Open Software vs. Walled Gardens
by John
May 22, 2009
That title... Now, that's a big question. It's a debate that makes a lot of tech enthusiasts very, very agitated. A warning to the fainthearted among you: this week's iChallengers column is an opinion piece...here we go!
I think the quickest way to piss off a thoroughbred open source activist is to say something like 'the iphone couldn't possibly be as good as it is if it was open-sourced from start to finish'.
And that's just what I'm saying here.
Please note: all hatemail can be left in the comments or tweeted (loudly, I'm sure) to @johnmierau. Thank you.
Apple is a company full of contradictions: they rewrote the Apple OS to great acclaim, by building it on top of BSD, a Unix-like OS that came with a free software license. OSX is the furthest thing from free software.
A common comment from free software activists is that programs and data should be kept in a format that any computer can use, that the user can duplicate and modify as they see fit, and which is unsullied by digital rights management.
I agree with all of the above. 'Open' and 'Free' represent the best use-case for data. Period. I hate DRM, and think most if not all avenues companies use to defend their data hinder legitemate users and do very, very little to avoid piracy and intellectual theft. They do, however, make the companies doing the 'defending' look like greedy thugs.
All that aside: after long and hard consideration I've decided that an open source makeover is the WORST thing that could happen to the iPhone. It would destroy many of the pillars that have allowed it to double its market share in the last quarter.
Why am I being as contradictory as Apple here, praising Open Source and hoping at the same time it never sullies my precious iPhone? It's simple: Apple as a company has, under the guidance of Steve Jobs, been a pit bull in pursuit of quality, of excellence in function and design, and in revolutionizing user experience. Asking them to change the WAY they did it, by demanding compliance from developers, hardware manufacturers, and yes, users, is like asking a leopard to change its spots.
Sure, Apple is hypocritical about forcing the music industry to remove DRM from the tracks iTunes sells, while at the same time while it's happy to sell DRM'd video from, say, Steve Jobs' Pixar (he has a majority interest) but -and here's where I piss more people of- I don't care. We all have a hypocrite footprint to deal with-it lets vegetarians wear leather shoes, first world citizens ignore genocide in Darfur, and it lets me say Larry Lessig got it right about Free Culture being the right direction, while I happily lock myself into iTunes and Apple. Hell, he uses a Mac too!
So don't get me wrong! If you asked me to vote on a law removing all copyright from all video, I'd vote for it. My personal belief is that DRM and copyright are going the way of the dodo, and there are enough honest people around (or ones that don't want to bother with aquiring stuff via nefarious means on the internet) that copyright owners will still get their pound of profit.
But until that level playing field comes to pass, business is business, and I still want the best tool I can get in my pocket. That's the iphone. I don't believe, for one second, that there's an open source alternative to the iPhone that comes close. The iPhone rests on the pillars of hardware design, user interface and the vast of quantity of apps available via the iTunes app store.
Every single component I've just mentioned is lock, stock and barrel controlled by Apple. You agree to their software license by accepting End User License Agreements that cover all of it. And by the droves, people sign those EULA's. I did. I signed away their right to choice, to data portability, and I accepted iTunes as my personal sync-tool, data channel and digital savior.
Why? Why, if some vocal number of Apple users have drawn attention to this plight, does iPhone continue to thrive and dominate the market to the point of every product that competes with iPhone being judged an iPhone killer... or a failure? Why is that monolithic symbol of copyright and controlled software Microsoft jumping to create an App store of its own - just as Google, the most popular champion of opening software,has done the same? (One of the best iPhone ebook readers, Bookshelf, is an opensource google code project. And, oh yeah, Android itself).
Because, just as the unofficial Mantra says, with Apple, it all just works. With Apple, you pay a premium for arguably better, and prettier, hardware and software, and you buy into a gated community of products and content -the famed Walled Garden of iTunes- which has offered arguably the most trouble-free experience to the majority of users since the PC industry stopped being about selling computers and started being about selling 'experience'.
As I said earlier, it's all business, and personal preference. There will always be outliers who will suffer with equipment they don't like and jump through extra hoops to satisfy their need for music, book, or video content in order to retain all the freedoms they can...but these are not the majority who fuel global businesses like Apple.
I'm grateful for these outliers crying from the wilderness, and I think business will eventually adopt more openness and more competency in providing 'experience' in an open manner. When that happens, hell yes, I will jump on the bus to tour the Cathedral and the Bazaar with the rest of my brothers and sisters freed from the tyranny of restrictive corporate practices. If and when...if and when.
One last point I hate to bring up, in case I alienate the very last of you, but should that sea change to 'free' finally happen, it won't be Apple in the lead anymore. All their current strengths will become anchors keeping them from achieving the excellence such a 'free' market that they have achieved in this one. And that's okay. Change is good.
But until that time? Until businesses see the light, or the laws of the realm change to force such a switch, I'm sticking with iPhone. In fact, I see a shiny new MacBook Pro in my future to keep it company.
Yes, some little part of my activist soul says I'm dirty, says I need to head out to the wilderness, and eat again the fruit I tasted as a youth: dig that linux box out of my parent's basement and re-read Lessig's Excellent Manifesto Free Culture (it REALLY is an excellent book) but until I can get for free what I get from Apple, I think the Mac Book will cure me of that desire.
I guess I'll just have to live with myself (grin).
