
Steve Jobs’ Email Debate With Gawker Blogger - rooshdi
http://erictric.com/2010/05/15/steve-jobs-email-debate-with-gawker-blogger/
======
IdeaHamster
Key line: _Gosh, why are you so bitter over a technical issue such as this?
Its not about freedom, its about Apple trying to do the right thing for its
users. Users, developers and publishers can do whatever they like - they don't
have to buy or develop or publish on iPads if they don't want to_

I have this theory. You see, Apple (mostly) tends to not engage in the all-
too-common tricks to try and con you out of your money. Store staff is
typically honest and straight-forward, very little pushing and no hidden fees.
Apple Care is probably a better value than most extended warrantees, and at
least you know you're going to get Apple's level of customer service. Yes,
there are lock-ins, but they've always been a trade-off in order to provide a
better experience for their customers (i.e. DRM on iTunes sucks, but it was
the only way to get the majors to play ball).

In general, Apple believes that you should give them money only if you believe
their products are worth it. I think it's just that we've gotten so used to
capitalism being such a _hostile_ activity between producer and consumer that
we forget that there was a time when you would've _wanted_ to pay for
something. So, it's no wonder that people want to think that Apple is somehow
conning them into giving up their freedom or being locked-down unnecessarily.

Really...trust me...you don't _have_ to buy an Apple product. No, seriously,
you _don't_! So why don't you take your "freedom" and "open platform" rant and
turn it into a _why isn't anyone even close to competing on Apple's level_
missive.

~~~
blehn
I think that line clarifies what people in the tech industry seem to be
missing in this whole controversy: _It's not about developers._

It's about _users_ , and creating a great experience for them. Developers
getting upset about flash not running on the device, apps getting rejected,
etc--that's just an unintentional side-effect of putting the user first.

~~~
elblanco
Users do have to _use_ something. Developers make those things.

~~~
steveklabnik
I'm only the friend of an armchair economist, but wasn't supply-side economics
deemed bullshit?

If there are users, the developers will come. Just because there are
developers, doesn't guarantee users. This explains everything about Apple and
Linux.

~~~
jasonlotito
Except Linux is used far more than Apple. Just not necessarily on the client
side.

~~~
jbooth
Or by actual people. Your web broswer connecting to a linux powered website
isn't you "using" linux, it's you using a web browser.

~~~
jasonlotito
"Your web broswer connecting to a linux powered website isn't you "using"
linux, it's you using a web browser."

Why would you think a web browser connecting to website is a user using the OS
of the website? Why would you make that connection?

Why?

Anyways, back on target. Users choose to use Linux all the time. Countless
people choose Linux over other OS's for hosting their websites. Even people
with little technical knowledge choose Linux over other options out there as
their OS of choice.

And then you have Linux on mobile devices. Android isn't doing half bad, last
I checked. And Android is based on Linux.

While your original argument is sound, your conclusion about Apple and Linux
is off the mark.

------
krav
Best part is Job's last comment: By the way, what have you done that’s so
great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle
their motivations?

Creating something of value is hard. It takes dedication, iteration,
consistent work, focus, and sacrifice. And to do it again and again? Rare.

Apple - regardless of motivation - has done that under Jobs. The sales show
the result. I'd respect him, a doer, above a talker like Gawker any day.

~~~
ajscherer
That's the worst part! It's a tired ad hominem and completely irrelevant to
the discussion they were having. Jobs' argument for Apple's decisions should
be convincing regardless of the accomplishments of the person he is
(voluntarily) arguing with.

~~~
clawrencewenham
Steve doesn't have to be convincing else he want to lose sales, and he doesn't
care as much about sales as he cares about the product.

His is a common retaliation to Gawker's kind of criticism: the criticism that
your creations ought to satisfy the consumer. This has always been bullshit.
You should create what you think is right and then discover who the consumer
is. The alternative is design by committee writ large and absurd, like
Windows. You get something that even the creator hates.

Steve says the effect of "if you don't like it, buy something else" (almost in
as many words, in fact). I hate that this sentiment isn't respected. So many
people think they have a stake in something because they put it on their
credit card.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
> "You should create what you think is right and then discover who the
> consumer is."

This is a fairly standard "engineering" view of the world. It is also why 90%
of startups go out of business.

> "The alternative is design by committee writ large and absurd."

That is one alternative, but certainly not the only alternative. You could
also get out and talk to your potential customers, find out what their
problems are and what it would take to solve them, then build what THEY think
is right. The nice side effect is you'll already know who the consumer is.

As a customer, I do have a stake in something when I put down my credit card.
If a company doesn't respect me as their customer, you bet I will not be
repeating my business.

However, the business can (and SHOULD) decide if they want me as a customer.
If they don't, they should make it clear. I think Apple does this very well:
You are given the Apple sandbox that is very well defined. If you don't like
it, don't buy Apple (yet, people still do, then bitch forever about it).

~~~
clawrencewenham
You're right, upmodded.

I think that every business should listen to its customers, though obviously
not without having a grand vision in mind. That will mean losing customers,
but each business has a risk at its heart.

I think rejecting Flash is part of a vision I'd want to buy into (and have, I
type this on an iPad). There are going to me more tradeoffs like this, and in
Apple's case I think they're going to be consistent with a product-centric
vision.

So far I like that product and what it's turning into, so I think Apple is
taking the right risk.

------
evo_9
Man, gotta give credit to Jobs on those replies. He's one of the few CEO's out
there that actually answers things honestly versus just spewing some marketing
lines or other prepared statements. Even if I don't entirely agree with him I
have to respect his standpoint, it is his company.

~~~
sabat
Agreed. You know, if Jobs would lighten up just a tad, I'd respect him a lot
more. He's done great things, but his perception of how far he should impose
his views on the world has become distorted.

~~~
IdeaHamster
Gah! See my above rant, but seriously, how is he _imposing_ his views on _you_
when _you_ are the one with the choice of how to spend _your_ money! This is
the sort of complaint I would expect to hear about how the government is
spending tax dollars, which you _don't_ get a choice about paying or not.

~~~
nkassis
Why can't potential customers or "partners" voice their opinion about what
they find crappy about the product they would like to buy or develop for? It's
feedback any company would want to get in my opinion. Consumers can't vote
with their money but that has far less reach than we would like to assume.

~~~
IdeaHamster
You know...you're right. No single person ever did anything of significance.
My vote with my money won't do anything. My vote on election day won't do
anything. My life will never amount to anything. I might as well go buy and
iPad and bitch about Apple's walled garden...

...nice attitude you've got there

~~~
xanados
Even if I do great things, I can only do them in so many domains in a single
lifetime. In all other domains, my only recourse is to complain about how they
should be. The idea that no one can complain unless they would choose to
overthrow the status quo within every domain is silly.

~~~
IdeaHamster
Complaining and offering criticism is a different thing than claiming
violation of personal freedom. I sometimes wonder if most Americans have
forgotten how to criticize without, at the same time, vilifying.

------
xenophanes
> Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from
> programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times
> they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is
> slipping away. It is.

What he's advocating for the app store may be a good thing, but it's certainly
insane to call it freedom. Freedom is when you can do whatever you want. When
you restrict stuff, for better or worse, that's less freedom. Taking away all
meaning from the word "freedom" is a really bad idea.

There is simply no such thing as freedom from the option to watch porn if one
wants to watch it. That's like freedom from truancy, or freedom from
marijuana, or freedom from leaving your jail cell, enforced by the police.
Some will argue those are good things, but none should argue those are
freedoms.

~~~
ellyagg
Actually, I think it's fairly well known that there's a tension between two
real concepts of 'freedom from' and 'freedom to'.

~~~
xenophanes
Yes, it's well known that there is an ongoing attack on the liberal idea of
freedom which seeks even to destroy basic terminology.

They're the same kind of people who made the word "liberal" mean "socialist"
or "interventionist" which is something of the opposite of its original and
true meaning.

But the fact is freedom has a simple and plain meaning, and it's a meaning we
need to have a word for. If you want to say that police stopping you from
using marijuana is good, whatever, just make up some other word for that
because that's the opposite of freedom.

Or if you think people have the right to "freedom from want" at the expense of
others, it's nothing but a nasty and misleading rhetorical trick to call that
freedom. It may or may not be good, but you're taking away people's freedom of
choice when you force them to provide for the poor. Force is not freedom, it's
force, end of story.

~~~
pohl
_the opposite of its original and true meaning._

You're using the word "true" here in the same sense as others do in phrases
like "the one, true god". I'll step forward and be the heathen to the
absolutist concept you idolize...

 _But the fact is freedom has a simple and plain meaning_

...actually, like many words, it has several. I opened my dictionary and can
count seven different nuances in the entry. Here's the one I believe it was
used in, and I see no problem accepting the intended semantics:

"(freedom from) the state of not being subject to or affected by (a particular
undesirable thing)"

~~~
jpark
We already know how much Steve likes the use of "freedom from"...

"We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology,
where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true
thoughts."

Yes, Steve, save us.

~~~
pohl
As opposed to your garden of pure hyperbole.

~~~
jpark
Since that quote is straight from the 1984 commercial, I guess I am learning
from the master of hyperbole and reality distortion himself.

------
petercooper
Jobs claims that "magazine apps will be far better in the end because they're
written native." Does he think magazines will natively code an app for every
single issue of their magazine to make all the content features, animations,
interactive elements, and fancy indexes work?

Before you say "don't be crazy, the magazines will be creating specially
formatted documents that their readers will load", why can't Adobe make a
"Flash Player" app that can load "specially formatted documents" (i.e SWF
files) too? Is it merely because SWFs often contain ActionScript fun rather
than Jobs' preferred JavaScript fun?

~~~
pohl
_Where's the line between a document and an app, after all?_

It's usually the same as the line between code and data. Yes, this line has
been crossed before, but the practice is not without downsides one might want
to avoid, and so a Turing Complete format like Postscript was supplanted by a
static representation of the same drawing model in the form of PDF documents.
Word macro viruses may not have done the same to the Doc format, but I still
think it should be considered an antipattern.

~~~
petercooper
To provide another example that _does_ work on the iPad, though, SVG files can
contain code, such as this analog clock:
<http://anomaly.org/wade/projects/svgClocks/simple-analog.svg>

------
weilawei
Steve Jobs' response irks me because he equates (by association) "freedom from
porn" with "freedom from programs that steal your private data" and "Freedom
programs that trash your battery," "Yep, freedom," itself. "[...] their world
is slipping away. It is."

Freedom from porn? Steve pulls no punches--what does porn mean to us? Is it
something evil, something that only subjugated people will perform in? Does it
provide an legitimate outlet for a different sort of sexual fetish? Who uses
whom? I don't know the answers, but I'm sure there are a multitude, many of
them with a nugget of truth.

I don't feel as if we need to be protected from ourselves. This is a statement
--assuming that it was, in fact, reported in good faith--written by a man in a
position of power which asserts a sort of moral judgement about our culture.

Please, don't misunderstand: Mr. Jobs is entirely correct in his statement
that, "Microsoft had (has) every right to enforce whatever rules for their
platform they want. If people don’t like it, they can write for another
platform, which some did. Or they can buy another platform, which some did."
Indeed, Apple appears (from my non-lawyerly perspective) to be exercising the
same supposed right without serious challenge in a court of law.

I, myself, write on a MacBook. I enjoy using and working with the technology
that Apple offers--but I'm not married to Jobs' vision. I wonder what the
future holds, and Jobs' words don't paint a great picture for me.

What does the world he and Apple envision for us look like?

------
quizbiz
I don't understand how sjobs manages this. I can't imagine how many emails he
gets now that people are expecting responses. He must enjoy interacting
directly with his consumers a great deal.

------
tmsh
_You can disagree with us, but our motives are pure._

I think that's the main problem. It's not enough to simply have pure motives.
Nobody actually understands the complete extent or realization of their
motives, and whether or not they're truly 'pure'. Hence, the importance of
listening.

You can 'envision' all you want, but if you don't have good feedback loops,
you're going to run into serious problems.

~~~
flyosity
The motives may be complex but I'm guessing it comes down to Apple not wanting
garbage clunking up their beautiful and "magical" device. Random runtime
environments that Apple can't control? Hell no. Cross-platform apps that use
the lowest common denominator of features and are slow? Nope, sorry. Apps that
sit outside the walled garden that might be nefarious? Yeah, right.

Jobs wants elegant and beautiful apps on his "revolutionary" device. If it's
not one or both of those things, then he's probably not happy with it and
doesn't want users to see it.

~~~
tmsh
I didn't notice it until reading your response, but I suppose there's a pun on
'pure'.

Pure environment, pure performance ('not wanting garbage clunking up their
beautiful and "magical" device' as you mention), and also pure as in honest.

But purity is not really a word you want to overload.... Fundamentally
incoherent to conflate two ideas about purity. And really deeply problematic.
Anyhoo, thx for your thoughts.

------
jarek
Man, I hate not having the freedom from porn. Thanks, Apple!

~~~
IdeaHamster
Mobile Safari. That is all...

~~~
jarek
Exactly.

------
seshagiric
Steve Woz, Steve Jobs, Bill gates and even Richard Stallman - all have
commented on that post :)

------
cageface
It's unfortunate that this conversation wasn't initiated by someone more
mature and articulate than Ryan Tate. There is a strong case to be made
against Apple's current approach but Ryan didn't make it.

------
statictype
I have to say, nice response from the CEO. His straight no-bullshit response
is commendable and will, for many people, distract from the ridiculous
definition of freedom he uses.

------
biafra
I have seen this Story here [dead] at least 7 times (with a link from
gawker.com). Were they all duplicates? If so, how do find the comments page to
the first submission?

~~~
bbatsell
Unless something has changed in the intervening year (and I sincerely doubt
it), gawker.com is on the HN banlist.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044>

------
statictype
How does the iPad prevent you from watching porn?

~~~
pohl
He was referring to porn apps in the store.

~~~
petercooper
Which makes his "freedom from porn" schtick a bit crazy. Freedom - just as
long as you don't ever use Safari.

He implies that once you become a parent, porn is a taboo. It isn't in my neck
of the woods, and I'd much rather my daughter stumbled across some people
banging on the TV in future than most of the bullshit _violence_ that passes
for "entertainment" nowadays. But, hey, I'm European.

~~~
jsz0
Apple can only control their own store. The Internet is beyond control. You
can block Safari via parental controls though. The real issue is what Apple
wants to sell in their store. You can't goto a brick and mortar store and buy
the latest issue of Hustler. I don't think anyone would argue Apple should
have to sell porno DVDs next to the iPods in their stores. Jobs is simply
saying for anyone who doesn't like it there are other stores to shop at. Seems
reasonable to me.

~~~
petercooper
_Jobs is simply saying for anyone who doesn't like it there are other stores
to shop at._

It's more like an entire state prohibiting any stores whatsoever except
Walmart and then dictating Walmart can't sell pornography. So, sure, if you
don't like it, you can up sticks and go a long way away (or just use Safari to
get stuff off the Web, like anyone sane does).

------
lawn
"By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or
just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?"

I immediately thought about the movie _Thank you for smoking_ where this guy
said that the best way to win a discussion was to prove the opponent wrong.
You didn't have to be right, as long as he was wrong.

------
FabriceTalbot
This was simply an EPIC email exchange! The blogger made some really good
points there. And Steve kept his cool remarcably well, until the end. It kind
of makes you wish he hadn't pulled that "what have you done that's so great"
card.

------
jrockway
After reading this article, I want to start a company that makes computing
products to free users from the oppression of Jobs' proprietary software. The
advertisement will be the face Steve Jobs reading this email on a huge
monolith-like television screen. A woman will run up to it, and throw a hammer
at Jobs' face, smashing the monolith into millions of pieces. This represents
the freeing of the users and developers from the tyranny of Jobs.

For some reason, though, I think I've seen this before... somewhere...

~~~
jballanc
_After reading this article, I want to start a company_

Do you _really_ want to? or do you just want to pontificate on the internet
using this as a coy rhetorical device? Because, you know, if you really wanted
to...well, you might just be successful!

~~~
jrockway
If you don't like pontification on the Internet with coy rhetorical devices,
I'm somewhat confused as to why you read the comment sections of social news
sites. And reply.

------
wsgeek
Gentlemen,

Steve is not being overly controlling... You are all looking at his "blocking"
of Flash as a closed-minded policy. Consider this: Do Active-X controls run on
the iPhone (or Android)? No -- they never have, and this is for technical AND
business reasons. It would be fairly easy to support them -- just have WINE as
part of OS X. The reason Apple doesn't do this is because they would be
letting the fox into the henhouse and adding unnecessary bloat to a mobile
device. Everyone seems to get this, which is why you don't hear complaints
from all of the Java and Silverlight people about not being able to code for
iPhones.

To another point: Ask yourselves -- What is Adobe's business model? They make
NO money on the Flash plugin. It's free. They make their money on tools. If
I'm the Adobe CEO, I would strive to have every app in the world written in
Flash. Now who is close-minded? And by the way, Adobe could solve this VERY
easily by making their tools output in HTML5, etc. Why don't they want to do
this? Because they feel that HTML5 might be slow to adopt features that they
already have. Oh wait -- now the shoe is on the other foot! Adobe realizes
that the innovation of their platform would be stifled by any lack of features
in HTML5. So why don't they have their tools output Objective-C code which
could then be compiled by Apple's tools? My understanding of section 3.3.1 is
that this is allowed.

Developer tools are the gateway to a platform. Microsoft knows this -- which
is why they have some of the most mature tools around. When Microsoft adds a
feature to their operating system, why do you as developers feel comfortable
waiting for Flash, Java, etc to create an interface to that new feature? If I
were a software company, I would embrace a platform and strive to be the best
on it -- use every new feature to its fullest extent. Guys, this is what you
get paid to do -- innovate, using whatever tools are necessary! It's about the
end user experience. This is what makes an app sell.

So what Steve is gambling on, and it's a bold yet well-considered move, is
that the iPhone/iPad/iPod platform (hardware + OS) will always be slightly
ahead of competitors. And the developers who agree will retrain themselves to
take advantage of the platform. Development tool vendors will do the same. If
Apple were to release a killer hardware feature on the iPhone (which is their
business model to do so!), how long would it take for Flash to incorporate it
into not only their player but also their development tools? Would they wait
until Android implemented it too before doing the release? This harms Apple,
it harms developers, and it harms consumers.

Flash has a cross-platform, least-common-denominator approach to computing.
This is a thing of the past!

You might be saying to yourselves that Microsoft never blocked anything --
Flash, Java, RealPlayer, etc. Well, they have a different business model. They
want people to consider Windows as the defacto OS platform, and they want to
support an ecosystem of ISVs that fill in all the gaps. It's a very well-
conceived plan, and it only works because they have a near monopoly on the
desktop. If they did not, then their business model would not work. Imagine if
you will a world where Linux itself was not free AND they charged for the
development tools AND those were the only tools you can use to develop for the
platform (as is DevStudio). As you can see, Linux's lack of market share would
make this an untenable business model.

Why do you think they charge money for their development tools? Eclipse,
XCode, and dozens of others are free of charge (yes, I know there is a free
version of DevStudio but it is missing some key features). They charge money
because they CAN. Adobe charges money because they CAN. If Apple were to
charge money for XCode, it would kill the platform. Think about this anytime
you are bashing Apple for the high perceived cost of their computers relative
to humdrum PCs -- you're getting software that was developed by companies that
got the tools for free, and this means you will get better software.

Flash developers, you are right to be up in arms over the omission of Flash as
part of the iPhone OS. But you're directing your anger at the wrong party.
First, I understand that you are loathe to have to learn a new toolset (which
you feel is inferior to Flash) to get your apps out there. Years of experience
that you have will help to bridge that gap! You are good developers and you
will find a way. You should instead be asking yourselves, why are there no
3rd-party Flash development tools that compare to Adobe's?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Third-party_tools>

Why is the .SWF format not entirely open?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.swf#Licensing>

Adobe has great tools that create compelling apps -- there's no denying that.

Microsoft has great tools that create compelling apps -- there's no deny that.

And Apple has great tools too. Closed systems are a thing of the past
(remember when Microsoft had "hidden" APIs that their apps used?). By being
forced to expose the hidden APIs, it removed the need for cross-platform
emulation/library layers. Yes, it's more work for you, but c'mon, you're good
developers, the best at what you do. You will find a way.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Beyond the Adobe/Flash issue, what's the supporting moral argument for
preventing an iPhone user from installing a native Google Voice app, to pick
an example? This is a device that the user owns, and the user desires the
capabilities of this particular app, and yet they are denied by Apple, after
having already invested significantly into the platform. This is obviously an
insult to the customer, and the only motivation Apple has is business greed,
not some altruistic sacrifice to the user experience gods. When the vendor is
actively impeding the customer from attaining what they want for nebulous
reasons, we have a PR problem here that competitors can capitalize on. The
best user experience in the world won't save you when a competitor figures out
how to empower your customers more greatly, because obviously their user
experience was sufficiently well-designed to allow their users to accomplish
the task that they couldn't on your platform.

------
mkramlich
I'm not happy with some of the things Apple has done in the iPhone realm but
reading that email thread, I'd have to say Steve had a stronger and more
mature case.

------
itistoday
Anyone else a little surprised that Jobs even got into this debate in the
first place? Like, shouldn't he have had this already with some employee on
the inside?

It seems to suggest that at Apple he has no opportunity to have such debates.
Everyone is too scared, it's almost like he's surrounded by yes-men and is
therefore astonished at the negative response he's getting. "Why can't people
just understand me?" type of thing.

Here's a thought. If no one at Apple is actually standing up to Jobs, and
since he seems open to outside input via email, perhaps it's a good idea to
let him know how you feel? Maybe he actually doesn't _get_ how much he's
turned Apple into the 1984 Big Brother that Apple was supposed to vanquish?

~~~
bbatsell
> Like, shouldn't he have had this already with some employee on the inside?

How is this e-mail chain in any way evidence that Apple has not had internal
debate or that no one has the guts to disagree with Steve Jobs?

~~~
itistoday
I'm not claiming it's definitive evidence, I'm just saying it seems to suggest
it.

Apple has made a lot of really ethically questionable moves, and is being
quite hypocritical in many cases. This is obvious to me, and others. So when
someone on the outside brought this up, Steve Jobs responded in a way that
almost seems like it's the first time he's having this debate. That's just my
take on it.

Or do you really think that many at Apple had this same or similar kind of
debate with Jobs, and then he's willing to publicly have it again with Tate?
His arguments are just too weak and unpolished for it, and it's surprising
he's responding to Tate at all if he's already deliberated it internally and
settled on his position.

~~~
IdeaHamster
_Apple has made a lot of really ethically questionable moves..._

Selling people a product that will give them cancer and telling them it makes
them look cool is an ethically questionable move. Restricting the programming
languages that can be used to develop for your platform is not.

~~~
itistoday
I'd say it's pretty ethically questionable to harm people's livelyhoods to
settle a score with an unrelated company and to then make claims that you're
doing this to ensure "quality" on the platform while simultaneously demoing a
quality app that violates your own rules.

Umm.. Yeah. I've come to the conclusion that this debate isn't worth
participating in anymore. People don't get the bullshit Apple is pulling or
are willing to look past it because of the superb quality of the iDevices and
the App Store gravy train. It's hard to explain it in a paragraph. And when
you explain it in detail people don't listen. You get comments like the above.
You get people saying "Flash sucks" when Flash has nothing to do with it. I
just don't have the time anymore, sorry. Bury away.

~~~
jballanc
_I'd say it's pretty ethically questionable to harm people's livelyhoods..._

Livelihoods? Or shots at a quick buck for relatively little work building on
the back of someone else's invention?

~~~
jarek
I hate the Facebook apps!-iPhone apps!-social games!-iPad apps! gold rushes as
much as everyone else, if not more, but it can be both.

Apple doesn't legally owe gold rush developers a livelihood, but the ethics
are not so clear cut, especially when they pull a Facebook-like policy switch
after people have already invested.

~~~
IdeaHamster
Last I checked, the agreement that iPhone developers enter into says nothing
about their rights regarding freedom of development language...in fact I think
this whole fuss is about it doing the exact opposite. Nobody promised these
devs anything, as far as I know. I suppose Apple could've put a warning on the
sign-up page: "Warning! You're developing software for a platform that we
control and may decide to alter at any point in time."

...but honestly, how many devs would've turned around and walked away if they
had?

~~~
jarek
1) You read pre-OS 4.0 developer agreement. You decide it sounds reasonable.
You decline the job offer from BigCorp, buy a Macbook, and code your
application in MonoTouch as C# is your personally preferred programming
language. You pay $100 and your application appears in the App Store.

2) Apple changes section 3.3.1 in the developer agreement for OS 4.0.

3) You have to spend the time and possibly money to learn a new language if
you want your application to work on OS 4.0, or forgo your previous investment
of time and money. Most iPhone OS devices will be upgraded to 4.0 relatively
quickly.

Legal? Probably. Justified from Apple's point of view? Likely. Reasonable,
fair or ethical? That's pretty subjective.

~~~
jballanc
_You decline the job offer from BigCorp_

See, this right here^^^ This is the key: why did you decline the offer from
BigCorp? Only two reasons I can think of...

1\. You were naive and thought you could make a quick buck with less work by
developing for the iPhone platform without doing it the way Apple suggested
you should.

2\. You had the drive to strike out and make it on your own, BigCorp be
damned!

If it's #1, you only have yourself to blame. If it's #2, you're not about to
let something like 3.3.1 stand in your way...

~~~
tuxychandru
What if he'd also recruited a couple of C# programmers to build the next
improved version of the same application?

Now he has to either train them too in Obj-C or recruit a new bunch of Obj-C
developers.

To top it all off, he must stop improving his product and start rewriting it
in Obj-C, while his competitor who started off with Obj-C doesn't have to.
There was nothing in the previous version of the OS agreement to suggest that
cross-compilation would somehow be banned in future versions. All because
Steve Jobs, loves Obj-C. Now how isn't that screwing people's livelihood?

