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

[Michael Still]

On 8/5/10 7:27 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote:
> 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.

Its the hypocritical bit which confuses me. They made a business 
decision to minimize the amount of engineering they had to do. Which 
they were allowed to do under the terms of the license. This happens all 
the time. Using someone's library doesn't mean you have to sign onto 
their religion.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that complaints like this make 
little sense, and make people less likely to build things on top of open 
source code.

The open source projects that Apple has used have benefited form patches 
back. I see no reason that they should have to release unrelated code as 
some sort of implied social contract.

>> 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.

Sometimes its impossible to play nicely with people who wont listen. 
Just sayin' [1].

Mikal

1: I have no knowledge of why Apple forked.