4 ms·

Not the gadget itself, but rather access to it. iPod/iTunes is an isolated system designed to lock you in, which makes sense from the business point of view, is

by mojuba 18y ago

Not the gadget itself, but rather access to it. iPod/iTunes is an isolated system designed to lock you in, which makes sense from the business point of view, is legal, gives more confidence to content providers and after all, is beneficial to the company. That's OK. I'm arguing that Apple wouldn't have to be anti-Web if iPod was more open and allowed any software to connect and exchange content with it. That's against the grain for Apple, I'm sure, but that's their problem, not mine. (And the irony is that I'm typing this on a Mac)

deleted 18y ago
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pchristensen 18y ago
How is that against the grain for Apple? Apple is known for design and quality but I never thought of them as especially open. Sure, they argued for openness where it served them as a 3% player in the OS space, but now that they're a 70+% player in music, more openness would hurt them. Openness hurts the big boys, so you hardly ever see the big boys pushing for it. Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc).
- raganwald 18y ago
  > Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc). IIRC, Joel Spolsky called this "commoditizing your complement."
- mojuba 18y ago
  Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web I'm not sure what you mean. Google is gradually opening its technology - you see one announcement after another these days. And here lies the difference between Google and Apple: both benefited from the open-source world big time, except the former contributes back as an acknowledgement, and the latter contributes nothing.
  - neodude 18y ago
    What about WebKit and Darwin, to name a few?
    - mojuba 18y ago
      Both are derived from non-Apple open-source projects and thus must be open.
      - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
        Darwin at least has roots in BSD which does not obligate the user to open derived works.
        mojuba 18y ago
        That's the kernel... Darwin's userland is GNU.

by mojuba 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

pchristensen 18y ago

How is that against the grain for Apple? Apple is known for design and quality but I never thought of them as especially open. Sure, they argued for openness where it served them as a 3% player in the OS space, but now that they're a 70+% player in music, more openness would hurt them. Openness hurts the big boys, so you hardly ever see the big boys pushing for it. Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc).

raganwald 18y ago
> Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web, but not with any aspect of their own business (hiring practices, pictures of campus, PageRank formula, infrastructure, etc). IIRC, Joel Spolsky called this "commoditizing your complement."
mojuba 18y ago
Google is happy to be open with the contents of the entire Web I'm not sure what you mean. Google is gradually opening its technology - you see one announcement after another these days. And here lies the difference between Google and Apple: both benefited from the open-source world big time, except the former contributes back as an acknowledgement, and the latter contributes nothing.
- neodude 18y ago
  What about WebKit and Darwin, to name a few?
  - mojuba 18y ago
    Both are derived from non-Apple open-source projects and thus must be open.
    - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
      Darwin at least has roots in BSD which does not obligate the user to open derived works.
      - mojuba 18y ago
        That's the kernel... Darwin's userland is GNU.