In “On the iPad“, Alex Payne said, “We have the technology and the incentive to build the future of computing in an open way. The only reason not to is greed, laziness, and hubris.”
I read Alex’s article after reading Dave Winer’s “Attn Joe: Should we trust iPad?” and following the link at the end to Alex’s article.
Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but not as a developer and the opinions expressed here are my own.
Come on Alex, really, “… greed, laziness, and hubris”? Don’t you think that’s a little too simple? Open is awesome, no doubt, but closed delivers awesome results too. Personally I hope we always have both ‘open’ and ‘closed’ solutions.
As a creative person I love open, collaborative, pliable stuff and my cluttered desk, garage and computer reflect that. However I also buy sealed, disposable, reliable, simple, elegant, fit & finished products. I have lots of friends who develop software both open and proprietary and a few friends who develop hardware both open and closed. Far more than either of those are my friends who do not care if their phone has Android, Intel or Apple inside as long as it works when they need it and without having to figure it out.
I’m pretty sure millions of people will buy iPads, but I doubt that means all the ‘open’ options are about to vanish.
Respectfully,
~ dws.
my road 