Oh, the irony!
Gruber may be more articulate than the average Mac zealot, but I usually find his opinions irritatingly illogical and biased, especially when he tries — and subsequently fails miserably — to rebut perfectly valid criticism about Apple. This is not one of those times. Following on from earlier criticism about Google’s ‘demo’ Huddlechat, Gruber sums it up perfectly in a very concise manner:
Even if you think it’s OK to copy someone else’s application feature-for-feature, the big fear for developers with something like Google App Engine is that you’re trusting Google with all of your source code. Why should small indie web developers trust Google when the first example app is a Google rip-off of a small indie web app?
HuddleChat was a Google product and it certainly was a clone of Campfire. Still, it remains to be seen whether there is an ethical issue with cloning existing, commercial applications/services and releasing them to the world for free. Isn’t this more or less what Microsoft and later Google became well-known — and in some cases loved — for? Would Gruber, and everyone else — and I’m not excluding myself — have a problem if it was a text-book, Startup.com-like company that had cloned Campfire and released it as a demo of an app-hosting service + framework (ala Wordpress.com), or is the criticism firmly rooted in the fact that Google is rapidly becoming a threat to [everything] in the minds and hearts of so many?
“Still, it remains to be seen whether there is an ethical issue with cloning existing, commercial applications/services and releasing them to the world for free.”
1. “it remains to be seen”; You mean — besides the mini-backslash that erupted immediately after the app’s release?
2. “an ethical issue”; Would you happen to think that Google took HuddleChat down because of another issue?
Finally, on the Gruber front (hold on a second for me to wear my “Gruber fanboy” t-shirt):
“…but I usually find his opinions irritatingly illogical and biased, especially when he tries — and subsequently fails miserably — to rebut perfectly valid criticism about Apple.”
It would be silly to go on a “he’s right! / no, he’s wrong!” debate on this and we won’t.
Just for reference’s sake though, and because you’re making one of the most prominent (pretty much a fact) & solid (I’d like to think that’s a given — his consistently detailed and thoughtful write-ups speak for themselves — but it’s better for everyone to label this as an “opinion”) voices in the Mac community sound like your average Apple fanboy (trust me, I know, there are aplenty), would you care to offer some examples of his “miserable failures”?
(For the record, I don’t claim he’s always right. There’s a long distance between this and your comment though.)
Apologies for the delay in publishing your comment Konstantine; Akismet decided it was spam.
You quote two parts of a single phrase and from your comments it’s clear to me that you have not understood any of it. Your response is riddled with a number of logical fallacies (argumentum ad populum, begging the question), but it’s also irrelevant to the point I’m making.
So, to reiterate: it remains to be seen whether cloning applications is ethically wrong. If you’ve been reading my blog for a bit, you’ll probably know where I stand with respect to patents and IPR. Further to this, I’m not sure whether this is ethically correct when performed by a small startup (viz. innovation, socially acceptable in general), but not when it’s done by a huge and powerful multinational (antitrust, abuse of position etc.). The problem is that the system is self-contradictory in this respect — but that’s another story. And, yes, that has nothing to do with the public backlash we witnessed last week, or with the fact that a publicly traded company conformed to the requests of a loud social group expressing disapproval of its actions.
I’m definitely not attempting to portray Gruber as a fanboy — although I’ll admit at times it’s very tempting. I believe I made this clear in my post. Neither prominence nor popularity have anything to do with what I’m arguing here. If your benchmark is an imaginary stereotypical ‘Mac community’, one that’s obsessively fanatical about Apple and incapable of the perception of reality or dialogue, then yes, Gruber stands out as ‘the voice of reason’. But that’s not my benchmark: In his articles he sometimes engages in personal attacks, gross over-generalisations, straw man arguments and false dichotomies. Examples off the top of my head include his diatribes on the iPhone bricking saga last autumn, his personal attacks on Enderle and other — even less rational — authors (why even bother with them?), his refusal to admit that Apple has made mistakes in policy or design, even when they’re staring him in the eye. Still, that’s not all that bad and I admit he’s one of the better article writers in the Mac universe out there.
Gruber is, for the sake of this argument, the epitome of an intelligent and articulate Apple Apologist. Not exactly a fanboy, but not quite what I’d consider a serious commentator on the Mac world either. I read him and appreciate his articles every once in a while, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. If you’re looking for comparisons — and someone I consider to be somewhat more balanced and grounded in his views while still firmly within the realm of the ‘Mac community’ — see Siracusa.
“Apologies for the delay in publishing your comment Konstantine; Akismet decided it was spam.”
No biggie, that has actually happened on another blog recently as well; it seems I gotta have me a talk with the Automattic fellows.
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As for the rest of your comment, I’m going to divide my reply in three sections: Gruber, logical fallacies, the big picture.
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Section #1: Gruber
“I’m definitely not attempting to portray Gruber as a fanboy — although I’ll admit at times it’s very tempting. I believe I made this clear in my post.”
Well, judging from this: “Gruber may be more articulate than the average Mac zealot, but I usually find his opinions irritatingly illogical and biased” — I think that what starts as somewhat “clear” (first clause), ends up being rather obfuscated (second clause).
“Neither prominence nor popularity have anything to do with what I’m arguing here.”
You should do your picking more carefully. I noted he’s a prominent *and* solid voice; just prominence means nothing. The two though, are a good combo to have.
“If your benchmark is an imaginary stereotypical ‘Mac community’, one that’s obsessively fanatical about Apple and incapable of the perception of reality or dialogue, then yes, Gruber stands out as ‘the voice of reason’. But that’s not my benchmark:”
I’m sorry to say that this isn’t my benchmark. I note there are “aplenty” fanboys out there, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use higher standards to “do my measurements”, so to speak.
“In his articles he sometimes engages in personal attacks, gross over-generalisations, straw man arguments and false dichotomies. Examples off the top of my head include his diatribes on the iPhone bricking saga last autumn, his personal attacks on Enderle and other — even less rational — authors (why even bother with them?), his refusal to admit that Apple has made mistakes in policy or design, even when they’re starting him in the eye.”
(This is where I’m caught breaking the “It would be silly to go on a “he’s right! / no, he’s wrong!” debate on this and we won’t.” statement from my previous comment. I tell myself this isn’t a “debate” though, so I can get away with it.)
(1) RE: iPhone bricking — I don’t really remember every detail of that “diatribe”, but IIRC the gist of it was “don’t expect to hack the machine in ways it’s OBVIOUSLY not meant to be hacked and then whine when the next official firmware update breaks it”. That seems reasonable to me. This is what constitutes a “miserable failure”? Hmm. (Do I like it that the iPhone is as locked as it is? No. This has nothing to do with it though.)
(2) RE: Personal attacks — the “jackass” stamping (”personal attacks” makes it sound much more serious and grave than it really is) is something that got old very fast for me, so maybe I can see your point there. Do note though that I do sympathize with the underlying sentiment (”another hack of a journalist/analyst who doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about! when will they stop?!”); I just happen to think that a few stamps here and there were enough to satisfy it.
(3) RE: Refusal, blah-blah — This is as vague as it gets. No biggie though. (It just doesn’t qualify as a valid example by any means.)
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Section #2: Logical fallacies
“Your response is riddled with a number of logical fallacies (argumentum ad populum, begging the question), but it’s also irrelevant to the point I’m making.”
(I’m dealing with the “irrelevant to the point I’m making” clause later in my comment.) Both “argumentum ad populum” and “begging the question” are terms I happen to be familiar with — I can probably see why someone could revert to them, but esp. in the case of the former, it looks more like an “easy way out”. Let me explain my point here:
First, it’s somewhat funny to note my appeal to the masses when I refer to a “mini”-backlash on my comment. I think the contradiction is easy to see.
Secondly, you write that “it remains to be seen whether there is an ethical issue with cloning existing, commercial applications/services and releasing them to the world for free.” Hypothetically speaking, can you imagine the possible ways this could be settled? How do you see this ending? I happen to think that what “the masses” think, shocking and wrong as it may sound, may have something to do with our calling it “ethical” or “unethical” in the end. I’d like to hear your take on this. (And I’m writing this in a “I could certainly be wrong, and I’ll gladly hear what you have to say and accept it, should it make sense” kind of way; not a “I’ve given you my best line; now let’s see what you’ve got for me” kind of way.)
As for the “begging the question” charge — you’re probably right, I’ve expressed it somewhat gracelessly. Let me put it another way (and let’s pretend for a second I don’t imply anything): Google pulled down HuddleChat — why do you think they did this? Sure they “conformed to the requests of a loud social group expressing disapproval of its actions” but why? (As an example — so called SEO “experts” disapproved of Google’s actions even more fiercely when Google decided to drop the PageRanks of most sites riddled with TLAs, but Google didn’t conform to their requests to bring back the original PRs. Why do you think that is?)
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Section #3: The big picture
“So, to reiterate:”
I do get your point and realize you’re referring to the big picture, no need to reiterate.
What prompted me to comment though is the impression I’m left with, that the HuddleChat issue is referred to in passing, as if it’s a non-incident, when it’s a case/example relevant to the point you’re making. Is it the definitive example? The only example? The best example? No, no and no.
But it is a relevant one, in the sense that when we talk about “whether cloning applications is ethically wrong” a year from now, someone will be able to say “remember the HuddleChat incident?” without everyone else on the room going “what on earth is he talking about? this is irrelevant.”
You’re free to refer to this example in passing (stating the uber-obvious here — it’s your site after all) and focus on what you really want to say. I’m adding a comment to emphasize this example, which seems to be relevant to the point you’re making. Do you see what’s going on here? You’re interpreting my comment as a general reply to your overall point when my I’m putting my focus on a very specific thing that was mentioned.
With that in mind:
“You quote two parts of a single phrase and from your comments it’s clear to me that you have not understood any of it.”
By tying it to specific quotes from your post, I’m only noting how this specific example gives answers to the points you’re making. Maybe you didn’t understand any of it? Again, I’m not implying that the answers given by this case compose the final verdict on the matter (the one we’ve yet to reach, as you rightfully note in your point).
Given all of the above, you can now hopefully see why the following:
“And, yes, that has nothing to do with the public backlash we witnessed last week, or with the fact that a publicly traded company conformed to the requests of a loud social group expressing disapproval of its actions.”
…is wrong. All in all, a more superficial, not as pedantic analysis of my words, would have shown this more easily. (I can’t believe I’m making a case for superficiality here.)
PS: To lighten up a bit, given the time I’m writing this, this seems very appropriate: http://xkcd.com/386/
Hmm, is ‘convolution’ your middle name? :)
I won’t bother with Gruber — he’s not the point of the article and I think I was pretty clear about my general opinion on him — allow me to forget the details and ignore your request for the specifics (although re-reading my earlier comment suprises me with how specific I was in the first place. Now that I think of it again, a post on Disco’s ‘beta’ branding comes to mind and magically juxtaposes itself to Apple’s numerous ‘final’ releases that weren’t).
Now. Your first comment was not at all specific. It went from HuddleChat to Gruber, passing from fallacy ave. while at it. if your defense against my invocation of ‘argumentum ad populum’ is that you claimed it was a ‘mini-backlash’ cf. a backlash, then I’m afraid you’re still falling into the same logical traps, albeit informal this time, as before. There was no contradiction there. The argument was flawed.
Your last response, while somewhat blatherous at times, is considerably more substantial and somewhat interesting insofar as it covers the topic at hand (which is not Gruber, but HuddleChat/Google):
I’ll try to be succinct, first because it’s getting a bit late/early and second because I believe the subject merits a more substantial effort than a mere comment.
Google’s response was absolutely and definitively related to the not-so-mini backlash (given the original action I’d say the reaction was massive). Let’s not forget: Google Inc. is a PLC, rapidly becoming a goliath in a number of industries, whose main source of revenue (~80%) is a very elastic service. Oh, let’s not forget: its motto is “Don’t be evil”. In my first comment I claimed that you cannot associate the company’s response with ethical or unethical behaviour, exactly because Google is acting under a completely different set of rules as we do when engaging in an academic discussion on policy.
Further to this, there can be no comparison to the PageRank demotion as that affected a completely different type of person or company, one that is perceived to bend (or even break) the rules to gain profit. As such, there were many that thought that Google was doing the world a favour. Arguably they were many more than those that opposed the new policy.
Contrary to that case, with HuddleChat, Google’s refusal to remove it would reinforce its image as the ’steamroller’ (The Steve’s expression, viz. Panic’s Audion) that effortlessly puts small, hard working, innovative developers out of business. Google doesn’t want that. There’s also no comparison to the Chinese censorship of yesteryear, the reason being that Google stood to profit greatly by providing a service to China. Eliminating Campfire and ruining its image in the community — that ironically it was just trying to woo with a new service — wouldn’t.
Google’s response was not ethical or unethical. It has nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with maintaining an image, with PR, with profits. I’m sorry if you don’t see this, but attempting to extract a rational explanation with respect to the ethics of the issue, given Google’s response strikes me as somewhat naive.
So what about the ethics then? (Which is what the post was about and what interests me): I’m not decided yet — and I’d love to discuss and think about this further. On one hand I believe ideas should be freely copied and applications should be clonable (i.e. legally and socially). On the other hand, if we allow this to happen, surely we cannot — in the interest of refraining from ridiculing any notion of fairness — prevent large corporations from doing so. But allowing them to do so, and trap them under the vestiges of the free-market economy (economies of scale, the power of brands etc.) or IP protection legislation we are allowing the possibility of a major disruption on our freedom and/or social and technological progress. And so the discussion quickly boils down to the fundamental question regarding the importance, actual and desired role of corporations in our society, the efficiency of the current system of IP protection, the freedom of information and ideas, our motives to inventors etc.
Gruber highlights the irony of Google’s position with HuddleChat (and that’s where he absolutely nails it). Yet the backlash, to a large extent, was not even remotely about this; it was about the fear of the imminent appearance of a Microsoftesque Google, devouring the industry and killing indie developers.
Now, did I get your comment? Absolutely. Was it specific to anything? Not at all. Maybe you meant more than you wrote, but it’s only your second response that’s a step towards a specific point. Sadly, I’m afraid I cannot (and wish not) to cover it in the context of a comment. I will try to revisit the topic — after a more rigorous research into similar cases and the social framework (legislative and so on) — in the future. I welcome your comments and would very much like to discuss this further.
(It *is* actually quite entertaining that you’re making a case for superficiality, when you’re responding with a comment four or five times as long to a minipost directing to another minipost)
Thanks for commenting!
P.S.: You better sort the Akismet thing out. You were flagged as spam once again :/
Re: Gruber, I’ll side with Cosmix for sure. I’d characterize him an Apple apologist myself.
Generally I can make up a lot of excuses for Apple myself, but Gruber can get tiresome in that he almost never admits Apple made a mistake. He’ll go to great lengths to find the silver lining to anything, even when faced with their most blatant mistakes.
Here’s an example: the .mac “back to the mac” security debacle. It’s not hard to conclude that Apple’s chosen security standard on this aspect was rather lax. Yet Gruber writes:
This is not necessarily the best example, but it’s still characteristic of his style. He is eloquent—a less skilled writer would not have been able to mount such a subtle defense. Notice how he first points out this is not an issue and that any responsibility is with the user. Having first defused the issue, he then goes on to suggest that perhaps, just perhaps, the world would be a rosier place had Apple done things somewhat differently; by which point we’re at a “perfect is the enemy of the good” sort of situation.
Anyway, having thrown in my two cents, I’ll let the two of you duke it out with your multi-page comments.
“…if your defense against my invocation of ‘argumentum ad populum’ is that you claimed it was a ‘mini-backlash’ cf. a backlash, then I’m afraid you’re still falling into the same logical traps, albeit informal this time, as before. There was no contradiction there.”
This was supposed to a be a wisecrack. Killjoy!
“…blatherous at times…”
This is what you get when I’m tired (it was about 4AM when I wrote that comment, no?), and I know the other party will cherry-pick my words. I had to write the same thing three times, trying to cover myself from all possible angles. Being tired, I didn’t have the courage to re-read my admittedly lengthy comment and edit it — sorry about that.
“Eliminating Campfire and ruining its image in the community — that ironically it was just trying to woo with a new service — wouldn’t. Google’s response was not ethical or unethical. It has nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with maintaining an image, with PR, with profits.”
This is an interesting opinion (this is my “I could certainly be wrong, and I’ll gladly hear what you have to say and accept it, should it make sense” side speaking, see?).
By the way, this bit is actually the first time that I’m getting an answer to the comment I posted. (What, it only tooks us a couple of thousand words to get here.)
“(It *is* actually quite entertaining that you’re making a case for superficiality, when you’re responding with a comment four or five times as long to a minipost directing to another minipost).”
Hey, I can think of one-liners that can span multi-page discussions — don’t challenge me!
Kostis: that is admittedly a good catch.
PS: RE Akismet: thanks for letting me know. I’ve contacted the Automattic guys about it — hopefully it’ll be worked out soon.