> When Apple first unveiled the Mac App Store, many - including myself - were concerned what it would mean for the future of the general purpose computer. It felt like a first step towards losing control and ownership over our own computers, a dreaded future where everything we do on our machines is curated, tracked, and monitored by companies who want to squeeze ever more money from us, and governments who want to control us.
> We're allowing an entire generation to be raised with the idea that you do not own software, that you do not own hardware, that you are not allowed to tinker with the magic smiles machine. This is going to come back to bite us in the ass in the future, when we're going to be faced with a shortage of low-level, hardcore programmers.
In many ways, Richard Stallman has been right all along, and slowly, many of his fears are coming true.
I don't buy it. When I had a C64, I had a number of games on a floppy. The floppy got lost. The games were gone. With the App store, I buy an app on my iPhone and it magically appears on my iPad. If I loose either device (or, heaven forbid, both!), I can re-download my apps. How is that me not owning my own software? Because I can't look at the code? Guess what...I also don't get to view the schematics of the power station that generates the electricity without which neither my C64 nor my iPhone are of any use.
The cloud has become a utility, like electricity. The cloud goes down, I can't access my apps. The electricity goes out, I can't turn on my machine. This is the idea that the next generation will be raised with.
Because Apple is the "Gatekeeper" of all software on the platform. They have full control over what goes in the app store, and what doesn't. No longer will you be able to go to a website and download some no-name-joe's software. It HAS to be on the app store. That's the direction it's going in. It has nothing to do with the cloud, being able to redownload your software, view source code, etc... It's about having the choice of what software you can and can't use being controlled by them.
Last I heard, you can sign your app with a free developer key. It absolutely does not have to be on the app store. And there's a switch in system preferences that lets you disable this whole verification process altogether (or if you want don't want to disable it, but want to make an exception, you can right click on an executable and press 'open' or open it via terminal, instead of double clicking on it).
> When Apple first unveiled the Mac App Store, many - including myself - were concerned what it would mean for the future of the general purpose computer. It felt like a first step towards losing control and ownership over our own computers, a dreaded future where everything we do on our machines is curated, tracked, and monitored by companies who want to squeeze ever more money from us, and governments who want to control us.
> We're allowing an entire generation to be raised with the idea that you do not own software, that you do not own hardware, that you are not allowed to tinker with the magic smiles machine. This is going to come back to bite us in the ass in the future, when we're going to be faced with a shortage of low-level, hardcore programmers.
In many ways, Richard Stallman has been right all along, and slowly, many of his fears are coming true.