[marshray]

Jobs has put great software into more hands than RMS ever did.

You do realize that Apple has been dependent on GCC to build its products for most of Jobs' second tenure, don't you? Some of that is code that RMS personally wrote.

The GPL license that, again, RMS personally wrote covers the kernel of the Android system. "Great software" that's in "more hands" than Jobs' devices.

Jobs was a slick businessman like Gates. RMS wrote fucking GCC.

Guess who's contribution I value more.

[leot]

That RMS wrote the GPL, or extended LLNL's Pastel compiler into GCC, does not endow him with responsibility for the success of all free software. Do you really think, given the influence of academia, that there would be no FOSS-equivalent compiler available but for RMS's efforts?

Jobs is responsible for Apple's success. For repeatedly creating devices that have disrupted industries. RMS deserves credit for his contributions, but it is not all-thanks-to-him that we have FOSS.

Yes Apple's software has been closed. But has this been at the expense of FOSS, as RMS claims?

Has Apple actively tried to subvert the GPL by lobbying governments to avoid FOSS? Has Jobs publicly whined about the GPL? Has he engaged in OOXML-esque bad-faith efforts to keep data formats proprietary?

[alecco]

Keep moving the point of the conversation to fit your anti-Stallman flaming.

[leot]

The point was that RMS is wrong when he asserts[1] that Apple and Jobs have hurt the development of free software.

[1] RMS: "we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing"

[marshray]

My understanding is that Apple restricts the applications that it "allows" to run on users' iOS devices to the point that programming language interpreters were effectively banned until about a year ago, now they're merely severely restricted. Users of iOS devices are effectively prevented from running GPL apps because of the restrictions Apple is putting on other peoples' code on users' devices.

It's not just against the development of Stallman's brand of Free Software.

It's an attack on all software developers.

[rimantas]

  > It's an attack on all software developers.

I am a software developer and I don't think I am under any attack. Heck they gave me one more platform to develop for. And there is lots of open source code written for it already.

[marshray]

Just curious: Have you actually developed an app for that platform?

Did you submit it to the review process?

Was it approved or rejected?

[burgerbrain]

Stockholm syndrome.

[burgerbrain]

Jobs popularized the walled garden.

[microtonal]

Jobs also brought DRM-free internet music stores to the masses.

[cookiecaper]

Please dude. iTunes was very late to the game. eMusic? Most early music stores had no DRM.

Jobs leveraged the popularity of the iPod with iTunes (which, by the way, is not allowed to talk to any other program under normal circumstances) to make Apple a ton of money. As was the case with iPhone, Apple was big enough to force the hand of the industry-controlling posse into accepting things on its own terms. While they eventually rolled out DRM free, this should be a basic expectation and does not qualify Apple for bonus points. For years they sold exclusively DRM'd content while there were others attempting to make it on DRM-free platforms.

And by the way, afaik (not an iTunes user), television and movie content is still provided exclusively in DRM'd formats.

[burgerbrain]

After Amazon.

[rimantas]

Gues who contributes a lot to LLVM and Clang.