[Remind-Fans] The Apple Stance [warning: long]

[David F. Skoll]

Hi,

I'd like to explain my anti-Apple stance.  This will be long(-winded),
so feel free to skip it. :)

As a kid, I was always a tinkerer.  By about 12, I was fooling around
with electronic kits, home-made gunpowder, etc.  (Believe it or not, in
those days, the local drugstore delivered potassium nitrate AKA
saltpeter directly to our apartment, no questions asked!)

When I was about 14 years old, I bought a book on BASIC.  I didn't have
a computer, but I read the book and started writing programs anyway.
I wrote them with pencil and paper, and "ran" them in my head.

The next year was my first year of high school.  I finally got
access to a computer (a Commodore PET).  Its dialect of BASIC was a bit
different from what I'd learned, but I adapted my programs and typed
them in.  Of course, they failed miserably. :)

But I was hooked.  I could see that this computer thing was amazing, that
it could take my abstract thoughts and make them concrete.

Over the years, I did an undergraduate and Masters degree in
electrical engineering, but software was always my first love.  After
graduation, I worked at a couple of places as a software developer
before striking out on my own by founding Roaring Penguin Software Inc.
in 1999.

A few years before that, in 1994, I had discovered Linux.  I was
completely amazed when I saw the famous "X" cursor running on *my*
(ex-)DOS PC.  Discovering Linux brought forth the same rush of feeling
I had when I was 15 and first got my BASIC program to run on that PET.
It was once again the sense of limitless possibilities.

I don't have anything in particular against non-free software.  My
company makes its money, in fact, by selling non-free software.  (We
supply source and you're allowed to modify it; you just can't
redistribute it or a derived product.)  But I do have strong feelings
against proprietary companies that try to limit what you can do with
your hardware, or that try to hide the innards of their systems from
tinkerers.  To do so is a tragedy; it deprives us of future hackers.

Some say that Apple fills a niche by providing products that "just
work" or are "simple to use."  Well, my parents and kids find that
their Linux machines "just work" and are "simple to use".  (They'd
never been exposed to Windows or the Mac, so I guess the first
computer system you learn becomes the yardstick by which you measure
simplicity.)

But should they choose to, they can delve into the innards of the
system.  I'll never forget the day I found my middle daughter using
the "View Source" feature of Firefox to get past an online game's
quiz.  That's thinking like a hacker.  And when she got her
electronics kit, I could see the spark in her eyes.  Sure, the
circuits are far beyond her understanding.  (I barely even remember
how they work and I studied the stuff.)  When I explained that
capacitors were like water tanks and resistors were like thin pipes,
she sort-of got it.  But when she tinkered with the circuit by
changing capacitor or resistor values, she *really* got it.  It was
obvious that a bigger capacitor held more water (well, charge) and
took longer to charge up, so the circuit worked slower.  And higher
resistors were like thinner pipes, so the water (charge) took longer
to drain.

This kind of learning involving deep, gut understanding is simply
impossible without tinkering.

In my various jobs, I've interviewed about 24 software developers.
Without exception, the ones who were "tinkerers" as kids, who enjoyed
writing software just for fun and who thought like hackers were far
superior to those who just studied computer science because they
thought they'd get well-paying jobs.

Apple directly opposes and threatens the hacker culture.
(Well... Apple is a big company, and big companies are always
multi-faceted, so I'm sure there are many open-source and
hacker-friendly people in Apple.  I'm referring here to the direction
in which Steve Jobs is taking the company.)

Apple seeks to create a walled garden of locked-down gadgets,
Apple-approved applications and even Apple-approved development
methodologies.  It seeks to exclude contentious or "obscene" content,
and it can terminate your right to sell applications on its platforms
at its pleasure.

If I came to computers as a 14-year-old given an iPhone or iPad
instead of a PET, I probably would have played with the thing for a
few months and moved on.  I'd never have experienced the beauty and
creativity of crafting a piece of software.  And that would have been
tragic for me.

For the sake of the next generation, we have to tell the world that
Steve Jobs' vision of computing is a sterile, stifling, ultimately
poisonous vision.  And if that means putting "puerile" code in ./configure
scripts, then I proudly wear the label "puerile".

Regards,

David.