[Fsuk-manchester] Fwd: Slashdot| Apple's Trend Away From Tinkering

[Tim Dobson]

Thoughts?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [GeekUp] Fwd: Slashdot| Apple's Trend Away From Tinkering
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 10:56:22 +0000
From: Paul Robinson <address@hidden>
To: GeekUp <address@hidden>

I saw this over on the Open Manufacturing list, and figured as so many 
here are:

a) Tinkerers
b) Advocates of "Free"
c) Apple Fan bois
d) And/or Apple hate bois

... that this discussion might be of interest to several of you.

Begin forwarded message:

> http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/01/31/1657233/Apples-Trend-Away-From-Tinkering
> ""Having cut his programming teeth on an Apple ][e as a ten-year-old, Mark Pilgrim laments that Apple 
> now seems to be doing everything in their power to stop his kids from finding the sense of wonder he did: 'Apple 
> has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of 
> "jailbreaks" stop working, and people have to find new ways to break into their own computers. There 
> won't ever be a MacsBug for the iPad. There won't be a ResEdit, or a Copy ][+ sector editor, or an iPad Peeks 
> & Pokes Chart. And that's a real loss. Maybe not to you, but to somebody who doesn't even know it 
> yet.'""
> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/01/29/tinkerers-sunset
> http://al3x.net/2010/01/28/ipad.html
>
> Lots of interesting comments from an open perspective (on all sides of the 
> issue).
>
> --Paul Fernhout

I have to admit this is about the best set of arguments I've seen for 
"Free" in a while.

I sit here, about to go into a school and talk to a bunch of teenagers 
about careers in technology as part of my work with STEMnet. I was 
thinking earlier, most of them have probably never tinkered, but as 
we've discussed here in the past, if they did some of them would find 
the brilliance and happiness we all did when we first started tinkering.

I am seriously tempted to reconsider my developer connection 
subscriptions with Apple as a result of thinking about this a bit more. 
Maybe.

Other thoughts on all of this beyond the age old "Free is the future" vs 
"GPL is for idiots" debate we've had so many times before?

--
Paul Robinson

http://vagueware.com :: address@hidden :: +44 (0) 7740 465746

Vagueware Limited is registered in England/Wales, number 05700421
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