Summary: The company of brand fetish does not get a free pass and in fact it increasingly gets closer to government intervention

IN HIS latest column for The Register, Mac Asay stated that open source people were not giving Apple enough flak for its anti-competitive practices. Had he said "free software" rather than "open source" (many companies pretend to be open source these days), then his statement would be utterly false. Either way, the former Microsoft booster who now tickles Apple fans for traffic says that Apple -- just like Microsoft -- is abusing again:

Somebody call the cops -- eh, antitrust authorities. Apple's subscription plan is here, and it's as bad for many, if not most, publishers as rumored. The first of several key sentences from Apple's press announcement: "Publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a website, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app." That means you Amazon Kindle; before the announcement, all Kindle transactions took place outside the app in a web browser. This change applies to any content, but it's nestled in the subscriptions announcement.

To correct Mac Asay and set the record straight (as Carlo Piana has already done), free/open source software people do complain about Apple. The problem is negative behaviour (unethical, divisive, and uncompetitive) that typically accompanies proprietary software; it's not so much about brands, unless one is an Apple fan (or a mythical "Microsoft fan"). ⬆