[clug] Vaguely off topic: iPeds and other Android tablets - availability and comparisons to that Apple one

[Ivan Lazar Miljenovic]

Michael Still <mikal at stillhq.com> writes:

> On 8/5/10 4:54 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote:
>> On 5 August 2010 16:47, Robert Edwards<bob at cs.anu.edu.au>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Yet another example of Apple and their accolytes muddying the waters as
>>> to what constitutes "free". If I want to develop apps for _my_ CPU in
>>> _my_ phone that _I_ purchased (assuming that I had one, which I don't)
>>> then I would need to pay money and sign up with "the man".
>>>
>>> If I don't pay the money and sign up, then I can develop all I like,
>>> but I can't upload anything to _my_ CPU in _my_ (hypothetical) phone.
>>>
>>> This is not "free". It may not be the case that "it's impossible to
>>> install apps except through the Apple Store", but it is the case that
>>> it is not possible (sans jail-breaking the phone, which may or may
>>> not now be legal in the U.S.) to install apps on the iPhone without
>>> Apple's endorsement and signing up with them (which I object to on
>>> principle and it's not "free").
>>
>> Exactly; and I also find this hypocritical of companies like Apple
>> that will leach off of FOSS projects (the kernel in OSX, KHTML, etc.)
>> but don't play allow others to have the same privilege when it comes
>> to their actual products.
>
> If they're complying with the licenses of the components they're
> using, what's the problem? You didn't (I assume) write the kernel or
> khtml, so how is it up to you to decide how they're used? The author
> did that in selecting a license, and is therefore presumably satisfied
> with the outcome.

They're certainly are allowed to use those projects; I'm just saying
it's slightly hypocritical to use those projects and then 1) not
actually give any of their own stuff back (as in stuff that was
completely developed in-house, not forked off of a pre-existing project)
and 2) prevent (or at least put numerous hoops to be jumped by) people
from being able to write similar code and use that however they want.

> Also, apple has contributed plenty of webkit code back, so I think you
> need to remove khtml from your list there.

Webkit would never have existed AFAICT if Apple had played nicely with
upstream in the first place.  FLOSS lets you fork; doesn't mean you
should just gratuitously fork because you can't be bothered to play
nicely with others.

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com