We are allowing large corporations to dictate and push the web toward a closed system. A future where there has to be an App for that, and if you don't keep your head down you will be censored and cutoff from the rest of the online world.
Is there even a war taking place? Battles are often forgotten.
Yes, we (the hackers) allowed this to happen. We need to think about it now. I feel like the YOU in your comment is slightly misaddressed. What can WE do about it?
jus' trolling the good guys...
Getting an app into users hands nowadays is becoming gatekeeped more and more. Either through fearmongering (buy those certs for your apps approved by Gatekeeper X) or literal gatekeeping on app stores.
You can argue that people don't have to use locked down app stores, but then you're just missing the point.
Also, your software can be as open source as you like, but if it can't interoperate with the rest of the Internet, it's useless. Personally, I don't watch TV or movies on my computer so I don't particularly care whether my browser lets me do that or not. But I would care very much if, for example, my bank's website started requiring a DRM-capable browser. Open source doesn't address that problem.
This is an educational issue at the social level. The technology is still available.
The tech is here. It's been here all along.
The people who care about the "Open Web" and DRM know about open source software and the people who don't care, don't know about Open Source software precisely because they don't care.
> if, for example, my bank's website started requiring a DRM-capable browser. Open source doesn't address that problem.
That's the banks property (website, servers, etc) you have no say in how they run it, if they go and do something stupid like require DRM to visit their site and you don't want DRM you have to switch banks. You made the choice to not use DRM, so you have to face the consequences of your choice. The bank made the choice of requiring DRM and they have to live with the consequences of customers switching banks. Open Source software was never meant to control others property.
But if every bank--or at least every bank I would possibly consider entrusting my money to--requires DRM, because DRM is the standard and all the major browsers use it and the bank doesn't want to go to the trouble of inventing all their own infrastructure just to avoid using DRM, then what bank do I switch to?
> Open Source software was never meant to control others property.
Exactly. So Open Source software does not address the problem I said it does not address. So we are in agreement on that point. Good.
But you were saying, in the post I originally responded to, that Open Source software will somehow prevent the web from becoming effectively a closed system. That would only be the case if Open Source software did address the problem that you and I both agree it does not address.
That already is the case for banks which use gbplugin. You have to use that closed-source component, or the online banking website won't even let you login. And it's invasive; I have seen reports of it slowing down the whole computer, conflicting with a Windows update (http://www.linhadefensiva.org/2013/04/teste-mostra-incompati...), and disabling IPv6 (http://ipv6.br/post/bug-em-plugin-de-seguranca-de-bancos-blo...). For a while, it wasn't even available for Linux, so you had to use Windows.
There are more open source libraries, tools, frameworks, languages and other tools used to create software
But I am seeing a HUGE shift to Closed off, non open SaaS and property installed apps for end users.
Outside of dev tools I am not seeing a shift to open source.
GPL a licence that protects user freedom has fallen out of favor in place of MIT and BSD which protects developer freedom
So like EME, Open Source has become hostile users. Open Source is for dev's not users
> Outside of dev tools I am not seeing a shift to open
> source.
Standardising on this means the exact opposite, there will not need to be an app for everything, just the web.