Apple Claims That Jail-Breaking Is Illegal 610
rmav writes "Apple has finally made a statement about jail-breaking. They try to sell the idea that it is a copyright infringement and DMCA violation. This, despite the fact (as the linked article states) that courts have ruled that copying software while reverse engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software. I cannot help but think that the recent flood of iPhone cracked applications is responsible for this. Before that, Apple was quietly ignoring the jailbreak scene. Now, I suppose that in the future we may only install extra applications on our iPhones as ad hoc installs using the SDK, and if we want turn-by-turn directions, tethering, and the like, we have to compile these apps by ourselves? Maybe we should go and download the cydia source code and see what we can do with it."
Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't buy it. I bike, walk and use public transit.
I bet you think you're clever though, with your pithy "Who do you buy your gasoline from" crap. Like living with ideals is an impossible and ridiculous thing that nobody really does and no one is really expected to do. Personally, I disassociate myself permanently from people and organizations I don't like. Won't work for em, won't buy from em, won't be involved, won't help make them strong. Hell, I didn't like what my government has been doing last number of years, so I stopped paying my taxes. Almost went to jail for that, but my hands are clean. I did not help them.
When I can't do this, I acknowledge that I'm guilty of facilitating that which I despise. I recognize that the statement "I can't sever my involvement" is really "I'm not prepared to live in the fashion necessary to sever my involvement", and therefore I'm really just passing the hardship along to others. That makes me accountable to those others, and I may one day be called on to pay the piper, and if they come for me, it will be right and good and my own damned fault.
It's called taking responsibility, maybe you ought to look into it.
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do you buy your gasoline from?
I don't buy it. I bike, walk and use public transit.
.I bet you think you're clever though, with your pithy "Who do you buy your gasoline from" crap.
Like living with ideals is an impossible and ridiculous thing that nobody really does and no one is really expected to do. Personally, I disassociate myself permanently from people and organizations I don't like. Won't work for em, won't buy from em, won't be involved, won't help make them strong. Hell, I didn't like what my government has been doing last number of years, so I stopped paying my taxes. Almost went to jail for that, but my hands are clean. I did not help them.
It's called taking responsibility, maybe you ought to look into it.
What are you 12 years old? It sounds like you think you're the clever one. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of grey and sometimes you have to compromise and work with people and organizations you don't like to make progress.
Just because you don't agree with elected government officials doesn't give you the right to stop paying taxes and push the cost onto other citizens under some retarded form of social protest. By living in the country, you are accepting the whole package, including agreeing paying taxes, regardless of who is elected.
If you don't like it, legally fight for change or GTFO. You can't bury your head in the sand and just ignore things you don't like.
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Interesting)
What are you 12 years old? It sounds like you think you're the clever one. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of grey and sometimes you have to compromise and work with people and organizations you don't like to make progress.
Yep, that's the working model of our culture, all right. And it is full of fail. "Working within the system" doesn't do it. I have this argument with a particular friend of mine almost weekly, and he's a well-meaning guy as I'm sure you are, but he's wrong and so are you.
For God's sake open a newspaper, it's all over the front page. That bit about the "economic meltdown?" Or the "climate crisis," the "energy crisis," and on and on and on? It's because people decided it would be easier to just cut a deal. Our practicality, our comprimises, our working with people and organizations we don't like, has completely fucked us.
you're referring to Declaration of Acquiescence? (Score:4, Funny)
It's a good thing the founding fathers didn't agree with this line of thinking, or we'd all be having tea and cookies at 3pm, and paying a hell of a tax on it.
... social protest - they do mention inalienable rights though. Maybe you're referring to the Declaration of Acquiescence?
It takes guts to live outside a corrupt system. I did it for a while, now I am just Joe Taxpayer. I do respect the LW though for LIVING his principles, not just yakking about them.
Last time I read the Declaration of Independence, I didn't recall seeing anything called retarded
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are other cell phones/smartphones/computer operating systems.
If you make your own gasoline, the government will get pissed off, and at the very least stop you from doing that.
The government doesn't care if you use an iPhone or a different phone.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the UK they certainly care, most likely because of the huge tax on it, although you can convert and run your car on used vegetable oil.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Means nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple can claim whatever they want, and can sue whoever they want for DMCA violations. C&D's are freely distributable.
Whether or not that claim has the weight of law is up to a judge, not a marketing director.
Re:Means nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
And if Apple Corp. was suing you with some strange interpretation of the DMCA today and the legal dream team it must be able to afford...
What you be confident that the judge would sort it all out?
No More Cowbell (Score:5, Funny)
Look, it's very simple.
Saying that jail-breaking an iPhone is a violation of the DMCA, is the same thing as claiming that if I own a Blue Oyster Cult mp3, and edit the file to add even MORE COWBELL, I would be committing a DMCA violation.
Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a simple-minded person. So correct me if I am misunderstanding this situation:
Apple makes a little plastic box with an LCD screen, a battery, and a circuit board and sells it to people in retail stores. And they claim that there is some kind of law that prohibits anyone who buys this little plastic box from opening it, determining how it works, and telling other people how to make it work better. Unless, of course, they pay Apple more money beyond the money that was paid for the little plastic box at the retail store.
If this is a correct interpretation of the situation, then I have to agree that this company is delusional and that they will have a difficult time adjusting to 21st-century reality. These marketing major fantasies may have had some credibility in the 20th-century, but they are meaningless as the economy collapses.
Reality is reality. If you are exploring the circuitry and firmware of a little plastic box and someone comes up to you and tells you that you are engaged in illegal activity by doing so, politely simply to ask them to go away and something constructive with their short time on Earth. If they persist or attempt to physically prevent you from your examinations of your property (your little plastic box and circuit board), then just shoot them. Don't even give it a second thought. There are far too many people in the world, and the fewer delusional assholes running around making trouble for the rest of us, the better. They won't be missed. When even Republicans are talking about economic collapse, then you know that It's a new world out there. Anything that you can do to make the world a better place for reality-based people to live in (such as sharing iPhone knowledge and applications), to more welcome you are in the new world of the post-20th century fantasies.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
No kidding eh! The occasional /. psychopaths sometime worry me. I know most of them in reality wouldn't even stand up and complain at a McDonalds about getting the wrong drink, but I wonder if maybe some of them really are THAT batshit crazy and would actually go shoot up the Apple HQ because they can't jailbreak their iPhone.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding eh! The occasional /. psychopaths sometime worry me.
The poster stated if they physically try to force you to stop. IE, touching you. If you touch me without permission, that is assault and I will hurt / kill you if I feel the need to. Note by the way that he also said "shoot them" not "kill them". Many bullet wounds are survivable and don't require long term care. However for those of you who are worried about being shot, if you don't want to die, keep your hands to yourself.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
And they claim that there is some kind of law that prohibits anyone who buys this little plastic box from opening it, determining how it works, and telling other people how to make it work better.
Depending on the circumstances, the DMCA can do exactly that. However, there are some allowances for reverse engineering and if memory serves correct there is some case law regarding cell phones specifically which says that it's OK to open them.
I could be wrong on the second part but my point is that it's not black and white.
This is a lot like Nintendo saying it's illegal to dump a ROM. The situation as described by written and case law is more complicated, but it serves the company's interest to *basically* lie to people, in order to fight what they see as *basically* piracy.
DMCA in the post economic-collapse world (Score:4, Interesting)
I humbly and respectfully suggest that you consider the possiblity that 20th-century laws such as the DMCA will have little if any application in the post economic-collapse world. Whatever concepts of judicial balance that these laws attempted to provide in the era before the economic collapse will be rendered meaningless in the new post-collapse realities.
I suggest that you adapt your own point-of-view of technology law to the possibility that all laws regarding software/firmware and reverse-engineering will be ignored in the not-to-distant future. If your business or career depends upon the enforcement of these laws, please consider expanding your career path strategy or business model to include the likelihood that these can and will not be enforced by the authorities in the manner that they are currently.
Unlike most juvenile Slashdot comment posters, I am being serious and not sarcastic.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, Simonetta is absolutely correct.
And since when was a "violation" of the DMCA illegal anyway?
Companies like Apple do more to bestow heroic status on hackers, crackers and jail-breakers than anything done by these alleged "criminals".
Personally, I'm overjoyed whenever I hear that another huge company's efforts to encroach on consumers' rights are defeated.
That reminds me, it's time to send another $50 to the EFF. Fortunately, despite the overall bleak economic picture, I can afford it, and the EFF
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Informative)
Apple makes a little plastic box, sells the boxes and licenses the software. People modify the software to allow you to write to the 'secured' portions of the device storage, thus allowing third-party software to be installed and device functionality to be modified. Apple turns a blind eye.
Jailbreaking folks come up with a way to unlock the radio baseband, making it possible to use a SIM card from any provider in the phone. Cellular companies who want exclusivity complain when phones are unlocked to work on any network. Apple complies with the cell companies' demands and makes changes to prevent unlocking. Apple continues to turn a blind eye to the jailbreaking itself, though does warn folks that if you modify the software they can't be responsible for supporting the modified OS.
Apple releases a new version of the OS containing a locked-down sandbox for third-party apps, allowing people to install apps without jailbreaking. People continue to jailbreak the phones to use private APIs (allowing tethering) or do things like have apps that run in the background and so on. Apple continues to turn a blind eye, and apps exist in both realms.
Someone in the jailbreaking community comes out with a way to basically point-and-click 'crack' software bought from the App Store, and allow people to send it around freely for jailbroken devices. Some app authors find up to 2/3rds (especially for games) of their users are using pirated copies that weren't paid for. Much fuss and to-do on blogs, news sites, etc. App authors complain to Apple that there needs to be Something Done! Oh noes!
Apple, after a year and a half of turning a blind eye to the jailbreaking scene, suddenly makes an abrupt about-face and says 'Jailbreaking is verboten.'
Now, none of us are in the heads of the Apple folks behind this decision, so we can't say for certain whether the sudden shift is due to the EFF's claims, or Crackulous, or maybe just random whim or signs read in tea leaves in the Apple cafeteria. But the timing and sudden nature of Apple's shift here does make a connection to the Crackulous brouhaha at the least a strong possibility.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright (it least in it's original form) governed the reproduction and distribution only. If you purchase a legally produced copy of the work, then it is then yours to do with as you see fit. Saying that you can't modify software that you've legally purchased is akin to saying you can't doodle in the margins of a book you bought. And no, just because the publisher decided to print "THOU SHALT NOT DOODLE IN THYN BOOK." on the first page doesn't change anything.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
And see that's where it gets a bit hazy, and questionable legally.
I purchased a device that had software on it - or I could have purchased a CD, or even a file. That is, and always has, been purchasing a copy of the object. And THAT is what copyright law allows. It doesn't allow producers to sell "rights to use" something - it allows them the legal right to copy it, and then distribute it as they want (which usually means selling it). Beyond that though they lose control of how you use it. YOU certainly can't copy it again except where copyright law allows via fair use, but you already own that copy and can do with it as you please, without any regard to the original copyright holder because again, that copy has been sold.
Again, copyright law was created primarily when books were what was talked about, and hence they make a perfect analogy. IT DOESN'T MATTER that after the publisher sees that people are ignoring their first page directive not now doodle the book. If they now decide to claim that "You're not really purchasing the book anymore. You're purchasing a license to use it and the pages are just a delivery method.", then they still have just as little (ie, none) capability of saying that you can't doodle in your book. Because when applied sensibly, the "only a license, not a copy" argument is complete and utter bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...it allows them the legal right to copy it, and then distribute it as they want (which usually means selling it)
Emphasis mine.
Software distribution is different than physical distribution of books. I'm not saying I approve of the current status quo, but until it gets changed, they distribute "Software Licenses" not "Software", and part of the License is a non-negotiable agreement as to what you can and cannot do with the software.
Ultimately, if you find their license to be too restrictive, they you need to decide if the restrictions outweigh your desire to have the device. If so, th
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:4, Informative)
A software license requires that both parties know what they are signing up to prior to money changing hands. I'd wager in over 99% of iphone purchases customers have not read and/or understood the legalese, and thus the software licenses are not valid. Without a lawyer, many people would not understand the many possible ramifications of the legalese either. The contracts are also generally invalid because they contain a clause claiming one party (guess which) can change the terms of the contract at any time. If Apple decided to levy a $10000 surcharge on all users with a change in the contract, do you really think that would hold up in a court?
Basically, software licenses aimed at individuals that require consumers to read pages of smallprint prior to purchase are not valid.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:4, Insightful)
Software distribution is different than physical distribution of books. I'm not saying I approve of the current status quo, but until it gets changed, they distribute "Software Licenses" not "Software", and part of the License is a non-negotiable agreement as to what you can and cannot do with the software.
You merely assume this to be the status quo - EULA's have traditionally stood up ratherly poorly in court, to the point of many of them being considered not much more than a "Please do this." from the company that holds no actual legal force. What a license COULD do is grant you additional rights over what standard copyright allows. Restricting what the purchaser can do is stepping out of bounds though.
Ultimately, if you find their license to be too restrictive, they you need to decide if the restrictions outweigh your desire to have the device. If so, then purchase a different phone with different restrictions. If enough people agree with you, Apple will either not sell enough iPhones, or have to change their licensing so as to allow the functionality you desire. It doesn't mean you are allowed to accept the agreement and then ignore it, legally speaking. You can in actuality as long as you don't get caught.
Or I could chose to test the validity of the document in question. Apple doesn't make the law. They, like everyone else, have to live within a certain framework. If that framework doesn't allow them to set such restrictions, then no amount of their temper tantrums will make it so.
Just because you want and iPhone with no restrictions, doesn't mean that they have to sell you one. I want to have sex with various, unnamed celebrity starlets, but that doesn't mean that they have to let me.
Completely and utterly irrelevant and inaccurate analogy. You cannot use a celebrity as you see fit because s/he cannot become you property (and the law doesn't allow that even if they wished to do so). When purchasing things that can be purchased though (and yes, a copy of a work is an item, not a "license to use an item"), the ultimate authority on what can be done with or to that item is the owner. If I buy a book, I can draw on it, shred it, burn it, recycle it, or put it on pedestal and worship it. The publisher nor author have any capability or legal authority to prevent me from doing any of this.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I am. Looks like a sale, quacks like a sale, it's a sale. If it were a license, it would have to be established under ordinary contract law, with all those nasty legal formalities and meetings of the mind and such -- given that neither Apple (based on the Safari for Windows EULA snafu) nor most of the users ("just click Agree and the box goes away") actually reads the thing, it'd be pretty hard to establish that.
Unfortunately, you may be onto something there. According to the 2600 case, it doesn't matter whether the work was sold or not. No one argues that DVDs are licensed rather than sold. Yet the Circuit Court in the 2600 case decided that for a purchaser to circumvent the copy protection to gain access to a copy of a work _which he owned_ was a violation of the DMCA.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
Business classes or Law classes would help you understand that sales neither walk nor quack and will go a long way to clarifying how businesses interact. Like it or not, they are selling licenses and it is perfectly legal. The only times it really has gotten beaten up is when they try to add illegal crap to the license (such as removing First Sale) and trying to prevent me from selling my license to someone else when I don't need it. (See AutoCad)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You would, in fact, not be bound if you erased the wording. Ridiculous? Not really. If I'm sitting at a table agreeing on a contract, they hand me something, I take a pen and cross some things off, say "How about this?" and they say "OK", that's the new contract. This is no different. Do a text substitution and change both buttons to say "I don't agree". There, you didn't agree, but it installed anyways. Replace the whole text with "LOL" and agree to that, because who would disagree with that! Aga
Personal vs Business Use (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that's a very correct interpretation, because what it comes down to is the fact that that software itself, those 1s and 0s, are still physically represented.
Personally, I think anything that can be copied really shouldn't be copyrightable, not necessarily because I like to pirate because you should be able to physically manipulate anything you buy in any way you see fit unless you give up that right through contract.
I think we really need to start re-envisioning things for the modern world. A computer program isn't like a chair, an mp3 isn't like a television, and so on. I think part of the problem is that traditionally, people have built careers on what now can be represented in binary terms and easily transferred to other people, and hence people think they have a right to treating those 1s and 0s like they were chairs or televisions (scarce resources). Music won't end, and computer programs won't stop being written, people just need to adapt to the information age.
Failure to do so will probably result in some kludge of laws that limit our freedom in ridiculous ways.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Funny)
Yes it is...
Microsoft uses both of them to make people feel pain
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
Phones run software. Software is copyrighted. Modifying the software - that is, creating a derivative work - is unauthorized and may well represent a breach of copyright law.
No. Let me help:
Distributing an unauthorized derivative work may well represent a breach of copyright law.
First sale law dictates that I am free to make whatever modifications I like to any software I've bought. The EULA attempts to form a contract with the user, so the actual legal question (IANAL but come on, we've been discussing this with the assistance of the occasional lawyer for many years now) is whether a EULA is binding. My understanding is that this is still very much up in the air. Right now it is, I believe, the fulcrum upon which the Apple vs. Psystar case rests. I think most of us understand that you're not permitted to redistribute someone else's copyrighted material absent the express permission to do so (which is why the GPL only grants freedoms and does not restrict them - at least as compared to unlicensed copyrighted media, if not material released into the public domain. But there I go on a tangent again.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Distributing an unauthorized derivative work may well represent a breach of copyright law."
To me this sounds like "Don't take our software and change it, then give/sell it to others" which is not at all what homebrew development is about. As long as the jailbreak method doesn't distribute a cracked version of the firmware(software?) that the iPhone runs on, and only modifies the current installation, I see no reason that it would violate this clause. My 2cents.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, you never had the freedom to do that in the first place, so how can the GPL restrict a freedom you never had (which is what gp was saying). "at least as compared to unlicensed copyrighted media"
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, Fine,
Um, Guys, It's time to start the iPhone linux distro.
I suggest we call it "Screw you apple" but I'm willing to be voted down on the name.
The logo on the other hand WILL be an apple with a giant screw completely through it on a jaunty angle.
Meet you at sourceforge.
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Informative)
Modifying the software - that is, creating a derivative work - is unauthorized and may well represent a breach of copyright law.
Um, no.
distributing a derivative work that is unauthorized is a breach of copyright law. Making one for yourself is not.
Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Insightful)
..... Because they could potentially make no money off the apps that are installed via jailbreaking. The rest of their reasons are just a smokescreen. Plain and simple.
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can no longer innovate, then it's time to litigate.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nonsense. At the height of it's power Rome built a civilization that the rest of the world (at least it applied to them) couldn't dream of building. Just look at how hard it was for them to keep the barbarians out. The simple fact there was that wealth, culture, and education were part of the resource pool needed to build their society. Brute strength, numbers, and cooperation was needed to tear it down. Rome was strong in the first set needed to build their society but weaker in the resources needed t
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. From the page about the Cycorder app [iphonehacks.com] linked to in TFA:
"The free native iPhone app appears to be much better video recording app than iPhone Video Recorder which costs $19.95. "
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:4, Informative)
Nevermind, looks like the iPhone Video Recorder is also only for jailbroken phones. That's what I get for not reading my own sources.
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:4, Interesting)
Jailbreaking is not just about installing apps not purchased through AppStore. Jailbreaking is currently essential to unlock an iPhone's SIM. Do that, and now the user can move from AT&T to another network. I'd say that's where the real revenue loss is. Yes, there is a lot of money to be made through AppStore, but considering that each app is only a couple bucks, does that really compare to monthly and yearly phone and data minutes used on other networks?
And as an iPod Touch user, I get stuck in the middle. Yes, Jailbreaking does let me install cracked or pirated apps, but honestly, I find that if I like a cracked app, I end up buying it through AppStore anyway. Kind of try-before-you-buy, and Apple is getting my money. And more importantly, Jailbreaking lets me install applications that Apple will NEVER release through AppStore. System extensions like WiFi toggles, cut & paste, and even excellent offline Wikipedia apps like Wiki2Touch really improve usability.
Jailbreaking != Unlocking (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the developer "license" something like $100? Plus, even with a $.99 app at 70%, Apple is still making ~$.30 for providing very little disk space and bandwidth to download it. It all adds up.
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:4, Interesting)
You also get credit card processing. The 30% Apple takes is a fairly good deal when you get into it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can charge anything you want in the app store. Developers have complained though that since the store is so popular that any app being sold for more than 99c quickly sees copies that push the price toward 99c.
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just silly. When a giant corporation like Apple makes a decision, the underlying motive is profit. Always. Hell, even when they do stuff like donate money to charity, they do it because they expect the good will they'll get from doing it to be worth more than they're donating. That's just how big companies operate.
I don't know why they're doing this, but I'm 100% certain they're doing it because they think it'll help them make more money.
That's an oversimplification.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just how big companies operate.
That's actually not true at all. Corporations are collections of people, and within them are coalitions and constituencies just like any other institution. Quite often, you'll have someone that wants a corporation to do something simply because they think it is cool and they really don't care about the profitability or business climate of it. They must justify some action in that regard, to cover their rears, but their mental game has already made the leap that they want to do something with the corporation just because they think it is cool.
So, when a company builds a school somewhere, sponsors a race, hires a speaker who climbed mt everest, invests in some wild technology, or any of the other things that corporations do, they do it because they think it is cool, and then they cover their rears to the shareholders and directors by inventing some elliptical story about profitability.
In fact, to many of the world's top business leaders, the whole point of the corporation is to exist to provide some social order and some revenue so that it can fund the private ambitions of its leaders. I mean, come on, do you really think if IBM funds something like a big art exhibit, they really sincerely think that doing so will yield a return? No, they do it because the board of IBM likes art, and that's that.
It's good to be a CEO.
Re:That's an oversimplification.. (Score:4, Interesting)
What a laugh. I havent met a CEO yet who didn't think he was improving / changing the world. CEOs are some of the most deluded people you could support/work with (followed closely by dentists). Of course they think they are a maverick leader who will bring change to the world, and hey, if their pockets get lined on the way, so much the better! The private ambitions of a corporations leaders is to make money for themselves. When they get more money than they can spend, and plenty of revenue streams and projects to fund their future (otherwise known as "security") then of course they start doing crazy things to blow the companies/their money.
Still does not mean they are being altruistic, they just have more money than they know really what to do with.
Id much rather have the profits from all these large corporations redistributed equally to all the workers. I think the masses are much more altruistic as a whole than individual ceos, or even their combined board.
Bottom line, they give more because they have more. They fund crazy things because they have more "crazy" disposable income than anyone else. Of course it is good to be a CEO, for the CEO...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pardon my French, but f***ing nonsense. They have already MADE their money by selling you the un-jail-broken piece of crap in the first place. It is MY choice what or what not to put on MY device that I have paid for, and if I have to modify the underlying firmware to do so, I will.
Buying an iPhone does not violate my freedom of choice to decide what I do with it, neither does it obligate me to ONLY ever buy software from Apple.
You might as well have printer manufacturers telling people it is illegal to use
Re:Jail (Score:4, Informative)
The term "jailbreaking" comes from the term "chroot jail". It's not just pejorative nonsense like "piracy".
Apple Lock-in... (Score:4, Insightful)
When marketing and Reality Distortion (tm) fails, call in the jackbooted thugs and sue the dissidents into submission.
This, more than anything, is why Apple will never get one coin from my wallet.
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:5, Insightful)
He refuses to reward the company by purchasing their products because of their business tactics.
Why does that preclude him from using code that Apple has given away?
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it looks hypocritical to accept free stuff from the company while boycotting products.
Only if you frame it that way. You can accept their freedom-friendly offerings while rejecting the anti-freedom products without a logical disconnect.
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:4, Insightful)
So what is this apple code that you speak of?
Be sure to name something that wasn't first created by someone else and then taken over by Apple later.
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:5, Insightful)
It may look hypocritical to you, but it isn't. It is also not our fault apple contributed a couple of FLOSS projects, every major company has done that, and I don't really think it should make them immune to criticism or boycott that's just ridiculous.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was considering buying Apple products. Two years ago, I told my wife that when her laptop (with Windows XP) died, I was going to get her an Apple. Her laptop still survives, but my plan now is to get her an Asus and put Linux on it. Not because of any advances Linux has made in the past two years, but because of Apple's recent practices.
However, I appreciate the work they have done that has improved Konqueror, and use it regularly.
Hehehe (Score:5, Funny)
One need only transpose Apple's arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's because car analogies are simply more attractive and effective than other types of analogy. In that sense, you can think of a car analogy as a Porsche 911 Carrera and all other types of analogy as a 1973 AMC Gremlin.
And so it begins (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is the new Microsoft.
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft is on top and we are not about to root for them. Oh, and they do actually try to make a quality product, but is that an inherent feature of Apple computer, or simply a result of being #2? (heh heh) Apple has style, which suckers a lot of people in. One could rant back and forth all day about their quality or lack thereof, but I will only say that Apple has a long history of burying information inconvenient to them, and of abusing and disregarding
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Informative)
Begins!? Apple is the only major vendor to have been actively boycotted by the FSF for their efforts to obstruct freedom, force lock-in and undermine competition. Even Microsoft[*] hasn't managed to reach that high water mark. Of course, Apple has come a long way since then, and many of our younger readers may not even remember what they were like at their worst. ("Look-and-Feel" anyone?) Still, those of us who remember the bad old Apple keep a wary eye on the new-and-(mostly-)improved Apple.
[*] FSF members may not run MS OSes, but they do actively support building software to run under MS OSes, and will even accept patches to help their software run better on MS OSes.
Re:And so it begins (Score:4, Informative)
Exhibit A: CUPS [cups.org]. Apple owns it. Nothing bad has happened. In fact it has worked so well that I've been using free gutenberg printer drivers for a laser printer that Apple stopped supporting in Leopard. Works fine.
Exhibit B: Webkit [webkit.org]. Apple forked khtml and now there are several browsers for windows [google.com], linux [twotoasts.de] browsers are based off it. Nothing bad has happened, and I think we can all agree that webkit is a darn fast browser engine.
Exhibit C: Darwin [apple.com] is open source. That's right, the OS X operating system is open source and released by Apple. Granted, the window manager (quartz) is not, nor are a lot of the apps (like the Finder), but you can always use X11, which btw, apple provides also.
So, it's a little disingenuous to portray Apple as completely proprietary: How many open source projects does Microsoft participate in? Yes I agree that Apple does try to lock you into their hardware, and that sucks, but they're not being completely evil.
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of Apple's webkit enhancements are now proprietary and not submitted back. ⦠Further, the little they do submit back has given them leverage to control the package against public interest: I.e. Webkit rejected support for Ogg/Theora+Vorbis citing Apple. (Apple is a holder of MPEG LA licensed patents).
Go check the gcc mailing list archives. No apple employee is permitted to come in contact with any GPLv3 licensed source code, they had to unsubscribe from GCC-patches mailing lists and have requests people not send patches to the main gcc mailing list.
Apple is an exploiter of free software. Sometimes giving back is in their interest, but don't let that mislead you into thinking that they are a supporter.
Re:And so it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
Much of Apple's webkit enhancements are now proprietary and not submitted back
Uh... what?
Unless I'm mistaken, Dave Hyatt et. al. commit their changes to the publicly available WebKit source. The nightlies reflect the most recent version of WebKit.
That wasn't the bit of your post that worried me though. The bit that worried me was this:
Apple is an exploiter of free software. Sometimes giving back is in their interest, but don't let that mislead you into thinking that they are a supporter.
See that alone indicates to me that you don't understand the concept of free software. Free software *can't* be exploited; that's its nature.
What you (and others) want is for Apple to be forced into contributing towards features that you want in a manner that you approve of. Problem is, just as the GCC team doesn't have to bow to Apple's will when it comes to licensing or (previously) architecture focus, neither do they have to bow to yours w/ regards to Ogg support.
And you know what? That's completely fine.
The licenses for the software they use allow that. Now you can (and may) argue that the creators of the software shouldn't have chosen the licenses they did -- but that's a whole other argument. As it stands, Apple uses open source software in a manner completely in line with the license, exceeds their legal obligations, and pays multiple developers to work on code which is then released under an open source license. That sounds like support to me.
Mostly Improved? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple has improved it's products, but when it comes to lock-in they are still (and always have been) the kings.
Part of it is a desire for 100% control of the platform. This has allowed them to achieve things microsoft can not (I've yet to see a windows PC that suspends or hibernates as well as any mac--yes macs hibernate, it's just perfectly invisible--unplug or yank your battery while it's suspended sometime).
IBM wanted to lock down the PC the way Apple did the Mac--Apple just played more tricks. If IBM
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember well the 'special' tools required to open a Mac's case.
Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has never been as litigious as Apple. Apple may make vastly overwhelmingly superior products to MS, but they have also always been more evil.
The only way Apple can become the new Microsoft, is if they stop suing people so much, and also make their stuff crash a lot more often. As things are right now, there's just no comparison. The two companies' suckiness are totally different.
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has long been far WORSE than MS. The difference, of course, is that your life is extremely unlikely to be impacted by avoiding Apple's products.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So who's the old Microsoft? IBM?
The one thing Microsoft does *not* have a monopoly on, is being a tech company that's not afraid to do or say something that in the long run is immoral. There are plenty of them. Doesn't mean they're all Microsoft.
Remember kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because something right doesn't mean it is legal.
Re:Remember kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong.
Also, don't get caught.
Duh (Score:3, Funny)
What next, Apple claims that water is wet?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course breaking out of jail isn't legal.
Until relatively recently, there was no punishment for escaping jail in Denmark. Of course you weren't allowed to break any other laws in the process, which could be hard to achieve.
Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)
First off, this is coming now not because of some perceived "recent flood of iPhone cracked applications," but because the Copyright Office asked for exemption proposals to the DCMA on December 28, 2008, and the EFF filed one for jailbreaking. RTFA and RTFlegalbrief.
Second, while not effectively the same, what Apple is doing is trying to prevent jailbreaking from being ruled legal, not trying to have it ruled illegal. Being a non-lawyer, I'd at first say this is the same thing, but it is different. Just because something isn't ruled explicitly legal doesn't make it illegal, but would definitely help if some day someone wanted to sue over a jailbreak.
Engadget has a nice write-up on this from someone who has legal training if the three or four of you out there who don't just read the summary and post would like another perspective - http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/13/apple-and-eff-spar-over-iphone-jailbreaking-and-the-dmca// [engadget.com]
Playing devil's advocate here... (Score:5, Insightful)
So Apple is doing this to protect its income for apps on the iPhone store. That also means it is protecting the income of application *developers* who sell through the iPhone store. Sure, they could try to sell apps only for jailbroken phones, but with all the gray areas around it legally (at least in the public's eye) and with the immense ease of use of the iPhone store (click and download right now!), they would much rather go Apple's route. Right? So Apple could be covering its ass, making sure they don't get attacked from iPhone developers who have trekked through the process to make "legit" apps but could be someday losing out to jailbroken competitors.
Or else it's just about the money.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Playing devil's advocate here... (Score:4, Insightful)
However they are doing that at the expense of developers who don't sell or don't want to sell through the iPhone store, and at the expense of iPhone owners who are deprived of using the apps they want.
Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another company taking the high road of suing their customers for profit!
But will they sue Wozniak? (Score:3, Informative)
The Woz apparently has a jailbroken Iphone and has done it for others:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/23/ [viddler.com]
they plan on going after him? Speaking of which, how much of apple does he own?
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
An Honest Question (Score:5, Insightful)
How is jailbreaking an iPhone different from removing DRM from a game?
Am I wrong that Jailbreaking an iPhone simply allows you to use more applications on it?
Is this not "Fair Use?"
Is it true that there are free, non-stolen programs that wouldn't normally run on an iPhone without it being Jailbroken?
Or is Jailbreaking simply a means to running pirated iPhone apps?
Re:An Honest Question (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all nuances. Provided that modifying the software on your own device is considered fair use (and I would presume that unless you are violating something else like FCC regs it is), then you - personally - are not guilty of violating the DMCA. However, anyone who helps you is violating the DMCA. The DMCA is an odd law in that it specifically preserves the right to fair use, while making it illegal to assist anyone in exercising fair use.
In this way it is the same as DVD decryption software: legal to decrypt your disc for fair use (including standard playback in licensed players and copying for backup or format shifting), not legal to sell or traffic in the software or any instructions on how to do so.
I don't own an iPhone, primarily because the applications - especially the free (beer and speech) ones - are far more limited than for the wmobile market, and because I have an investment in wmobile software I would have to abandon if I switch. That and the iPhone can't do GPS if you're out of cell service (or couldn't as of 4 months ago when I upgraded my phone)...and that's where I need it the most.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Jailbreaking an iPhone isn't really much different than removing the DRM from a game that you own. But neither one is ethically problematic (although it might be illegal due to silly laws). With the game, it becomes wrong when you then start distributing the cracked version to people who haven't purchased it and who don't rightfully own it.
Jailbreaking on the iPhones historically (a long 15 month history) has been about running software without Apple's approval. The jailbreaking scene came into being well b
Is this a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is about one thing: control.
Mac World (Score:4, Funny)
I've always been a PC at heart.
Not like the rest, the others. Everyone around me. I was at odds with my society and knew it early since birth. Unlike them, I did not "Think Different!"--the mantra of the Macs around me, the phrase on all the billboards in the city that served as a reminder to its citizenry. Sameness pervaded the essence of my being and no amount of self-conditioning I did could change that. Eventually, I gave up and isolated myself emotionally from society.
I gaze at the faces going by, the white earphones contrasting their black turtlenecks, connecting their ears to their pockets, their blank faces engrossed in hip Indie rock music and various garage bands. I envied them for their perfection against my flaws and my compulsive nature to expand, to burden my life with troubles instead of remaining, like them, simple and easy to deal with. The grandest of virtues, simplicity... the philosophy by our loyal benefactor Steve Jobs, who descended from the heavens, creating the Earth, the iron, the wind and the rain. Steve Jobs, who defined the parameters of existence, the one who set about the patterns of reality, the constants, the variables. He who made gravity, electromagnetic energy, and shaped atomic structures and brought forth motion. From these things, he crafted the elements, processed them, refined them, and from these things engineered Apple products through the purity of his mind. Each Apple product was individually crafted by his own hands with the programming code used to run each device having being compiled in his brain and uploaded to each device telepathically, breathing life and perfection into each and every unit.
Except, it seems, for me, for I was not among the many. I was a PC. They were Macs. I've always been a cold, stiff person. I got by, disguising myself by keeping my non-Ipod music player safely out of sight, which I use because of my depraved nature demanding more functionality than the simple and easy-to-use Ipods have to offer... In the safety of my own home, behind locked doors, I ran a Forbidden, a contraband computer from more depraved, earlier days that was not given the love and blessing of being birthed by Steve Jobs. I dual booted, out of the great sin of curiosity-- curiosity, a shameful value of a PC, as curiosity has no place where simplicity matters most--using two of the great unutterable blasphemies-- something called "Windows Vista" and something else called "Linux." Although, as I mentioned before, although my tendency to be a PC and towards conformity has always been inherent to me, I was truly transformed when I found these old things in a hidden cache of computer parts predating The Purging. Perhaps the greatest sin of all, the single evil that, if discovered, would damn me forever, was the fact that my mouse had more than one button.
As I walked on among the Macs on the streets, passing the Starbuckses as I went along, I wondered how it all came to this. I glanced at The Holy Marks on the foreheads as the people wandered down the streets, the Bitten Apple tattooed on all our of us at birth, and wondered if, perhaps, there could be something more to life. But again, this was a PC's thought, and not, like everyone elses', a Mac's. We were to hold ourselves to the philosophy of Steve Jobs--so as his products were designed for idiots, so too were we to be idiots. But I was not a Mac--I was not an idiot. I was simply too complicated to be a worthwhile person.
Nature called. I found a nearby public iPoo--squeaky clean and sparkly white, things weren't all bad--and let myself go, expelling the waste that had accumulated inside me. After relieving myself and committing the overly-complicated and thus illegal act of wiping my ass (I did not flush as iPoos, designed to be idiot-proof, did not flush) I left and once again wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping to find some meaning in a world where I simply did not belong, a world where if my true nature was discovered, I would be endlessly persecuted by smug, self-righteous sons of bitches.
A simpler solution (Score:4, Funny)
you can just not buy apple, and they can shove their locked-in product up their butt, until they get their lesson.
New Apple ad... (Score:5, Funny)
"Want to get sued? There's an app for that."
--
Toro }B^>
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright can't trump OWNERSHIP (Score:4, Insightful)
I buy an iphone. I own it. How can Apple tell me what to do with it after I hand over my cash and have receipt in hand?
The window sign says... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's like bitching that Toyota will sue you if you put one in. Sure, they can rule there warranty null and void, but that's all they can do.
How many things do you sue that don't have transparency? I would bet a lot.
Re:This is like bitching and moaning that... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's like Toyota suing you if you tried to make your own NOx kit for your own use.
If monkeying around voids the warranty, fine. If monkeying around is outlawed...then only outlaws will have monkeys...er. um. wait.
Re:This is like bitching and moaning that... (Score:4, Insightful)
The normal demographic buys the iPhone, signs the AT&T contract, and shops at iTunes and the App Store, all as Steve Jobs intended when he created the world.* Only true geeks buy iPhones to crack them, and we know that Apple doesn't care that much about the true geek community. In other words, wrong answer on the motive, although the advice to not buy an iPhone if it isn't what you want is spot on (yeah, it's only common sense, but that's getting darn rare nowadays).
Disclaimer: I have an iPhone, an iPod, and a Macintosh (it sits near one of the Ubuntu computers and gets used now and then). I do, however, generate my own reality distortion field, and don't use Jobs'.
*Yeah, I know Steve didn't really do it, and God only thinks he's Steve Jobs.
Re:As someone who's developed apps for the iPhone. (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people program for a living. Controversial I know.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If I buy software and sell you an illegal copy, you have then purchased software illegally.
Just because you may not have known it was an illegal copy isn't necessarily a defense, just ask the RIAA. I seem to recall cases of people subscribing to those all-you-can-download 'services' that turned out to be piracy groups.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How does one purchase software illegally? I mean, if you've purchased it, it's not illegal.
You must be very innocent, or very stupid.
Nowadays people just torrent, but in the old days there were places where you could go in person and buy software for a fraction of its official price. Software piracy predates the Internet.
In my city (Warsaw) there was once a big marketplace on an abandoned sports stadium where people would trade in various illegal goods, like counterfeit clothes, pirated software, alcohol and cigarettes without excise tax, and even post-Soviet weapons. It wasn't the only place lik