[CS-FSLUG] Apple tightens its grip on developers with Mac App Store

[Jon Glass]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Davo Smith
<christiansource at davosmith.co.uk> wrote:
> But if you read the next paragraph, I clearly stated that was
> representing the 'doom and gloom' scenario of Apple removing the
> alternatives (much like they have with the iPhone).

But the damage was already done in the first paragraph--with rather
emotive language. That was what I was objecting to--the portrayal in
this language of something that may never become true.

> I still maintain that there is a big difference (if it ever came to
> it), between the user not knowing how to do something and the software
> vendor actively preventing it.

Actually, both are merely technological hurdles. The first is
accidental (or maybe not. I've read the Linux forums, where many geeks
like how the technological hurdles keep out the "riff-raff"), the
second intentional. Both are surmountable. You could argue that the
second is bad--but then you must also judge the motives of companies
like Apple, that put those restrictions in place. Why do they do it?
Or rather, more importantly, why do _you_ think they do it? The
responses that people give say more about their perspective than they
do about Apple's.

Which raises a point. As a father, I find the fact that the App Store
is devoid of pornography, and other unsightly things that could
potentially harm kids--not that they would go looking for such things,
but in a similar way that an innocent Google search can turn up very
unseemly results, I don't want my daughters exposed to this sort of
stuff accidentally. You may disagree with me, but they aren't your
daughters. :-)

It's funny that people tend to look at limits/barriers/rules as
negatives, rather than positives.


-- 
 -Jon Glass
Krakow, Poland
<jonglass at usa.net>

"I don't believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals." --Jack Nicklaus