If Doctrow sounds like a broken record, I can't hold it against him. These are points that need to be made repeatedly and loudly-- voices that oppose these kinds of closed platforms are sorely missing, by and large.
My grandfather used to complain that "cars these days" can't be repaired without taking them to the shop because of the "damned computers." He was wrong, too.
Most of the world does not know or care about how closed the iPad is; we all know, however, that the world should have open computers and not closed ones because that creates a better experience for consumers in the long run.
That's why he's fighting the fight.
I'm pretty neutral about the iPad at the moment, but just wanted to point out that the world has had "open" computers for nearly 30 years and so far, I would argue they have not been better for the consumer.
Just look at Linux on the desktop. :)
Then again, the world has had open browsers for just a few years, and they kicked off a flurry of innovation on the web - which itself is built on open technologies.
Imagine if Windows web sites would only load on Windows computers.
I can imagine it just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Companies want to reverse that trend and close it up and we do need to fight that.
We don't want the future to be AOL.
I'm willing to say that consumers are better off because Linux and Apache are used in places where they are the best tool for the job. I am not convinced that being open is inherently the best thing for anybody. How much of the web wouldn't exist if not for people just trying to make a buck? Would Y Combinator?
And if the consumer really wanted an open system, again Linux on the desktop (Ubuntu?) should be have much more market share than it does.
Not really, the thing is that MS has a monopoly on the desktop, hard to reverse that trend. Look at Apple, even with their billions of dollars in revenue, they only get 5% of the desktop, Linux is at 1-2% with $0 in campaigning, so not that bad really.
Picking a bad example doesn't help your point. Just look at Lotus 1-2-3, Photoshop, Skype, etc.
Most of the software I ran on my first few computers was freeware, downloaded from BBSs at 2400baud. The barriers to entry for hobbyists to get little itch scratching programs up on the app store at $0 makes it not even worth the effort.
And the shame of it is that the iPad is the perfect kind of hobbyist platform, small, constrained, knowable. An organization putting millions of dollars into a piece of software for it isn't likely to make something really that much better than one or two teens banging out code in the bedrooms over a few weeks.
I use it everyday, make a nice living out of it and love it, so good point.
Another word for closed platform is no virus, no installation, no manual.
That seems to be pretty down someone like my dads alley who love the internet but always have issues with his laptop.
Because I don't want them to get taken advantage of. I want them to make informed decisions. And I care about them generally. This is a pretty strange question. If someone in your family worked manufacturing cars and knew a lot about which ones were good and bad and for which reasons, and could just generally help you make a better informed decision about what car to buy, wouldn't you want to talk to that family member about that knowledge?
It's a very different animal.
Sure, MS is better about Windows Security now. And guess what? That's why there aren't nearly as many virus problems as there used to be (think 7's early days vs XP's early days).
Linux has a strong security model. It already has ~50% market share on servers (maybe more)! Don't ever suggest that my last dollar would be spent poorly if I bet on Linux's security.
Also, the plural of "virus" is "viruses", not "virii".
You are confusing whether the system with the users.
The reason why virus is a menace on the windows platform is because of all the non experts using it.
If you had the same kind of types as my partents there would be absolutely no challenge plastering the os with viruses.
That is the MS PR statement, witch is completely BS. Open source have a lot more people looking at the code and using a proven Unix security model.
The point is, Cory Doctorow is in a small, small minority. The minority isn't small because people don't know what he's saying -- it's small because they don't care. He's protesting the very philosophy that gives Apple products the quality that people who buy Apple products desire. And honestly, making the openness of Apple products your raison d'etre is a bit like getting furious about the mechanical details of your favorite brand of dishwasher. The answer is always the same: don't like it? Don't buy it.
Cory is more than welcome to continue to post these sorts of rants on his blog, of course, but let's not turn them into more than what they are: one guy, forcefully advocating an opinion about something that really doesn't matter that much to most people, and that he can't really change.
I'd guess Cory's complaint is not specifically that iPads are closed, but that Apple and others are trying to create a future where closed systems are the default, and open systems are either illegal or heavily marginalized. If you accept the premises, that actually is a big deal.
one guy, forcefully advocating an opinion about something that really doesn't matter that much to most people, and that he can't really change.
So, pretty much like nearly any public advocacy of anything.
The "if you accept the premises" is, well, one hell of a big "if".
Cory seems to believe that companies are not in the business of making money, but rather are in the business of controlling peoples' lives as totally as possible, and proceeds from there. The mismatch of this belief with actual reality, and the resulting conclusions drawn with respect to, e.g., vast multinational conspiracies attempting to micromanage individual people, is of a sort which, given any other target, would result in institutionalization for paranoid psychosis.
Not at all. I don't think Apple wants closed systems for their own sake, but I do think they believe that closed systems will be more profitable for them. The end result is the same.
Apple and others are trying to create a future where closed systems are the default, and open systems are either illegal or heavily marginalized.
This does not express the opinion that Apple believes they can make more money from selling closed systems. This expresses the opinion that Apple's goal is not to make money but rather to impose control on people for... well, I'm not honestly sure what reason.
And that sort of implication is everywhere in discussion on places like HN, despite the fact that it literally goes off the deep end into unfounded paranoia; "Steve Jobs wants to keep me from using Google Voice" is taken not as a statement about how he'd prefer to have his company get your money, but as a statement about how he's an evil megalomanic obsessed with controlling peoples' lives. Which is really only a step away from (and logically about as sensible as) "he's working with the Bilderbergers and the lizard people to cover up the truth about JFK's role in 9/11".
I myself find it difficult to imagine a future where the vast majority of applications are not web apps hosted on private servers. If you take that to be the likely future, then what you can and can't run natively on your computer (with the exception of the browser) becomes irrelevant. Debating whether or not you have the freedom to run arbitrary native code will be like arguing over having the freedom to install your own BIOS.
People don't care because when they hear nay-sayers predicting dystopian futures, they think things like 'that could never happen here' or 'that could never happen to me.' The reality is that I doubt very much that if you had polled Germans in the 1920's about whether they thought that the atrocities of WW2 could ever happen to them or in their country, they would say the same thing, 'not here' or "people wouldn't stand for it."
People that predict doom and gloom are often called crazy, but not always because they really are. Most of the time people don't want to think that the worst could happen even when reality paints a different picture. If I had published a paper in 2005 predicting that Wall Street would crumble due to highly-inflated real-estate and that the government would spend $700+ billion propping up banks that were 'too big to fail' I would have been called crazy and people would have ignored me stating that my concerns were 'unfounded.'
Please don't use "people don't care" as some sort of argument against someone's beliefs. I mean, if his blog post is getting up-voted enough on HN to reach the front page obviously enough people here care about it to discuss it, but for some reason you're trying to tell those people that they really don't share Doctorow's opinion and that they need to wake up to that fact.
Speak for yourself. I happen to agree with Cory and am sure I am not alone.
The parent poster goes on for length operating under the assumption that no one on HN that is participating in this discussion or up-voted the news item shares the same views that Doctorow does. How one can draw that assumption escapes me, because it would stand to reason that a number of people (most?) would up-vote the blog post because they either: 1) share Doctorow's opinion or 2) want to participate in a discussion of Doctorow's views. The parent poster acts as if HN readers/participants are just like rats dancing to the Pied Piper's tune, that need to be woken up.
I believe you have misinterpreted. The parent post does not refer to HN readers, but to the obviously ambiguous "most people". The post it was in reply to distinguishes between "Most of the world" and "we" (meaning HN readers), and I propose to you that it is the former group that was meant.
The parent poster acts as if HN readers/participants are just like rats dancing to the Pied Piper's tune, that need to be woken up.
That appears to be precisely the attitude it is rejecting, in reference to Cory's desire (as described by the parent to that post) to protest loudly something that it is said few who don't already know actually care about.
I would also point out that you yourself drew parallels to the specter of Nazism (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1237826) and of unheeded warnings. Are you yourself not acting as though others need to be woken up?
Don't know what ever happened to him, but i think that maybe he had a point.
Thanks for looking out for us, Dad.
To be fair, it pretty much is treated like a religion, as it is hailed as the new kind of computing that will take over the mainstream.
1. I love value and simplicity and would buy an iPad in an instant if it offers these qualities at a good price and if I have needs in that direction.
2. I recoil against herd thinking about the latest "in" thing and can't therefore stand all the iPad hype.
3. I buy closed-system products all the time for specialized uses, whether it be a Kindle, an iPod, or whatever.
4. I resent the thought of getting trapped in one vendor's world by becoming dependent on closed, proprietary products and will always look for ways to avoid this.
5. Innovation is too dynamic for a single company ever to dominate the computing world in toto for any sustained period. IBM tried it in the 1960s and 1970s and Microsoft in the 1980s and 1990s. Apple appears poised to do so now but this will never stick.
6. Therefore, I sympathize with what the author of this post says but I also am relaxed about it. Three cheers for Apple and their great products. But may it never limit my choices for other great products in the future.
Your argument sounds like this is supposed to be like a Sony TV set. It's a big difference whether we're talking about repairing something that is finished or whether something is a platform that is only as useful as the stuff built on top of it. I'm not complaining that I can't read the Mac firmware with a refrigerator magnet.
Then some mechanic told you that you can get a nice customizable, fixable VW for the same price with the best luxury package.
Would you buy the Apple cause it was automatic and you didn't want to learn how to drive a manual?
So 99% of the world can afford an iPad, wants an iPad, and has bought/is going to buy an iPad? I feel that a larger portion of the world than you care to admit puts more thought towards getting food on the table than computing devices.
Please don't try to win an argument through a passive-aggressive statement of "you're in the minority, so deal with it."
> My grandfather used to complain that "cars these days" can't be repaired without taking them to the shop because of the "damned computers." He was wrong, too.
So 'cars these days' can be repaired without taking them to the shop?
> If you don't like it because you can't (easily) open it up and change the battery, you don't have to buy it.
The point is to protect against a world where the choice isn't "an iPad or another device that is more open" but "a closed device or no device at all." The point isn't to eliminate all closed-devices, but to make sure that they don't eliminate all open-devices.
I trust the kids. They're smart. Smarter than us.
Hand'm all iPads. I can't wait to see what they'll come up with.
Who said stuff like this? The outsourced-java-monkeys of yesteryear?
I doubt many computer scientists said this.
"[T]he teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery." -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
The fact that it will be proven jailbreakable doesn't mean we should all accept being criminalized for doing what it's our natural right to do (take things apart that we own).
If the iPad is such a bad platform, developers/publishers/users will understand it and abandon the ship.
But, for now, it does not matter how many times these concepts are reiterated. People already have decided wether to buy/develop for/publish on iPad or not. Very few will change their mind reading these pieces (or the opposite sided ones).
There are some very good arguments both for and against ipad, and it is important to have these discussions openly as often as possible.
Popular game consoles like PS and Xbox are good examples of closed system that is good for business but bad for innovation. Price and market are tightly controlled.
PS3 is a very good example IMO. It comes with very powerful hardware, which you paid for, but you are only limited to rules placed by sony. As a matter of fact Sony goes through a lot of trouble to make it almost imposible to do anything else with the hardware.
Similarly, I should be able to install any app on my iphone/ipad that is not approved by Apple without have to go through hoops of cracking the device.
Have you been following the kerfuffle behind Other OS yankage?