

Ask HN: What happened to rational discourse? - NyxWulf

I'm curious why the reaction to the Apple Developer TOS change is making this community react so strongly.  One of the main reasons I left Reddit for Hacker News was the level of discourse was elevated and the polemics and hysterics in the stories were almost non-existent.  I don't disagree that the Apple dispute with Adobe is big news and calls for discussion.  What concerns me is the freewheeling hysteria that seems to be driving the topic.  As is almost always the case, I suspect this TOS change will either be modified, re-interpreted, or Apple will suffer community backlash.  As for my personal opinion, I would feel a far keener loss by losing the valuable insight and discussion that has so far been present in this community than I would feel over a change in the Apple developer TOS.
======
pg
There are often days when things get bad here in one way or another, but I
don't worry unless they stay that way.

At least when HN readers get hysterical it's about something (a) related to
hacking and (b) really bad.

------
jimmyjim
>As is almost always the case, I suspect this TOS change will either be
modified, re-interpreted, or Apple will suffer community backlash.

Are you sure the TOS would change, if there was no backlash, like the one
you're seeing on HN right now?

Protests usually precede revolutions.

~~~
benwr
Not really: revolutions are usually preceded by protests.

------
jdietrich
The phrase "straw that broke the camel's back" springs to mind. The anger and
fear that you're witnessing has been building for years - since the launch of
the App Store, maybe even back to the iPod with its proprietary connector and
its proprietary software. For many people, their worst fears about the iPad
platform have been confirmed by this TOS change. It might seem irrational, but
as a loyal Mac user I'm genuinely worried about what little bombs might be in
the TOS for OS 10.7.

The most influential and powerful man in technology has a vision that many of
us find appalling. He is imposing that vision as we speak and is being very
successful in doing so. After years of rational debate, many of us have come
to a conclusion about Jobs's intentions for the computer industry - a
conclusion I see as perfectly reasonable and rational. It is no good closing
the stable door after the horse has bolted. The developer community needs to
air its grievances now, while there is still something to play for.

~~~
ssp
_maybe even back to the iPod with its proprietary connector and its
proprietary software._

Geeks have really short memory: Apple has always been evil. In the famous 1989
lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft about whether look and feel could be
protected by copyright, all self-respecting geeks rooted for Microsoft, and
the _League for Programming Freedom_ was founded basically in response to it.

------
aphyr
In some ways, I think the recent obsession over iphone ToS _is_ a community
backlash, though it seems overblown. I am surprised that four developers I
know are dropping their iPhones at the end of contract and switching to
Android. We must feel strongly about it.

~~~
nostrademons
Well, a lot of people have staked their livelihoods on iPhone/iPad
development. Apple's recent moves have indicated that they're not to be
trusted, and that they'll do what's right for _Apple_ whether or not that
destroys the livelihood of those that build upon the platform. The rational
response to that is to diversify so that one company can't arbitrarily shut
you down with a ToS change.

~~~
VBprogrammer
What I find most worrying is that I see very little, if any, gain in it for
Apple. I'm not really sure why but it just seems like Apple is picking fights
with Adobe and Google for no particular reason. It certainly doesn't benefit
their customers, it alienates their developer community and has no benefit to
Apple other than inflating their ego.

~~~
cheald
My take on it is that Apple is attempting to splinter the developer community,
and force you to pick sides - will you develop for the iPhone, or for those
other platforms? By killing cross-platform compilers, they're attempting to
force developers into a corner, where they have to pick a platform to commit
to, and they're banking on their superior marketshare to cause developers to
pick the iPhone.

If successful, it would put a significant dent in the viabilty of the Android
platform. If Apple can give an "us or them" (or do it twice) ultimatum and get
people to pick them (even grudingly), then they've won. The Mac desktop
floundered against the PC for years due in no small part to the fact that all
the developers were developing for Windows, and didn't really put much thought
into cross-compatibility with Macs. Apple is attempting to repeat history, but
with themselves on the other end of the equation this time.

It's a risky, ballsy, and brazen gambit, but if they pull it off (after all,
the suits who write those developers' paychecks just care about the $ on the
balance sheet at the end of the quarter), it could be a decisive turning point
against Android. Jobs is obviously doing his best to water down the Android
market (they have PORN! UNCLEAN!) and Apple is in full-on assault mode against
Android (via HTC at the moment), and there's a very good reason for it -
Android is suddenly a very real threat.

According to the February metrics from AdMob, Android has a marketshare
equivalent to Apple's in the US. Apple still has a hefty lead worldwide, but
Android is growing by leaps and bounds, while the iPhone remains stagnant.
That's a very real and very direct threat that Apple is pulling out all the
stops to counter.

------
bootload
_"... I'm curious why the reaction to the Apple Developer TOS change is making
this community react so strongly ..."_

In some ways message boards are to hackers what close knit provincial rural
communities are Jane Austen novels. A place of petty intrigue and gallantry.

------
prodigal_erik
We're toolmakers, so this just hits too close to home. We can't be completely
objective about the idea that any platform vendor wants to ban our favorite
tools and demand we use something mediocre (so much so that hardly anyone has
willingly chosen it for decades). It just makes it worse that this one might
have actually amassed enough power to get away with it.

~~~
skalpelis
I don't disagree on any particular point but I wouldn't call XCode mediocre in
comparison to Adobe Flash (which is the most impacted tool in this decision).

Also, I believe, they are at least partly doing this to improve the quality of
the App Store ecosystem and do this to avoid the tens of thousands of shite
autogenerated apps that litter the app store and this move is more of a
cleanup instead of screwing over the few people who prefer a different toolset
for development and generally care about the quality of their applications.
Baby with the bathwater, so to speak.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I have no informed opinion about XCode. I meant being limited to C++ and ObjC,
both of which lack all the advances in language design and runtime safety that
have been widely adopted since the 1980s.

------
frossie
You're right, the reaction to the TOS was something to behold.

I think due to the nature of hacking and hackers, most people here hate being
told how to do their job, especially for what feels to them to be spurious or
irrational reasons.

I suspect people would have responded better to a more narrow (though perhaps
legally more problematic) "no Flash" rule, rather than the legally safer but
over-broad "no cross-compiling".

------
giantfuzzypanda
I'm trying to create a community for rational discourse - <http://debate-
zone.com>

