius than they are, and potentially could get richer than they are, and so to hold on to their power they set up these stupid rules.
And they expect people to play by those rules, instead of writing their way around them and leaving them sprawled in the dirt, obsolete.
The fight is on, people. May the best minds win. And right now, it's all to play for.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-10 03:34 am (UTC)Nokia have looked at where Apple are going and saying "no, not us, we're about inclusivity and growing the market for everyone" ... it's about having 50% of a market four times the size rather than 100% of a single sized market (Apple iPhones are 400 euros+, Nokia smart phones start at 100 euros (before subsidy), much more inclusive!) ... probably explains why Nokia is still outselling iPhone, Android and Blackberry (outsells them all individually, and even if you add them all together!)
And yes, Nokia pay my salary :-) (had to be fair, didn't I? But I'm proud of many things about my company, including their realisation that things went awry in the last couple of years and so we're in the middle of a massive sea change)