On 18 May 2010 03:22, David F. Skoll <[email protected]> wrote:
> Apple directly opposes and threatens the hacker culture. > (Well... Apple is a big company, and big companies are always > multi-faceted, so I'm sure there are many open-source and > hacker-friendly people in Apple. I'm referring here to the direction > in which Steve Jobs is taking the company.) > > Apple seeks to create a walled garden of locked-down gadgets, > Apple-approved applications and even Apple-approved development > methodologies. It seeks to exclude contentious or "obscene" content, > and it can terminate your right to sell applications on its platforms > at its pleasure. > I'm another tinkerer. I started playing with transistor/capacitor/resistor/diode/LED based ciruits when I was about twelve (1975) then graduated from that to building a Sinclair ZX80 (in 1980 it was £49.99 for the kit or £99.99 for the ready built machine so we saved that £50 and learned more with a hot soldering iron). Later I built a Microtan 65 (6502 based) micro and learned machine code on it. My twin is also a tinkerer and has worked in harware/software manufacturing since he graduated university 1984. The problem I see (I work for a large American mainframe manufacturer (the one that letter to the right ot HAL)) is that Microsoft, Apple and my employer are that they're not teaching enough graduates to tinker, they're also trying to make the computer into a commodity like a TV or a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner. They are also companies that are more focussed on profit than product. There's now too many sales folk who wouldn't be able to debug a program for all the tea in China, they don't understand the 1s and 0s and getting them back in the right order. I've worked with mainframe database and transaction management systems since 1982. I'm a massive fan of Linux and I dislike spending money on software. I admire your stance against Apple but I suspect it's probably like King Canute and his desire to turn back the tide. Regards, Dougie. -- http://twitter.com/DougieLawson http://facebook.com/Dougie1963
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