Apparently you don't.

I do. Create whatever restrictions you like. I don't have to use your code.

So it's "orwellian" to insist that the people who receive my software, via you, have the same rights as you did, and can use altered versions of it freely in place of the versions you gave them?

Not at all; that's not even what I said.

What I said is that it's "Orwellian doublespeak" to use the word "liberty" to describe a scheme where you've set restrictions on how I can use and distribute something.

There is nothing "jacked up" about this.

I fully support your right to put restrictions on how I can modify or distribute something you created. Calling these restrictions "liberty," however, is just Orwellian doublespeak.

The GPL license is free as in liberty. Developers who wish to base products on existing GPL software must agree to maintain the liberty of the derived software's users to use the software with the same liberties that the developer did.

If you associate the words "must agree" with the word "liberty," I think you have pretty jacked up definition of liberty.

So was I. But this is something I don't quite get. The iPhone was innovation there's no doubt about it. But the iPad... it's the same thing, bigger, with a feature removed. I have used the iPad several times and the overriding thought is always: there's nothing this thing does that my phone doesn't and it's too big to fit in my pocket... and if I have my backpack why wouldn't I just carry a laptop?

It's really not just the same thing, bigger, with a feature removed (if it were, the iPad wouldn't have UI elements like UIPopover that iPhone/iPod Touch doesn't have), but I'm clearly not going to be able to convince you otherwise. But even if the iPad had no unique UI elements, its larger display still would make it more useful for certain tasks than an iPhone--just like I'd rather write code on a 24" display (preferably two) than a 13" display.

Like you, I consume almost all of my news via RSS (using Reeder and Instapaper on both iPhone and iPad and Google reader on desktops/laptops). If I'm on the couch, in bed, or, yes, even in the restroom, the iPad is the perfect form factor to read through my feeds and mail (and even reply to the occasional mail) and watch video. It's large enough that I can generally see an entire article without scrolling, and a laptop isn't nearly as comfortable to use in those places. Plus, unlike a laptop, I can actually use it all day on a single charge without plugging it in. This alone is huge.

Since then he's stopped reading it, and the iPad now rarely seems to come out of the drawer. Yet Apple is praised for innovating a new market out of nothing.

Probably because that's what they did.

Innovating? Is that what we call releasing a phone that is too big to fit in a pocket and can't be used as a phone?

Well, I'm pretty sure the Galaxy Tab can indeed place phone calls, but I was talking about Apple, not Samsung.

Or it could have gone this way:
(1 year ago)
Apple: We like the 10" screen you make; we'd like to buy out all of them for the next year.
Supplier CEO: Ka-Ching!

(6 months ago)
Everyone else: Hey we'd like to make a small order for 10" screens. We've looked at the market and yours is the only one that's ready for production and has our price point.
Supplier CEO: We're all sold out. Sorry.
Everyone else: $&^%!

I guess that's what the rest of the market gets for betting their futures on shitty netbooks instead of innovating.

He's talking about the market of "By Neckbeards, For Neckbeards" devices.

You realize that as a result of the OpenScreen Project anyone can implement something that plays Flash video based on the open specs that are freely available without having to pay any royalties?

I congratulate "anyone" on having the freedom to implement a Flash video player. Perhaps that will be relevant to our conversation when Google does so and then ships it with Chrome.

Google, however, still ships Adobe's closed-source Flash runtime with Chrome.

What happens if Adobe decides, later on, to start charging royalties for using these standards?

As soon as HTML5 is ubiquitous, Google will drop Flash from Chrome if Adobe requires them to pay another cent.

Do you promise?

Google doesn't ship that with Chrome.

"But they could!@#!@#"

But they don't.

The problem here isn't that H.264 isn't as open as Google wants it to be - the problem is that it isn't as FREE as they want it to be.

1) How free and/or open is the Flash runtime browser plugin that Google ships (and updates) with Chrome?

2) When will Google, in the interest of adopting only open standards vs. closed standards, stop including said plugin with Chrome?

I am no fan of Apple but I can admit that they make some nice hardware. Why do they think it will play out any different this time?

The last time, the Board forced Steve out of the company and Apple stopped creating dramatically new products, favoring incremental improvements instead.

They can't do that with computers, why would tablets be any different?

Fewer moving parts.

If the company wants to own my phone, they're welcome to buy me one... :)

I'm willing to bet that your company doesn't care so much about your phone so much as they do about their data.

More delicately, a photo studio might be the only kind of business that will overwhelmingly be an Apple shop, which explains the iPhone prevalence in that case.

Talk to me when it's an accounting firm or whatever.

How about a bank? Or maybe a food manufacturer? A law firm?

Take your pick.