Lost In the Cloud

Colonel Korn writes "Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain suggests in an Op-Ed piece that the seemingly inevitable move toward the often locked-down cloud is stifling innovation and threatening our privacy: '... many software developers who once would have been writing whatever they wanted for PCs are simply developing less adventurous, less subversive, less game-changing code under the watchful eyes of Facebook and Apple. If the market settles into a handful of gated cloud communities whose proprietors control the availability of new code, the time may come to ensure that their platforms do not discriminate. Such a demand could take many forms, from an outright regulatory requirement to a more subtle set of incentives — tax breaks or liability relief — that nudge companies to maintain the kind of openness that earlier allowed them a level playing field on which they could lure users from competing, mighty incumbents. We've only just begun to measure this problem, even as we fly directly into the cloud. That's not a reason to turn around. But we must make sure the cloud does not hinder the creation of revolutionary software that, like the Web itself, can seem esoteric at first but utterly necessary later.'"

Comments

It's actually kind of scary

[elrous0]

I'm actually surprised at how quickly some of these platforms like the iPhone have developed completely closed programming environments with barely a peep of protest from the normally pretty libertarian tech crowd. Even on /., there doesn't seem to be much of a stir about it. Every now and then someone complains, or advocates jailbreaking, but I hear more howling when MS proposes to make IE a default browser than when Apple completely locks down an entire product line to outside developers.

Re:It's actually kind of scary

[Bluesman]

Don't be surprised; the reason you don't hear it is because that line of argument against Windows is silly and illogical.

The IBM-compatible PC is about as open as you get. If you don't want to use Windows, nothing is stopping you from writing your own OS (Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, QNX, Mac OS X, etc.) It's not prohibitively expensive, requires no government sponsorship, and it's not even that difficult. All the documentation you'd ever need is free from Intel's web site, or you can order a hard copy from them.

What Microsoft does with Windows is largely irrelevant. It's annoying when you have to use it at work or school, but irrelevant to your freedom as a citizen and your freedom to do what you please with the hardware you bought.

Same thing with the iPhone. I can buy a different phone and write software for it to my heart's content. What Apple does with their hardware and phone is irrelevant because I'm not forced to pay for it.

Problems only start when organizations attempt to coerce me by force to pay for something that I otherwise wouldn't have. The whole MS DRM/Palladium debacle was a concern because it had the potential to close off an entire network funded by taxpayer dollars with the expectation that it would be an open system.

Apple and others can do whatever they want with the infrastructure they've paid for. It's only when they try to do something to the infrastructure I paid for that I have a problem.

Re:It's actually kind of scary

[recoiledsnake]

Seriously. The people who say that it's Apple's property or that consoles are similarly locked down are missing the point. Consoles etc. were never projected to be a computing platform. We already have people hailing the iPhone as the mobile computing platform and the iTouch as Apple's version of the netbook. It is just Apple trying to get greedy by triple dipping into the jar by charging first for the phone, then taking a nice chunk of the users' monthly phone/data plan fee through AT&T, and then skimming 30% off the cost of a application in the App Store from the user/developer.

And applications cannot use 'undocumented APIs'(determined inconsistently by arbitrary lackeys), contain political undertones, or any hint of non PG 13 content or compete in anyway with Apple's builtin programs. http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/09/04/apple-rejecting-applications-based-on-limited-utility/ This would be okay if there was alternate means to get applications, but the only way to get widespread distribution is through the App Store. http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/21/122225 MS bundled a browser with it's OS, but Apple gets away with banning any browser from being developed at all, not allowing any VM(like Java) and gets a free pass because it's not a monopoly(yet)?

For example, there was a app for a countdown clock for second term of Bush in Nov 2008. When it was rejected, the author emailed Apple, and Jobs himself replied: http://www.juggleware.com/blog/2008/09/steve-jobs-writes-back/

Mr. Jobs replied : Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. Whatâ(TM)s the point? Steve

So, before you develop the application, you might want to brush up on what Jobs MIGHT think about any political overtones in your application. There are no clear guidelines or rules. Some Apps are allowed, and other Apps with similar type of content or using similar development tools rejected.

There's another case of Apple rejecting an application for duplicate functionality and then filing a patent for a similar app. Details are here http://www.ikaraokeapp.com/node/18 and here http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/02/app-store-rejections-apple-rejects-ikaraoke-app-then-files-a-p/

They say that when restrictions come, they come wrapped in a sweet looking package. That may well be the iPhone to condition people to the world of restrictive applications on machines billed as general computing devices.

Re:It's actually kind of scary

[recoiledsnake]

You're missing something crucial in the difference between a IBM/PC and iPhone. The question of developer freedom. The developers are free to develop and distribute WHATEVER they want in the IBM/PC world on Windows/Linux/Whatever. Whereas on the iPhone, it's illegal to develop even a browser and anything you develop will have a 30% Apple tax slapped on it and there's no alternate means of *widespread* distribution. Probably MS's revenue would eclipse the US's GDP if MS charged 30% of every Photoshop, Autocad etc. license ever sold.

Microsoft cleverly stayed out of this by not becoming an OEM and by licensing MS-DOS to Compaq when they made a IBM clone by reverse engineering IBM hardware and bios. That single act commoditised the entire PC industry and made hardware dirt cheap and available to the common man. Or we would still be in a walled garden with expensive hardware. MS did stifle innovation in software, but Netscape nevertheless flourished when it did. Now, even if someone has an idea for a better browser on the iPhone than Safari, they can't even make one.

Twitch!

[girlintraining]

any software developers who once would have been writing whatever they wanted for PCs are simply developing less adventurous, less subversive, less game-changing code under the watchful eyes of Facebook and Apple.

You're suggesting Facebook and Apple actually care about your privacy? Are you from the past?

Re:repeat after me

[Hijacked Public]

How were they right?

The book industry is still pretty big and it seems to be growing. Electronic books are maybe 10% of sales last I read. The primary business of one of the internet's biggest retailers is paper books.

And I'm not sure what you mean by 'traditional media' but television and the rest of Hollywood continue to do well. Some things have changed, for sure, but most of the business is still in the hands of the people it was in before in internet.