[simonh]

I think this is where we get into the weeds. How do we specify what is a general purpose computer? How do we specify a legally mandated mechanism for installing software? I'm not expecting you to do so now obviously, but isn't the fact that it's so hard part of the problem? This is an incredibly tricky area to start legislating about. Theres much more to this to hitting Apple with a 'monopolist' stick.

[newen]

This is why there are regulatory bodies and people's entire career devoted to this. The government can create regulatory bodies to answer these questions and then regulate companies.

[simonh]

I don’t think saying it’s someone else’s problem to sweat the details cuts it. It sounds too much to me like wanting to wave a magic wand to make the problem go away, but there is no magic wand. Never, in any of the debates I’ve had on this, any of the blog posts a I’ve read about it, even the EFF articles about this (and organisation I have enormous respect for), has anyone actually tackled this issue of saying how a law like this would work in any specific way and what devices it should or should not apply to, specifically.