iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward"

An anonymous reader writes "FSF's John Sullivan launches the Defective by Design campaign and petition to rain on Steve's parade, barely minutes out of the starting gate. 'This is a huge step backward in the history of computing,' said FSF's Holmes Wilson, 'If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple's famous Super Bowl ad.' The iPad has DRM writ large: you can only install what Apple says you may, and 'computing' goes consumer mainstream — no more twiddling, just sit back, spend your money, and watch the show — while we allow you to." What is clear is that the rise of the App Store removes control of the computer from the user. It makes me wonder what the next generation of OS X will look like.

Comments

Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for this. The only thing I love more than a new Apple product is Ann Coulter's VJJ. I think I'm in heaven.

At least nobody is complaining about

[notaspy]

it having only one mouse button.

Re:Dear FSF

[StingRay02]

You're absolutely right. It's such a shame that no one has yet determined a way to break the locks that bind the iPhone and the iPod Touch to the App Store. You could even say these devices are imprisoned, jailed. If only some intrepid group of hackers could find a way to break these devices out of jail, allowing those that wish it a way to modify their devices or install "unauthorized" applications onto them. If only there were some way to get the word out, and allow those that wish to make use of this mythical hack to find it. Perhaps some day such technology will exist.

Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again

[elrous0]

Actually, you're both right.

Re:They're artificial limitations. That's the prob

[rufty_tufty]

Worse than that, since all the media talks about is the latest trendy new Ford, it soon becomes like you're the oddball if you don't have their latest model. Everyone crowds around Ford's latest models and everyone else is all but ignored.
Children growing up only see Ford's car and think that is synonymous with a car and soon all there is is Ford and their overpriced overhyped standard.

Right time for another dried frog pill before the slashdot car analogy gets out of had