Apple Accepts, Then Rejects BitTorrent iPhone App 163
An anonymous reader writes "Apple recently approved an iPhone app called IS Drive, which lets users check and manage downloads from ImageShack.us, while also offering users the option to use the company's BitTorrent service to download files to their ImageShack account. Once Apple got wind of what the app was capable of, however, it was promptly removed from iTunes."
Seems strange they approved it at all (Score:1)
Apple keeps an iron grip over apps. It's weird that they would approve something like Bittorrent at all!
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Apple is a company that has many employees under it's wing. Despite what you might have been lead to believe, Steve Jobs doesn't personally approve or reject of every app. People make mistakes, news at 11.
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Well then. Stuff is either "curated" or is isn't. Not everything can be high profile enough to come to the attention of senior management and get extraordinary review.
Trojans, Fart Apps, AdWare & BitTorrent client are all things that can slip through those cracks.
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"Slip through the cracks?"
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/081910-app-store-director-sells-his.html [networkworld.com]
That's a nice way of phrasing it.
Re:Seems strange they approved it at all (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA ...
So, the way he described it, they didn't quite realize what it was actually doing. The reasoning from Apple was:
I can see why they don't want to get embroiled in any of the legal stuff associated with Torrents. While they do have non-infringing uses, I can see a company like Apple just deciding they don't want to risk the legal actions which could result.
The *AAs aren't above suing absolutely everyone who had anything to do with distributing anything which can be/is used to do filesharing. Apple doesn't want to jeopardize their iTunes contracts by appearing to support that.
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I can see why they don't want to get embroiled in any of the legal stuff associated with the Internet. While it does have non-infringing uses, I can see a company like Apple just deciding they don't want to risk the legal actions which could result.
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Ummm ... I've got something like 6,000 tracks in my iTunes library. Not a single one was pirated -- they're all rips from CDs that I own. I've bought several hundred CDs over the last few years. I know several people with thousands of tracks ripped from CDs in their collection.
iTunes has sold a couple of billion tracks as I recall. The iPod business was built on e
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Ummm ... I've got something like 6,000 tracks in my iTunes library. Not a single one was pirated -- they're all rips from CDs that I own. I've bought several hundred CDs over the last few years. I know several people with thousands of tracks ripped from CDs in their collection.
Are you in the UK? If so, yes, you're a pirate. Because, over here, copying tracks from a CD (which you own) onto an iPod (which you own) using a PC (which you own) is unlawful.
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Of course, the iTunes Store was launched two years after the iPod.
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I'm sure that probably is the reason they pulled it, however, to be fair shouldn't they disallow all forms of digital transfer protocols that are often used for the "purpose of infringing third party rights"?
This would of course include FTP and HTTP but I don't see them stopping people from using either of those.. especially HTTP.
Bittorrent gets a bad rap now because it is one of the best file transfer methods/protocols at the moment and is therefore often used for the third party infringement they speak of
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From a company perspective, it boils down to frequency.
Bittorrent has many legitimate uses, but it is (MUCH) more frequently used for illicit/illegal purposes. In essence, the legitimate use is the exception, not the rule.
FTP and HTTP also have many legitimate purposes, and those legitimate purposes is their most common use.
It's like Wal-mart deciding not to sell bongs. Sure, there are legal uses for bongs, but that's not their typical use, and having them available is bad for their corporate image becaus
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Are you going to tell me that I couldn't find any popular MP3 as a webdownload through google in 5 seconds? Should Apple ban webbrowsers too then? Oh well, what do I care, It's not like I would ever restrict myself to using an iPhone while phones with Android are available.
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I can see why they don't want to get embroiled in any of the legal stuff associated with Torrents
Nobody has ever or will ever get in trouble for distributing a torrent app.
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OK, then perhaps you can explain why they could sue limewire [mashable.com] but not torrent?
Honest question? Was limewire providing servers or something tangibly different?
Sometimes it seems that if you can get a sympathetic judge, you can argue all sorts of things in court. Sometimes, they'll even find in your favor.
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OK, then perhaps you can explain why they could sue limewire [mashable.com] but not torrent? Honest question?
Why don't you research it? Two minutes of Googling got this:
The court ruling listed 5 factors that, taken together, establish that LimeWire "intended to encourage " infringement: 1) LW’s awareness of substantial infringement by users, 2) their efforts to attract infringing users, 3) their efforts to enable and assist users to commit infringement, 4) LW’s dependence on infringing use for the success of its business; and 5) a failure to mitigate infringing activities.
Everybody likes to make gun manufacturer analogies, but Limewire and sites like Mininova, Pirate Bay, and so on are like gun clubs that list places to go to kill people. If Smith & Wesson offered software to trade gun information and 95% of the information exchanged contained content like "Where to kill Caucasians", "Where to kill Blacks", "Where to kill Asians", "How to rob a bank using your Smith & Wesson", and so on it's rather difficu
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I can see why they don't want to get embroiled in any of the legal stuff associated with Torrents.
It takes a special sort of perverted mind for that sentence to make any sort of sense. But people like those wear suits and work for the MPAA and RIAA! It's some sort of karma that the same sort of people (people who need help to get their printer to work, and will never know what an "Internet" is) also work for Apple's legal department. So we have a situation that regardless of what reality actually is, the perception of reality employed by the RIAA is now the de-facto legal standard at tech companies.
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My apologies. :-P
Nowadays, it is so damned hard to keep track of which things the *AAs will sue over, and which they wouldn't.
Limewire got sued, Torrent Freak got shut down, I'm not even sure what Napster is anymore or if it exists. ISPs now have to police copyright on behalf of content owners. I just don't know any more.
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I can see why they don't want to get embroiled in any of the legal stuff associated with Torrents.
It's not like the application is downloading torrents TO THE PHONE. It's just a coordination tool. If that's off limits, then they should really remove Safari from the phone, since a web browser can be used to search the Internet for infringing content.
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You're marketspeak to English appears to be a bit rusty, I'll help you out:
Translation: "This procedure allows end users to get around the controls we've placed in Itunes".
You've got to be delusional to think Apple cares about piracy of oth
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Don't be silly, the vast majority of users use bit torrent to pirate software/music/movies/books.
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Even if that is true, it is highly useful for even 'legal' activities. There was no reason to ban this app.
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Logic.
Go to any torrent site (excluding ones that advertise the fact that they only serve legal torrents) and tell me how many legal vs. illegal torrents you find.
BT Junkie, Demonoid, and Pirate Bay. Go ahead, check.
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You mean torrents that link to illegal content, not illegal torrents.
And a large portion of the torrent users that share legal content don't manually download the torrent files, so that sample is biased.
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Semantics (accurate, but semantics nontheless.) Insisting that torrents are more frequently used for legal vs illegal file sharing is ignorant at best and putting your fingers in your ear shouting "LALALALA" at worst.
The general "you", not "you, icebraining".
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I find it funny that everyone is now out to defend torrents since Apple opted now to allow torrent software, yet they despise DRM on games, which is primarily a direct result of copyright infringement. Before the internet was largely available, copyright protection was basically very simple with little dongles, or bad tracks on a CD or floppy to prevent casual copying. When online sharing became common, the DRM went out of control as a result.
It's difficult in my mind to defend torrents knowing that it's pr
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Indeed!
I'll defend the legal use of torrents, because I do it every single day; I use a torrent to distribute my own music for free (I've taken my fair share over the years, I felt like I should give something in return), and it's been extremely useful (in the three weeks since I put up the torrent, it's been downloaded approximately 160 times, based on the amount of data I've uploaded in uTorrent...not bad for someone who is literally a bedroom musician with zero promotion.)
That being said, I'm not under a
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Yes, just like Mr. and Mrs. Curie's study of radioactivity resulted on the launch of the atomic bombs.
DRM was a consequence of illegal file sharing, no doubt, but nobody forced the companies to employ DRM. In fact, iTunes removed it for its music and sells now more than before. So no, file sharing didn't cause
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I would imagine more people use torrent technology for legal content than 'infringing'. I would also surmise that torrents are used more for 'infringing' than legal content.
The reason being that the pando downloader, used by WoW, and various other games is exactly that, and I would guess more people play those games than pirate crap.
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I had the same thought, but WoWs 12 million (or whatever) users is probably dwarfed by the pirate community. If you add in all the other uses like Linux Distros and other games, it is possible but still unlikely that non-infringing use is higher..
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I agree that infringing use is probably higher, I was more saying that more 'people' use torrent technology in a non-infringing manner, not that 'torrent technology' was used more in a non-infringing manner.
I suppose the car analogy would be the roads are used by more people for personal use than commercial use, but there is more commercial use of roads than personal use.
Or the internet usage thing, where "10% of people use 90% of the bandwidth" or whatever the numbers supposedly are.
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Go to any torrent site (excluding ones that advertise the fact that they only serve legal torrents) and tell me how many legal vs. illegal torrents you find.
Go to any warez site and see the ratio of legal to illegal download links. From this we conclude that HTTP is predominantly used for illegal purposes.
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The difference is that HTTP is used for many things OTHER than exchanging large files. The torrent protocol by design does nothing BUT exchange large files. Apples to Oranges.
As mentioned in another post, I myself use torrents for legal purposes (both uploading and downloading), so I recognize its legitimate uses...but I also do not maintain any illusion that torrents are primarily used for legal purposes. I don't know what the percentage is, but I'd be very surprised if more than 5% of all torrent traff
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So you have no idea what the numbers are, but you don't seem to have a problem pulling them out of thin air. You must be a climate scientist.
And on a related note, I could argue that most hard drive space is used for illegal copies of movies and music - therefore, hard drives should be banned and all data should be stored in a controlled cloud environment. This will enable the *AA to directly calculate the necessary taxation. Would that make you happy?
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Where did I ever say I wanted them banned? Go ahead, go through every single post I've made in this story, and quote me where I said I wanted them banned.
You won't be able to, because I never did. What I said was that I recognize both the legal and illegal uses for bittorrent, but I hold no illusions about bittorrent being used mostly for anything other than illegal file sharing.
That has nothing to do with wanting bittorent to be banned.
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Play stupid all you want, how about you show some numbers to prove otherwise? It's rather easy to go to any torrent site and see how many users are downloading pirated goods.
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And, it is rather easy to go to any Linux distro site and now even commercial software developers' sites and find bittorrent links to legitimate product.
Sure it is in the minority now, but that is true of any kind of download technology.
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"Play stupid all you want, how about you show some numbers to prove otherwise"
You're the one who first stated something as a fact, not him. The burden of proof is on you.
"It's rather easy to go to any torrent site and see how many users are downloading pirated goods."
Really? It's easy to monitor every torrent file in existence to see how much legal media is being torrented versus illegal media?
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Yes, but few if any actually use a third party torrent client to do so.
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"pirate jackasses"
Seriously. I hate people who steal money (their own money) that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist/business made more money (which is potential profit). Which means I hate... pretty much everyone.
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No, I postulated a possible reason why Apple might not want to have anything to do with that kind of filesharing. Nothing more, nothing less. Deal with it.
Awww, you wanna be my bitch? How cute. Maybe we could cuddle or something after dinner and you could give me backrubs?
Please, piss off and have a nice day. Do try to be less of an ass if you can.
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All torrent clients are also servers.
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FTFA, the app was previously rejected under the name "Jack Torrents".
After the last developer guideline change, it was resubmitted as "IS Drive", hiding the fact that it was actually doing BitTorrent (from the article video, isoHunt and Mininova tabs have also been hidden along the name change, for example).
That's why the app got approved...
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But it's not actually 'doing BitTorrent' anymore than your remote control is 'doing TV reception'.
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Nicely done.
Is there any app with a VNC-like function (I honestly don't know; no iPhone)? If so it should be removed immediately, as it can be used to remotely manage other computers. Which may be running copyright-infringing software like bittorrent clients.
Also, any media players for the iPhone should be stricken since they can be used to view infringing files. :)
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Bandwidth (Score:1)
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I, on the other hand, would waste all of my unlimited bandwidth, if i could.
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FTFY.
That said, the torrenting isn't done over-the-air. It's a proxy torrent system, with ImageShack doing the torrent download.
How many types are secretly banned? (Score:2, Insightful)
From Apple via the TFA:
In addition to the published list of restrictions there is a second, secret, list of types of application that Apple has chosen not to publish. There is no way to know if your type of application is on that list without submitting a fully working application.
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Well, we should've known their recent spate of openness was too good to be true.
Re:How many types are secretly banned? (Score:5, Informative)
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As Kepner chose not to publish what Apple sent him, we can only speculate as to the reason why it was pulled. Besides, the bit of the article you clipped did indicate what Apple told the developer when it was refused. You may not agree with the reason, but there was one: no secrets there.
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And when that isn't enough, there are these helpful guidelines for rejection:
Does it do something similar to an Apple application but better?
Will it invite attention from whiny outraged political groups, such as the American Family Association or RIAA?
Will it divert revenue that might have otherwise had gone to Apple or AT&T or other carriers?
Does it contradict an established Apple ideology, publicly stated or inferred?
Nice Generalization (Score:2)
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Out of curiosity - why the hell would you use BitTorrent on a phone? AT&T has bandwidth charges that would make most torrents pretty expensive, you'd fill up your phone in extremely short order, and the transfer rates are atrociously slow at best.
I understand the whole 'free to do what you like with it' concept, but seriously, downloading torrents on a phone is, well, kind of stupid.
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If I understand correctly, it's not BT-on-the-phone. It's an app that lets you remotely control a BT client elsewhere from the phone.
Why? (Score:2)
I see some arguments about Apple not wanting to get involved in the *AA legal debate with torrents, but I don't understand how that's related to them at all.
Are we so far gone that we can't even have a torrent app because we *might* pirate things with it? I'm sure there are valid use cases for having torrents on the iPhone. It should be the carriers that get angry about torrents, not your friggin OS/hardware provider. You don't see Microsoft getting angry about uTorrent, it's the ISPs. What's going on here?
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are we so far gone that we can't even have a torrent app because we *might* pirate things with it?
While we'll probably never know due to the lack of transparency about the whole process, it's likely due to AT&T. Their network can't very well handle the traffic it has now and certainly won't be able to handle pegged upstream and downstream connections from the growing number of iPhones.
As an iPhone user who has been experiencing more and more slow network connectivity, I could care less if someone has a BitTorrent application on their phone installed via Cydia but I certainly don't want the majority userbase accessing it to peg their connections to download *anything* legal or illegal content aside.
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While we'll probably never know due to the lack of transparency about the whole process, it's likely due to AT&T. Their network can't very well handle the traffic it has now and certainly won't be able to handle pegged upstream and downstream connections from the growing number of iPhones.
The phone doesn't do the torrenting, it just remotely controls the torrent client that runs on imageshack's servers (and their bandwidth).
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Skype was allowed onto the app store once they had established that it could only operate over wifi. Why not the same for this?
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That restriction's been lifted. Skype happily works over 3G now.
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First thing, I thought Apple had the carriers under thumb, at least that what I keep being told whenever something bad happens to Android.
Secondly, what about WiFi only, this didn't get banned because it used 3G data, it got banned because it downloaded data onto the device.
Thirdly, what about all the other telco's, Vodafone (worldwide), Hutchinson (Worldwide) T-Mobile/Deutsche teleco
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It's not.
Torrenting is a way around Itunes. Getting around Itunes eliminates apple's ability to control the device as well as trying to get you into Apple's other products and services (the fanboys will lambaste me for this but that doesn't change the fact Apple is using Itunes in the exact same way as MS used Windows to leverage IE, except Apple is less successful). The big problem is not piracy, if it was Apple would prevent you from loading un
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Apple doesn't want an application install vector that they don't control.
What does this app have to do with install vectors?
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Total breakdown of their vetting process. (Score:3, Insightful)
Once Apple got wind of what the app was capable of...
Isn't the whole purpose of vetting apps to figure out what they are doing (and that no "bad" behaviour is included - no malware)? It seems that if this app gets through the vetting process, from the of it doing only what it's advertised to do, that there's something terribly wrong with Apple's vetting process.
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4-that they can remotely remove it.
You confused that little feature with Android [slashdot.org]. Apple has never remotely removed an app from your phone or your downloaded apps folder, even after it's been removed from the app store itself.
So What About VNC (Score:2)
So does that mean that Apple will disallow VNC apps? Because, you know, those can also be used to manage BitTorrent downloads.
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The 1% of Torrenters (Score:2)
It's a shame that a few bad eggs ruin it for the rest of us...
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Hooray for pulling numbers out your ass.
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It wasn't supposed to be serious. I just don't see this as such a big deal when Transmission has a perfectly capable web interface that works on the iPhone and Android. Also, Apple sure doesn't want to piss off the RIAA.
Do you have numbers on illegal vs. legal torrents? I can't find any decent sources.
Torrent use (Score:2)
But...but...I use BT to download World of Warcraft patches and Redhat ISOs! This is inhumane! You've crippled the iPhone!
Obious Reason (Score:5, Insightful)
2.4 Apps that include undocumented or hidden features inconsistent with the description of the app will be rejected.
When you do something against the rules and get caught, don't be surprised that there are consequences. Don't want to play by those rules, then don't. That simple.
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Don't want to play by those rules, then don't. That simple.
Seems to me they didn't want to play by those rules, and didn't.
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I think you are a little confused here... the reason it got rejected originally was the loose connection with bittorrent. This had nothing to do with obfuscation (aside from the fact that the developer tried to hide the bittorrent aspect in the second release) - the second one was rejected for the same reason as the first one, namely because it had something to do with bittorrent.
Yes, they knew they were likely to get rejected, but not because they hid a feature - they knew they would be rejected because Ap
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But why are apps that just *manage* bittorrent downloads on other machines banned? You can even use Safari with uTorrent's web interface. Maybe it should be banned.
And people have every right to 'blast Apple for rejecting apps'. The submission guidelines are not the ten commandments that we all should follow just because they're sacred. We should be free to criticize them.
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You know, for types that go all "liberty or death!!!1!!" whenever anyone tells them to do (or not do) something slashbots sure do love telling other people how they should run their services.
This store isn't selling what I want them to sell! In the name of freedom and liberty we must force them to sell this! They rejected my app because of their guidelines! They must use my guidelines, I demand it!
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You can even use Safari with uTorrent's web interface. Maybe it should be banned.
Oh, well there you go, it's duplicating functionality...apparently you can't do that either...some of the time...
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Then why doesn't this apply to all apps and even the device OS? Weren't there a few reported cases recently of the iphone itself or some apps secretly firing off data to the mothership or a developer?
Closed Systems = Closed Wallet (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, this just validates what most FOSS advocates preach... closed systems are self serving and antagonistic toward freedom. This is one reason why I've never financially supported Apple products (since the introduction of the Mac in the 80s).
Tweeks
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I'm not as pure a FOSS adherent as you — all my personal computing devices are from Apple — but I definitely agree that without FOSS we'd have less freedom and innovation in computing today.
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all my personal computing devices are from Apple — but I definitely agree that without FOSS we'd have less freedom and innovation in computing today
I bet that if Apple was running the show back in the 80's there would be no linux at all.
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Except the problem with systems built on binary compatability is that they tend to favor a single dominant vendor.
If that single dominant vendor produces an open system, there is at least the possibility for 3rd party apps.
Otherwise, the platform tyrant is free to suppress any dissent to their "curation" of content at their leisure.
Censor-ware should really grate with the artsy fartsy types (the real ones anyways).
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This is true - it is a market of freedom. Now, I use *only* FOSS for my server-side development and deployment and have done so since the mid-to-late 90's. There is also no doubt that the influence of FOSS continues to keep closed systems like Apple, MSFT and even Facebook in check. We'll never return to the days of Windows de facto monopolization or even pre-Web strangleholds on online connectivity such as CompuServ, Prodigy, AOL.
We're all better off with FOSS, even if not directly using it.
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Blessed be the name of Jobs (Score:2)
The Apple giveth and the Apple taketh away...
Worst /. Article Title Ever... (Score:2)
... or just more of the same?
and who... (Score:2)
said that Apple ain't evil?
yeah.....
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Or your local throttles torrents.
Or you want to set it to download something on a slow torrent that will take a day or two, and then download it to your local in 2 hours later.
Or you don't want your local IP in getting seen doing the downloading.