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EU Plans To Make Apple, Adobe and Others Open Up
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."
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.
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.
The great thing about the "Any kind of IT product should be able to communicate with any type of service in the future." is that it can also mean that Apple needs to open iPhone and iPad for third party developers not just via their App Store, but fully without jailbreaking.
This is great news for independent developers or hobbyist.
Will the customers of Apple and Microsoft in the USA also benefit from openness and interoperability?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Because trying to have Microsoft and Intel open up were such successes ...
Do the various "services" have to be able to communicate with any kind of "IT product"?
Those fucking commies are at it again. If the people would have asked for interoperability then the market would have provided it.
How is Apple an "abuser" of open technology? Their open technology was licensed under the BSD license which explicitly allows the type of stuff Apple is doing. If you don't like it then use the GPL or another license that has copyleft when you license your OSS.
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.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
So now cell phones will be the size of buildings so that they can support the massive array of antena and dishes so they can comunicate across the full radio spectrum. Still, it will be interesting having a cell phone that supports microwave OC3 communication.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
"Any kind of IT product should be able to communicate with any type of service in the future."
What does that even mean?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
When the government starts dictating requirements and the price, we're all screwed.
I find it so interesting that the E.U. constantly appears to have no concept of Private Property.
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 IT market. But again, within the scope of the rules I can't imagine there would be anything other than quid pro quo, give and take on equal terms.
I have to admit that the thought of Android, Blackberry, etc apps on Apple's App Store would be interesting. ;-)
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Perpenso Calc 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.
The two most proprietary companies in the world, Apple & Microsoft will use every underhanded tactic possible to ensure that this never happens.
Apple relies totally on vendor lockin to exist, since they could never c and Microsoft relies totally on vendor lockin to maintain the position of their Windows platform.
If vendor lockin is taken away, both Apple and Microsoft will suffer gradual decline, unless they update their dying business models. Apple will probably survive in the medium term, as a gradually diminishing player in consumer electronics. I can only see a long slow decline for Microsoft.
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.
That's never going to happen. If that is what they mean by interoperability...
Hey EU, if you want to do well in a game, don't change the rules. Get better.
"It's difficult to meditate on amphetamines." - Joe Walsh
if you don't know what it means, its probably something that you don't know much about?
SURELY NOT!!!!!
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.
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Perpenso Calc 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.
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?
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 ;)
Hey Apple, give us all your code and make it available for Siemens, Philips, Ericsson, et. al.!
We don't want to have to spend our precious Euros on R&D, so hand it over American companies!
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.
Then you can go live in your FOSS Utopia.
Apple uses an ancient version of GCC, from before it was relicensed to the GPL3.
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.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
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.
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Perpenso Calc 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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It's about time mac os x on any hardware/ mid-towers.
apple hardware is over priced and where is the mid-tower the mini is weak for it's price and the mac pro is over top with carp video card for it's price.
The imac need better video and people do not like screen lock in.
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 are discovered, reported, and the vendor is forced to correct the documentation...
After months or years, competitors have finally implemented enough of the published documentation to have an interoperable program...
The first company brings out a new version of the product, using a different proprietary protocol or format and deprecates the old version.
Instead, companies should be forced to use standards where they already exist, and ONLY if nothing exists to do what is needed then they should be required to develop a new one, or modify an existing standard, in full view of the community... Such standards should also reuse existing published standards wherever possible.
Force companies to compete on product quality and cost, not through lock-in.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
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.
It would be great to see Apple iStuff open up so that we can put Linux or Android on it, or whatever we want, without breaking the law.
Every day, I find more and more reasons to like Europe.
Yeah, they can take a heavy hand with some stuff, but at least their politicians are not yet completely bought and paid for by mega corporations like they are here in The States.
If I could figure out how to do it legally and have a hope a hope of making a living somewhere in Europe I'd expatriate in a New York minute.
I used to be fiscally conservative and socially libertarian, but the state of things in the US has so sickened me that I'm finding European liberalism more and more appealing.
I wonder which companies will run the calculations and decide that they will lose more profits opening up than they would by simply leaving the European market. While this sounds nice, companies who do a smaller percentage of business in Europe than they do elsewhere may decide it is worth it to keep their code locked. After all, no one will be able to implement interoperability exclusively in the EU, the US + rest of the world will get it too.
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
ALL the companies? For example,will it include EU companies? Will it include Chinese?
And why stop at IT? Why not continue with other industries that are prevalent in EU? Will all German drug companies be forced to open up how they make their drugs and open their patents/copyrights on them?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Would I be able to sync my iPod without having to use iTunes? Or access my iTunes share with any DAAP client??? Would this stop Apple from preventing the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes?
so that we can have some freedom with the devices we BUY. even americans' butts, mind that.
Read radical news here
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.
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?
Isn't it about time that Porsche made a cheap economy car, to the price point I want, with the features I expect out of a sports car?
While I agree that a mid-sized tower would be nice as would always better hardware for the same price in their current models, it has been tried before and failed. Pre current reign of Jobs, there were all sorts of styles designs, it was to much research and design of too many models of which some didn't sell. One of the things Jobs did was trim down the line so that the company could become profitable again. Like licensing the OS out to other manufacurers, it wasn't something that benefited Apple so don't expect it again. For everybody else, there are hackintoshes. From what I've read, it's not hard and not too many driver issues.
When the alternative is living under the thumb of our corporate overlords, yeah that sounds pretty nice actually.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
We don't live in a free market. This is an illusion provided by the government to placate the masses.
cat
This is how Skynet will be born. By some clueless twit with dangeroulsy little knowledge, interfacing devices and systems to each other in unholy ways.
cat
Looks to me like they're talking about mandating interoperable data formats and protocols, not app portability. Sounds good to me! That's exactly what we should have.
I do not want to force Microsoft to make "Word" available on every platform, or force every platform vendor to create an emulated environment that runs a version of "Word". I want to force "significant" word processor vendors to offer import/export to compatible, open formats (doing so will cause market forces to force the insignificant vendors to do so too).
Same deal with the iOS, sure. Yeah, it's nice that "Pages" can spit out a Word or PDF version of a file and store it out to the "iwork.com" web site. Now what about just adding "OpenDocument" formats (or maybe just RTF) to the conversion list (or maybe even just completely document/open the XML format that Pages uses so we can do it ourselves with XSLT), and using a standard protocol like WebDAV do to the storing and fetching? That's exactly what should happen, as long as we're talking about "our data" (eg. our essays, our spreadsheets).
I don't want them to mandate openness with regards to application execution (eg. "everyone has to be able to install whatever they want wherever they want"), or with regards to client-side support of DRM (eg. "because Adobe's DRM is ubiquitous for ebooks lent by public libraries, every ebook reader is legally required to support Adobe's DRM"). Both of those, I'd consider to have more downside than upside. But for example mandating that every significant ebook reader be able to export annotations in an interoperable way (so I can mark up a Kindle copy of "1984" and import my own personal notes into an iBooks copy), that I'd welcome.
However poorly the EU words words it, I think, what they are trying to avoid is lock-in. i.e. iPhone = Apple app store ONLY, or iPhone = ATT service ONLY. I know the iPhone is carried on many carriers across the EU; it's just an example. They are trying to prevent a single purchase from locking customers into a single supply chain / company, essentially negating other competing services.
..news for people who appreciate freedom.
It will mean that I, as a Linux user, will be able to read and write MS Word documents correctly, connect to an exchange server, and buy and use an iphone with my music player (should I want).
I think it's ridiculous at the moment for me to need Microsoft Windows plus MS Word just to be able to collaborate on a MS Word (or Powerpoint) document - I don't even want to use the software - just to be able to save in .doc would be a huge boon, and open up the Word Processor market to many competitors who cannot compete at the moment because of MS's dominance and closed nature.
D
In some cases it's industry-standard formats, sometimes even open formats.
Mac OS X saves screen captures in PNG.
Preview can save in GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000, BMP, PDF, PSD, PNG, TGA, TIFF and a few other formats.
iTunes understands WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, MPEG-4, H.264.
Calendar uses the iCal format and Address Book uses the vCard format.
Mac OS X itself can print directly to PDF. If an application can print, it can output to PDF automatically.
so how can we hamstring innovation in the rest of the world so we have a chance....hmmmmmm
I don't get that kind of reasoning at all.
When we talk about software, companies are more like car dealerships. You can't Toyota dealerships to sell Ford vehicles, much less do maintenance on those.
When we talk about media, companies are more like groceries stores. A music file should play on all music-playing devices capable of reading files. Ex: iTunes now sells plain AAC files which can be played on a lot of non-Apple devices. As an example, you can play a tune bought on iTunes and play it on your Nintendo DSi.
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.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Well, then they can follow US's steps...
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Ain't Car Dealerships tied by Licence / Contract restrictions to only sell one brand of vehicle in a single store?
That's why you tend to find a group of dealerships (e.g. Ford, Toyota & Ferrari) owned by the same company in a single location, to get around it. (Well that's the state of play in the UK)
Same thing can be done with iTunes, Have a separate "iMarket" based on the same iTunes framework for other Devices and OS's.
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Clearly they do or people wouldn't buy them
If I design a platform, I have the right to set terms for using that platform and consumers have a right to not buy into that platform. These EU people claim to be about "freedom" but regulation never leads to more "freedom". What's next? Will they regulate Apple into making iOS 4 less secure to open up a market for antivirus? As an EU citizen, I demand accountability from the EU. I demand that they stop accepting money from lobbyists hell bent of making everything insecure just so they can peddle their crapware "security" software.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
As an EU citizen I demand that we an investigation be launched into who is paying off this stupid woman.
Apple would sooner pull out of the EU market than allow the EU bureaucracy to dictate what languages can be used to program for their platforms.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
in my opinion. Try to play chicken with Steve Jobs and see what happens. He locked the iPhone out of the entire Verizon market in the US (which is huge) because he felt passionately that Apple's value proposition includes controlling the user experience.
That said, though, I think Apple is flexible on some of the App Store policies (like competing with core functionality apps)--they just aren't flexible on allowing the user experience & perception of an iPhone to include malware/viruses/unreliable junk apps. There's a way to split this hair in a way that makes everyone happy.
It is nice to see this many open formats from Apple. At the same time I would be curious to know which other formats or protocols, used by Apple in public products, need to be opened up. I am more curious as to data formats that could be cause for lock-in. I would also be interested in having such formats from other companies being listed.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Over weight standards
Over power government.
They are just do not understand what make a good life.
OK, where can I download the source for Apple's GUI. Speak up, I cant quite hear you...
What's that, I cant download the source for Apple's GUI. OK then how about being able to put my unsigned code on an Idevice. I cant do that either.
Apple built a propriatery product on open source technologies and effectively locked the benefits out of open source, this is the abuse the GPL is designed to prevent. Not only that they lock their customers into their supply chain as much as possible, that kind of abuse goes beyond Microsoft and we all agree that Microsoft is an abusive corporation.
Compared to now when the corporation is allowed to fuck the customer, said free market does not exist. Contray to you frothing at the mouth anti-government rant, this move is about opening up the market and lowering the barriers for entry. Sacrebleu, a lower barrier for entry means that more people can get into the market, more people in the market then there is more competition.
.docx and BES. This has been conclusively proven to be a very good thing when applied to other markets such as cellular protocols. But don't let the facts get in the way of your "evil gubbermit" rant now.
If you bothered to read the article, this only covers interfaces and data formats like
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Reading the article, I don't see the issue as being anything more than the data created or purchased being interoperable. Buy an eBook or mp3, and it should be usable on platforms that claim to read eBooks and play mp3s. Create data like photos or documents, and the data created should be usable on other platforms which claim to support those same formats. That's reasonable and probably acceptable to most device makers as long as the standards are established.
But it's not saying that if you buy an iOS 4 Tetris app from Apple's app store that it should work on your Nokia N97. At best, it's saying that data created with that Tetris app (e.g. players high score lists) should be transferable to another Tetris app on another platform... if there is a standard for Tetris app information. We (probably) aren't going to see alarm clocks that play Tetris, but we might see alarm clocks that can play the same tunes you bought in 2001 even though your Nomad finally died.
This doesn't appear to break down any walled gardens or worse, make the government the purveyor of the biggest walled garden, but it just makes it easier to swap from one garden to another when your gardeners raise their prices and try to lock you out of what you created and bought yourself. You can get what's yours and move to somewhere else, be a different garden or a wild open source forest.
Sounds good - so, I want everything in EBCDIC, nothing in that octal crap! And definitely nothing in iXXn, UTF whatever codes!
Oh, people mean presentation of data, not the coding of data? Definitely 3D, I love to see my data in 3D - 2D is so 90's and 1D is 80's or how did it go? My Excel and Powerpoint will shine in 3D! But, please, not those smell effects - I have to make some corporate reports and you know, the smell may not be the nicest? Colors, of course, at least the normal 16million! Videos in HD, whatever it means to any manufacturer but I can take that - as long as they look as good as Avatar with 3D glasses! Sound - minimum 16 channels! What else about data - should / could we require some quality / the data to have some contact to reality - no, of course not, it's corporate data!
They're a CONSUMER PRODUCTS company. As far as Apple is concerned, Apple doesn't do IT.
Just like all makers of gramophones benefited by the introduction of standard playback speeds, Apple benefits from the adoption of various standards.
Apple makes and sells HARDWARE.
Software is how hardware inter-operates.
Apple is only too glad to license somebody else's standard and beat the snot out of the competition with elegant hardware an software design.
None of the other hardware manufacturers understand elegance.
Consumers instinctively DO.
Ergo Apple sells millions upon millions of iPods, iPhones and iPads when Microsoft throws billions of dollars dollars in the same arena with lousy results.
Zune sales suck, PCs sell only to businesses who just want the damn things to not be such malware targets and they have to pull their mobile phone after a few weeks.
The jury isn't in yet as far as game consoles.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
2. Contact. You can use Mobileme syncing for your contacts or Gmail contacts through Exchange mode. No lock in there either.
3. Notes. The Notes app now syncs through Mobileme allowing you to easily port those notes elsewhere. No lock in again.
4. Music. Music is sold as DRM-free AAC in iTunes which can be played on other players and phones. You can also play MP3 format music or import MP3 music from services like eMusic.
5. Video. Purchased video is DRM'ed at the request of the MPAA but the same holds true for other devices/services like the Zune.
6. eBooks. Free epub books that are public domain are provided DRM free. PDFs are also DRM free. Lock in for purchased books is the same as other services.
Looking at the iOS ecosystem, I see it as less closed than Blackberry or Windows Mobile as it is not tied to one desktop platform for the end user and it it cheap for a developer to get started on iOS compared with windows mobile or Blackberry app stores.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.