Apple has benefited heavily from open-source software over the years, and it has earned a warm spot in the hearts of open-source advocates, despite its heavily proprietary stance.
With BluWiki, however, Apple appears to have gone too far.
In November 2008, as CNET's Tom Krazit wrote on Monday, Apple wrote to the BluWiki administrators to have iPodHash, an open-source program that attempts to enable iPods and iPhones to sync with music software other than Apple's iTunes, removed from the Web site. Apple argues that iPodHash violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by actively seeking to circumvent Apple's iTunes copyrights.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, however, begs to differ. It has launched a lawsuit against Apple, as PC World reports, and seeks a "declaratory judgment action to vindicate the free-speech interests of Internet readers and publishers," according to the EFF's complaint (PDF).
After all, this isn't really about DMCA circumvention, as the EFF's Fred von Lohmann declares. It's about a Web site's right to allow others to post information related to legal, fair use-protected actions. Frankly, it's ultimately about the right to open information, and, tangentially, about open-source software.
Von Lohmann explains:
This is the first time I've seen a company suggest that simply talking about reverse engineering violates the DMCA. All of the previous cases have been cases that involved actual successful reverse-engineered tools.
Apple, in its sometimes-rabid desire to control everything to do with its brand and technology, appears to have overstepped its legal authority in the BluWiki case. Apple argues that it's about much more than the right to have online discussions about reverse engineering, suggesting in a letter to the EFF (PDF) that the iPodHash software could be used to break Apple's FairPlay copy protection system.
I love Apple's technology. I love its brand. I could do without its heavy-handed attempts to protect technology that its own recent actions suggest is heading toward extinction, with DRM-free music now the norm on iTunes.
Apple is a great company because it makes compelling, beautiful products. It's not Apple because it beats up on administrators of discussion forums. At least, I hope not.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer spots - or, rather, doesn't spot - the Zune in Microsoft's new advertising for that uber-social iPhone "competitor." According to Zune marketing director Adam Sohn, this is on purpose: "We're trying to funnel people from the software side....You don't have to buy the device immediately."
Huh? So, Microsoft is trying to play up all the things you can do with the Zune...without buying a Zune. That might be a better strategy, since it turns out that not many people want to do buy a Zune, regardless of the price. CNET's Matt Rosoff tries to put a brave face on Microsoft's recent focus on the Zune software, rather than the Zune device, but it fails to convince.
What can you do with the Zune desktop software without undergoing the shame of carrying a Zune around? Things like music discovery, which, unfortunately, Apple also provides through its Genius service in iTunes. In other words, Microsoft is playing catch-up, and it's unlikely to catch up.
Let's face it: the XBox excepted, Microsoft is a much better software company than it is a hardware company. But mobile is a game where it's still critical to own the entire experience, hardware and software, which is why Microsoft does so poorly against the iPod and iPhone, and Apple continues to dominate.
Best to get back to those dull, gray corporate desktops, Mr. Ballmer. With 90 percent-plus market share, you can afford to be "social" in the enterprise in a way that the Zune never has been.
If one ever had to come up with an award for "Clueless Industry of the Millennium," the music industry would win by a landslide. What with the US' RIAA suing homeless people and now the UK's Music Business Group attempting to tax iPods, it's shocking that these jokers get paid at all. It's like Cirque de Soleil. Without the Soleil.
The MBG, conveniently overlooking decades of vinyl-to-cassette personal copying, declares:
We acknowledge that consumers clearly want to format shift and also place enormous value on the transferability of music. Music fans clearly deserve legal clarity in this area as well as the freedom to enjoy any music they have legitimately obtained.
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When I see things like Microsoft's newest Zune, I actually feel pity for the company. Where Microsoft is good, it's great. But where it's an also-ran, it stinks. The Zune is a product that never should have been born. It adds nothing to the industry.
Except a nifty "community website":
The Redmond-based company also announced an online community website for the range, dubbed Zune Social. The beta site allows users to interact with one another and to create user cards, highlighting their favourite and currently playing tracks. However, cards can?t be traded.
The "community," which goes by the name of "John" when he's not online, awaits the social with bated breath.
... Read moreHerb Greenberg's "Weekend Investor" column today in the Wall Street Journal drives home an important point: it's easy to miss the razor for the blade. I'm referring to the classic "razor/blade" business model, one which is often cited as being well-suited to open source.
In Apple's case, it is critical to figure out the "blade" because Apple's iPod sales seem to have finally hit the saturation point:
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