The-Source.com

Every once in a while I get rational correspondence taking me to task on something I’ve said. I sincerely appreciate hearing criticism, because I loathe the “echo chamber” effect and welcome the challenge of strengthening my arguments.

So I was quite happy to receive an email that contained the following:

[W]hen I read your new note, it almost seemed like you were “celebrating” what happened. Having many people’s passionate work invalidated due to some silly rule is sad – regardless of who it affects – at least for me.

I’m only concerned that you might start writing your work in the “Us vs them” format which is available aplenty elsewhere. All that said, this entire incident reinforces whatever I’ve read about Free Software and hopefully might convince other developers to jump in as well.

This is valid criticism. I take pains to avoid simplistic “us vs. them” ranting, and I could have came off as “celebrating” Apple’s decision because I was being a bit tounge-in-cheek there.

Let me expand my thoughts just a bit and see if I can’t un-tarnish my otherwise sterling track record!

Tough Love

There are two lessons of value that I see in Apple’s move (and the response to it):

1. It exemplifies the faults of a proprietary ecosystem, which us “freetard zealots” continuously point out.
2. It illustrates an amazing amount of hypocrisy in ”Open Source pragmatists”.

The first is so obvious (and acknowledged in the writer’s commentary), that I see no need to belabor the point here.

The second is more of interest  (as I do so love calling out hypocrisy in others, having none in myself), so let’s dive in!

Illustrating Hypocrisy

Restricting Freedom

Why is it acceptable for Apple to strictly limit user freedom and not developer freedom? One needs a very finely honed argument indeed to split that hair!

If you accept that Apple is perfectly within their rights to restrict users – indeed, that it may make good business sense for them to do so – then you must accept that also applies to restricting developers.

Playing the Minority Card

I consistently hear arguments about how “only a tiny minority” of users care about things like Free Software. As if that excuses the obligation to do the right thing.

Now though,the Minority Card is in a different hand. Only a tiny minority of iPhone developers use a non-Apple toolchain. By the same logic, Apple should not have to concern themselves with supporting this small and noisy minority.

Pragmatism over Idealism

Unless you are prepared to make the argument that Apple is intentionally trying to hurt itself, then you must acknowledge Apple thinks it has very good business reasons to restrict “metaplatforms”. Apple is just being pragmatic.

That’s the problem with “being pragmatic” – your “pragmatism” and someone else’s “pragmatism” might not line-up.

Writing code to someone else’s standards

This is the one that is most interesting to me; it is perhaps a bit more subtle than the other points. Consider this often quoted bit from former Microsoft Evangelist James Plamondon:

Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat. Total victory, for DRG, is the universal adoption of our standards by developers, as this is an important step towards total victory for Microsoft itself: “A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software.”

Team Apologista might not understand this, but Apple does.

If Flash/.NET/Whatever dominates Apple development, then Apple is no longer in charge of their own platform. Adobe is. Or Microsoft. Or Whoever.

Who do you pull for?

It’s a bit like being asked who one is pulling for when two teams you despise are playing. The answer: injuries.

I don’t care that developers for a restricted platform are themselves in turn restricted - seems like sauce for the gander to me – but I do appreciate the inconsistencies the situation brings up, especially among that segment that likes to pay lip service to Open Source.

I see the entire situation as “How dare you do to us developers what we are together doing to the users!” Hey, Mr. Developer, you want Freedom? How about developing for a platform that offers Freedom?