EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement

Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by tedunangst on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @01:44AM (#1177704)

People were writing free software long before the FSF existed.

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by yason on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @11:12AM (#1178580)

I've understood that basically before FSF was founded, there was no need for "free software" as software was generally considered a side-product by computer manufacturers. IIRC it wasn't until early 80's when companies started routinely charging for and licensing software, thus propelling the founding of a counter-movement such as FSF.

RMS and folks just wanted the old way back. Please correct me if I'm wrong on details, I'd very much like to know better.

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by eplanit on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @12:42PM (#1178888)

Not exactly.

Prior to the 1980s, most computing was on highly proprietary mainframes. The industry was dominated by IBM. Consumers (companies, not individuals) could not _own_ their software. It was all licensed product by IBM and the big vendors. Many vendors did not sell, but instead licensed, their machines, as well. It was very closed, and innovation cost the inventor dearly, and made the vendor a fortune.

The 1980s saw the maturation of the mid-size market, the revolution of the new PC world, an opening up of the hardware and software world, and a hugely exploding new user base. The entire paradigm for the computer market changed. Note, though, the tendency of vendors (ahem, Apple) to return to this world.

Anyone who wants the old days has not been studying history.

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by yason on Thursday March 11, 2010 @01:47AM (#1183217)

Thanks for contributing. One more question:

I've understood that those who bought the early mainframes still did get the sources and were allowed to modify and recompile stuff — possibly at their own risk but anyway. That I believe is what FSF wanted back when software started coming up in closed form. Was it like that?

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by tedunangst on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @12:41PM (#1178881)

That's about half of it. You bought a computer and generally got the source to the software, such as it was, that ran on it. But the main reason you had the source to the software you were running was because you wrote the software you were running. The market for 3rd party software came later, but also at the same time as people were already mailing tapes around and posting stuff on usenet. There's no reason to believe people would have suddenly stopped mailing tapes around if the FSF didn't show up.

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by bitdiddle on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @07:20AM (#1178050)

Absolutely, and thanks to the efforts of the FSF they will continue to do so hopefully long into the future.

This Apple agreement is absolutely insane. I wonder to what extent Apple's arguably great software has been enabled by free software. I'm also hopeful that proponents of open source, who distinguish themselves from free software are at least now rethinking things a bit.

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by GHFigs on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @09:26AM (#1178276)

I'm also hopeful that proponents of open source, who distinguish themselves from free software are at least now rethinking things a bit.

Why would they?

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Re:EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement by tedunangst on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @12:43PM (#1178891)

Apparently without the eternal vigilance of the FSF, BigEvil Inc. is going to break into my house and take away the source of all the programs I've written because I forgot to GPL them.

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