Monday, April 19, 2010

More Madness!

SDK – WTF Apple?

I stopped writing code for a living many years ago and I'm happy with that decision. If I depended on writing application code for my bread and butter, I would have stopped developing for Apple long ago. Although I normally take the manufacturer's side when it comes to what applications will run on their platform because, they designed it. And yes, we all push the boundaries of those restrictions if there is a compelling reason, but again, I believe that Apple has really gone berserk with this power trip of iron fisted rule over the types of tools that developers can use. If Microsoft told developers that they had to use ONLY the Visual Studio IDE to develop applications, they would revolt. Now, there may be a very good reason (other than "Performance"….lame) to use the prescribed dev tools, but I didn't see that explained anywhere. And, the change to the developers agreement was announced at the same time that Adobe released its iPod/iPhone/iPad application packager allowing developers to write in Flash and then cross compile to the native i-Whatever executable. So, once again, it seems like it's more of a Jobs vs. the World battle rather than a true business decision. Of course, Apple is Steve Jobs. There is no one else working there... is there? I wonder if all of the Apple employees follow in lock-step to the Jobs March?

MPAA+RIAA=Communism!

Actually, this joint submission was not just the product of the MPAA and RIAA. The entire list of villains is enumerated in the first paragraph of the letter to the US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. Did anyone know that we had an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator? Well, apparently we do and some entertainment industry groups have drafted a proposal to persuade the government to assist them in enforcing copyright laws by brute force. Now I'm all for giving artists their just due, but this is not about the artists. It's the same battle that the print media is fighting, but nastier. The motion picture and recording industries have not adapted to the new methods of media distribution and instead of changing, they are attempting to litigate to maintain an outdated business model. And now that litigation seems less than productive, they would like to create a police state to enforce their position. To do this they are suggesting the following;

  1. ISP's should monitor their networks for infringing materials.
  2. Border patrols and TSA agents should examine digital properties to find evidence of piracy.
  3. Search engines should block search results that might lead to copyrighted materials being distributed illegally.

And those are just the most absurd. As Molly Wood from CNET"s Buzz Out Loud said "Are they out of their f----king minds!". Well Molly, it would appear that they are. On the heels of Google's stand-off with the Chinese government, this is a direct attack on the freedom of the internet and represents the same type of censorship under the guise of law enforcement.

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