11.26.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Programming for Proprietary Platforms a Risk to One’s Livelihood
Summary: Jobs is not good for jobs, suggests news story; iPhones all have the same root password
A FEW days ago we wrote about Apple's abuse of developers. That’s what happens in proprietary software, where only one company is ‘bossing’ around the platform and its participants. The following new report [via] suggests that Apple does not pay attention to the warnings.
Jobs may make Mat lose his job
A long-time Apple software developer from Sydney fears he may have to lay off most of his staff after draconian Apple legal threats and a rare personal email from Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs.
Miguel de Icaza got his argument totally reversed when he tried to suggest (in a Microsoft conference) that doing Free software is a risk to one’s livelihood. It ought to be added that Mono targets Apple’s iPhone, specifically putting .NET in it, using MonoTouch which we wrote about in:
- CodePlex Foundation Loves Software Patents and What MonoTouch Means to Microsoft
- More Thoughts About the Microsoft CodePlex Foundation: New Links
- Novell, Microsoft, and the “Microsoft Hater” Daemonisation Label
- Novell Helps Microsoft Zune and CodePlex Foundation Helps Novell
- “Mono Mania” Carries on and Evolution Includes Mono
- Novell VP Brushes Off Microsoft’s Attacks on GNU/Linux, Promotes .NET
Regarding the iPhone, LWN.net has this new article about worms that entered the iPhones because Apple had chosen the same root password for all phones.
It is Apple’s decision to ship all models of its iPhone with the same root password — a tactic common to embedded device makers, if not particularly secure. The point of debate is whether the security hole left open by the combination of a default root password and a running SSH daemon is Apple’s fault, the jailbreaking tool authors’, or simply the users’.
This is hardly an argument against jailbreaking; it’s when those rails are removed from the phone that its inherent flaws get exposed. Apple was sloppy with passwords and journalists warned about exactly that one flaw even 2 years ago. It is surprising that Apple has not resolved this since. █
“FSF did some anti-Apple campaigns too. Personally I worry more about Apple because they have user loyalty; Microsoft doesn’t.”
–Bradley M. Kuhn (SFLC)
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Yuhong Bao said,
November 26, 2009 at 5:01 pm
“Regarding the iPhone, LWN.net has this new article about worms that entered the iPhones because Apple had chosen the same root password for all phones.”
Yep, luckily it is easy to fix after jailbreaking the iPhone.