[andreyf]

I strongly disagree with the author, but I grasp his point of view. Let me try to explain it.

There exists an ideology of "open is always better than closed": open source is better than closed source, open formats are better than proprietary formats, etc. When Jobs talks about WebKit/SquirrelFish being open source implementations of open standards, he is, intentionally or not, appealing to that audience.

But obviously, Steve doesn't believe that open is always better than closed: for example, in the iPhone OS, in the AppStore, and in the H.264 video formats, he's relying on closed and proprietary systems for practical benefit. To those, like RMS, who want the open/closed heuristic used globally and without considering any other variables, this is hypocritical - you say you support openness in one area, but not another. To the people that care about end-user experience more than open/closed systems, such hypocrisy is just common sense.

Personally, I think we should strive for cooperation between the "pure morality" point of view of Stallman, and from the "practical morality" point of view of industry. I've been both a paying member of the FSF and a big fan of the Apple's ecosystem of products since high school: the two are free to pursue their own goals independently, and work together to the fullest extent that shareholder interests align with open-source morality.

A great example such a beautifully aligned interest is Google's rumored opening of the VP8 codec - it will both save Google oodles of bandwidth and storage in the long-run, and be great step for the open ecosystem. It's also important to remember, however, that the reason On2 was able to get investors to pay for the development of VP8 is because of the IP protections they received. Without those, Google would have had to fund/organize/oversee such development in-house instead of letting a free market of startups and investors do a lot of the managing/evaluating/choosing for them.

[doki_pen]

Jobs implies something when he says that he thinks the web "should" be open. He doesn't say it's better for Apple if it's open. Anyway, what is the point? Shouldn't we all have our own self interest in mind and not Apple's? What do I care if it benefits Apple if it doesn't benefit me? The argument should be about whether we should accept what is happening lying down, or if we should try to resist it. Just because it makes sense for Apple to behave this way, doesn't mean that we should accept it.

Edit: It has nothing to do with morality. It's my own vested self interest that makes me wary of Apple. To bring up morality is a way of minimizing my views.

[duairc]

I'm not sure I really get what you're saying either. You're asserting everything should be open ("pure morality") and "industry" ("practical morality") are somehow at opposite ends of a spectrum, and that it would be good if we somehow strove to be somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

[vorador]

I'm not sure to get your point : for instance, why a closed-source iphoneOS would be better than an open one ?

[binspace]

The problem with H.264 is there is a conflict of interest involved. Microsoft and Apple have lots of money riding on the adoption of H.264. If it is the standard, they directly profit.

In the medium to long term, end-user quality is negatively affected by adopting close standards.

[binspace]

Also, the lawyers have promised to basically sue open source developers who do not pay royalties.

[astrange]

Mozilla and Opera have promised everyone that they would be sued for royalties (and there's no reason not to believe them), but I've never seen evidence of this. Nobody is ever going to sue Perian/ffdshow/VLC for royalties.

[robryan]

Still, even if they probably won't get sued they would always have it hanging over their heads. Making an investment in technologies which even have a small chance of causing legal trouble at some point in the future could be a bad bet for them.