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by rbanffy 5856 days ago
> wouldn't a paid for browser (html reader) do the same?

Remember Safari and IE are also paid for. Safari for Mac requires OSX and is, presumably, included in its price. The same goes for Internet Explorer, whose EULA explicitly forbids you from installing on anything other than Windows. Safari for Windows may get away with that.
1 comments
cwp 5856 days ago
I'm a bit confused. You obviously know that Safari runs on Windows, but you say it requires OS X. Huh?
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rbanffy 5856 days ago
Quoting myself:

"Safari for Mac requires OSX"

"Safari for Windows may get away with that"

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cwp 5856 days ago
Yeah, I did read that. You appear to be contradicting yourself. Care to explain? What does Safari for Windows "get away with?"
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rbanffy 5856 days ago
It's not a commercial product. Safari for OSX, however, requires you to either buy OSX or a Mac, driving Apple's revenue.
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cwp 5855 days ago
So you're saying that Safari for Mac is a commercial product, but Safari for Windows isn't? Apple develops Safari because a platform without a free, high quality web browser just isn't viable, but that doesn't make Safari "commercial." I certainly don't buy the idea that Safari drives Mac sales.

But this is just nit-picking. I agree that the Times is being completely ridiculous here. There are all sorts of commercial entities involved in people reading the Times RSS feeds - Apple, Pulse, the users' ISP, the Times' hosting company, various telcos in between the two, the folks who made the routers the packets pass through, etc. The Times doesn't seem to have accepted that they don't have direct contact with their readers online; they're just one part of a larger ecosystem.

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rbanffy 5855 days ago
I agree it's a stretch demonstrating the absurdity of the NYT demand. Safari for OSX is a commercial product because it comes bundled with OSX and there is no other way to get a Safari to run on a Mac without buying OSX. In the case of Safari 5, you have even would have to buy 10.5 or 10.6.

Safari for Windows is just an attempt to get Windows web developers to test against Safari. No Windows user I know of uses Safari as the main browser.

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