Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Openness of Internet vs. iTools

Author:Oliver Breidenbach
Posted:1/7/2000; 3:27:28 AM
Topic:Openness of Internet vs. iTools
Msg #:14178
Prev/Next:14177 / 14180

Having scanned tons of messages, I came across this piece (recommended on the Scripting News Homepage): http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33475,00.html

I rather think, those guys are a little bit overreacting.

Shure, the services aren´t either new nor very original. And they are sort of proprietary. But, is that against the openness of the internet? Shurely not.

Openness means, that whoever can do whatever they like with it as long as that does not restrict others to do the same, doesn´t it?

If you want to do business offering the SAME services, there should not be a restriction. If you want to offer them for free, you should be able to do it, provided that you foot the bill.

So, how exactly does iTools prevent anyone from doing anything alike or different, on the net?

Open, as other discussions reveal, is not the same as free. If these people want free access to anything, how come they use PGP to encrypt their messages or SSL to protect their credit card numbers? Because, if you get down to it, it is about intellectual property. Everyone should be allowed to own his or her intellectual property on the net. In this context, "open" means that nobody is restricted technically to develop any service or publish any opinion on the web, including services that only their paying clients can access with the use of proprietary protocols.

In addition, how could a company like Apple innovate, if they would not be allowed to benefit from the innovation? And how would they do that, if anybody could use iDisk to store MP3 files to share with their friends? What incentive would there be for customers to buy a Mac if there would not be any unique benefits?

In another posting, Dave Winer states: This is not a revolution, and as Doc points out on Cluetrain, everything Apple offers on iTools is available elsewhere without the Mac-only thing. The only innovation is exclusivity.

I do not think so. The innovation is the way in which the service is going to make money. And that is an innovation on which they can build.

I predict a ghost-town. Why give a review to Apple when Epinions is there?

Here I agree. It is a mistake to exclude non-Mac OS 9 users from this service.

Why send a card thru Apple when Blue Mountain Arts is funkier and more fun?

Choose whatever service you like better. This is really down to branding. If the privacy statement would not exclude this from happening, I would suspect the iCards to collect email adresses and learn about customers color, theme and other preferences.

Why post something on Apple's website if your cousin who uses a Dell can't post a response, or even read it?

Because I don´t have a cousin who uses a dell and it´s a lot more convinient to store my files in afp based iDisk than it is on an http/html based service with that rediculous Upload File from Browser feature.

Dave, I can´t stop feeling that you are a bit jealous because us Mac OS 9 users get to use all this cool stuff... ;-)

Cheers,

Oliver.

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