4 ms·
Gruber gets this one wrong. Native apps are part of the internet, but they are not part of the Web. The Web is what you browse with a web browser. To be part
by nickm12 12y ago
Gruber gets this one wrong. Native apps are part of the internet, but they are not part of the Web. The Web is what you browse with a web browser. To be part of the web, you need to support hyperlinks both incoming and outgoing.
Yes, the line is fuzzy on the boundaries. Some websites, like Facebook, expose relatively few links. Some apps, like YouTube, expose links for all their content---though of course YouTube was a website before it was an app. But the vast majority of native apps are not part of the Web and its ludicrous to claim otherwise.
As for "open" vs. "closed", he's right that different people have different meanings. For me what makes a platform "open" is that you can develop and distribute an application for it without approval or permission. In this sense the web (and MacOS) are vastly more open than iOS. But according to Gruber, "GPL software isn’t 'open'". Next he'll argue that up is down and black is white.
- zimpenfish 12y ago> But according to Gruber, "GPL software isn’t 'open'" You stripped the context - "...in the way that BSD software is". > But the weird thing about a truly open platform is that its openness allows closed things to be built on top of it. His point was that you can't (easily) build closed things on GPL software the way you can with BSD software.
- nickm12 12y agoI understood the point, but it doesn't make sense in the context of the article. The difference between GPL and BSD-licensed software is in how you can use the source. Neither web applications or native applications depend on the source code of the platform they are running on. There are plenty of "closed" things that run on GPL software, like the linux kernel.