App-ocalypse: When?
September 29th, 2012Microsoft confirms that Windows 8 the-interface-formerly-known-as-Metro apps will only be available through the Windows Store.
Add to this the fact that Apple’s OSX Mountain Lion is by default restricting downloads to the App Store, although so far that default can be overridden.
There is ongoing controversy about the implementation of UEFI boot loaders, with Microsoft mandating to hardware vendors that ARM-based machines only boot to their OS.
These are signs that the Two Trajectories of Device Convergence are beginning to collide, the fronts are ever advancing, and the Closed side is preparing its arsenal.
Cory Doctorow has for some time been waxing cogently on the long term implications of the coming war on general-purpose computing, and recent and current trends seem to support his prognostication.
Am I over-analyzing or is that distant choppers I hear over the hill?
I’ve found Cory Doctorow’s argument quite convincing. The nanny/police state wants everything to be controlled by a few gatekeepers who can be dictated to by the government, and the gatekeepers are okay with this since they will then have to face less competition.
On the other side, however, open-source software, and open-source hardware designs with off-the-shelf electronic components, will continue to be available to the outsiders who are willing and able to put the pieces together. Governments will demonize and criminalize the outsiders but that will only get rid of some of them.
The result will be a bifurcated society where computer technology is concerned.
This is also just one instance of a more general trend. According to socionomics (look it up on Wikipedia or at Socionomics.com), when a society has high/increasing social mood, it is increasingly harmonious, and when it has low/declining social mood, it polarizes.