On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Chris Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 7:24 PM, Soh Kam Yung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > (http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g) > > > > > > > Note: 'free' below means 'free speech', not 'free beer'. Apparently, > > you cannot write a GPL'd application for the iPhone (rumour?). > > ===== > > 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G > > Submitted by johns. on 2008-07-10 09:26 PM. Community > > > > The 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G: > > > > * iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a > > tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't > > be on everyone's phones. > > Probably true. Though a compelling counterargument is that Apple wants > to maintain the standards of iPhone at a high level, thus having such > rights allow Apple to eliminate trash application. I'm not sure about > all these 'tax' thing, what I know is that the level of penetration of > iPhone 3G is gonna be pretty high soon enough that many companies > would start writing software for iPhone 3G. > Bazaar, vs Cathedral. User control, vs MNC (or centralized entity) control. So it's good enough that "many companies" will be able to write software for the iphone? > > * iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management > > (DRM) technology. > > Don't buy music! Download pirated, DRM-free for free (kidding!). > AFAIK, Apple Music Store is moving away from DRM. You can take it this > way, you can't play any DRM-ed songs at non-DRM-compatible music > player (e.g. FreeRunner), but with iPhone, you could play both. It's > now up to you (as in 'free speech') to decide what type of music do > you buy. > "you can play both" also means you're buying something that supports it. Says in the link that the iphone wont play non-drm formats. You're saying it can? Is this after it's unlocked (or whatever)? Or which formats are you specifically talking about that are non-DRM that it can play? > > > * iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and > Theora. > > Gosh. Ogg Vorbis, it has been ages since I heard of that format. It > begs the questions: does it affect you? After all, iPhone is not a > swiss army knife. (: > I guess it's a case of different beliefs/priorities here? I may care about global warming - even though it doesn't really affect me all that much at this point in time. I'm not sure about the iphone being a swiss army knife. Perhaps not - but you buy what you want to. You don't buy what you do not want to. > > * iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on > > the horizon that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free > > media formats, and let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner. > > Yeah, that's definitely true. But I'm still gonna get an iPhone 3G > when I'm back in Singapore. It's a good piece of hardware with > well-tailored OS and UI. (: Plus I'm an Apple whore anyway. It has the > closest OS to UNIX I could get that also has amazingly good UI. It > also has some of the best hardware and customer support around. > -jf -- In the meantime, here is your PSA: "It's so hard to write a graphics driver that open-sourcing it would not help." -- Andrew Fear, Software Product Manager, NVIDIA Corporation http://kerneltrap.org/node/7228
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