Why I Don't Like Apple (by the author of Remind)
david.skoll.ca
david.skoll.ca
Xcode is free to download and use (you have to pay $99 to deploy your app but not to develop it). I have been learning Objective C for the past month, and I fail to see how is it that I am not experiencing "the beauty and creativity of crafting a piece of software."
Try it. I have used Visual Studio back in the day (before .NET, so I can't compare to today's Visual Studio), but Cocoa made me understand design patterns such as MVC and Delegate with much less pain and with much more pleasure than I would have had in some other framework that does not rely on them to such an extent.
I have been a tinkerer myself. I have been lucky enough to have my own little chemistry lab at my house when I was 10. I used Linux since 2003, and my daily living depends on it even now (at work I program software that runs on Linux servers). I understand where you're coming from. But I have also understood the other point of view, namely that the computer is just a tool, and not an end goal in itself, and as a tool it should just work, even if it means making some concessions to users who don't care about tinkering.
Just because you tinkered with electronic components, and today's hardware is more integrated, preventing you from doing that, doesn't mean that there isn't something else to tinker with. Also, you can still tinker with the iPhone -- as a photographer it made incredibly happy to find out that somebody had written a lightmeter app for the iPhone which uses the built-in camera to measure the available light so you could then enter those settings to fire up a manual film SLR from the 1970s. Just because today's tinkering is different from yesterdays doesn't mean it disappeared (or that yesterday's tinkerers are somehow inherently superior to today's).
If you're that opposed to everything Apple or Microsoft or Sun or whatever, then forbid using it on that platform in the license. If you're unwilling to do that, mind your own damn business as to what compatible compiler and platform people use.
Yes.
If you want to make different demands of users of your software than those of the GPL, BSD license, etc., you should not use one of those licenses.
If you want to use a free license, accept users' freedoms and don't be petulant that some people will choose differently from you.
Licenses are legal instruments and the terms of free licenses give defined freedoms. The nag message for Apple users does not contradict the license under which Remind is published (GPL). The message, reflective of the author's "petulance" as you put it, is, legally speaking a feature of the software and it is subject to the same licensing terms.
I think you are mixing up the license with a vague notion of the "spirit" of the license. These are two different things. You may still argue that the nag message goes against the "spirit" of a free license (while not against the terms), but the counter-argument made by the author is that this measure is justified in the face of Apple's restrictive behavior.