4 ms·

Another reminder that IPhone developers are all sharecroppers: http://goo.gl/HPAp http://goo.gl/HPAp

• loup-vaillant 16y ago
  Full URL: http://www.google.com/search?as_q=sharecropper&hl=en&as_sitesearch=tbray.org http://www.google.com/search?as_q=sharecropper&hl=en&#38...
• xurble2 16y ago
  By that definition, so are Android developers. Firstly, the platform vendor - Google - can and does ship competing products for free (turn by turn navigation anyone?). Secondly even though Android is free you still rely on the manufacturers to ship it on actual phones. They could all jump ship for Windows Phone 7 leaving you with no platform (go with it, it's a thought expermient). I understand that this is a 7 year old article and that Tim Bray has undergone a road to Damascus conversion to Android Apps over the web, but even if you accept his original conclusion that you are only not a sharecropper if you run your own web stack, it doesn't really afford you much extra security. Google could come along and release a competitor to your product and give it away for free. In summary: we're almost all sharecroppers because the definition is so wide and even those who aren't face a similarly large but different risk meaning that being a sharecropper isn't necessarily much worse, if worse at all. Dumb app store rejections still suck mightily though :)
  • martythemaniak 16y ago
    By that definition so is Windows. And OS X. And any computing platform in the history of the world. MS can release a free competitor on Windows and Apple can release a free competitor on OS X. Nevertheless, these are pretty solid platforms and no one has ever suggested developers are sharecroppers. Due to its nature, Google is far less in charge of Android than MS is of Windows or Apple of OS X. If you stretch a definition enough, it looses it's meaning.
    • gbhn 16y ago
      From the linked article: "If you’re developing software for the Windows platform, yes [you are a sharecropper]. Or for the Apple platform"