[kwlug-disc] peoples' thoughts on apple, adobe and flash?

[unsolicited]

Summary (of below): No matter what Apple says, they are proprietary.
If that bothers you, buy nothing Apple. Deal. With open eyes.

Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account) wrote, On 04/30/2010 8:08 PM:
> On Friday 30 April 2010 12:39:11 pm unsolicited wrote:
>> To say "Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript" then say "We know
>> from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software
>> come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in
>> sub-standard apps" seems ...
> 
> I am loathe to admit it, but he's right about this.
> 
> Whenever you are targeting a variety of platforms you are forced to work with 
> the lowest common denominator. Android has the exact same problem. Yes, you 
> can make all kinds of exceptions and create special cases for more 
> advanced/featureful hardware, but you quickly run into the "this app works 
> only on $foo platforms" type apps. This fragments the environment and drives 
> down usability.
> 
> Now having said all of that, I really do believe that this is far more of a 
> business decision than a technical decision, and that if they do allow flash 
> apps, they lose control over the walled garden that they have with the App 
> Store.
> 
>> "Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to
>> help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps.", of course
>> not, 'cause if they achieved that goal, they might get more customers
>> and make more money! Across more platforms even. What apple is really
>> saying here, as well, is we don't care about cross-platform
>> compatibility and open standards.
> 
> And again -- he doesn't care about cross platform compatibility and open 
> standards when it comes to applications, and as the owner of the 
> iPhone/iPod/iPad embedded realm, it's certainly in his best interest to ensure 
> that things run as well as they can on his platforms. Any generic development 
> language/platform is NOT a way to achieve that.
> 
> I'm the biggest open source advocate and user you're likely to find without a 
> huge beard and flute, but I feel I also have a good understanding of where 
> people like Steve Jobs did things right. One of those areas is in user 
> interface: you don't make a seamless and revolutionary user interface by 
> giving people all kinds of choice on how to make your device work. Another is 
> in API: you don't encourage a huge software universe by letting programmers 
> develop higgeldy-piggeldy; you create and control a good set of APIs and grow 
> them naturally and in a controlled fashion so that all applications look and 
> operate the same way.
> 
> Both of these facets of design require very careful balance and an eye toward 
> a singular goal or set of goals. I do not believe that "pure OSS" is viable 
> way to achieve these goals simply because you need a dictator or a design 
> board who keeps these goals in mind and vetos what would not be in line with 
> these goals.
> 
> Note that I said "pure OSS" -- Linux has a benevolent dictator. Apache has the 
> Apache foundation. If you don't like their decision, you're free to fork, but 
> that certainly doesn't lead to a single cohesive environment. :-)