A bit of a stretch from AndroidGuys, but an interesting analogy nonetheless

Andy Rubin, photo by Yoichiro Akiyama (Tokyo, Japan)

Summary: Apple is going too far in its fight against fair competition and freedom, so more people and organisations begin to publicly denounce Apple

SOMETIMES, when a company feels invincible, Hubris takes over. Apple's legal case against Android/Linux is yet another sign that Apple has given up on being reasonable. Apple has become a rather blatantly freedom-hostile company which is now even threatening Ogg. In addition, Apple has returned to threatening bloggers whose only sin is that they derailed Apple's hype machine.

CNET has some more updates about a blogger's case:

● Journalist shield law may not halt iPhone probe

● Prosecutors defend Gizmodo search in iPhone probe

Stephen Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney, told CNET on Tuesday evening that prosecutors had considered whether reporter shield laws applied to the search and seizure aimed at the gadget blog--and decided to proceed after carefully reviewing the rules.

"My prosecutor who is handling it considered this issue right off the bat when it was being brought into him and had some good reasons why he and the judge felt the warrant was properly issued," Wagstaffe said.

Not only the prosecutors defend Gizmodo; the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has come up with yet another post on the subject:

Last week’s police raid on Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen’s house, in response to a request from Apple Inc., has led many to wonder why government resources are being spent on a spat between Apple and Gizmodo.

But here at EFF, we are also wondering if we’ve just seen the future of copyright enforcement. Although the Gizmodo seizure doesn’t appear to be rooted in copyright, having cops kicking in doors over what seems like a private dispute reminded us of recent efforts by the big content industries to get law enforcement to go after “copyright thieves.”

We also wrote about this Gizmodo story in posts such as:

• Apple's Connection to Abuse of Gizmodo Employee Shown, EFF Fights Back
• Apple's Hounding of Bloggers Becomes a PR Disaster
• Microsoft's Phone Business as Dead as Zune, But Apple Too Loses Its Mind
• Microsoft is Contacting Publications, Asking Them to Add More Anti-Linux Slant

According to this report, Android's founder/leader "likens Apple to North Korea":

The NY Times has a great little interview with Google VP Andy Rubin where he talks about Android's future among other things. When asked his thoughts on the recent Steve Jobs comments about Android offering porn, Andy says he doesn't quite get where Jobs was coming from. “I don’t really have a rationale for that,” he said. “It’s a different style of interacting with the public and the media.”

Does that make Steve Jobs and Kim Il-sung long-lost twins? Probably not, but anyway, Rubin's words are taken slightly out of context.

We covered this particular incident in [1, 2]. In the South African press, a journalist now labels Apple "a threat to innovation and freedom."

Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom.

For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft has been seen as the primary enemy of free and open source software (FOSS). Free software advocates over the years have held Microsoft up as the pre-eminent example of how software should not be produced and distributed; an example of how they did not want it to be.

It wasn't without good reason that Microsoft was seen as enemy number 1. The company has done everything in its power over the years to undermine Linux and free software. CEO Steve Ballmer has even gone so far as to label free software anti-American and he never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at Linux.

[...]

There was a time when Microsoft was seen as the enemy of software freedom and Apple, by virtue of being seen as the "underdog", was given far more leniency. Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom.

Apple will probably receive increased attention from Techrights simply because the company is detrimental to technology (for instance, it prevents rivals from implementing particular features, due to patents) and careless when it comes to people's freedoms and rights.

One particularly amusing item that we found in yesterday's news is McAfee's attempt to sell "anti-malware" software for Android using snake oil marketing. It's a tad insulting because McAfee is hostile towards the GPL (or Free software in general) and it breaks operating systems rather than secure them. Android users don't need McAfee. ⬆