Monday, October 10, 2011

Apple's Jail

Stallman's ramblings on the death of Steve Jobs
06 October 2011 (Steve Jobs)
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.


Stallman's "jail" analogy  is quite right. It's a closed looped ecosystem. With three important group of inmates.

a) the shareholder.
b) the developer.
c) the consumer.

Apple has tightly controlled what applications and hardware can run on their devices to ensure a smooth operation for the protection of the above mentioned groups. With the introduction of iTunes software developers had the opportunity to earn money for their work without the fear of piracy. Music labels could sell their albums directly to consumers. Consumers buy them at much lower costs than what they would pay at an outlet. Sometimes as low as $0.99. Apple takes 30% share of all revenue. This ensures the shareholders reap the rewards.

Newspapers, magazines, music labels and game developers are all rushing to Apple for this single reason.

Everyone is happy. Any criticism levied against this closed loop from the outside hardly makes any difference to the growth and success of Apple as a company.

Could anyone please name a single Software company in the history of software development that actually satisfies these three groups.

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