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Comment by raganwald | Hacker News Reader

Giles "Goatboy" Bowkett:

I even say (sic) DHH enter the fray, which is absurd hypocrisy, given that the first time I ever saw this guy, he was putting a giant "Fuck You" slide on a screen and explaining how he wasn't going to add features to Rails that he didn't agree with, because it was his framework, and he didn't believe that anybody who disagreed with him on that merited any other response but "fuck you". What kind of response does he think he merits from Apple?

http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-his-platform-no...

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git clone rails

So if I understand your witty reply, what you're saying is that if you give your work product away, you are entitled to do as you please with the fruits of your labour.

However, if you develop a proprietary product, you are not entitled to do as you please with it and must accommodate the needs of those who want to do something else with it and are unable to do so because of your licensing terms.

Is that what "git clone rails" amounts to suggesting?

Has anyone really, seriously argued that Apple isn't "entitled" to do as they please? They are, and developers are entitled to be annoyed when their seemingly artificial and arbitrary limitations cause them problems.

And we're all entitled to post our opinions about it, but you should maybe try and give the opposing views a little more respect. :)

Well yes, I have read opinions that Apple is abusing some sort of market dominance and/or reneging on expectations it has set by changing its SDK terms. But let's stick with opinions that Apple is either (a) disadvantaging itself, or (b) disadvantaging developers with its current set of choices.

I didn't realize that quoting Giles was considered disrespectful of either of these opinions. It was an interesting take. I like what I know of David, and consider myself an awfully opinionated guy as well. That doesn't mean I don't think it's worth pondering whether this particular bit of criticism is... Um... "interesting," nor do I predict he would be outraged at Giles' comment or my quote of it.

If I thought you, David or anybody else wrote something that they were not entitled to write, I would use the flag feature, not a comment. To me, a comment is intended to provoke thought and debate, not to suggest there is something that should not be said.

Now to clarify what I intended when I quoted Giles. I didn't think of it as a "David shouldn't have said that," rather I thought of it as a "If it's right for Rails it just might be right for iPhone!"

I still think that even though David gives Rails away and Apple does not give iPhone away. iPhone is an opinionated product, and people are correct when they say that Apple is saying "Fuck You!" Apple is saying that in exactly the same sense that David said it, even though no you can't fork iPhone.

Oh, I was responding more to the second post, not the quote so much. Chalking that DHH post up to "Apple isn't entitled" seemed a little flippant to me, but perhaps I was misreading you.

Your clarification makes sense, but it's not the message I got the first time. I do think putting a relatively arbitrary restriction in place is vastly different from just refusing to do something a specific way, though. One is actively restricting a personal preference, the other is simply not bowing to an idea/method you disagree with. :)

> Your clarification makes sense, but it's not the message I got the first time.

Ahh, just as we favour "Convention over Configuration," we also believe in the power of "Discussion over Dismissiveness." This exchange of view is great, thanks.

:-)

This is not about calling Jobs out for not adding more features to the iPhone. This is akin to if I had said you couldn't use any other editor than TextMate to program in Rails. Or that you had to run it on OS X server. That would have been some lame, fascist shit.

> This is akin to if I had said you couldn't use any other editor than TextMate to program in Rails.

Well for starters let me say I admire your perspective on Rails development greatly. And speaking as someone who is greatly enamored of code generation, I am not a fan of restrictions on "original" programming languages.

My only question about your response here is your choice of comparison. The choice of text editor does not appear to me to parallel the imposition of an entire cross-platform compatibility layer like Flash.

I realize that in a certain sense it seems to be about dictating tools for self-expression, but where things like Flash compilers are concerned it also very much about proprietary companies attempting to control developers by owning the platform.

So... If I had to draw a lesson from Rails it would be that if we developers find ourselves having to choose which behaviour we want from a proprietary platform vendor or choosing which proprietary platform we are beholden to, maybe we should step back and ask ourselves whether we really want to be beholden at all.

Maybe what we really ought to be doing is sucking it up and developing for web standards where "Worse is Better."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

No, what I mean is that the comparison of DHH and Apple falls flat. While DHH doesn't implement every feature he is requested to implement, everybody can just clone Rails and implement all features they desire (or pay people to do so).

You can't just clone the iPhone and it's OS.

Therefore I don't understand the claim that DHHs comments are hypocritical.

And nobody is disputing that Apple is entitled to do with their iPhone whatever they want. They are just not entitled to people being happy about it.

In other words, he is not preventing you from doing something - he just won't do it himself.

I'd say that for most people, cloning Rails isn't an option if the devs won't put it in there. Having access to code is the same thing as being able to implement new stuff in the product for a relatively small amount of users or even developers, either due to knowledge or time.

> if you develop a proprietary product, you are not entitled to do as you please with it

Of course you are entitled to do what you please. You may make your product less useful, or even eliminate it. The point is, your customers have no alternative between keep consuming and stop consuming.

To reify the point: Apple should be worried about the latter.

No, I don't think thats what he meant.

Your earlier comment seemed to indicate (and I believe you have clarified it below in this thread) that if there's a valid business case for Rails doing something, then maybe that business case is valid for the iPhone OS as well.

I don't believe that comparison holds because

a) refusal to add new features is not the same as tightening the terms of service.

The equivalent would be to release a new version of rails that prevented (by technical or legal means) using any 3rd party ruby packages that are not approved by dhh.

b) Even if dhh did something like this, one could clone rails and be on their way. So the effects of this new policy are somewhat mitigated by the fact that the code is Free.

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