Have Walled Gardens Killed the Personal Computer? 848
theodp writes "Harvard Law School Prof Jonathan Zittrain explains in The Personal Computer is Dead why you should be afraid — very afraid — of the snowballing replicability of the App Store Model. 'If we allow ourselves to be lulled into satisfaction with walled gardens,' warns Zittrain, 'we'll miss out on innovations to which the gardeners object, and we'll set ourselves up for censorship of code and content that was previously impossible. We need some angry nerds.' Searchblog's John Battelle, who's also solidly in the tear-down-this-walled-garden camp, adds: 'I'm not a nerd, quite, but I'm sure angry.'"
Angry Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
No way, Angry Nerds will not be in the App Store!
Re:Angry Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Angry Nerds (Score:4, Funny)
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't RTFA, but the instant question is: So what?
As long as a device solves a problem to the user, that's what the device should restrain itself to do.. General use PCs have proven to become virus/worms/problem infested in the hands of "normal" users..
There will always be general use pc's for those who are willing and have to skills to handle them responsibly..
I for one welcome this new era when tech support nightmares get reduced to a minimum..
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting out of the cave a few times a week to hunt is enough to sustain myself. My cave and my stone weapons solve a problem to me, so why care about anything else? If ain't broken, don't fix it.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
And today people think that you're a hacker if you look at Google's second search result page.
This shouldn't have happened.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
And how did we ever lose track of the fact that it's ALWAYS been that way? To the vast majority of people out there even Linux is a walled garden because they don't have a clue how to modify it and they don't want a clue, they don't have time for it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, most people can't even use all the functions of their TV's remote control. Funny thing the other day was when a friend of mine couldn't find his remote control to turn on the game. I went over and pushed the button on the TV and changed the channel and he kinda looked at me like I had just conjured up a demon or something. Most people think that when you flip the light switch and the light comes on it's magic.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't about every user being able to write software. That is never going to happen. What it's about is the ability of the millions of independent developers to give users software the gatekeepers don't approve. If there are billions of people with Windows 7 or Snow Leopard or Ubuntu, I can write a piece of software and sell it or give it away to those users and there isn't anything Microsoft, Apple or Canonical can do to stop me.
If those users have to jailbreak their computers before they can install my software, and they don't know how to do that, I'm now beholden to the troll under the bridge into the walled garden. No apps that compete with iTunes. No apps that "ridicule public figures." No apps that help dissidents unless Apple is willing to give up China.
Pardon my French, but fuck that shit.
Re: (Score:3)
You have fallen into the trap of thinking that technological progress is automatically linked to quality of life.
You probably work longer hours, and have less say over your daily schedule than a medieval serf.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
> General use PCs have proven to become virus/worms/problem infested in the hands of "normal" users..
This. Normal users have lived with the crapware infested mess that is "general PCs" for years, and they HATE IT. They want something better, and walled gardens are that thing. That's why the PC is on the road to becoming a niche platform. PC sales are *declining* in the US, Canada, and Western Europe.
More and more my friends, mostly younger people 18-25, aren't bothering to replace their PCs when they die. They find that a combination of an iPad, iPhone, and a PS3 meets all their needs much better than the "jack of all trades, master of none" PC did. The iPhone is always with them, so they are always connected. The iPad is with them in classes and at home, sometimes elsewhere. The PS3 for gaming of course, to avoid the annoying mess that is PC gaming.
The post-PC world is coming, and it's because people WANT it. Because PCs are too complex for most people to want to deal with, and a range of consumer-friendly devices meets their needs better. That's where the market is being driven, and for good reason.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Which is all well and good until you decide you want to watch a DVD or play a DRMed file for which the gardener didn't feel support was acceptable. Granted these days DVDs wouldn't likely be a problem, but in the past it definitely was an issue. And given Apple's history, I see no reason to assume that it's going to be restricted to niche applications that most people don't want or need either. It remains to be seen if that continues or if it spreads to other gardens, but there is precedence for it.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's okay give it a few years and your walled gardens will be infested as well.
A well maintained walled gardens will never be invested with bugs and worms as you have a central authority to clean the mess up when security issues arise, assuming the issue even make it past quality control in the first place.
Furthermore the security model is fundamentally different to what you have on a PC. PC software operates on the assumptions of having free access to the device and be able to do whatever it wants to, it's open by default, software running on an iPhone or Android device does not, it has an API it is allowed to talk to, but doesn't have raw system access, it's closed by default. There might not even be a way to get it by any standard means.
See game consoles for comparison: Are they unhackable? No. But running unauthorized code on them generally requires a hardware mod, not just clicking on an malicious email.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The PS3 for gaming of course, to avoid the annoying mess that is PC gaming.
Let me know when the Humble Bundles come to the PS3.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
If walled gardens completely take over then all entertainment software / content will be developed by a small cliche of companies and you will have to accept what ever they decide to produce.
The reality contradicts your theory. There are 121,000 companies and individuals with apps published on the iPhone App Store.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no idea why you got modded up so high but the points you make are sure as hell ridiculous. Theres so many uses for PCs, can you do photoshop on an iPhone, No? wonder why.. Can you code on an iPhone? No? wonder why.. The PC isn't going anywhere buddy, these people predicted the death of the TV because people watch moves on their phones, simply NOT true, and retarded at the same time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll be a complete computer snob here... iMac, iPod, iPad, iChat are all for people who are iChallenged. Most people aren't smart enough to run a computer. Within a couple months the machines are so spyware and virus infected they barely run. A walled garden will keep them out of trouble.
These people are not going to use Photoshop or code ever. Best to get them somewhere
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry but how exactly is an iMac (a machine that in general is running UNIX) for people who are challenged? And iChat? So if I use that as a Jabber client now I'm some kind of moron?
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
I'll be a complete computer snob here... iMac, iPod, iPad, iChat are all for people who are iChallenged.
A Windows user calling the users of a genuine Unix system challenged? What an idiot.
These people are not going to use Photoshop or code ever.
Quite hard to explain all those designers and iOS developers using OSX then.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about those of us who bought an iMac because of its form factor?
I wanted Unix under there, but I also wanted to be able to unplug it from the wall and box it up in under 2 minutes (its box has a carrying handle) so I can move it easily between places. I didn't want a laptop screen.
And what about iChat? It does brainlessly easy A/V chatting along with file transfers, text chat and so on and is just a front end for the AIM protocol. How is that for people who are "iChallenged"? Sure, less tech-savvy people can *use* it, because it is easy to use - this doesn't automatically mean that "nerds" can't use it because it's too easy.
This isn't like setting the difficulty on a video game. No one is going to judge you for playing on "easy". Well, no one smart anyway.
You sound like a hipster desperately looking for something to define himself by. "Oh, iChat?! pff! That's for lusers! MUD clients are where the cool kids are hanging out!"
Re: (Score:3)
Your argument is only that phones aren't suitable for every computing task, not that PCs are needed.
Photoshop and watching movies only require large screens with adequately powerful processing power. They don't have to be general purpose PCs. And they can indeed be devices that work in a walled garden.
A better argument for the continued requirement for PCs is that developers need them to create new software, even for the walled garden devices. However this is a niche market. We're transitioning to a time wh
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny that to replace one device, you need to have three.
There are a couple of reasons why I don't think PCs are going away: keyboards and fact that the vast majority of web sites are not optimized for touch screen. Fact is, typing in anything on any of these devices is a pain in the ass. I hate using touchscreen keyboards and I've hated the trend of going away from built in keyboards. Yes, there are bluetooth keyboards, but it isn't always practical to carry those around with you.
As for web sites, while most are usable, most are also designed to be used with a full PC, not a hacked down browser of many of these machines.
Re: (Score:3)
For sure many websites aren't designed with touch screens in mind. However as time goes on, they will be. Web developers develop to be compatible with the majority of clients out there, and as tablets and phones have become a significant proportion of web clients, new website designs and updates will support that.
For sure for some tasks you need a real keyboard. But the Asus Eee Transformer shows that that doesn't have to be a PC.
As to browsers, Webkit is the biggest mobile browser engine, and it's just as
Re: (Score:3)
Funny that to replace one device, you need to have three.
Unix philisophy: One task—one device which does that one task well.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact is, most people don't need a keyboard 98% of the time, because they aren't entering information, they are consuming it.
Isn't that the problem? These corporation want to turn the internet into just another passive experience, like television or radio. All of the iTards out there are happy to go along with it, because as "creative" as they think they are, they're really just consumers with a credit line. Walled gardens stifle innovation by removing the power to creative from the hands of the individual and placing it solely in the palms of a select few groups. That's bad for everyone, whether they're willing to acknowledge it or not.
Re: (Score:3)
98% of the time people with a PC are also consuming rather than creating.
As to the idea that you can't create on a tablet - you ought to look at the many ways of making music with iPads. (for example)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
So the PC is dead because a single machine can be replaced by three machines.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
Did the number 3 murder your parents or something? What's wrong with 3? What's your point?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Back in the 1970s and earlier consumers used to buy an electric motor called "An Electric Drill". And as well as drilling with it you could buy attachments to do sanding, polishing, circular sawing, screwing, pumping, grinding. (almost sounds like a sex aid! maybe there were attachments for that too!)
As time went on the price went down and affluence went up, and people bought dedicated devices for whichever of these things they needed to do. They didn't need a general purpose electric motor any more. They c
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They haven't proven shit, as there are still many exploits out for the mac, they just silently fix them or take three years to get around to it [krebsonsecurity.com]. Fact is there have been tons of exploits for OSX but the fanbois and apple do their best to pretend it doesn't exist. Then you have the fact that apple is usually the first the fall in pwntoown [slashdot.org].
Apart from the ignored viruses and how their computers alway
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
There will always be general use pc's for those who are willing and have to skills to handle them responsibly..
Sorry, but this is Slashdot, where we have to see the world in absolutes. Despite antitrust and consumer protection laws, soon *every* device will be made by [Apple|Google|Microsoft] and the entire world will be subject to that company's terrible machinations. Everyone who purchases one of those companies' products is immanentizing this monoculture eschaton, thus we are justified in hating these people for their part in curtailing our future personal freedoms.
Also, all restaurants will be Taco Bell.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)
But how do the three shells work?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary ease of use, deserve neither liberty nor ease of use.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
There will always be general use pc's for those who are willing and have to skills to handle them responsibly..
And who gets them, and at what price? I refer you to the days of yore, when getting a development machine for a video game console cost a prohibitive amount of money. Even today, if you're not developing for the incredibly limited scope of "hey gaiz I ripped off another old 2D video game and put the clone on XBLive" games, you're going to have to shell out a pretty penny to MS to develop actual Xbox360 console titles. And you don't even want to KNOW what it costs to get a single dev unit for the PS3.
I for one welcome this new era when tech support nightmares get reduced to a minimum..
Except that the walled garden DOESN'T reduce tech support nightmares. What it really does is make it so that when someone really, really needs to get under the hood - be it the local sysadmin, or the home user - to fix something, they CAN'T and the only option, ever, is a factory wipe and your savegames/files/etc are toast. Don't believe me? Count up the number of people you know who have had to "factory reset" or replace a phone handset; that's the walled garden in action.
What the walled garden does, is DRM. The ability for the manufacturer to engage in illegal collusion and extortion with the MafiAA and other content cartels to say "your content is only available for our device IF you pay us the extortion fee to register and IF you don't do anything that we or our MafiAA partners don't want you to do, like compete with their products."
Here's an example: Apple killed Lexcycle's "Stanza" e-reader, which had USB syncing abilities and other features that had become very popular. Why? Because they have sweetheart deals with Barnes & Noble and Amazon to feature the Nook and Kindle apps instead.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Wow Apple killed Stanza? You better tell that to my copy of Stanza for which I get regular updates. Better yet, maybe you should shut the fuck up if you're not going to fact check things you say.
Several years ago Stanza had a problem because used an unsupported interface in order to load books onto it from the computer. Apple then added an API to allow apps to transfer files from iTunes. Stanza adopted this API and has since had no problems.
Your conjecture about B&N and Kindle doesn't even fucking make sense since Apple has their own eBook store. You're just talking out of your ass. I suspect maybe you've suffered from some sort of severe head trauma recently. You should maybe head to the nearest hospital and get that checked out. You wouldn't want permanent brain damage to occur.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Curious about this I just did a quick google search and confirmed that indeed, Stanza is not getting regular updates. Amazon said that the latest update from last month or so is the last one. Stanza is finished. And it already is broken on iOS 4.3. You can read about this on the forums. Stanza will keep working for iOS 5 for the foreseeable future, but it's certainly not being developed further. Instead Amazon is pushing the Kindle app.
How do developers install their own Metro apps? (Score:3)
Can't one just install Metro apps by installing Visual Studio? Or will Microsoft be doing the same $99 per year to run your own compiled programs on your own hardware garbage that it already does on XBLIG and Windows Phone 7 and that Apple copied for the iOS App Store?
And can't one just use desktop applications that fake a Metro interface instead?
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
What flavor of kool-aid have you been drining?
I'm certain that at least 95% of the techs out there among us would agree, all the people around us that require tech support - family, friends, coworkers, friends of family, friends of friends, we see it all. Face reality, some people need walled gardens. My mom needs a walled garden. She'll click on a link that looks like something I might have sent her, she's done it already. Education only helps so much. If you're the IT support for a company and someone offers you a walled garden you can put your users into, where they lose zero productivity and at the same time cut your support headaches in half, you can benefit from the walled garden. You'd be negligent to not at least explore the option.
Walled gardens are like your local police. In "your perfect world", the police aren't necessary. Everyone has a gun and knows how to use it and can defend and take care of themselves. But that doesn't work in the real world. And you can't just say the best solution is to make sure everyone has a gun and training on using it. That's just not practical. In a community of people with widely varying levels of expertise you need a central defense system of some sort to protect those that can't protect themselves.
Now it's certain, walled gardens provide companies with a lot of leverage and control. You certainly wouldn't want your local police department in the pocket of any company. It's ripe for abuse, and companies always take advantage of it to some degree. Companies have three main reasons to create walled gardens. The first two are your favorite straw men: for lock-in and to lower competition. The third is the creation of a safe, reliable, "it just works" environment to provide their customers with a better experience that they will value above the other available offerings. But that's the price you as the customer are paying for the huge benefits you are receiving for being within the safety of the walled garden. If you don't like that, you're free to step outside and polish up your gun and fend for yourself. You can move out to some ranch in arizona and do whatever you like, with a lot more freedom.
I have no grounds to argue against your right to step out on your own and take on the world or to force you to live within the walls. And for that same reason you have no business trying to drag us out of our garden. The polls have been open for quite awhile now, and the public has voted with their wallets and bought scads of ipads, ipods, iphones, etc. And you will be unable to find more than 5% of them that don't like the walled garden they've chosen to live in. You are in the super-minority here. I can see why you're unhappy with it, but lets face it, how you want to live your life isn't the same as how most of the rest of us do. You either want the rest of the world to voluntarily change how they do things and make their lives more complicated and less pleasant as a result, or you want to tell others how they're supposed to live their lives. And I'm very thankful you can't do either.
The walled garden I've chosen to live in has walls that aren't so tall as to prevent me from climbing out from time to time when I want to, and yet they keep out 99.9% of the riff-raff. And I'm quite happy with it like it is. And so are most of the rest of us in here. Enjoy your stay outside the wall, and I'm not saying it's impossible for you to enjoy it, but where you've chosen to live is not the optimal place for the grand majority of us. For sure there are a few of us inside here that don't like the wall, but they're still here - because they value some of the benefits of being in the garden more than they dislike the wall. Leave us and the garden alone - don't ruin it for everyone.
Couldn't agree more (Score:3)
Provides a nice, safe, stable starting point for a lot of people who were previously scared shitless of technology (if the iphone didn't exist, do you think they'd all be using Android?). If they're happy, they stay there, if they eventually find it limiting, they can move on.
As the recent recipient of "Microsoft called me, asked me to load teamviewer, I left them on my laptop for 2 hours, unins
Re: (Score:3)
I haven't RTFA, but the instant question is: So what?
As long as a device solves a problem to the user, that's what the device should restrain itself to do.. General use PCs have proven to become virus/worms/problem infested in the hands of "normal" users..
There will always be general use pc's for those who are willing and have to skills to handle them responsibly..
I for one welcome this new era when tech support nightmares get reduced to a minimum..
What happens if an extremist pseudo-totalitarian government comes to power in America? What happens if all computer platforms become walled gardens by law, and that those walls are actually secure? If you were using an iPad right now, and certain things were actually illegal to say, would you trust the device?
I'm not saying this is immenant, but a survey of history, from Thucidides and the trials of the first democracy in Greece to the history of the last century should make us realize that we always have
Re: (Score:3)
Then you have a far worse problem than how your computer works?
Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we have free software and open source software.
So that we're not bound by the whims of some business model.
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Free and open source does not mean that the author has to offer the software on the platform of your choice. In the case of open source it does mean that you can take and redistribute the software yourself.
If the TOS of the platform (for instance Apple's) get in the way, that is the fault of the platform.
In short, if you want free software, avoid un-free platforms ;-)
There is always a tradeoff (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You don't need to have a walled garden to have an official app store though. You could just as easily have an app store with the same requirements as the current Apple one, but also allow the installation of software from elsewhere if the user wants it.
Re:There is always a tradeoff (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not that much better in Apple's app store. If you read the reviews for some apps, people complain about crashes, slowness, etc.
Also, while I don't know about bikini apps specifically, for any given type of app, there are sometimes hundreds in the app store. There are hundreds of tip calculators, RSS readers, and transportation apps just to name a few. While many may work, they're often poorly designed and/or have terrible UIs.
I really think Apple should be stricter. For example, I'd love to see Apple reduce the 5-star rating system to just 4 stars and de-list apps whose rating falls to and remains at 1 star for 30 days. That would force developers to make better apps and responsive to users culling the ton of crap apps from the store.
Re:There is always a tradeoff (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care if they de-list them or not, as long as I can filter them.
Why can't I filter them??
Re: (Score:3)
Apple's walled garden works actively against responsiveness: every bug fix release has to be approved, and this approval process is said to take around two weeks, typically. That's a long time to receive a lot of 1-star ratings.
Android's app store allows instant publishing of bug fixes. Allows for much faster response to user issues.
Appstores are stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm happy with the walled garden (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm developing an innovative synthesis program for the iPad. I wouldn't be doing this without the walled garden. I'm happy with the distributions system, the quality control rules, and the closed development environment. If the system cuts down on piracy a bit, that's also a plus.
Walls can easily be broken. The jailbreaking community is alive and well. So as far as I'm concerned, it's the best of both worlds and the op ed is a lot of FUD.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Zittrain's been peddling this load of manure argument for a long time now, and as far as I am concerned he has been consistently disproven time after time. It's not that what he points out is not a factor, so much that he ignores the rest of the story, which is that the "generative spirit" continually finds ways to break down the walls, create alternatives, and generally keep innovating despite (and at times, because of) the controls the gardeners put in place.
He equally ignores the fact that the vast major
Re: (Score:3)
Tell that to the buyers of Motorola devices, who have to bend over backwards to bypass the restrictions they put in place on the handsets they sell. That's not innovation, that's contorting oneself to work around punitive restrictions, something you shouldn't need to do.
Re: (Score:3)
Why? Aside from the controlled APIs and distribution path, what does locking down the user give to you (other than admitting you hate and distrust your users?)
Because it's so wonderful to expend effort to regain control and capability that was deliberately taken away. And constantly fighting the vendor who seeks to impose that control on you, on top of being in violation of the EULA.
Innovation is like life (Score:4, Insightful)
Removing root access (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Apple is going to remove root access [matthewblo.ch] from the Mac in one or two more OS X updates, and you'll only be able to retain your root access by paying the small annual developer fee. It makes sense to cement their revenue stream from a platform that's still gaining users; the only question is when they can afford to throw the gauntlet down to Microsoft & Adobe.
Re:Removing root access (Score:5, Informative)
Root has never been enabled by default on any OS X that I've known of.
Re:Removing root access (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Hackable? By what?
Also turned off by default: ssh, http, sharing, and everything else.
----
Just like IIS is a low enough market share compared to Apache that no one targets it?
The major reason why apple store is public enemy i (Score:5, Interesting)
They can't license their work as Free Software, because those license terms conflict with Apple's.
such ecosystems can legally and single handedly kill free software.
Re:The major reason why apple store is public enem (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty disturbing that "freedom" from corporate control could be relegated to obscurity. After all, what's the fucking point of Free Software if none of your users can actually take advantage of it even if they wanted to?
the consumer has changed (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is not dead its just that common end users are driving up the shut-up-and-take-my-money model. the PC will end up being left to the geeks again which is probably the same small percentage of people (compared to the entire pc market space right now) it was back in the late 80s. the only reason common end users bought pcs was to get on the internet. they have other ways to do that now without having to learn anything. internet access has acheived the easiness of the VCR and thats what most people want who are not geeks.
Re:the consumer has changed (Score:5, Interesting)
The PC isn't dead... but it's dying the death of a thousand cuts.
The internet, trusted computing (DRM) and locked down devices has allowed Apple a degree of control that most corporations would dampen their knickers over. With Intel being a kingpin in this Orwellian wet dream - back in the late 90s... I heard an Intel engineer giving a speech about how the next frontier in security was about keeping owners from controlling their own devices - aka TPMs) - with the support of governments and content companies. All the pieces are dropping into place.
It's a perfect storm of control, surveillance and profit. And you can thank Apple for blazing the trail.
In another couple of years we'll be looking back the Microsoft Windows PC era with fondness. Remember when you could....
Re:the consumer has changed (Score:4, Interesting)
The PC is not dead its just that common end users are driving up the shut-up-and-take-my-money model. the PC will end up being left to the geeks again which is probably the same small percentage of people (compared to the entire pc market space right now) it was back in the late 80s. the only reason common end users bought pcs was to get on the internet..
Exactly this.
Anyone else remember that PC boom in about 1999-2000 where tons of people went and bought ugly, bloated Cyrix MII rigs running Windows 98? It was a hideous time. Back then that was the entry level into computing, and the machines were junk from top to bottom. The only anti virus was from a PC-Pro cover disc circa 1996, there were no firewalls and no security updates. The end user didn't care, as long as it creaked into life long enough to connect to a dial up service. The user base that bought a Cyrix MII are now buying other things that better suit their needs.
It's more like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
a few arguments (Score:5, Interesting)
- "open gardens" have caused far more trouble then the enemies of walled gardens care to admit. And i'm not talking about trojans, virii, rootkits or whatever. Just the HUGE mess they allowed to be made in terms of API and backwards compatibility. Fuck that shit. If walled gardens can keep things "just working", well there is a BIG pro argument you're ignoring.
- web apps are still around. I don't think apple will kill mobile safari any time soon. So there. Here's your open garden you can play in and make a big fucking mess off. Now leave the people who want to GetThingsDone alone please with your whining. Go play and shut up.
- hack your fucking phone if you really want to break things and bother tons of people with software that relies on dependencies that are no longer supported. But then don't start complaining how apple broke your app.
- DONT BUY IT. If you're having such a monumental issue with walled gardens, stop buying stuff from them. But oohhhh shiny steam app... must buy... and all those achievements... ohhh... must have... and those hats... groovy... and the whole fucking world needs to see my status update. But facebook sucks ! That's right. It sucks and still you want to have it. For free.
goddamd kids...
Re: (Score:3)
Re:a few arguments (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry. Eventually it will be "Don't buy it, and do without modern technology."
Too many personal computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about the phrase "personal computer."
How many people do you know who really need a completely general-purpose computer that they own and control personally?
How many "PCs" are actually nodes in a centrally controlled system, and not "personal" at all?
Because of the economics of making "PCs," we have the illusion that hundreds of millions of people buy and use "personal computers" each year. In reality, a minority, possibly a small minority, of those people actually take advantage of anything those "PCs" do that would require personal control over a general-purpose computer.
This is the reason mobile devices that are not quite "personal computers" are rightly popular. They serve the actual need. Hopefully, it will be possible to use mobile devices as if they were personal computers, so that the potential of personal computers can be applied to a networked, mobile world.
They want to make it's like the phone company rent (Score:4, Interesting)
They want to make it's like the phone company where you have to rent or pay fees to use stuff that you own.
All of this has happened before (Score:4, Insightful)
In the 1980s and early 1990s, online services were walled gardens. There were of course minor exceptions - BBSes who all exchanged information with each other via FidoNet. But the big names were CompuServe, GEnie, MSN, and (what would eventually become the 900 lb gorilla) America Online. They had their day, until the Internet tore down those walls. Today, all those services are pretty much gone. MSN is no longer a subscription service. AOL is still hanging on, mostly due to monthly service revenue from old people who don't know that they can get their Internet without having to pay AOL.
I think what happens is that when a new type of service/product is created, the initial creators and early copycats end up with most of the market share. Then they try setting up walls to protect their gardens and preserve their market share. Eventually an open alternative comes along which works better and/or is as easy to use, and the walls fall. Arguably, something similar happened in the 1970s/1980s with computer operating systems. Each computer maker had their own OS with its own ecosphere and apps. Eventually, MS-DOS ended up winning the market not because it was the best, but because it (and the PC platform it ran on) was open.
I suppose it's possible that, eventually, some company could "get it right" and preserve their walled garden in perpetuity. I'd argue Facebook is much closer to this than Apple.* But based on history, the safe bet is against any company managing to pull this off. Eventually something bigger and better comes along which consigns the original giant to a niche, if not irrelevance. *(Google is open enough that they allow you to extract the data stored in their services - their walls rather porous.)
The one market where I haven't seen this happening is gaming consoles. But I think that's because the nature of game compatibility/hardware and the refresh cycle forces the entire industry to "reboot" every few years. First it was Atari, then Nintendo, then Sony, and currently it's split between Nintendo (Wii) and Microsoft (Xbox). The amount of time between these reboots is short enough that an open platform can't develop. But the reboots also mean that each company has to start over from scratch every few years to maintain dominance.
Still Alive! (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as there is a need for performance computing, tinkering, people who build their own systems, and old-school hacking, there will be the PC. The PC has survived everything thrown at it so far and will survive well into the future. The article seems to mostly be whining about Apple turning OS X into another iDevice. If Apple is the problem, don't use Apple's products. Use a Windows machine or a Linux box. I hear tell that BSD is still alive and kicking. Solaris still has a community as well. There are other less used platforms that be switched to as well.
The problem is not that the PC is dying, the problem is that it is becoming a niche. Most people just want to check Facebook, email, and play some crappy games. They are not writing papers, presentation, or programs. They do not use SPICE, MATLAB, MAPLE, GCC, or any other in the other long list of programs and tools that many of us take for granted. A smart phone or a tablet is good enough.
For those of us who do have to do any type of creative work, the PC will still be needed. Even if Microsoft decided to take the route of Apple's locked down operating systems, there are and will be alternatives. There are dozens of hackers who do nothing but try to port Linux and BSD to other platforms just because they can. There are also people who love jail-braking these devices for the same reason. It might evolve to smaller form factors in the future but the PC will be around for a long time. As long as there is a need for power computing, PC's will live.
Firefox has been infected with this problem (Score:3, Interesting)
The Firefox add-on system has been infected with this problem. It used to be that you could write add-ons for Firefox, put them on a web site, and let users download them. Now, Firefox has what's essentially an "app store". [mozilla.org] Add-ons have to go through an approval process [mozilla.com] which takes about two months. Then they have to be hosted on Mozilla's site. Mozilla tracks how many users are using each add-on through a back channel in the browser. Because of the new policy of very frequent updates to Firefox, add-ons have to be updated regularly, and for add-ons on the Mozilla site, this happens automatically and remotely. So your add-on is now tied to Mozilla's "cloud".
Firefox itself is slaved to Mozilla's "cloud" now. It's become much more demanding about insisting that it be updated when Mozilla issues a new version.
It's still possible to host add-ons on your own site, but warning messages appear if they're loaded, and they rapidly become obsolete and break as Firefox changes. It's still possible to turn off updates of Firefox, but by default, you get nagged. The jaws are slowly closing on Firefox users.
This is what passes for "open source" today.
I have this sad feeling.. (Score:5, Insightful)
..that I lived in the golden age of computer freedom, and future generations will only read about it in history books.
Walled gardens, virtual machines, signed code, app stores etc may be useful, but little by little, are removing our freedom to actually control the machine.
I fear that in the future, you will need a license to write code under constant government scrutiny. Kinda like making explosives.
But then, maybe I'm just a curmudgeon...
You Software Engineers Don't Get It (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple's App Store is a logical result of the chaos that's been exhibited on general purpose computing platforms for the last 20 years.
When end users experience crashes, blue screens, data corruptions, poor user interfaces, hung devices, and insufficient functionality, they are not "feeling their freedom". They are feeling the results of you exercising yours. And when their "local nerd" is asking them questions which leadingly suggest that they shouldn't have been doing what they've been doing, they feel angry.
End users want computing like they want toast. Put in their bread/data, push a button, and get their toast/video. The fact that this is very hard, and in some cases virtually impossible, does nothing to limit the end users' expectations. For years they have been told these computers will make their lives better and enable them in so many ways -- which they have, but they sure don't like the hidden costs that these ecosystems have dumped on them.
You know all those arguments that have been made? If you don't like it, you don't have to use it! That's all the end user is doing.
Sturgeon's Law explains that 90% of anything is crap. If curation -- in the form of App Stores or whatever -- can change those odds, even just a little bit, end users are going to move towards them in droves.
Software engineers have squandered their freedom, and end users are increasingly acting like they don't want to have any part of it any more.
(I wrote up a much longer article [xdroop.com] on the same theme.)
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Frameworks (Score:4)
I think the whole point of the thread is that things like app stores are the opposite. They filter what choices you get, based on arbitrary criteria set by the store owner. This will, almost by definition, inhibit innovation in some areas.
So, frankly, I think your mention of frameworks is pretty much off-topic.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Frameworks (Score:4, Informative)
"That's idealistic. If you don't use the same framework as everyone else, you'll be working alone."
Not necessarily. Tell that to David Heinemeier Hansson. He wrote his own, and now it is used regularly by hundreds of thousands.
The point is that anybody CAN write a framework, if not necessarily a commercially successful one. But there is only room for one or a few successful proprietary app stores.
"How many main web frameworks are there being used in business? Maybe a couple, what, drupal, joomla?"
Uh... here are just some, in approximate order of popularity: Zend, CodeIgniter, Rails, Django, Symfony, Cyclone3, CakePHP, Yii, Spring, Google Web Toolkit, Struts, Flex, ASP.NET MVC, Seam, Cocoon, Flask, Wicket, Zope, Grails, Express, Tornado, Tapestry, Cappuccino, Horde, JSF, Play, Seagull, Sinatra, web.py, Lift, SproutCore, Cairngorm, Apache Click, Prado, Grok, SilverStripe Sapphire, ASP.NET, Catalyst, (fab), Vaadin, Kohana, Pylons, Camping, Compojure, Hemlock, web2py, WebGUI, CherryPy, ErlyWeb, Merb, RestfulX, Erlang Web.
This is not a comprehensive list; there are quite a few more in common use.
"Try and go to a programming shop and tell them you want to use some obscure framework."
That's what I do for a living.
"In both cases the model only supports a very small number of top dogs..."
Um... no.
"The only time this doesn't work this way is with companies that locate in the middle of nowhere so they can be the biggest fish in the sea."
I disagree completely. Your premise is demonstrably wrong from the start.
Re: (Score:3)
Frameworks only harm portability of both users and applications.
They don't prevent applications from being created or presented to the end user just because some platform tyrant decide he doesn't like them. Conflating frameworks with walled garden app stores is dishonest to the point of absurdity.
Re: (Score:3)
While my choice of Linux distros (Debian) prioritises freedom, and as a result tends to be non-commercial, there are Linux repositories with paid software in them. Try an Ubuntu live CD if you'd like to preview the experience.
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument that "you can always use Y if you're not satisfied with X" is a fallacy in the world of computers. The laws of market, especially in a market with high initial and near zero variable cost, contradict it. Allow me to elaborate.
The main reason why hardware has become (comparably) cheap in the last few years is the fact that the development cost, which are pretty much the whole cost of any kind of hardware (let's be blunt here, it ain't the epoxy for the board and the silicon for the chip), could be spread out over more units. Do you think CPUs could be sold at less than ten times the price if the market for computers was as big as it was three decades ago? It's even better visible in software, it's by no means ten or hundred times as much of an investment to produce specialized business software compared to some games, the market is just considerably smaller.
Saying now that if I'm not happy with X I could always use Y doesn't work out for exactly this reason. If everyone else switches over to X, forcing the maker of Y to either fold or increase the price for Y, I will be forced to use it as well or not use anything altogether. I will not have the option to continue using Y. Because I alone do not allow the development of Y to continue.
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Interesting)
And precisely how does that explain FreeBSD, Haiku OS or any number of other OSes that are tiny in terms of the desktop market, yet still attract enough following to be viable?
A lot of these projects are driven by precisely what you say is a fallacy. A lot of them are driven because a few developers dislike the status quo or for whom the status quo doesn't work. Firefox is probably the best example of that.
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you really think Firefox would be the same today (for better or worse), if it had never topped a 2% market share?
What Opportunist said DOES precisely explain FreeBSD and others. If you want to make the extraordinary assertion that people who aren't using FreeBSD deliberately choose to develop apps for it instead of some other OS that they do use, go ahead. What seems to actually happen out here in the real world, is that fewer app developers are attracted to support smaller OSes and the original OS developers pick up some of the slack by also developing the core of fundamental apps, or porting apps to the OS themselves so the developers don't have to. Then there's the Debian solution, slower, stabler development so there's more time for other people to come and play in your sandbox.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Insightful)
Your envy clouds your judgement. It's not a walled garden and the PC is dead. It's that the driver of PC growth today is the Mac with OS X whose child, iOS is owning the next generation of personal consumption. Building the cheapest disposable PC and/or Workstation only favors Microsoft whose OEM license is paid whether HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc., sell $1000, $2000, $3,000, $4K+ systems.
No one but Apple controls the entire end-to-end solution. Not Microsoft, not anyone else. OS X sales continues to steadily expand and iOS steadily expands times ten. When Microsoft starts to dip down to 80% of the Desktop market it'll be due to Apple's OS X and it's child, iOS. It won't be due to FreeBSD, Linux, or any other UNIX flavored OS using cheap clone hardware.
You want a third big box OS for consumers to desire you'll have to control the end-to-end solution, not just the Server Market.
Nothing is guaranteed and desire to evolve into new paradigms is up to any start-up or large conglomerate to seize. If not, they'll become the next IBM who is completely out of the Consumer space.
Re:Frameworks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Last I checked... (Score:5, Informative)
There's Secure Boot for that.
Re:Last I checked... (Score:5, Insightful)
Market power can be just as limiting as government power. If nobody's making anything else because the walled gardeners have sewn up the market, what are you going to do?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:All walled gardens fail (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Most people don't want to "compute" (Score:5, Insightful)
To use a car analogy, most people would prefer a car which they got in and travelled from A to B, without having to know anything about oil levels, brake pads, shock absorbers or what a cam shaft is for. Petrolheads would say "But you can have so much fun by tinkering with the engine!", to which the majority of car drivers would reply "But I don't care about any of that, I just want to get to my destination. Give me a zero-maintenance car please."
No, to use a car analogy, they don't want to have to deal with things like learning traffic rules and regulations or having to use signals or a brake.
And they don't want to go from A to B, they want to go from A to "I don't care, but entertain me!".
They want a car with a chauffeur and all their friends in it, and where they don't decide the next stop. I.e. a tour bus.