The issue is your type system sucks. What you want are types that guarantee they are non-zero.

So what you want is a type "divisor double" or "divisor integer" where putting a 0 in such a variable generates a type error.

A more sane approach to ignoring the type avoid the error checking you want would be to have this defined using the maybe Monad. Then you could just define

div' takes 2 numbers of types A and returns a Maybe A where
div' x y = if y != 0
      then Just (div x y)
      else Nothing

Programs then automatically lift
if f takes type B to type C then
f' from Maybe B to Maybe C becomes
f' Just (b) = Just (f b)
f' Nothing = Nothing

etc... Then you get rid of the division by 0 when it makes sense. If you want to cast Nothing to 0 (which I think is dangerous) do it explicitly at some point where you don't want a Maybe object but insist on a base object. You can't change math, but at least it makes the call explicit.

I like the fact that we have unified ecosystem. Stuff breaking means forced upgrades and allows developers to know that everyone is on the latest version of everything. The cost of the upgrades are low because it helps everyone to be upgrading and we get features far faster than the Windows eco system where the time between first availability of a feature in the OS and every application depending on it can be 20 years.

Apple expects you to upgrade. Part of what makes a unified ecosystem is that everyone is essentially on the same version of everything. They are pretty open about that and its been policy for a long time. 3 years of studio recordings were not lost btw Pro Tools has a version which supports the current operating system.

Just as you need glue code to tie together libraries to make an application you need glue code to tie together SaaS services to make a unified service. The libraries now are just SaaS APIs.

Well that's sort of the situation that accidentally exist on iOS and even on that platform there has been some demand for different engines. There are tradeoffs between engines. Say for example an engine has a bug. Do you continue to process data in line with that bug for application compatibility or fix it? Should the engine focus on newest features or on standards compliance? Should it focus on security vs. compatibility? Should it focus on minimizing time to render or minimizing power drain?

True for consumer. But I think server is a counter example. In RMS's world end users are consumers of some technology and producers of others. They are technologically interested. My getting a sink diagram does nothing for me since I still would rather just pay a plumber.

So for example RMS AFAIK has never once written about all the exciting stuff going on with open source networking in the last decade+. But it is a wonderful example of where his vision has been achieved. At this point the standard has become that networking technologies are implemented and start maturing in the open source community as open code running on open operating systems supporting mostly open source applications. And only after are those components reimplemented in semi-closed, semi-hardware (RMS has never been as concerned about software implemented in hardware because it isn't IP in the same way) solutions for ultra high performance.

So anyway. I think we agree on the fact. But I think RMS achieved far more success than he originally intended for the community he was interested in. Free Software dominates the technical community and the software they use and manage. Consumers don't care about the 4 freedoms and there ...

What's going to be the interesting battle over the next 20 years is the Internet of Things. How open is the software running on all sorts of devices that don't have traditional computer interfaces? So far the tendency is towards more openness than has previously existed as Free Software / Open Source is becoming the standard for devices.

So? What gives the USA govt the right to punish (meaningfully or otherwise) a French company?

You were arguing that this French company could be meaningfully regulated. If you don't want governments punishing them, then they can't regulate them on their shore or off.

As long as those dozens of subsidiaries follow USA law, then there's no connection to the specific subsidiary (Orange-USA) that is breaking the law and being punished.

And if they aren't following the law then what? They just shift assets between them everytime one of them gets caught.

But when have you ever seen it not occur?

Everyday. I work in telco. Regulators cross borders and revolve disputes all the time. Same with airline industry who handle new problems. Shipping and packaging. Oil shipping and refining (though extraction often gets quite violent). It happens most of the time.

. So governments are in a position where they either have to give up their sovereignty (well technically try to convince other nations to give up their sovereignty, but that certainly won't be a one-way street,) or give up their ability to censor random things that they don't like

Or create an effectual system of global regulation like what happens for most industries.

No, they can't. The USA government has no more control over Google France than the French government has over Google USA

They have full authority over the parent company. They could order Google USA to shut it down. Same power they have over any other owner of foreign stuff that commits international crimes. Their are plenty of Americans in American prisons for things they did abroad.

nobody would want to instigate a whole treaty negotiation process to deal with a single company's policies

I'm not saying a single company I'm saying all multi-nationals. And then another specific one having to do with multi-national internet businesses.

I agree the WTO is a good place as well to deal with this. But that is a new power and so likely requires at least an agreement.

And why would the US government need to go through two (like long and legally intensive) battles in order to regulate shit that happens on American soil?

Because they don't have a choice if we are going to have foreign corporations. Orange-USA doesn't really exist. One of the core powers that gives the government the ability to regulate is the ability to punish. The USA government can't meaningfully punish Orange by punishing Orange-USA because Orange can create dozens of subsidiaries or buy shares in other companies and move resources and assets between them. Orange is the "immortal person" the USA subsidiary companies are like their clothes easily changed. So for the USA government to be able to regulate they need the help of France. Which means that this negotiation has to take place

As for long legally intensive battles... Why does that need to occur?

Google already has (or at least has threatened) to do exactly that in several countries already when they couldn't come to terms with local laws

Not really. Because the people in those countries continue to use Google services. Google pulling out is mostly a technical rearrangement. It isn't them meaningfully completely pulling out. And so the countries often can't accomplish their objective.

Now I happen to like how Google is handling corrupt EU regulations but Google is a perfect case in point of the futility of trying to regulate international corporations in each country. The USA government is the government that can effectually regulate Google. If Germany or France or Spain wants a regulate the USA government is who they should be negotiating with, if they want their regulation to actually happen.

Then under that interpretation mobile has proven what is mostly true elsewhere. Guys who run servers like the 4 freedoms and take advantage of them, developers take advantage of them while end user applications mostly consist of a mixture of unfree code with free under layers. Which means that the 4 freedoms are valuable freedoms for computer professionals and mostly worthless for everyone else.

The one disadvantage about quiet leadership is that you will much less talked and written about.

I suspect Osama bin Laden who was well known for his quiet, respectful and thoughtful conversation style (I'm not kidding, his policies and his personality don't match) might beg to differ with that. Much as I like Jobs and Torvalds I suspect 200 years from now they may be mostly forgotten while bin Laden is still remembered for mainstreaming Qutbism. Heck our likely next president, Mrs. Clinton, is rather introverted and tends to quietly guide the people close to her.

For enterprise Apple sells (well below cost) the server components for iOS. Companies can setup their own applications stores and distribute applications through those with no 30% going to Apple. The 100 limit the GP mentioned applies to individual devices. If the devices register as belonging to X company X company can distribute applications through their infrastructure to all of them. Apple governs their app store. They make it easy to setup up alternatives.

iOS apps don't have unneeded access and need to function well if semi-needed access is denied. It is a vastly more secure ecosystem.

FOSS is shinning on mobile. Virtually every cloud that is being used to support those apps is 95% FOSS or more. Many of the frameworks are FOSS. The mobile operating systems themselves are about 80% FOSS.

Non technical end user tweaking is an area where FOSS still gets its butt kicked.

The problem is the average spend difference is much greater than 2::1. If you are counting all Android i.e. 3rd world Android and verticals it wouldn't shock me if the difference is spend is closer to 50::1. If you limit this just to the top billion (i.e. richest billion phone users) Android is 60/40 with iOS probably selling 2::1 not counting vertical applications. Count vertical apps and you are around 5::1. The remaining 3 billion or so buy far less than the 600m Android users in the top billion and so add little.

That is simply not true that no one is making money. Apple has crossed the $25BN Now Paid To iOS Devs. And an even bigger market exists for apps to support websites and vertical applications. The people not making money are app developers who write fairly generic applications and thus have lots of competition and then don't make them meaningfully better than the competition. There is a flood of generic apps and the value there is 0.