LWN: Comments on "Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash"

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

jschrod — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:05:05 +0000

Ahem, British English *is* Charles Stross' native tongue.

And he is so good in it that he successfully lives as a full-time author of SF books. Actually, I can recommend his books a lot if you like geek SF.

Corporative perspectives

nix — Sat, 08 May 2010 22:14:48 +0000

Since there are no completely autonomous robot-only corporations (nor robot-only institutional investors) out there

Except in Charlie Stross's fiction. He's covered this all already...

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

robla — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:15:43 +0000

If you think ANY publicly traded company is comparable to an actual software movement like one espoused by the FSF, then you truly are blinded.

A movement can be a manufactured product of a publicly-traded company. If you join the movement, you're probably a tool, but that doesn't mean it's not a movement.

Corporative perspectives

pboddie — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:58:55 +0000

Remember that in America (well, the USA), if you believe popular interpretations of corporate law, a corporation *is* an individual. So one can understand the misunderstanding about whether it is acceptable to use the plural to refer to one of them.

Of course, such "individuals" aren't supposed to have any actual traits of real human individuals such as a conscience or ethics, which is why in any Internet-based discussion about a corporations doing bad things, it is virtually inevitable to see the assertion being made that "making a return for shareholders is the only concern of a corporation", despite the fact that corporations usually consist of real human individuals who are generally expected to have things like a conscience and ethics. The same actually applies to the shareholders, too.

Since there are no completely autonomous robot-only corporations (nor robot-only institutional investors) out there, the "must make money for shareholders" excuse is a bit like the one about "only following orders": it lets everyone off the moral hook.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

rsidd — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:59:31 +0000

Are you American? I think you are. It shows.

It may interest you to learn that the English language did not originate in America. It originated in another country, whose citizens do have a right to use it a bit differently from you. And quite a large fraction of the English-speaking world goes with that country's usage, not yours.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

Tjebbe — Sun, 02 May 2010 15:27:13 +0000

70$ per device? That's crazy! I thought my monthly 25EUR (15 for voice+text, 10 for data plan) was much.

Granted, this is per device, officially they don't allow tethering and apparently they do pinch the data rate after a certain amount of data, but still.

slightly less offtopic, i really don't care about flash on my phone, especially since android (or the htc desire at least) does internet sharing so well.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

niner — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:52:58 +0000

Except that Mac IE has never been anything like Win IE. It had far superior CSS support but was also extremely buggy with different bugs than Win IE. They were completely different browsers.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

farnz — Sun, 02 May 2010 11:01:16 +0000

It's even worse form to correct someone who isn't actually getting it wrong, just because they're using a different dialect to the one you're familiar with; Charlie Stross has correctly used British English grammar. As Mr Stross was born and educated in England (and now living in Scotland), it's not entirely surprising that he has a preference for British grammar over American.

In the end, language is there to enable us to communicate ideas. So long as someone's use of language is clear and unambiguous, it doesn't matter if it doesn't meet a particular dialect's set of rules; I would much rather read something clear and interesting that's written in a variation of English but using Chinese-style grammar, than something dull and confused written in perfect English (regardless of the choice of dialect.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

fjalvingh — Sun, 02 May 2010 10:25:32 +0000

In an internationally oriented publication as this, I find it extremely bad form to pedantically correct people that take the effort to write in a language that is not their own publicly. If you want to correct send a private email. If you want to impress do it faultless in the author's native tongue.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

dmarti — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:45:57 +0000

You're probably right. Annoying MSIE-isms on web sites (except intranet applications) fell dramatically when MSIE stopped coming out for Mac OS.

Of course, if the codec wars go Jobs's way, I suppose vrms will be complaining about the h.264 plugin for 20 years.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

JoeBuck — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:43:14 +0000

It's not only "fairly typical", but this usage is standard English grammar in the UK: collective entities like corporations and sports teams use a plural pronoun. A British English teacher would correct you for writing "Apple is".

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

mjg59 — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:23:13 +0000

It's fairly typical to refer to corporations as plural entities when speaking British English.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

AndreE — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:02:45 +0000

You seem to mistake method with product.

Apple makes money off hardware. They ARE a tech company at the core. That's why they buy companies like, you know, chip designers. Just because they are a boutique TECHNOLOGY company with unique and successful methods doesn't negate the fact that they in the business of providing technology. The marketing campaigns are in support of a product, not a means to themselves.

Not buying into the marketing hype doesn't mean he misunderstands the point. If you think ANY publicly traded company is comparable to an actual software movement like one espoused by the FSF, then you truly are blinded.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

woooee — Sat, 01 May 2010 14:24:09 +0000

"Apple are trying desperately"

Apparently all people who are named Charlie Stross are not native English speakers (who understand that a corporation is a single entity, thus the singular, "is", is used and not the plural "are"). Poor wording distracts the reader for a while from what the author is trying to say.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

Requiem — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:31:16 +0000

The mobile web will never dominate the US market. It might hit Europe or Japan, or the upper reaches of American society, but most Americans are not going to replace a single 50 dollar a month service for the entire family with 70$ a month service *for each device*.

Unless mobile broadband sellers are planning on drastically reducing the price of their product, its not going to happen. All the spectrum has already been sold here, and no new players will be allowed to enter the market even if more comes up for sale, the telcoms that have the ability to bring mobile broadband into the price range necessary for it to become ubiquitous have already declined to do so.

Also, his figures are wrong, profit in selling desktops is not a mere 10%, except maybe the netbooks. A typical Dell has a markup of 100% (according to the sales tool they give you when you work for them).

Stross is a brit though, so maybe he'll be right for what happens to the brits.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

mem — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:03:39 +0000

I truly don't get the need to bash Apple for whining about Flash.

More power to them, I say!

Many (most?) web developers are Apple fanboys. If the head honcho says "Flash bad, web standards good" those fanboys are going to do as instructed. The web gets rid of flash, we as in "we FOSS" celebrate!

As for the rest of the piece, it's an interesting read.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

Kit — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:57:14 +0000

>> One thing Charlie does not take into account is that Apple
>>is not a hardware company.

>Well it is.

>It's a massive American for-profit, publicly traded corporation,
>that is ever bit as proprietary and restrictive as somebody like
>Microsoft or IBM.

You completely misunderstood what he meant (like many in the tech industry). You see Apple, and you think 'corporation that sells overpriced hardware', and while that's technically 100% correct, it's entirely incorrect of what Apple *really* is.

Apple is a boutique. Apple is a marketing company. Apple *manipulates* a movement, based around their image. They're not a tech company at their core.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

drag — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:47:04 +0000

> One thing Charlie does not take into account is that Apple is not a hardware company.

Well it is.

It's a massive American for-profit, publicly traded corporation, that is ever bit as proprietary and restrictive as somebody like Microsoft or IBM.

> It is a movement. Just like Linux is.

Not like 'Linux' is. Linux (as used as a movement) is a open community were users are participants and developers in it's creation and development.

It's a open system were anybody can participate, sell, modify, redistribute, and profit from as they see fit with the only one major restriction: they have to distribute the source code to others as the source code was distributed to them.

Apple, in comparison, is a publicly traded corporation that makes money selling hardware with their software on it. The only people that can actively participate in it's development is Apple employees. The board of directors and management determine the focus and path of that corporation and it's products.

Except for the purchasing power of the public (to either buy or not buy Apple products) most anybody using Apple products is passive participants at best.

> Hardware was never the point,

Well it is for Apple, since that is were their profits come from and if Apple can't make money from that or something else then they will fail as a corporation and be relegated to the dustbin of history along with all the other thousands of proprietary computer companies that have come and gone.

> Design and marketing will be just as valuable in cloud era as they are today. In last 20 years people were buying what they _want_, what they _believe in_, not what they _need_.

Everything you said applies to any other corporation or any product that anybody sells for anything. It applies just as well to Microsoft to Linux to Buick to anything.

Except people are _VERY_ need oriented and are also affected greatly by incentives (to the point were you can probably control the habits of the majority of the population of the world by carefully manipulating incentives). It's just that incentives and personal rewards are diverse...

The problem is not that Apple or anybody could not create compelling 'cloud based' applications. The problem is trying to figure out a business model to profit from it. It will be very difficult to pull in the same level of returns on internet applications as it would from their premium-priced hardware.

Charlie Stross: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

novemberain — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:43:49 +0000

One thing Charlie does not take into account is that Apple is not a hardware company. It is a movement. Just like Linux is. Hardware was never the point, it is not what makes Apple products attractive. Design and marketing are what Charlie needs to look at. Design and marketing will be just as valuable in cloud era as they are today. In last 20 years people were buying what they _want_, what they _believe in_, not what they _need_.