[Office-commits] r9661 - trunk/campaigns

[sysadmin]

Author: www-data
Date: Wed Sep 23 14:03:48 2009
New Revision: 9661

Log:
web commit by holmes

Modified:
   trunk/campaigns/applevsbluwiki.mdwn

Modified: trunk/campaigns/applevsbluwiki.mdwn
==============================================================================
--- trunk/campaigns/applevsbluwiki.mdwn Wed Sep 23 13:39:58 2009        (r9660)
+++ trunk/campaigns/applevsbluwiki.mdwn Wed Sep 23 14:03:48 2009        (r9661)
@@ -5,3 +5,6 @@
 When the Palm Pre (a smartphone that competes with the iPhone) included iTunes 
compatibility, Apple shot back with an automatic software update that <a 
href="http://www.precentral.net/apple-blocks-palm-pre-itunes-syncing";>broke the 
Palm Pre's iTunes compatibility</a>.  The update didn't tell users that it 
could break compatibility with their new phone; the only warning was <a 
href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/06/apple-on-palm-pre-itunes-sync-watch-out/";>buried</a>
 in an Apple tech support page a few weeks earlier.   When Palm fixed the 
problem, Apple <a 
href="http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/09/10/apple-cuts-off-palm-pre-sync-again/";>broke
 it again</a>.  They made their own software less useful, hurting their own 
customers, just to enforce lock-in.
 
 Apple abused the DMCA (legislation which makes it illegal for you to assert 
your basic rights by breaking DRM) to keep people from even <i>discussing</i> 
how to make other software players work with the iPhone.  Apple tried to use 
the DMCA to force Bluwiki, a host of public wikis, to take down a public 
discussion of how to make other music player applications compatible with the 
iPod and iPhone. But iTunes compatibility isn't illegal under the DMCA, let 
alone merely hosting a site that discusses it.   It took seven months (during 
which the page was effectively censored) and the threat of an <a 
href="http://www.eff.org/cases/odioworks-v-apple";>EFF lawsuit</a> to make Apple 
<a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/apple-backs-down-blu";>back 
down</a>.  Apple feels so entitled to the lock-in that DRM provides that they 
try to stretch DRM legislation to cover cases where it doesn't apply.
+
+Not that interoperability would solve the real problem, since both of these 
pieces of software are proprietary.  But this same tactic
+excludes free software users (and was used in the past to target free software 
users specifically).