Vendor lock-in, control and security
In this great article Bruce Schneier clearly explains the lock-in rationale for software companies and the way they try to sell this as security benefits for the consumers.
«By confusing control and security, companies are able to force control measures that work against our interests by convincing us they are doing it for our own safety»
«With enough lock-in, a company can protect its market share even as it reduces customer service, raises prices, refuses to innovate and otherwise abuses its customer base. It should be no surprise that this sounds like pretty much every experience you’ve had with IT companies: Once the industry discovered lock-in, everyone started figuring out how to get as much of it as they can.»
The article starts by talking about the locked nature of the iPhone - not about SIM locking but about the fact that you cannot develop/install 3rd party applications. This has been really annoying me and as much as I like Apple and the iPhone I think this is a serious blow to an important part of their users base: the tech geeks. Hey! WE-WANT-OPEN-PLATFORMS! In fact all my friends with iPhones are spending a lot of energy trying to unlock their iPhones… What a waste - they should be spending this energy contributing to the platform not trying to break free out of it!
[...] Eventually Consistent wrote an interesting post today on Vendor lock-in, control and securityHere’s a quick excerptIn fact all my friends with iPhones are spending a lot of energy trying to unlock their iPhones……Tags: control, iphone, liberty, open, security…The article starts by talking about the locked nature of the iPhone - not about SIM locking but about the fact that you cannot develop/install 3rd party applications….This has been really annoying me and as much as I like Apple and the iPhone I think this is a serious blow to an important part of their users base: the tech geeks. Hey! WE-WANT-OPEN-PLATFORMS!… [...]
[...] the other hand, vendor and infrastructure lock-in is something that we, as technologists, have all had to deal with in one form or another. The [...]
In regards to the iPhone, and as one of your gulity friends, as much as I’m looking forward to Apple’s Dev Kit, I’m actually even more interested in the unfortunately still not yet entirely available Open Moko and Google Android.
[...] We want an open platform. Period. The idea of the app store is actually very good but the ugly part is that Apple keeps a Microsoft style lock-in control over it. It is basically the same concept as with Microsoft Xbox Live. Note that both the Xbox and iPhone security has been broken. The main difference is with the community motivation, on the Xbox its mainly for copying games while on the iPhone, users & developers don’t want to have to deal with Apple’s monopolistic behavior and just want to use or publish applications freely without Apple overlooking everything - just like with any other platform/operating system (Windows, OSX, Linux). The fact is that there is a lot of talented, motivated, creative people making applications outside of Apple’s sanctioned channels. Why can’t all iPhones users have access to this talent without going the “underground” route? Fail. [...]