The biggest culprit here, in my view, isn't Apple, PRC, or the patent system.
It's the death of physical media and the rise of the "app store" model.
I have programs for my Apple //e computer that are over 30 years old. Most of the companies that made the software have long since disappeared, and the computer hasn't been supported since the '80s, but I can still use them.
That software is my property. I own it, and I can use it for as long as the disks hold out.
By contrast, the software on my iPad isn't really mine, in any practical sense. I'm licensing it, and it can be taken away, or I can be forced into "updates" that may change it in ways I don't want. Sure, I can avoid updating my apps, keep the iPad offline, and only use apps that run 100% locally, but that's an impractical solution, at best.
Consumers are becoming trained to think of their devices as barely more than hermetically sealed dumb terminals (although they wouldn't use that phrase). The notion of "owning" things by paying for them is fading. "Cloud" apps that are free or subscription-based, music and movies that you stream rather than buy, the books on your Kindle, even the seeds that farmers buy from Monsanto aren't theirs to own and use as they please.
Steven Hawking famously continued using the same 1980s-era speech synthesizer for decades because he felt the voice was part of his identity. The company that made it went out of business, but he didn't lose his voice. He could have gone for constant updates, a new and "better" voice every year, but he chose not to. Because he owned his speech synthesizer, it was his choice to make.
There is a lot of obvious benefit to the app store model, from convenience to cost savings to ease of use. There are also many cases where it's vitally important that people own their software and their data. I don't know if it means we need more options for physical media and manual installs, or legislation protecting people's purchases from unwanted updates and removals, or something else, but I see this as a problem that's not limited to just this one situation.
Are we really blaming the technology here? You're neglecting the reality: that a person--a living, breathing, thinking person--is behind the switch or lever that eliminates access.
Connected computing is the inevitable future. We will always hold less physical computing capability in our hands then can be beamed to us from afar on-demand.
What is ridiculous is the systems--the people systems--we have built that fostered this ethical failure. The social system of law that constrains Apple's behaviors. The internal social system at Apple whose 'conservative' default behavior is to remove rather then remit. There's a dude at Apple whose fear for losing his job overrides any sense of disgust he may have felt doing this.
The technology is not at fault. Our contemporary framework for regulating that technology--our society's response to that technology--is at fault.
a living, breathing, thinking person--is behind the switch or lever that eliminates access.
A living, breathing, thinking person also did the research that this technology is based on, possibly risking their own capital (livelihood) to do so. Are they not entitled to earn anything? Should all researchers be starving artists in garrets?
Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.
Nobody is entitled to earn anything. Perhaps your great idea can't make money without a special legal monopoly, but that is not in itself a reason for the legal monopoly to exist. Being creative is not a license to get rich off your ideas.
I wonder what all of the pro-union people here on HN have to say about this. Unions are, in essence, a special monopoly in certain industries that entitles people to a certain wage.
In some industries (like the auto industry), a job that normally should pay a little above minimum wage is inflated to many more times this.
"Being creative is not a license to get rich off your ideas."
When copyrights and patents are finally gone, I hope I have money. Why? I will have the resources to cherry pick up-and-coming inventors that don't have the same resources as I do.
> Are they not entitled to earn anything? Should all researchers be starving artists in garrets?
Do you mean the creators of SfY, who seem to claim to have done at least some of the research that went into it themselves, or do you discount their effort and risk merely because another company accused them of infringing a software patent?
It is a bit easy on Apple to blame not them but the "app store" model they created for their devices and control completely. Apple has been a leader in this industry shift.
Also it is not a question of physical media vs. downloaded software. Even physical media software now routinely call home to check for a valid license. So I suppose it is indeed legislation that we need, to prevent companies from revoking licenses.
That is a weak workaround. There real solution is to fully recognize that information is power, and to have a separation of powers similar to the three powers of Montesquieu's.
Hardware companies should no be allowed to make or sell or control software.
Software companies should not be allowed to produce, sell or control hardware.
The same way we, user, citizen, forbade our physicians to sell us the drug they prescribe, we should forbid information processing companies to sell us the devices where this information is processed on.
I'm looking at you, Google, Apple and contenders. Everyone belived 1984 was targeted at totalitarian government, but maybe the dark prophecy is being fulfilled under our eyes.
If I were a good pamphletist, I would write a punchy call for arms on the topic.
Can you tell me the case where separating hardware from software created superior product?
Anyway, I am too tired to argue with FOSS extremists touting their imaginary world with imaginary benefits and solutions for imaginary threats for imaginary users.
"Users" ir the key word there. Majority of the people using software are just users, not programmers. We are not all butchers, bakers, and car mechanics. We don't have problems some imagine we have.
They never came true. They never will.
But of course, with some goalpost shifting you can argue that.
Anyway, RMS "imaginations" have nothing to do with the world as it is today.
Where does hardware end where does software start? Is the code in your BIOS still hardware? How about the driver for your graphics card? Is it still hardware if the processor only executes code signed by its manufacturer?
Forbidding hardware companies like Apple to sell software is not sufficient to prevent them from only running things they approve. And besides, a law like that would likely cripple a large part of the industry and stifle innovation.
I am sure there have been many objections against separation of executive, legislative and judiciary powers, also in the name of efficiency.
> a law like that
I don't see it as a law. I think it should be to the constitutional level. Laws, if necessary, would get into details on how to enforce the constitution, and these details may vary with place and time.
> would likely cripple a large part of the industry and stifle innovation
On the opposite, I think it would in long term be better enforced by such a separation of (information) powers. One of the reason could be that it would require open formats for any communication between hardware and software. Then any other company could compete in the field, and innovate in directions either not allowed or not deemed interesting by the bigger companies.
> not sufficient to prevent [Apple] from only running things they approve
I do not think Apple or any other hardware provider is the least entitled to prevent me, the owner of the device I bought, from using any software I like. In my mind, current users of these devices when not unlocked do not own them, they rent them really, and should be aware of this.
Apple wouldn't exist if a Montesquieu like separation of powers had been applied to the industry. Apple has always had seamless control of their product, it's what differentiates and makes them successful as a company.
Apple aren't legally preventing you from running anything. If you're clever enough to do it, go nuts. If you think they're making it too hard, tough luck. Their products aren't built to spec; you're not entitled to a product that works any differently than the one they sold you.
If you buy a microwave and you want to run custom software on it, that is your problem, not the microwave manufacturers.
Separation of power, like Democracy and other such ideas, don't necessarily belong in every system. Politics/government is not an optional system; everyone has to take part (whether they want to or not.)
Consumer technology is not enforced by police and armies, and should be free from the demands we may rightly have on our state.
Besides, how would you like to buy a hardware-only car? What about a fridge or a plane without the code that makes it work? The hardware/software dichotomy is only an abstraction---the instruction set of a processor is software, but the hardware must be designed around it.
> Politics/government is not an optional system; everyone has to take part (whether they want to or not.) Consumer technology is not enforced by police and armies, and should be free from the demands we may rightly have on our state.
In the information age, if you want to live a full life, then consumer technology is no more optional than government and politics.
This is not to say that there should be a strict separation of hardware and software. But it is an interesting idea.
It is very much more optional. Government and politics have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
Note that I'm not referring to consumer technology as a whole; I'm saying no specific consumer technology is forced upon you. While it's hard to avoid the idea of it, I don't have to buy an iPad if I don't like it. I do have to pay property tax.
I think information is power mostly because you do not have the choice. Only few exceptions can live a life with no relation to information processing machines.
However I would agree that the limit between hardware and software is yet to be defined, maybe using new names. I guess it was the same when defining political power separation.
> Hardware companies should no be allowed to make or sell or control software.
So if I, as an electrical engineer, design an implantable pacemaker for people with heart problems, they have to visit Joe's Software Shack and Live Bait to make it work?
If your "implantable pacemaker" records a bunch of vital information about my heart for years, then it is not a simple "implantable pacemaker", it is an information processing device, and the sensitive information it produce and store is my own, and allowing you full control on it is a danger of potential alienation that must be mitigated.
As we do not currently have a better way[1] to ensure there will be no misuse of the power brought to you by controlling the way this information is generated, processed and stored, I would much prefer this heavy responsibility to be split between three different providers (information producer, processor, storage) communicating together according to open formats.
If your pacemaker is a piece of hardware with no sensitive information stored and not connected to the outside world, then I would not consider its "software driver" to be an information processing system (ie "real" software), and there would be no need to split responsibilities in this case. This should also answer to the "micro-wave" objections in other answers. And yes, I change the definition of "software" a little bit, so it do not include single-minded commodities drivers.
Actually, "software" is too wide on one side, and too narrow on another. A big company like Google should be understood as a software company. For me, they do not cross the line if they build their own servers for internal usage. They do cross the line, however, when they buy Motorola. The gray area would be the Nexus line and Chromebooks, which is ok to me if these products can be considered as real-life experiment for new software concepts, but not ok if they become mainstream products sold by the million of unit and if Google installs itself in a long term hardware producing activity, in parallel with its enormous presence as the software gorilla.
[1] In the same sense that "democracy is the worst regime, except for all other"
It is not just silly, it's the most stupid suggestion of the year.
If you are happy to use half-working, half-baked products, feel free. I will choose those, where software is finely tuned to the hardware and this combination makes pleasurable experience.
This is the problem, many people choose short term pleasure against long term safety. I hope for you that you do not apply the same reasoning when you choose between cook at home and fast food.
>*
That is a weak workaround. There real solution is to fully recognize that information is power, and to have a separation of powers similar to the three powers of Montesquieu's. Hardware companies should no be allowed to make or sell or control software. Software companies should not be allowed to produce, sell or control hardware*
One problem is that if that weren't allowed, we'd probably never have the app in the first place...
The app was made for THAT platform, for THAT store and for THAT hardware product.
Now, one can assume but we would have gotten something like the iPhone eventually anyway, but if you see what the hardware-first companies were shipping at the time of the iPhone's launch, that might have taken 5-10 more years.
I don't mean it could only happen by Apple: just that it could only happen by a process of building things where hardware+software are given equal importance, and ONE entity calls the shots for both.
Ubuntu and the Linux world in general has had app-stores long before Apple came to the party.
The Apple app-store is nothing more than a Sony'fied software repository.
Where Apple have succeeded while "The Linux scene" has floundered is, Apple have put the app-store, physically, in peoples pockets. Sony/Sharp could have done it sooner, if they'd made better hardware and been cohesive with their late-90's/early 21st-century Linux/e-Tron strategies, but make no mistake, Apple are a newcomer to the vendor-supplied online software repository scene. Albeit, a very powerful, sexy, one.
> Ubuntu and the Linux world in general has had app-stores long before Apple came to the party
You're kidding, right? The difference is that software in Linux distro repositories (which is what I assume you're referencing) is both free as in beer and open source. Which kind of makes it the opposite of what most people think of when they say "app store."
(Pre-emptive nitpick: it's true that Canonical has recently started offering commercial software via the Ubuntu Software center, but that came many years after Apple's App Store launched.)
I'm talking about the appstores/repo's as technical features of an installed operating system base. We in Linux have had the ability to easily access app-store catalogs for years; Apple have built theirs relatively recently in comparison.
And the fact that there has been free as in beer, and open source 'walled gardens' is exactly the point I'm making: Sharp could've had an app store in the 90's, they already had the repository and just needed to add a customer element; this is the only new thing Apple has added to the game. Repo's were old hat until it morphed into Appstores.
Start organisations that make cool stuff, or join those that already are. If you think something is missing from the world, the best way to do something about it is to build it.
Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware. Not even apps that flagrantly and blatantly violated the store rules and got taken down are removed from end user devices. Not even apps which were pulled down for patent or copyright infringement.
It isn't going to happen.
Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality.
If you're worried about your apps, back up the IPA's. You kept your //e floppies around somewhere, didn't you? Is the problem that once apps are removed from the appstore, you can't redownload them? Can you buy Oregon Trail for the original Apple 2 officially anymore?
Unless you think that Apple is immune to injunction, the mere existence of the capability to remove apps from customers' devices is a sort of attractive nuisance. Now, it could be that precedent will be established that removing infringing or other undesirable content or applications from third-party computers is not permissible. Until that precedent exists, though, the risk seems high that precedent will go the other way.
There is precedent. Not in a legal way, but in the judgement of the public. Amazon remote erased an eBook in 2009, ironically "1984", from Kindle devices because the publisher didn't have the copyright and the real copyright holder demanded it from Amazon. It was a PR nightmare! CEO Jeff Bezos had to offer a public apology to mitigate this mistake. I don't expect a big company will make this mistake again.
Google first pushed the killswitch on an App in March 2011, a trojan malware for Android, and nobody really complained. Apple on the other hand never triggered the killswitch to date. They also don't have magic powers. Make a backup the iOS device and in the unlikely event the App isn't working on a future OS update or Tim Cook is getting insane, just install the backup again.
There is precedent. Not in a legal way, but in the judgement of the public.
You say that you don't think that a big company will pull apps or content again, and then you provide an example of the same behavior from a big company (Google), where public outcry was limited.
The Amazon incident was why I said "or content" in my original comment. It's already happened more than once, as you note, and some cases prompted outcry and were reversed, and some did not and were not. But more importantly, none of these were cases where a court ordered the company to do this, and it matters far less (to Apple, Amazon, or Google) what the public thinks about an action that they were forced to do by law. They'll just shrug and provide the injunction.
Any application that requires making a backup and restoring after every killswitch usage is not going to continue to have a customer base, and therefore there will be few or no updates, and that will be that. It doesn't matter that it's technically possible to get around the problem, if having to do so reduces your audience by 95 percent.
This is already a PR nightmare for Prentke Romich and Semantic Compaction. They've shown that they don't care about public opinion (or at least broader public opinion). They have a duopoly on their (very niche) market and are going to do whatever it takes to defend it. It's absolutely possible that their next legal move will be to ask Apple to proactively remove the app from iPads and to file for an injunction if Apple does not do so voluntarily.
The capability to remove apps from customer's devices has always existed in desktops since the internet, even for those you keep in CDs, as long as you are connected and receiving OS updates.
It is technically possible, doesn't mean it has been done (or maybe it has, Apple issued a patch a few weeks ago to remove malware on OSX?). OS updates could install anything onto your machine, including a tool that removes/blocks whatever it wants.
It is technically possible for me to write and distribute a virus that erases anything but GPL-licensed software from the disk of any computer it infects, sends all your money to the FSF, and turns your computer off at 8pm every night to ensure you get a good night's sleep.
However, both of these scenarios aren't happening in the real world.
Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality.
The trouble isn’t just this particular killswitch. As jaysonelliot was suggesting, the really insidious problem is the general trend that even when you think you’re buying a permanent copy of a knowledge work, you are often not getting what you think you’re paying for any more. I’m not sure which is worse, the dubious business models or the fact that the simplest of commercial transactions on-line routinely comes with absurd amounts of legalese attached, but neither is a welcome development IMHO.
I’ve never personally been the victim of an app store revocation, because I saw that one coming and won’t spend my money on unsafe purchases like that. But I’ve certainly seen the damage of phone-home activation, after the boot drive of my main workstation failed. Two pieces of high-end professional software, both legally purchased on physical media by my own company (each at a four-figure price), were at risk from this. It took weeks of chasing the software companies to get the licensing/activation concerns resolved, during which time one piece of software was unusable and the other was reportedly at risk of shutting down any time. It even turned out that both of those companies had completely screwed up the registration and thought my company’s licence keys were registered to someone else, and we really did get to the point of my sending them photographs of original invoices/packaging/serial numbers in one case.
In my country, hacking into someone’s computer and causing that level of damage would surely be a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act. I believe that remote blocking of legitimately installed software by, for example, phone home activation/DRM schemes or post-sale deletion by an app store should also be considered an offence. After all, the end result is much the same. I’ve never had the chance to ask a lawyer why it isn’t (or maybe it is, perhaps even under the same legislation, but for whatever reason the culprits aren’t being prosecuted). And if it can be a criminal offence in various jurisdictions to circumvent technical measures in order to do otherwise perfectly legal things with a copyrighted work you’ve bought (OK, “licensed”, but while I appreciate the need for lawyers to be precise, we all know how most people are going to understand the transaction), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make it an offence to abuse such technical measures from the other side as well. Maybe we should have some sort of safe harbour provision to protect companies who genuinely make an innocent mistake but correct it immediately on notification, but the basic principle that abusing remote deactivation is illegal seems only fair.
>I think Orwell might have something to say about that.
Note that we're talking about Apple, not Amazon. And I doubt that it will ever happen on Amazon again either, after the PR drubbing they took after doing it the first time.
And your other anecdotes are well and good, but show me where this has happened with Apple. We're talking apps, not books.
Technically, no. I'm pretty sure that if you cashed for a copy of WordPerfect on Apple II, that software was licensed to you for unlimited time use and you don't own any bit of it.
Well, this is really getting down to a philosophical level. You can't technically "own" any land at all in the United States, for example, the most you can get is unlimited use rights in perpetuity. Stop paying your property taxes for a few months and you'll find out who actually "owns" your land real quick.
That depends. Usually, yes the person owns it, in the same way you own a book or a VHS or a DVD. Copyright law prevents you from copying your software/book (Driving licencing law prevents you from driving the car you own without doing a test for example).
This "licence" thing is usually a fiction sold to consumers by big companies to try to pull the wool over their eyes.
The license is not a fiction. It grants you powers that you would otherwise not have, only holding the installation media. For example, it grants you the right to make copies of the software - usually one for installation, one for execution and one for backup.
It does not, usually, grant you permission to make additional copies for execution on other computers (without deleting the first one).
Your use of this software is not limited by the license, it is extended. Without a license, installation media for copyrighted software has no legal value.
Doesn't the license granted by SfY to Maya's parents include a 'peaceful enjoyment' clause ?
Such clause should hold them harmless of any claim of 3td party patent infringement. And if the infringement can't be cured, SfY should offer them a replacement solution at no cost.
They're two different worlds. On one hand you have an App Store where an infinite number of copies of an application can be legally obtained even when it'd be impractical or impossible to make physical copies. This enables individuals to produce apps used by millions. How many people were able to pull of what the founders of Sierra and Elecronic Arts did back when they had to hand-copy floppies and find distribution in sparsely scattered retail stores? Then it was exceptional. Today it's almost routine.
On the down-side you have the rather transient nature of the platform where bit-rot happens much faster. Theoretically you can keep your iPad in its frozen state in perpetuity, backed up and re-imaged onto a replacement device if necessary. If you start upgrading, the half-life of applications kicks in and you're going to start losing some of them over time.
It's not clear which is better in the end.
The solution to this software problem could be to make an open-source version or one that side-steps the patents, whatever those are, as cleverly as possible. Then it can be distributed, instantly, to those who want or need it.
Even without the "app store" model, the company in question could still prevent the access to the said application by court injunction. It is not to the stage yet now, and while you can say that Apple acted prematurely, it is a matter of time that such injunction happen.
And with the App Store model, the application is took down from the store. You still have the local copy. There is no updates from the App Store anymore, but do you think there will be updates from the developer when the court injunction finally happens?
That was the originally stated intention. iOS 1 didn't have an app market. Everything was supposed to be written in HTML5+JS and accessed via a browser.
It's the death of physical media and the rise of the "app store" model.
I have programs for my Apple //e computer that are over 30 years old. Most of the companies that made the software have long since disappeared, and the computer hasn't been supported since the '80s, but I can still use them.
That software is my property. I own it, and I can use it for as long as the disks hold out.
By contrast, the software on my iPad isn't really mine, in any practical sense. I'm licensing it, and it can be taken away, or I can be forced into "updates" that may change it in ways I don't want. Sure, I can avoid updating my apps, keep the iPad offline, and only use apps that run 100% locally, but that's an impractical solution, at best.
Consumers are becoming trained to think of their devices as barely more than hermetically sealed dumb terminals (although they wouldn't use that phrase). The notion of "owning" things by paying for them is fading. "Cloud" apps that are free or subscription-based, music and movies that you stream rather than buy, the books on your Kindle, even the seeds that farmers buy from Monsanto aren't theirs to own and use as they please.
Steven Hawking famously continued using the same 1980s-era speech synthesizer for decades because he felt the voice was part of his identity. The company that made it went out of business, but he didn't lose his voice. He could have gone for constant updates, a new and "better" voice every year, but he chose not to. Because he owned his speech synthesizer, it was his choice to make.
There is a lot of obvious benefit to the app store model, from convenience to cost savings to ease of use. There are also many cases where it's vitally important that people own their software and their data. I don't know if it means we need more options for physical media and manual installs, or legislation protecting people's purchases from unwanted updates and removals, or something else, but I see this as a problem that's not limited to just this one situation.