Someone should ask Richard Stallman what he thinks about writing C# on Windows. There's only one platform on which the millions of lines of C# using Window's CLR are going to run well. Truly open means your software can run anyway, with a bit of effort. Mac software doesn't port well to Windows, native Windows software doesn't port well to Linux. Mac and Windows are walled gardens, they're just bigger gardens.
That's because it's not a debate. This isn't something that we are sitting around arguing about in the abstract. It's an actual real ongoing issue in the real world that affects people. The "debate" will go away when the issue goes away - either because Apple changes their policy or they get marginalised and turned into a minority player like they are in every other market. It looks to me like the latter is going to be what happens, but it didn't have to be that way.
The debate is happening with people who need things that the most of the people buying cellphones don't need. Will Apple modify its policies? Maybe,they have in the past. I think it more likely they will add carriers in the US before changing their policies. I really believe the last thing they want is the type of app on the iPhone / iPad that Mac's gets from Adobe.
The iPhone on the other hand denies freedoms that even more people care about.
>Update: Microsoft wanted us to clarify that enterprise customers will be able to deploy apps to employees outside the consumer-facing Marketplace -- details on that will be released in the future.
So you'll be able to do whatever you want if you're willing to pay, which is pretty much open in the traditional Microsoft sense.
This is exactly what Apple allows you to do, now, as well. If you want to go enterprise, you pay more (as you will for MS), and you can deploy to 100,000s of devices.
It looks so much like MS just took Apples model for Apps. MS have added nothing.
Replay the comparison, but versus Sony and Nintendo.