EU Plans To Make Apple, Adobe and Others Open Up 389
FlorianMueller writes "After pursuing Microsoft and Intel, European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes is now preparing an initiative that could have an even greater impact on the IT industry: a European interoperability law that will affect not only companies found dominant in a market but all 'significant' players. In a recent interview, Mrs. Kroes mentioned Apple. Nokia, RIM and Adobe would be other examples. All significant market players would have to provide access to interfaces and data formats, with pricing constraints considered 'likely' by the commissioner. Her objective: 'Any kind of IT product should be able to communicate with any type of service in the future.' The process may take a few years, but key decisions on the substance of the bill may already be made later this year."
What I'd Like to Know (Score:4, Interesting)
EU rules would also affect the US market (Score:5, Informative)
The EU can't formally legislate on what companies are allowed to do in the US market, but in practical terms, we're talking about a global market for IT products and (especially) Internet-based services. If vendors wanted to apply a different set of openness and interoperability standards in the US than in the EU, they would have to make a lot of efforts to keep the markets separated. They can do it, such as by refusing connections from certain sets of IP addresses, but it would be a major hassle. If many vendors did so, lawmakers in the US would also take a closer look and might consider a similar initiative to benefit customers in their own country.
Concerning Microsoft, the new law isn't even needed for them because they were already subjected to two antitrust proceedings in the EU on the grounds of being found dominant. More importantly, I'm not aware of them treating the US market any differently concerning interoperability with Samba than they treat the EU, even though it was only a European ruling.
The biggest benefit of the envisioned new EU law is that similar rules would also have to be respected by companies who may just not be close enough to a monopolist so that antitrust law can deal with them, but who are powerful enough (such as Apple, Adobe etc.) that it's a problem if they get away with too closed an approach. I don't mean to blame those companies for simply trying to maximize shareholder value or for adhering to certain closed philosophies -- but if antitrust law can't change their behavior, a new instrument is needed.
Re:What I'd Like to Know (Score:4, Informative)
Apple's customers already do.
Apple's formats:
Audio: AAC (open) .mbox (open) .docx for example)
Video: H.264 (open)
Mail:
Address book: vcard (open)
Calendar: ics (open) (and Apple provide open source calendar server and address book servers based on WebDAV)
Office apps: documented XML, similar to Open Office's format (very easy and non-DMCA/non-illegal etc to write a converter, lots of documentation on how the format works, unlike
Screenshot format: png (open)
Networking protocols: NFS, SMB, AFP, Bonjour (Zeroconf), FTP, sFTP
HTML engine: Webkit (open)
Disk drive format: HFS+ (open)
OS core: Darwin, default shell is bash (open).
Printing system: CUPS, postscript, PDF
And while it't not open, Snow Leopard supports Exchange servers out of the box, if you want to play in a Windows environment.
While the Apple experience is very vertically integrated, if you really want to move your data in or out, you can do so very easily. For example, if you decided that you wanted to change all your documents to Open Office formats you could do so. If you no longer wanted to use Mail.app for your email all your messages are in .mbox format and are easily portable to any other system (unlike, for example, Outlook's .pst format).
I know it is heresy to even suggest it on slashdot, but as an Apple user you already enjoy a lot of openness and interoperability on the desktop. All the faff about the iPhone and iPad masks that, it seems.
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screenshot default is .tiff. Which has been around in the print world for a really, really long time.
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Command+Shift+3, I just pressed it. PNG file dropped on desktop.
It's a png default in 10.5 and 10.6. In 10.4 I believe it was PDF briefly (since it just gave you whatever was in the Quartz Composer, since it all works via pdf behind the scenes), and early on in OS X's life it was tiff.
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Re:What I'd Like to Know (Score:5, Insightful)
Audio: WMA (open)
Video: WMV (open)
Mail:
Address book:
Office apps:
OS API:
OS API: Win32 (open, shared source)
OS core: NT (open, shared source)
Hell, why stop there? Everything is open if you can buy it! Did you know that Google's search engine is also open? You just need to afford to buy Google Inc.
Re:What I'd Like to Know (Score:4, Informative)
"Revision history:
02/19/2010 - 1.0 - Major - Initial Availability"
It's good that it is finally documented, but it has been documented since February this year. Nice to finally see it opened up after all these years.
So, which "many" of Apple's formats that I listed are restricted? Note that Apple does not own or control H.264 or AAC. These are open in the same way mp3 or GSM, or any number of patented but documented formats are.
I guess we can add .pst to the list now, as of February 2010.
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The Mac has a good degree of openness. However, that doesn't seem to be Apple's strategic direction. The
idea that the "platform of the future" could be something that's entirely under Steve's thumb is probably
an idea that doesn't sit well int he EU. It might have even been the thing that triggered this idea.
Between Adobe and Apple, I could see why EU regulators might want to stop the madness.
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This is true - it is clear that Apple would like you to use an iPhone, with a Mac, with an iPad for the lounge etc, but it does not force you if you want to leave by using totally awkward and non-open formats.
If you want out of Outlook, you are in for a world of hurt - the .pst is a pain in the ass. If you want out of Mail.app, you just take your .mbox files to a new client on a new OS.
The App Store though, is a whole different ball game. The only thing I can see the EU being able to enforce is the ability
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Pretty much yes. But you know ahead of time how much is costs to get in. You're not paying for your drinks to be served in a glass you can only hold in that bar using a special glove, though. You're paying for the atmosphere of the bar.
If I go to a fancy bar where the drinks cost more than they do at the liquor store, I want a particular beer to taste the same as the $2 bottle I can buy on the store and drink at home.
The fact that Apple uses formats that allow interoperability is a *good* thing. It allows m
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Draughty in the bathroom when you go in is it?
H.264 is an open standard. A patented one, but it is by its very definition, open. So is Flash by the way, and GSM, and mp3, and many other open formats.
Re:What I'd Like to Know (Score:5, Insightful)
It's at best disingenuous to call a patent-encumbered file format "open". Yes, it is open insofar as it is documented, and if the designers decided to withhold licenses, could *eventually* be implemented by someone to get your data out of it, but that's not open in the same way as, for example, JPEG baseline is open. The difference is that the JPEG folks started out trying to create an open standard, whereas the H.264 folks started out trying to develop a proprietary codec, then opened up only the minimum amount they could get away with and still get adoption.
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I did mention it: Apple uses HFS+, which is open source.
Apple provides read-only HFS+ drivers for Windows XP, Vista and 7 with boot camp (you can install these drivers using the Mac system's install DVD from within windows.
There are just few projects that have bothered to write a driver for it, since it is almost unheard of to use HFS+ outside of a Mac environment (and then you usually just get around it by sharing the Mac drive via SMB or NFS or something).
There are commercial tools that have built in HFS+
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In what way is posting factual information being "apologist".
Facts are facts.
"I'm sorry, Apple uses open formats!"
Re:What I'd Like to Know (Score:4, Interesting)
By your definition, so does Microsoft.
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Will the customers of Apple and Microsoft in the USA also benefit from openness and interoperability?
No idea... but employees at Google will. (sorry couldn't help it)
Does it work the other way around as well? (Score:2)
Do the various "services" have to be able to communicate with any kind of "IT product"?
Interoperability goes both ways (Score:2, Insightful)
Do the various "services" have to be able to communicate with any kind of "IT product"?
I haven't asked the commissioner but even without doing so I have no doubt that she meant this both ways. Interoperability goes both ways. The only problem is that obviously some companies in the industry want it as a one-way street: others have to open up, they stay closed. I can't imagine a piece of legislation would be one-way. Even if some companies tried to lobby for one-way rules, I don't think they'd get very far.
What's more likely is that the rules may only apply to certain segments of the diverse I
Great, so now we need massive antena. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great, so now we need massive antena. (Score:4, Insightful)
Software Defined Radio. [wikipedia.org]
It is the future.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does that even mean?
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They're just trying to make sure that when Skynet is launched, the GPS in your iPhone can activated so you can be properly located. You know, so they can replace your faulty antenna.
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You call that an antenna?
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It means they either don't know what they are talking about or want wording sufficiently vague that they can make any demand they feel like. Probably a little of both in my opinion actually.
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Such as?
Frickin' great (Score:5, Insightful)
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where were you 5 years ago?
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Voting for Harry Browne, because Tweddledee and Tweedledum (Bush and Kerry) sucked.
Android, Blackberry, etc apps on Apple App Store (Score:2)
--
Perpenso Calc [perpenso.com] for iPhone. Classic Scientific and HEX functionality plus RPN, fractions, complex numbers, dotted quads, 32/64-bit signed/unsigned bitwise operations, UTF-8, IEEE FP decode, and RGB decode with color preview.
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That's never going to happen. If that is what they mean by interoperability...
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So, I assume that if that is the case, the EU will also force Ford to sell Chrysler's cars on their lots, and force Nike to sell Adidas in the Nike store.
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I have to admit that the thought of Android, Blackberry, etc apps on Apple's App Store would be interesting. ;-)
Emulation could make it happen, in principle at least.
I'm not referring to running Adroid, BlackBerry, etc apps on an iPhone. I'm just thinking about the Apple App Store becoming a cross platform store. The users sets a filter for their device and then native apps for their device are shown.
--
Perpenso Calc [perpenso.com] for iPhone. Classic Scientific and HEX functionality plus RPN, fractions, complex numbers, dotted quads, 32/64-bit signed/unsigned bitwise operations, UTF-8, IEEE FP decode, and RGB decode with color preview.
iTunes on Linux? (Score:2)
I'm against DRM in general, but the reality of my situation is that I have a ton of DRM'ed songs and videos bought from iTMS.
I would willingly pay $30 to get a Linux-based player for this content.
I wonder if that could happen under this plan?
Apple can remove DRM from your songs ... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm against DRM in general, but the reality of my situation is that I have a ton of DRM'ed songs and videos bought from iTMS.
I would willingly pay $30 to get a Linux-based player for this content.
I wonder if that could happen under this plan?
My understanding is that the Apple iTunes Store can remove DRM from old 128 kbps purchases if you upgrade them to the 256 kbps versions currently being sold. I don't think Apple is selling songs with DRM any more.
--
Perpenso Calc [perpenso.com] for iPhone. Classic Scientific and HEX functionality plus RPN, fractions, complex numbers, dotted quads, 32/64-bit signed/unsigned bitwise operations, UTF-8, IEEE FP decode, and RGB decode with color preview.
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Wow, if that's true, that's wonderful. Do you know if there's a way to tell iTunes that you want to purchase, in one fell swoop, a non-DRM version of every one of the songs for which you only have a DRM'ed version?
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At least for the songs, you should be pay iTunes (again) to get the songs with DRM removed. I think it's like $.49/song which, if you have a ton of songs, is probably well over $30 but it would mean that you would have a Linux player for that content today.
How about graphics cards? (Score:2)
If this ends up being applied to device drivers, it could be great news for the hard working FOSS coders working on drivers for graphics cards and other hardware under Linux and the other open OSes.
Opening up.. (Score:2)
Forcing companies to open up their proprietary protocols while certainly a step in the right direction, probably isn't enough and will almost certainly be abused...
Consider this, a company brings out product using a proprietary protocol or format...
They are forced to release the documentation, but they do so slowly, once the documentation is out the format is (intentionally) extremely complex and takes a long time for anyone else to get very far in implementing it.. Eventually flaws in the documentation ar
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The government shouldn't force a company to support certain standards by making other formats illegal, what they should do is impose certain open formats/standards on government IT operations, and then companies can choose whether or not to support those standards, and then as a result of that support be able to sell their product to the government.
Governments are generally large enough customers that by adopting something internally, it will create a significant incentive for the market to follow.
Which companies won't do it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Which companies won't do it? (Score:4, Informative)
EU is a very big market, bigger then US in fact. It's not something that is easy to dismiss for any multinational corp.
What would this mean? (Score:2, Interesting)
Again Eu saving our butts (Score:2)
Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hilarious how many see this as an "attack on free market".
Let me run a few facts down through your skulls:
1. There is no free market for IT goods referred to in the statement. The market that exists is heavily controlled and regulated, essentially being a monopoly market on per-product basis, or interconnected market where vendor uses monopoly control over one aspect of the market to openly destroy freeness in another market.
2. Neelie Kroes is probably the most pro-free market person you will find in EU. It's more of her life's philosophy then just a law enforcement on some level.
3. Suggestions include OPENING the CLOSED MARKET, to make it... that's right, more OPEN!
So do share, in what way is this "evil EU abusing US companies by closing free market"? I can see this being "good EU abusing evil US companies who like to close market to competition by forcing them to actually compete", but to actually claim the exact opposite, you have to either be ignorant, stupid, or have a deep vested interest in status quo.
Re:Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly!
This is good news and it goes to the heart of the treaty of Rome - that competition is a fundamental part of the EU, and the EU will move mountains to promote it. I suspect this will be in the form of a very long winded piece of guidance regulation that sits in parallel with Art 81. As someone who has read, reread and read again EU competition regulations and their directives from an academic point of view and professional one, it is mightily refreshing to finally see the EU do what I was told it did well... fight concerted practice and actively promote competition where the market fails.
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Historically, there have been various definitions of "free market" in the first place, so don't assume that you and GP share it. The most common one these days is indeed "free from regulation", as you describe, but another fairly prominent one is "free to compete", which implies outside intervention to prevent anti-competitive practices.
in other news, a new line of abacus on market (Score:3, Funny)
this version will be a binary abacus, and Bull Group will offer it as an upgrade to its now-outlawed mainframes and servers.
this is envisioned to be the last generation of "computational" equipment availiable in the EU.
NOT great news (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that you don't have to use Apple products don't you? The main way to open up competition is to kill software patents and weaken copyrights.
When government fucks with free markets, the customer loses, always.
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I'm stuck in the position with agreeing with the fact that no, Apple isn't abusing FLOSS, and disagreeing with your libertarian nonsense.
You do realize sometimes with the Free Market, the customer's largely not in a leverage point due to inelasticity of most goods? Food, housing, fuel, etc?
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You're talking about HEAVILY REGULATED goods and services.
I do want either standards to be enforced (not a good first idea, avoidable) or that file/protocol/.. specifications to be open and free by law - seems to be ideal and dismisses the need for standards enforcement. I applaud that, if that's really what they want.
BUT... price controls don't work as advertized. Never did, never will. They distort and hurt everyone except politicians who don't and will never know what they're doing.
Leave Microsoft and th
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Yes you're right but at the same time, price-fixing ("pricing constraints") is not going to fix the problem. All it does is create shortages (because businessmen run-away from industries that lose money). See the Soviet Union and the rampant food shortages they had. The EU seems to be copying the same idea for the computer industry, and it won't work any better.
"Former Soviet apparatchiks feel at home in the 'Yevropeyskiy Soyuz' (EU in russian)"
EU MEP Hannan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl-amBxz-to [youtube.com]
Th
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I don't know.
This is a neat headline and all but until there's a bill that describes what's being regulated how and why, I'm going to really hold judgment.
Some regulations are lousy, but that doesn't make regulation of industry or the markets lousy itself.
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Consumers have more computer choice now than they had in 1995 or 2000.
You really think so? I'd say we have less choice now than in either of those years, although the choices we have now are more accessible from a consumer viewpoint. I will agree that the dominant (and ascending) player in 1995 and 2000 is waning, and that's a good thing.
Re:NOT great news (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone needs to eat, but demand for any particular set of food products is generally not inelastic - there's no cartel keeping people from substituting butter for margarine.
Actually, there historically was such a cartel. When margarine first came out, it was illegal in many states in the US to sell yellow colored margarine because dairy lobbies felt that yellow margarine looked too much like butter. Consequently, if you wanted yellow margarine, you had to buy a yellow coloring pack and mix it in.
Most of those restrictions were phased out or ignored after World War 2.
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Apart from when the consumer wins.
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There is one obvious exception here.
Price discrimination should be certainly banned in certain circumstances. The most obvious example is Windows and Office.
A dominant vendor should not be able to use price discrimination to coerce the rest of the market.
Re:NOT great news (Score:4, Funny)
It's like giving crack to kids, that's why.
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Price controls is a red herring - the choice is already reduced. In many cases you don't have access to interface documentation etc at all.
What they are now saying is that in the majority of cases you will have access to interface documentation. And BTW the company won't be able to circumvent the law by charging you 400million per API.
Price controls are an irrelevant to the real issue - no more expensive proprietary lock-ins, reducing choice, stifling business, with the ultimate result of the consumer losin
Re:NOT great news (Score:5, Insightful)
When government fucks with free markets, the customer loses, always.
Well, except in the case of energy regulation, every state that has deregulated has instantly had massive price spikes (or are these good for the consumer?)... and insurance where the companies kick you out as soon as you file claims unless regulated.
The US government usually asks the market players to regulate themselves and hopes that works (think of movie ratings). It is only after the players show they have no interest in a fair market that it gets regulated.
Re:NOT great news (Score:4, Insightful)
The energy sector deregulation is a bad example, because it's not a case of the government going in and messing with a free market, it's with them taking something very far from a free market and trying to turn it into one overnight.
Anyways, the way the world works, there's really no such thing as a free market, and across various industries I think that various levels of "free market" ideals make sense. For a utility like energy or water it doesn't make sense for many reasons. As is usually the case, ideologues screaming for one side or the other tend to drown out the useful discussion we should be having about the middle ground, and really dumb decisions end up being made.
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You forgot to mention blackouts from power companies overloading the grid by trying to treat electricity as a commodity on a grid that was not designed to handle electricity as a commodity.
Why is the parent a troll? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is the parent post modded troll? I'm sorry, but "troll" is not a substitute for "holds an opinion opposite to me".
The parent is entirely factually correct, and is talking about the very heart and idea of OSS: if you release something under the BSD licence, anyone can use it. If you release something under the GPL, anyone can use it as long as they follow the licence. So, when Apple uses BSD and GPL code, somehow it is "abuse"? Come on! You are either for the idea of OSS, or you are against it. You *cannot* be "oh, well, I love OSS, but Apple is not allowed to use any BSD code and get rich off it! That's just not allowed, but other companies can use BSD code since it is open source."
This also doesn't address the benefits the OSS community has seen from Apple. Far from being an "abuser" Apple has contributed an enormous amount to OSS - isn't that one of the benefits of a large entity getting involved in the community: provision of resources? Companies like IBM, Apple, Red Hat, Mozilla Foundation are promoting open source. You can't turn around and say "I don't like Apple, so they are abusing OSS!"
If you really hate them that much, write your own OSS code and release it under a modified BSD licence that permits anyone except Apple to use it.
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Why is the parent post modded troll?
Because he's trying to turn an issue of morality into one of legality just so his favorite company gets in the clear.
To make an analogy to a company Slashdot is less obsessive about, it's similar to when IBM asserted its patents against Open Source: it was allowed by law, but that didn't mean "biting the hand that feed them" with their patent portfolio wasn't morally objectionable.
Same with Apple, the OP argued that using F/OSS to develop an entirely closed ecosystem was inmoral regardless of the legalities
Re:NOT great news (Score:5, Interesting)
Government fucking with free markets is not as bad as a single company becoming too powerful and gaining the ability to fuck with the market...
If you can lock sufficient numbers of customers in to your proprietary products, such that it is unreasonably costly and/or damaging to switch away then the market is far from free. It is simply controlled by a large company instead of the government. Competition becomes extremely limited in such situations, competitors have an unfair burden of having to reverse engineer proprietary formats and protocols, and are always playing catch up to the market leader. The end result is that it's simply not commercially viable to compete with an entrenched player, so the competition either gives up or moves into niche markets.
It's like playing strategy games, once you're past a certain point your resources outstrip the opposition so badly that barring a colossal screwup on your part, your victory is inevitable.
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How is Apple an "abuser" of open technology?
Because... because... uh... Slashdot keeps posting stories about how they reject apps!
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When government fucks with free markets, the customer loses, always.
No. They don't. I like my strawberry tart without so much rat in it.
Considering Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", President Theodore Roosevelt considered Sinclair a "crackpot" and wrote to William Allen White, "I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth." Roosevelt however did sent two investigators to appease public outcry. Labor Commissioner Charles P. N
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I'm throwing a BS penalty flag.
First Infraction: If we extend your logic to all regulations, we shouldn't have police either. They can't prevent every crime, the system will be gamed and people will think the government is "watching out" for them. In reality, consumers are anything but complacent even with the regulation we do have. Google "Product Review".
Second Infraction: That filthy restaurant in your scenario would shut down for a week after news got out, change the signs, change the name of the compan
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You can get Xcode for free, including the GCC compiler.
You can get *all* the tools for free, and test on the iPhone simulator without paying a dime. You only need to pay the $99 if you want to deploy your code onto a physical iPhone (and from there, onto the app store).
Developing for OS X iteslf (using the same Xcode) is totally, completely, utterly free and always has been (since at least 10.1 - the dev tools have been distributed with the install CDs, or you can just get them for free off the Apple websit
Like freedom of thought (Score:3, Informative)
It's like a country that has freedom of thought. You are allowed to have any thoughts you like, as long as you keep them inside your head and don't express them in any way.
What good is a phone application, if you can't run it in a phone?
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Wow. Who knew, you need to own a Mac to use development tools made for the Mac.
Next your going to complain that you need a PS3 to play PS3 games.
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Wow. Who knew, you need to own a Mac to use development tools made for the Mac.
I think the complaint was, you need to own a Mac to use development tools for iPhone & co, which have nothing to do with Mac, really. And actually I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong!) Apple has gone out of their way to make it so that you can't have development tools for eg. Linux. "Out of their way" including things like making it explicitly a breach of whatever license agreements if you do that.
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Ok, point of sanity here, if you are going to target a platform for development, shouldn't you own at least one machine to test on?
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Just one, though, not one for each developer you plan on assigning to the project.
And then there's also the productivity penalties with having to learn an entirely new toolset from the ground up, which again could've been avoided had Apple not determined from their almighty throne that "Thou shall not have any other IDE before XCode".
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You can also use a Hackintosh, if you don't want to buy a new Mac (you can always buy a second hand one of course).
If you are seriously thinking about Mac development, then buying a second hand Mac might be the way to go, or you could just drop OS X on a hackintosh and be done with it.
Who'd have thought actually having the target platform would be necessary for decent development on that platform!
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Apple Developer Connection accounts are free.
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A basic ADC account is free. You can get Xcode with the basic account.
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They're in the process of switching to LLVM, so keeping up to date on gcc isn't really necessary any more.
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I make stuff on the Apple platform without using Apple tools, so by "anything" you mean "some things, like iPhone apps".
I make music on my Apple using non-Apple products, burn CDs using non-Apple products (open source even!), browse the web with non-Apple products, write documents with non-Apple products (sometimes even Microsoft products!), write HTML with non-Apple products.
So, unless you include the OS, I do the majority of my content creation on this Apple with non-Apple products. So, your "anything" re
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You seem knowledgeable. Where can I find an Apple Mac video player that can play at double speed, and without distortion? (Like the 2xAV plugin for Windows Player.)
I'm beginning to think buying a Mac was a mistake if I can't find such a simple function for it.
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Apple is the single largest abuser of open technology, standards, formats and platforms. To create anything for any of their platforms, you need to use Apple tools, Apple hardware and pay Apple. It's not even technical limits on the hardware, but all artifical barriers created by Apple.
Yes that's why I needed a Mac to use Chrome (Webkit) on my PC. Or that I needed a Mac to run Darwin (BSD). Or to play non-DRMed AACs (MP4 part 7). Oh wait, no, I didn't.
I have no idea why Microsoft always gets yelled at because other third parties don't implement their support fully, but Apple gets a free pass on it.
For the most part, MS creates their own standard and fails to publish it fully. Apple has a tendency to use open standards. If you have a problem and not Apple's implementation then you should take it up with those who wrote the standard.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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To Clarify that comment ...
Michael Sweet, who owns Easy Software Products, started developing CUPS in 1997. The first public betas appeared in 1999.[2] The original design of CUPS used the LPD protocol, but due to limitations in LPD and vendor incompatibilities, the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) was chosen instead. CUPS was quickly adopted as the default printing system for several Linux distributions, including Red Hat Linux.[citation needed] In March 2002, Apple Inc. adopted CUPS as the printing system
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Because trying to have Microsoft and Intel open up were such successes ...
That makes absolutely no sense. The EU bitch slapped those companies for anti competitive behaviour. It had nothing to do with their openness (or perceived lack thereof.) Opening up was not their end game.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8047546.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7266629.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Excuse me? (Score:4, Insightful)
if you don't know what it means, its probably something that you don't know much about?
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Can you imagine how much inertia an Apple & MS embargo would bring for FOSS? So yes, proprietary software vendors, get out of the EU ASAP please ;)
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Then you can go live in your FOSS Utopia.
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When the alternative is living under the thumb of our corporate overlords, yeah that sounds pretty nice actually.
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Well, then they can follow US's [huffingtonpost.com] steps [slashdot.org]...
Re:EU and concept of Private Property. (Score:4, Interesting)
Non-interopability is holding back mankind's progress and preventing a free market in the provision of IT services. Creating a free market, by preventing artificial barriers to entry or competition, should enable more innovation and cheaper prices.
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Re:EU and concept of Private Property. (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, more like "I'd like to change GIS systems, can I get my data back, please?" - Currently if you go with the industry leader you are screwed. For example the US Air Force mandates that all it's bases store their maps in a proprietary DCMA protected format (got to love lobbiests) - This means that the US Air Force Academy spent $25 Million in a non compete tender to ESRI each year to licence the software they need to get to their own datasets (https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=core&s=opportunity&mode=f
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