I think I don't need to say anymore. You might want to put down the shovel.

Thats your definition of open. Just because an app is open source does not mean I can make everyone use my version of the code, can I? (like for example I can make everyone read my version of a wikipedia article, if just for a few seconds). There are always rules, and various degrees of openness.

Open means access, and for developers it means being able to write apps, not being able to disassemble the OS.

Android for example is going to be pretty closed, because apps will run in a java-like sandbox, vs real native apps. WM is open in the ways that matter, and ODM's get the full source code also.

Surur

As for why I doubt it, I've enumerated multiple examples of their non-openness over the years. I agree, they SAY they are open. But much like George Bush says we are winning the war in Iraq, I have much reason to doubt it.

And, again, the way to ensure that they are open is to publish the darned source code. If everyone can see what the code is doing, everyone can be sure they aren't disadvantaged.

This is why android is "open" and WM and iphone are not. This is why Linux is open and windows and leopard are not. This is why webkit and gecko are open and IE's rendering engine is not. etc.

But they are, which is the point. I have no idea why you doubt it. Just because Apple has open source license obligations does not make them open. They are very closed when it matters, when people actually WANT access to their technology

Stop living in the past.

Surur

Luckily, it looks like Ray Ozzy may -- just may -- be changing that business model (or, more precisely, recognizing that world no longer allows it, and is beginning to punish it).

"Allowing" third parties to use your "infrastructure" while secretly using anti-competitive practices to make sure they can't succeed is not "open."

Like multi-tasking on the iPhone?

Surur

There are millions of developers developing for windows, but Microsoft killed its browser and office competition through anti-competitive practices such as these, and such as actually putting secret code in the OS to detect certain 3rd party programs and make them not function properly.

If the code is open source, I can be sure that anything the vendor can do, I can do too.

I can browse the API for WM without registering as a developer. I cant do the same for the iPhone, as we discovered on a number of occasions. There are millions of developers who developed for windows without seeing the source code. All one needs is a well-documented API.

Surur

And they didn't "rip" anything. They actually contribute code back.

And your point is a distraction. As a developer who wants to develop for a platform, I want the source code for that platform to be open. I don't care who wrote it.

Microsoft hides everything so they can prevent others from competing on level ground.

Tell me where I can download the source code for an app apple did not rip from the open source community, like Itunes.

Surur

I didn't say it makes them open. But it is a step in the open direction. If I want to use safari as an application platform, i have equal access to its underpinnings. Unlike IE.

Lets look at recent history - MS licensed Exchange Activesync to Apple, and Apple refused to license Fairplay to Real.

Surur

1) MS has many times in the past purposely degraded the performance or functionality of third party software it didn't like 2) MS has many times in the past kept API's secret so as to give its own apps a leg up 3) MS has provided source code for almost nothing, and even when it does, it does so under strict licenses 4) MS won't let manufacturers who sell its OS sell pc's without its OS 5) windows genuine advantage. 'nuff said. 6) paladium 7) refuses to support standards (ooxml, .doc, html/css, etc.)

Apple: 1) requires its OS to run on its hardware 2) puts limitations on iphone 3rd party developers 3) open source kernel, bsd layer 4) open source web browser rendering engine that is about as standards-compliant as it comes 5) x11, cups, csh, etc. 6) on the desktop, like on windows, anyone can develop, though the only times apple has been accused of "sabotaging" third parties have been when apple actually competes by entering the space (not by purposely degrading the apps, hiding apis, etc.)

Neither of these companies is the paragon of "openness," but at least Apple isn't malicious about it. Tell WordPerfect, Novell, Netscape, DR, etc. how "open" Microsoft is.

PS: Apple is not my hero - I reserve that for folks like Dave Cutler.

Surur

Like having to buy overpriced Apple hardware to install OSX?

Surur

Did I say "invent" platforms. I said MAKE platforms. The hard work of providing the developers with the tools and access they need to provide end-user products to their customers.

When MS made DRM, they licensed it to everyone. When Apple makes DRM, they keep it to themselves.

When MS makes an OS, they license it to every one.

When Apple makes an OS, you can only use it on their hardware.

You guys are being rabid AND slow today, arnt you.

Surur

That's pretty stupid. MS makes platforms, not appliances like Apple.

Surur

So, yeah, the inability for Microsoft to deliver a halfway decent desktop browser until Firefox 2 started to become a threat is sad, the inability to ever deliver an even usable mobile browser even a year after iPhone was introduced is rather pathetic. They, like Palm, should have had a killer 5 years ago.

Or maybe the open system where if you try to use dr-dos you get a bogus error message.

Or perhaps the open system where if you try to remove IE and replace it with firefox everything breaks for no reason.

But I guess that wasn't the open system to which you referred.

In all seriousness, though, if MS hadn't been smacked so hard by the federal gov't and europe, WM today would be way more locked down than iphone.

And if it ain't opensource, it ain't "open" as far as I'm concerned.

No. The one where I can install any 3rd party app on my WM phone without any concern for my warranty. That system.

Surur

You mean the system where they hide the API's they use to create their own system, then lose massive antitrust court cases and almost end up with the company split in half?

That "open" system?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080401-updated-ie-mobile-to-bring-real-internet-to-windows-mobile.html

Or maybe, unlike Apple, they will rely on an open 3rd party system to fix their deficiencies, like they always have done?

"Developers, developers, developers?"

Surur

Nah. There will be no PIE in ten years. It'll have been replaced with something Microsoft buys when they realise they can't get right themselves. That seems to be their the general strategy at the moment.

Wow, Safari Mobile is slowly catching up to the state of the art. Maybe it will get there in 2 or 3 years.

Surur