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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Post-lastly: there's the simple point that Firefox for Windows is an actual product that could be shipped near-immediately. There is no Firefix for iOS, precisely because Apple has never allowed it.

I think the broad point is valid though: Apple's platform control is no more morally justified than Microsoft's. And at least in the abstract they deserve equal scorn. But the specifics here are that Windows 8 on ARM won't run an app that can clearly be shipped (and will be for x86). That's a problem with a reasonable hope of being fixed, so it makes practical sense for Mozilla to whine about that first.

Post-post-lastly: it bears mentioning that if Safari was as bad as IE, Apple might draw more fire. It helps a lot to have a browser that doesn't lag the state of the art.

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To the people who say "Where's the moral outrage" about Apple, I have to wonder if they haven't been paying attention for the last 4 years. Lots of people and organizations have led the charge against Apple.

It seems the only organization actively complaining about the limitations of Windows 8 right now is Mozilla. In terms of equal scorn, Microsoft hasn't gotten much scorn at all.

> There is no Firefix for iOS

Sure there is. It hasn't been worked on much precisely because Apple wouldn't allow it anyway, but Ted Mielczarek ported Firefox to iOS a while back. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676585 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=680878 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681602 and so forth.

Why don't they send that to Cydia?

Because that would imply support costs that are just not worth it, if nothing else? Just a guess; I'm not privy to these sorts of decisions.

It is open source free software. Anyone could send it to Cydia as iceweasel.

Indeed!

What you're missing here is that Apple bans everyone equally while Microsoft does not. What I mean by that is the App Store doesn't discriminate on an individual basis. Apple is generally consistent in their "unfairness". Looking at what Microsoft is doing, their decision to restrict Firefox immediately struck me as an anti-trust monopoly issue. They're not restricting Firefox on the basis of some policy that applies to everyone but singling out one piece of software.

The argument in this article is a red herring. This isn't about fairness. It plays on the whole Apple v. Microsoft thing and tries to drum up sympathy and or guilt by playing the "you're just hating on MS because it's trendy" card in a way. It really looks like Microsoft has decided to restrict Firefox capabilities on ARM devices so their browser can have a leg up and deliberately and negatively impact the user experience of Firefox on certain devices.

Framing this using Apple and it's policies/practices are an attempt at misdirection. If you take this attempt to play the Apple v. Microsoft card out of the equation and for a moment pretend Apple never banned FF and FF never even tried to get on iOS what you're left with is Microsoft unfairly discriminating against one company in an obvious attempt to stamp out any competition. It's a pretty cut and dry case of ant-trust once you weed out all the distractions.

Edit: clarified the first sentence of last paragraph. Added the words "Framing this using".

> What you're missing here is that Apple bans everyone equally while Microsoft does not.

You could not have this more backwards. The fundamental issue that Metro apps cannot write to executable memory pages. This is a fundamental security feature of both WinRT and of iOS. Browsers download code off the Internet JIT compile it to native code and execute it. This is what Firefox needs to do. It's not like Windows 8 is checking for Firefox.exe and refusing to load it.

What Mozilla wants is an exception to the normal rules for applications on ARM Windows 8.

Microsoft makes exceptions for their own applications (Office and IE) but that's it. These are the same sort of exceptions Apple make for their apps on iOS.

>What Mozilla wants is an exception to the normal rules for applications on ARM Windows 8.

i think where the frustration is coming from is that windows gave them exactly that exception on x86 windows 8. they created a special class of applications for third party browsers, that can run JIT'd and native code in metro mode. now, with ARM, they've decided to revoke that exception for no apparent reason other than "because we can", and it seems more than a little unfair.

It's not quite the same because Windows 8 x86 already lets you run every kind of Win32 application that has ever existed. The door is already wide open. Allowing Firefox to run in Metro mode with more compatibilities than the average Metro app actually changes very little.

It certainly more complicated than "because we can".

<i>They're not restricting Firefox on the basis of some policy that applies to everyone but singling out one piece of software.</i>

What gives you that idea? The policies apply to every third party application on Windows-ARM.

You don't think Apple decided to restrict third party browsers so their browser "can have a leg up?" (Yes, yes, I know the answer will come back "a unified browser is a better user experience". And my response is: why not let the market make that call?)

That sounds awfully naive. Apple certainly does protect its turf (c.f. banning Google Voice after approving dozens of VoIP apps) , and to argue otherwise is just silly.

"Yes, yes, I know the answer will come back "a unified browser is a better user experience". And my response is: why not let the market make that call?"

Looking at the continuing success of iOS, so far, the market isn't really shouting out loud that not allowing third party browsers is a good thing.

Also, I think there is a valid technical argument for not allowing multiple competing libraries on a mobile device: memory usage. All else being equal, if I have multiple apps, each using a HTML renderer, I would prefer them to share code, browser cache, etc, just as I would prefer all my applications to share their font rendering code, 3D graphics library, etc.

Someone arguing for inclusion of Firefox on iOS or Windows Should, IMO, put convincing arguments on the table why that "all else being equal" phrase does not hold.

> I would prefer

I think that right there is the best argument that can be made for not locking it down so much. You used it twice in your reply. Clearly you value your preference. Why do others not get the same consideration?

> Looking at the continuing success of iOS, so far, the market isn't really shouting out loud that not allowing third party browsers is a good thing.

This frighteningly illogical statement comes up way too often. The existence/non-existence of third party browsers probably has very little influence on the success of iOS one way or the other. Success does not mean they did everything right and there is no room for improvement.

> Looking at the continuing success of iOS, so far, the market isn't really shouting out loud that not allowing third party browsers is a good thing.

(I'm going to assume you mean bad thing.)

You can't infer that. The iPad is a huge collection of features (both software and hardware) that can only be bought as a whole. The fact that people buy the bundle doesn't mean they like all the features — it just means that the package as a whole is compelling. People don't have any reasonable option to buy a device that's just like an iPad except it supports third-party browsers.

I have bought software that I know to be outright buggy, and I didn't even return it. Does that mean the bugs don't bother me? No, it just means the benefit of the rest of the software is enough to (barely) outweigh the annoyance that the bugs cause.

>They're not restricting Firefox on the basis of some policy that applies to everyone but singling out one piece of software.

>Framing this using Apple and it's policies/practices are an attempt at misdirection. If you take this attempt to play the Apple v. Microsoft card out of the equation and for a moment pretend Apple never banned FF and FF never even tried to get on iOS what you're left with is Microsoft unfairly discriminating against one company in an obvious attempt to stamp out any competition. It's a pretty cut and dry case of ant-trust once you weed out all the distractions.

Zero third party applications with access to the Win32 API will be allowed on Windows RT. You're way off base here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windo...

Was your post meant to be sarcastic? I've seen some anti-Microsoft and pro-Apple FUD, but this one takes the cake. Only nirvana can beat this in the terms of rewriting facts and blanket unreferenced assertions.

If fact I wonder if Poe's law applies to your post and the post is in fact a troll.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poes_Law

I resent the implication that I'm a troll first off. Secondly, after reading a lot of the responses to what I wrote I feel like I've been vindicated. I have to admit that I was wrong about Microsoft arbitrarily applying policies unfairly. I plead ignorance on that one. I honestly though I knew what I was talking about.

However, I feel like most of these comments just reinforce my point about how this article frames the situation as being a red herring. If I'm not mistaken the main point of the article is that what Microsoft is doing regarding Firefox on ARM is okay. If that's the premise then what Apple does is irrelevant. The question is "are Microsoft's actions in this case monopolistic?". Now because the answer to that question is most likely yes the author has reframed the situation and brought Apple into the mix to stir up guilt in Apple supporters and sympathy from Microsoft fans. Let's say Apple is wrong which is the implication here. If that's true then so is Microsoft. And if we follow that logic then the author is really arguing that Apple should get in trouble too. So is this even about anti-competitive practices or is this just a way to excuse Microsoft's actions and take some of the heat off them? Seems like the latter to me. Like when you're a kid and your sibling gets away with something then you do the same thing and when you get caught your excuse is "well Billy did it too! He should also get in trouble". It's a childish argument. If one company does it and gets away with it it doesn't mean the others should too. Shame on Apple but let's stick to the issue. Like I said, the way it's framed is meant to muddy the issue by playing on people's allegiances. You implied I was a troll. I submit the author himself is a kind of troll.

Apple had their fiasco and it went the way it went. Whether it was right or not is not the issue. Everyone has played into the author's manipulative ploy.

I don't see the article as a troll, but raises a legitimate question about why Mozilla is only targeting Microsoft and not Apple.

First of all I think we can agree that Apple's actions with iOS and Microsoft's actions with Windows RT are exactly equivalent.

>The question is "are Microsoft's actions in this case monopolistic? Now because the answer to that question is most likely yes..."

How can they be monopolistic when they have zero marketshare in the tablet market and exactly zero apps from their Win32 monopoly will even run on the new platform?

If you think the answer is yes, then is Apple guilty of the same?

> Let's say Apple is wrong which is the implication here. If that's true then so is Microsoft.

Not necessarily, because Apple has a way larger marketshare in the tablet market. Your argument is like claiming in 2000 that it would be an anti-trust issue for Apple to bundle their browser with their computers.

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