5 ms·

Quite. When you accept a dependency on proprietary software, you open yourself to the risk of the vendor withdrawing support. Looks like that risk materialized

by jl6 10y ago

Quite. When you accept a dependency on proprietary software, you open yourself to the risk of the vendor withdrawing support. Looks like that risk materialized for some users today. This is an "I told you so" moment for a lot of Free software advocates.

saurik 10y ago
FWIW, as a serious advocate of Free Software (someone who constantly travels around to developer conferences, college hackathons, and even sci-fi conventions giving talks that stress the benefits of the GPL3), this doesn't help and almost becomes a non-sequitor, as it makes it sound like a business decision related to productivity applications. I doubt anyone would say they "rely" on Trainyard, and the Trainyard developer did "rely" on iOS, but they probably liked that and for all I know they are dead now (I realize they almost certainly aren't, but like: this is the extent to which they aren't relevant). As a free software advocate, there isn't a group of "some users" whom I get to point at and say "I told you so": in fact, most of the people who played Trainyard and enjoyed it probably don't even care that it is going to be inaccessible. And while I sort of care myself about some specific applications, it isn't about people like me either. The devastating reality is that this purge of 32-bit software combined with the centralized control on the computers that are capable of running it is a devastating blow to society as a whole, and the people who are causing it are the people who either don't directly feel the downsides (as historical preservation is an externality, like pollution) or are actually in the minority of people who experience an upside. Advocating for free software is good as it can be a weapon in this fight, but in practice Apple just isn't feeling the burn: when they wanted a new compiler, they hired a ton of engineers and wrote one so they didn't have to rely on gcc anymore. There is only so much power in the lever of free software to force societal change in a way that doesn't continually lead to a handful of resistance fighters looking at the carnage of the land and thinking "I know what will make me feel better: I'll point at the majority of people who don't even understand this enough to notice and the handful of people who are happy this happened and yell 'I told you so'", particularly when developers like Linus Torvalds, who have critically important positions, aren't fighting for the same battle. My claim: we need regulation. In the same sense that we have regulation about pollution--to keep a handful of people who benefit from pollution enough to not care about its downsides to society (and them) from doing horrible things--we need to regulate companies like Apple to force them to provide open platforms and to have some reasonable set of responsibilities when it comes to sunsetting older hardware. The issue of closed vs. open ecosystems is related to free software, but isn't the same, and we need to be paying a lot more attention to the former and avoid a lot of knee jerk to the latter if we want to prevent some of the worst case scenarios.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > My claim: we need regulation We already have this. Copyright gives Apple a legal monopoly on iOS. It isn't supposed to give Apple a monopoly on the distribution of third party iOS apps. That's just the sort of monopoly leveraging the antitrust laws are intended to deal with.
  - valuearb 10y ago
    They built it, it's their property. If you don't like it don't buy an iDevice. For those who do buy iDevices, they can rely on Apple to ensure the quality of the apps and platform. Look at Android, it's the wild wild west, insecure and full of scammers.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      They built it, it's their property. If you don't like it don't buy service from AT&T in 1981. For those who do buy AT&T service, they can rely on AT&T to ensure the quality of the phones and platform. Look at The Internet, it's the wild wild west, insecure and full of scammers. And if you don't like AT&T, all you have to do is sell your house and move out of their service area. Unless you make phones or modems or are an ISP; then even moving doesn't help you because you can't move your customers.
- spronkey 10y ago
  Amen. I also see this somewhat as a 'own your st' scenario. Apple makes all of these systems and platforms, and then proceeds to abandon them, producing waste (in both materials and developer time for the apps that get updated for nothing but compatibility reasons). They update their APIs, deprecate the old stuff, at a breakneck pace, and they leave a great mess behind. They should be forced to think more about the mess they are making, and be unable to leave it without penalties. One way for them to not leave it would be to open it up. Another way would be to support older versions for a longer timeframe, and allow users to continue to download and use them. Either way, it's not in Apple's interests to do this - they're much more content to force this crap down our throats, and rely on us just dealing with it because there really isn't any choice.
simonh 10y ago
There are many arguments for libretto software, but the support argument is the weakest. I'm much more confident of getting support from someone I've paid than someone I haven't. At least any support I'm entiriedcyo will. Even a contract. The reality of most liner software is that scads if it go out of support all the time and only users that are members of the developer elite (and happen to be skilled in the relevant platform, libraries and dev tools) have even a chance of doing anything about it.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > The reality of most liner software is that scads if it go out of support all the time and only users that are members of the developer elite (and happen to be skilled in the relevant platform, libraries and dev tools) have even a chance of doing anything about it. That's only true for things for which there isn't even one user who is a developer, who fixes your problem because it was also their problem.
endgame 10y ago
Again. And again. And again. But we'll keep saying it.
legulere 10y ago
You have the same problem with free software, only that you can step in and maintain it yourself (which costs a lot of time/money).
masklinn 10y ago
> This is an "I told you so" moment for a lot of Free software advocates. Is this though? How much of the impacted software would exist as free software?

by jl6 10y ago

saurik 10y ago

FWIW, as a serious advocate of Free Software (someone who constantly travels around to developer conferences, college hackathons, and even sci-fi conventions giving talks that stress the benefits of the GPL3), this doesn't help and almost becomes a non-sequitor, as it makes it sound like a business decision related to productivity applications. I doubt anyone would say they "rely" on Trainyard, and the Trainyard developer did "rely" on iOS, but they probably liked that and for all I know they are dead now (I realize they almost certainly aren't, but like: this is the extent to which they aren't relevant). As a free software advocate, there isn't a group of "some users" whom I get to point at and say "I told you so": in fact, most of the people who played Trainyard and enjoyed it probably don't even care that it is going to be inaccessible. And while I sort of care myself about some specific applications, it isn't about people like me either. The devastating reality is that this purge of 32-bit software combined with the centralized control on the computers that are capable of running it is a devastating blow to society as a whole, and the people who are causing it are the people who either don't directly feel the downsides (as historical preservation is an externality, like pollution) or are actually in the minority of people who experience an upside. Advocating for free software is good as it can be a weapon in this fight, but in practice Apple just isn't feeling the burn: when they wanted a new compiler, they hired a ton of engineers and wrote one so they didn't have to rely on gcc anymore. There is only so much power in the lever of free software to force societal change in a way that doesn't continually lead to a handful of resistance fighters looking at the carnage of the land and thinking "I know what will make me feel better: I'll point at the majority of people who don't even understand this enough to notice and the handful of people who are happy this happened and yell 'I told you so'", particularly when developers like Linus Torvalds, who have critically important positions, aren't fighting for the same battle. My claim: we need regulation. In the same sense that we have regulation about pollution--to keep a handful of people who benefit from pollution enough to not care about its downsides to society (and them) from doing horrible things--we need to regulate companies like Apple to force them to provide open platforms and to have some reasonable set of responsibilities when it comes to sunsetting older hardware. The issue of closed vs. open ecosystems is related to free software, but isn't the same, and we need to be paying a lot more attention to the former and avoid a lot of knee jerk to the latter if we want to prevent some of the worst case scenarios.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> My claim: we need regulation We already have this. Copyright gives Apple a legal monopoly on iOS. It isn't supposed to give Apple a monopoly on the distribution of third party iOS apps. That's just the sort of monopoly leveraging the antitrust laws are intended to deal with.
- valuearb 10y ago
  They built it, it's their property. If you don't like it don't buy an iDevice. For those who do buy iDevices, they can rely on Apple to ensure the quality of the apps and platform. Look at Android, it's the wild wild west, insecure and full of scammers.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    They built it, it's their property. If you don't like it don't buy service from AT&T in 1981. For those who do buy AT&T service, they can rely on AT&T to ensure the quality of the phones and platform. Look at The Internet, it's the wild wild west, insecure and full of scammers. And if you don't like AT&T, all you have to do is sell your house and move out of their service area. Unless you make phones or modems or are an ISP; then even moving doesn't help you because you can't move your customers.
spronkey 10y ago
Amen. I also see this somewhat as a 'own your st' scenario. Apple makes all of these systems and platforms, and then proceeds to abandon them, producing waste (in both materials and developer time for the apps that get updated for nothing but compatibility reasons). They update their APIs, deprecate the old stuff, at a breakneck pace, and they leave a great mess behind. They should be forced to think more about the mess they are making, and be unable to leave it without penalties. One way for them to not leave it would be to open it up. Another way would be to support older versions for a longer timeframe, and allow users to continue to download and use them. Either way, it's not in Apple's interests to do this - they're much more content to force this crap down our throats, and rely on us just dealing with it because there really isn't any choice.

simonh 10y ago

There are many arguments for libretto software, but the support argument is the weakest. I'm much more confident of getting support from someone I've paid than someone I haven't. At least any support I'm entiriedcyo will. Even a contract. The reality of most liner software is that scads if it go out of support all the time and only users that are members of the developer elite (and happen to be skilled in the relevant platform, libraries and dev tools) have even a chance of doing anything about it.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> The reality of most liner software is that scads if it go out of support all the time and only users that are members of the developer elite (and happen to be skilled in the relevant platform, libraries and dev tools) have even a chance of doing anything about it. That's only true for things for which there isn't even one user who is a developer, who fixes your problem because it was also their problem.

endgame 10y ago

Again. And again. And again. But we'll keep saying it.

legulere 10y ago

You have the same problem with free software, only that you can step in and maintain it yourself (which costs a lot of time/money).

masklinn 10y ago

> This is an "I told you so" moment for a lot of Free software advocates. Is this though? How much of the impacted software would exist as free software?