iPhone: What it means to developers

Again beginning with this post, there is a disclaimair that am not anti-Apple, but firmly believe that their policies should be badly bashed. I have even based Mozilla Corporation for their policies even though being an Open Source Fan.

First begin with the NDA imposed upon the developers developing apps for iPhone. The only word coming to my mouth is WTF! Apple has such a big community of fans and developers, why are the developers treated like a second grade citizen. Now is it a work of a second standard student to remind Apple that sharing codes and idea is always healthy for an development platform? This is equal to reinventing the whole wheel. Fine! Apple wants to keep the platform closed sources and non-free. Done Apple Done! Now please dont force the developers on your whims and fancies. Now what code they make, should belong to the devs and its upto them what to do with that pretty shit of code. This is am attempt to even surpass Microsoft in their suppressive tactics.

The iPhone platform is beautiful, appealing but highly locked in. No-one can duplicate the functionality of the services provided in the phone. My question is why not? Its upto the users to think on it, whether they want a similar functioning application or not. The Android’s statement on this is

Android does not differentiate between the phone’s core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone’s capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services. With devices built on the Android Platform, users will be able to fully tailor the phone to their interests.

which is a slap on the face of Apple’s policy. No company/individual has any right to determine what application I install on my personal computer or phone. Its truely my choice and am not a slave of anyone to be supressed.

When submitting apps to the app store, some applications come immediately and some take ages to show up. Many developers have expressed anger over it. Is Apple listening? If they dont care of the developers then what the heck is this SDK for? The most valuable asset a development platform can have is developers and a large user base. Apple has no interest to keep the former in high esteem.

Smells like EULA

Finally the Firefox EULA controversy has died down after Mozilla along with Ubuntu reached an agreement. The whole controversy was really uncalled for since Firefox and Ubuntu are two companions without which Free Software Movement may find very difficult to make its way through. Surely Firefox is the most famous Free Software out there with Ubuntu being the most famous Linux distro.

The matter may have been settled, but its really saddening the way Mozilla Corp is heading. I would like to write a letter to Mozilla Corp for their behavior.

Dear Mozilla Corp,

This is one of your users who has been highly saddened by the presence of Proprietary looking EULA in the latest Intrepid Alpha releases. Free software movement folks cant even stand anything which looks,smells or feels like an EULA.

To remind you that you are a company behind this browser, but did you forget that its the big and vaster community who tests and propagates the use of Firefox. You simply ignored them? A better option could have been to do an online poll to gauge the general public thinking about the EULA. I really feel that Firefox should have been moved to multiverse repository if the EULA would continue to exist. An unofficial build could also have done the work.

I still dont consider your browser as completely free. It still contains a proprietary TalkBack crash reporter. Come on Mozilla, cant you people develop a crash reporter when you can develop such a famous and secure browser. The community is there to test your new crash reporter, whatever you name it.

I dont want to make this letter bigger, the message is quite clear. Keep up and cherish the free software ideals and principles if you really want the support of the strong FOSS community.

Ethical or Unethical? Views on MS!

Disclaimer: I am not anti-Microsoft, but praising this Corporation for their deeds is something which I cant gulp down the throat.

I had a discussion with one of my friend about how Microsoft made its market share, what it develops and how its products perform. I kept on pressing that save some of its products rest all are a piece of crap. Those two products are Outlook 2007 and Visual Studio.

Marketing Strategy: I always felt that Microsoft is more of marketing rather than software development. It projects even a beta software like a stable one, never admits its flaws and keeps on making excuses day by day. The OOXML story even made me ashamed how such a big corporation can adopt unethical practices. Bribing, pressurizing and making deals is all the work which this Corporation does and pays less tress on the quality of their products

Internet Explorer: It should be banned! Yes, I firmly believe this! It is that browser which has fractured the web and still thinks itself a God. It doesn’t follow any standards and assumes that whatever it implements becomes an unofficial standard. I cant get how people get to believe this? How a good web designer can think IE’s implementation of technologies as standard. Such designers needs coaching classes or else they are not fit for their post. Other rival browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome are light years ahead of IE, implementing all the web standards and technologies at such a pace. Are IE developers sleeping? If they think that managing IE is beyond their capacity, shut down the project and unbundle this stinking browser from the next Windows release. People say that living without IE is tough, I never felt so! Whenever I go to any system, the first thing I install is Firefox and then start my browsing.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Well, am not against charity, but there are many industrialists and entrepreneurs who donate and done make a hype out of it. Many NGO’s receive huge donations from anonymous donors. This Melinda Gates foundation gives money to charity which is earned through bad practises, its the unethical money. If they really want to help the people, please slash the prices of your softwares. Windows Vista Ultimate for $400? WTF!

The Bad Practices: I cant forget how they killed Netscape and what they tried to do with Novell. Their Open Source chanting is all false. It is just the pressure which makes them act like this. I would like to congratulate the Samba team who fought a battle with MS to get the specifications of how Windows sharing take place. This is that part which everybody know. Nothing more to tell.

Product Reviews: The only two products which I like are Outlook 2007 and Visual Studio, both of which fall under their Enterprise products category. You got what I meant to say? They never ever care about their Free Products like IE which a majority of people use, instead pay most of the attention on those products which fetch them money.

Piracy : I always believe firmly that its anti-piracy drive is a drama. They never ever want to stop piracy because it would lessen the popularity of their Operating System and the Office Suite. They even make their softwares crackable so that people don’t stop using them. Instead they try to sell it to the people through OEM so that people don’t pay additional. I have even heard people saying that I got an original copy of windows on my system. When I say “You have paid for it”, the answer which I get it “But it came along with the hardware”. Height of foolishness! Would MS give so many licenses for free?

Security :  This would be the most basic thing which people pay attention. Security is not just hacking and cracking, but more widely malware protection. Each and every time MS rolls out a security update and they have been doing this for ages. Evan after installing so many patches and updates why isnt the system secure? Do anti-viruses company pay MS for keeping it malware venerable? I cant deny this fact after watching the track record of this company.