I guess that was the point I was trying to make. SJ is as much a "threat" to free software as RMS is. If everyone in the world released their software under the GPL, would we have a truly "free" software ecosystem? No, because would still be restrictions that you have to play nice with. That's OK, but I don't think its fair to villianize SJ on the grounds that Apple wants to control its own platform.

Objective-C is an open language and compilers are available through GCC and CLANG. Apple has had a history of always contributing their work on Obj-C back to GCC, and now with the LLVM project they're doing a whole new Open Source compiler infrastructure that is GCC-compatible, but produces better results. This is available to the Mac, Linux, Windows, *BSD, etc. In other words, yes, there is a threat that Apple will always wall off its Obj-C implementation. There are similar threats that Oracle could do the same to Java, or Larry Wall could do to Perl, or Linus could do the same to the Linux Kernel, which is to say that there is always the possibility, but right now all signs point to No.

I get your point - I certainly don't want Apple to have anywhere near the amount of control over mobile computing as Microsoft had over desktop computing. It's a different ballgame now, though. I don't think they chose Obj-C out of malice like, say, ActiveX or Microsoft's own Java VM that guaranteed a lock-in to the platform. I think they did it to maintain a certain amount of mobility in a fast-moving market. Apple chose Obj-C because they only wanted to support Obj-C. From their perspective, this is an important choice. It guarantees a certain level of consistency, and the ability to change their entire platform's direction on a moment's notice.

Personally, I think it's going in the other direction. Obj-C is a legacy from the NeXT days and its days are numbered at Apple, at least as the sole language they support on the iPhone. It would be entirely like Apple to introduce a new language that compiles down to the same binary as code written in Obj-C, but is easier to write or learn, or comes with more bells & whistles as a feature of the language itself (e.g. easier to write threaded code). They use Obj-C because that's what their Mac developers know and they wanted to capitalize on that knowledge to get the platform off the ground. Now that the iOS is well and firmly launched, look for them to start branching out to include more features to entice more developers to join.

I keep bringing back the LLVM project, but you should really look at the features that project supports if you want to see where Apple is heading. With that project, they can give devs the option to write code in e.g. Python, and it compiles down to the same bytecode as the ObjC implementation. They're not funding the development of that project out of the kindness of their hearts - I think they have a business direction wrapped up in those features, and they're just waiting for it to mature.

One might argue that Steve Jobs is no more a threat to "free software" than Richard Stallman. Stallman believes that the GPL is superior to, say, the BSD or MIT licenses; a stance that is primarily idealogical. The GPL is not as free as the BSD license, but that's OK. Some people like it better that way. You have the choice. If you look at it from a certain, limited point of view, the GPL can be seen as the "iPhone" of the open source licenses in that it restricts what you can, and cannot do, with the software.

If you take everything coming from Apple as coming from Steve Jobs himself, then we could just as easily point to liberally-licensed projects like WebKit (LGPL), LLVM (NCSA License) and CLANG (BSD), libdispatch (Apache) or launchd (Apache) as arguments against your assertion that Jobs is against free software. Even the Apple Public Source License is certified by the FSF as a true Open Source license.

Huh? That's one twisted way to look at it.

Licensing is the mechanism for regulation. A restaurant owner has to be licensed to operate, and if the quality of the food or sanitary measures falls below a certain level, that license can be revoked and the restaurant has to close. Licenses for cars allows for the regulation of those who have shown themselves competent enough to drive one. If you do something stupid, you get your license revoked and you can no longer drive. I have yet to hear of a credible story of the government revoking a driver's license for no reason. Care to link a source?

Licenses for guns make sense as well. Not having a firearms license and a registered firearm doesn't mean you're considered a felon, it simply means that you have not demonstrated a level of competence required to own a weapon.

But who am I to say anything? I think the "right to bear arms" is one of the most abused statutes in the Constitution. It was put there to address a practical problem - that of the King of England not allowing the citizens to bear arms, making a people's uprising against the military impossible. That was the days when there was a fairly level playing field between citizens and the military. Now, a popular uprising would not likely be done with guns, since type of firearm a citizen can get is significantly less powerful than the military's arsenal.

Hm. You have a very charming witticism, but I think you're wrong.

You can teach critical thinking, which is a major component in learning how to learn. True, some people are better at it than others, but it can be a skill you pick up. If not, everyone would be born understanding Plato and Wittgenstein.

Ha! If anything, PBS is more necessary now than it was before. With all of the big corporate entities buying and merging, your radio, newspaper and television media is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people. Or are you one of those people that think that corporations are more benevolent and altruistic than your government? At least in government there's always the threat that a politician will lose his or her job if they displease the people. With a corporate entity, they don't have to appease anyone as long as they make money.

Taxpayer-funded national broadcasters, like ABC (Australia), BBC or CBC can be critical of the government in a way that corporate broadcasters cannot be critical of their parent company.

A quick Google search turned up some ASCAP asshattery:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=51550622&blogId=510343864 http://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/phillips.html http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/019179.html http://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/12/16/0940232/ASCAP-Seeks-Licensing-Fees-For-emGuitar-Hero-Arcadeem?from=rss

You mean like the Mach kernel that both the iOS and OS X share? Or the BSD-based Darwin subsystem? Or some of the Cocoa frameworks?

You're not listening.

The Queen of Canada isn't British, she's Canadian. She can only be advised by Canadians on Canadian matters. She is a completely separate legal person from the British Queen, or the Australian Queen, or the Queen of any other commonwealth country. In fact, we would be in just as much right to call ourselves "Australian" as we would "British."

The Brits could oust their Monarchy tomorrow and we would still have a Queen. And maybe I'm just strange, but I think of a "national identity" as being a shared experience with other people that live in the same arbitrary geographical grouping as I do, not by who the current leader-du-jour is. You don't call yourself an "American" when the Republicans are in power, and then something else when the Democrats are.

The Queen of England and The Queen of Canada are, legally, two separate persons. They are embodied in one person, Elizabeth II, but are distinct entities.

The Queen of Canada can only be advised by Canadians on Canadian matters. I'd suggest reading this page for a little more enlightenment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada

The key word being 'acts'. There's no real power, so I don't know what your problem is here.

The Queen is the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian military, and by extension the GG acts as CiC. At a whim, she could call in the military on the government and be perfectly within her rights to do so. In reality, she would need a very good reason, but the power still rests in her office and no other. I'd say that's "real" power.

Yeah, it is. As another poster said, most Canadians don't know what or who the GG is. What you feel/think != what the majority of Canadians think.

The majority of Canadians also don't know how an internal combustion engine works, or that the big blue E on their computer isn't "The Internet." Judging the importance of an office by how many people know what it's for is a very poor metric.

Ahhh, see, here's your problem. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Democracy: This is an appointed position. Glad I could clear that up for you.

Democracy doesn't necessarily mean "elected." Michaëlle Jean isn't nobility, she is a Haitian-born Canadian citizen appointed to the office because of her contribution to Canadian society. I don't understand how people think that just because someone is elected they're a better representative. Especially in Canada, where more often than not the person who is elected to an office only gains the plurality, and not the majority, of the votes.

Democracy is more about government of the people, for the people. Elections are a very expedient way of doing this for most cases, but I see no problem in having a few offices where they appoint someone "from the people" because of his or her contribution to society. Theoretically, anyone can be GG: You, me, your neighbour, an actor, a journalist... How is that not "democracy?"

Just because we're a fairly well-run country and the GG doesn't *have* to do anything doesn't mean she doesn't have real power. She is the Commander-in-Chief of the military. All military personnel swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and by extension the office of the GG, not to the government of Canada. If we ever have a government that needs to be forcefully deposed, she would be the one commanding it, not the Prime Minister or the defence staff.

The GG is also the one that can dissolve parliament, declare a government or sign a bill into law. Granted, she usually does these on the advice of the Prime Minister or Parliament, but to say her role is solely ceremonial is to ignore the significant "checks and balances" the GG's office brings to the whole system.

Apple has pretty much said that it will anyway. The only reason they've given that they don't allow Flash on the iDevices is that it a) sucks battery life and b) Adobe has not yet released a mobile version that they felt performed acceptably on their systems. I'm sure if Adobe gets their ass in gear and releases a version of Flash that actually works on a mobile device, Apple will include it.

Could you clarify? Many of us have, what I would consider, "private" insurance - For example, I have health care coverage from Blue Cross that supplements the basic universal coverage and takes care of things like drugs, private hospital beds, etc.

Maybe there's another meaning of "private" insurance that I'm not aware of?