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IRC also needs someone to run a server. Just because a protocol isn't p2p there's plenty of reason to open it. You can independently develop third party clients

by avar 10y ago

IRC also needs someone to run a server. Just because a protocol isn't p2p there's plenty of reason to open it. You can independently develop third party clients, use your own server instead of Apple's etc. They simply lied. They never said "We'll open Facetime, but only if it's implemented as a p2p protocol & client"

djrogers 10y ago
> They simply lied Changing one's mind based on changing circumstances isn't lying- it's common sense. The 'thing' that Steve Jobs wanted to publish as an open protocol stopped existing due to a lawsuit, the 'thing' that replaces it shared only its name.
- avar 10y ago
  I think that's an absurdly low standard to apply to corporate speech. The CEO of a multi-billion dollar company gets on stage during their main annual product conference and says a newly announced product is going to become an open industry standard. This turns out not to possible in exactly the way the company had planned due to a lawsuit, so the company drops the plan entirely. That's a lie by definition. You asserted that you'd do something and then you didn't do it. Does breaking a promise imply that there can't be any mitigating circumstances? No, I'm sure there were some reasons for why FaceTime wasn't opened. People & companies make product buying decisions based on things like these, e.g. some company might have bought a bunch of iPads for video conferencing expecting that in a couple of years they'd be inter-operable with any device they could buy, including non-Apple devices. This excuse that they couldn't open the p2p thing they initially planned to open is absurd. Apple could absolutely have just opened & standardized what FaceTime ended up being, i.e. an open video chat client/server allowing anyone to run a server. I.e. some sort of IRC or Jabber for video messaging. Even if they couldn't open or release some specific component due to patent concerns they could still have opened & standardized almost everything else, see e.g. how open source video players ship pluggable codec support without direct support for some proprietary & patented codecs. Bringing this back to my original comment on APFS, do I think they won't open that? No, they probably will. I just thought I'd point out that Apple has a documented history of abandoning their open source / standardization plans after making some very public announcements about them, so people should be wary of counting their chickens before they're hatched when it comes to Apple.
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    >That's a lie by definition Telling a lie is to say something you know isn't true. If they honestly intended to open source FaceTime and then changed their mind (for whatever reason) that is not a lie by any definition. But I agree with you that it casts doubt on their determination to follow through on their open source promises. And that sort of doubt is extremely detrimental to any uptake of open sourced software.
  - eridius 10y ago
    > Apple could absolutely have just opened & standardized what FaceTime ended up being, i.e. an open video chat client/server allowing anyone to run a server. I.e. some sort of IRC or Jabber for video messaging. But why? There's literally no point to doing that. The whole point of opening up FaceTime was so people using non-Apple devices could talk to people using Apple devices. After the lawsuit that became no longer possible.
eridius 10y ago
The whole point of opening it up is so other people's clients can talk to FaceTime users and vice versa. But Apple's not going to provide their own servers for third parties. And without that, there's no interoperability, which means there's no point in opening up the protocol.

by avar 10y ago

djrogers 10y ago

> They simply lied Changing one's mind based on changing circumstances isn't lying- it's common sense. The 'thing' that Steve Jobs wanted to publish as an open protocol stopped existing due to a lawsuit, the 'thing' that replaces it shared only its name.

avar 10y ago
I think that's an absurdly low standard to apply to corporate speech. The CEO of a multi-billion dollar company gets on stage during their main annual product conference and says a newly announced product is going to become an open industry standard. This turns out not to possible in exactly the way the company had planned due to a lawsuit, so the company drops the plan entirely. That's a lie by definition. You asserted that you'd do something and then you didn't do it. Does breaking a promise imply that there can't be any mitigating circumstances? No, I'm sure there were some reasons for why FaceTime wasn't opened. People & companies make product buying decisions based on things like these, e.g. some company might have bought a bunch of iPads for video conferencing expecting that in a couple of years they'd be inter-operable with any device they could buy, including non-Apple devices. This excuse that they couldn't open the p2p thing they initially planned to open is absurd. Apple could absolutely have just opened & standardized what FaceTime ended up being, i.e. an open video chat client/server allowing anyone to run a server. I.e. some sort of IRC or Jabber for video messaging. Even if they couldn't open or release some specific component due to patent concerns they could still have opened & standardized almost everything else, see e.g. how open source video players ship pluggable codec support without direct support for some proprietary & patented codecs. Bringing this back to my original comment on APFS, do I think they won't open that? No, they probably will. I just thought I'd point out that Apple has a documented history of abandoning their open source / standardization plans after making some very public announcements about them, so people should be wary of counting their chickens before they're hatched when it comes to Apple.
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  >That's a lie by definition Telling a lie is to say something you know isn't true. If they honestly intended to open source FaceTime and then changed their mind (for whatever reason) that is not a lie by any definition. But I agree with you that it casts doubt on their determination to follow through on their open source promises. And that sort of doubt is extremely detrimental to any uptake of open sourced software.
- eridius 10y ago
  > Apple could absolutely have just opened & standardized what FaceTime ended up being, i.e. an open video chat client/server allowing anyone to run a server. I.e. some sort of IRC or Jabber for video messaging. But why? There's literally no point to doing that. The whole point of opening up FaceTime was so people using non-Apple devices could talk to people using Apple devices. After the lawsuit that became no longer possible.

eridius 10y ago

The whole point of opening it up is so other people's clients can talk to FaceTime users and vice versa. But Apple's not going to provide their own servers for third parties. And without that, there's no interoperability, which means there's no point in opening up the protocol.