Ask HN: What happened to rational discourse?
I'm curious why the reaction to the Apple Developer TOS change is making this community react so strongly. One of the main reasons I left Reddit for Hacker News was the level of discourse was elevated and the polemics and hysterics in the stories were almost non-existent. I don't disagree that the Apple dispute with Adobe is big news and calls for discussion. What concerns me is the freewheeling hysteria that seems to be driving the topic. As is almost always the case, I suspect this TOS change will either be modified, re-interpreted, or Apple will suffer community backlash. As for my personal opinion, I would feel a far keener loss by losing the valuable insight and discussion that has so far been present in this community than I would feel over a change in the Apple developer TOS.
There are often days when things get bad here in one way or another, but I don't worry unless they stay that way.
At least when HN readers get hysterical it's about something (a) related to hacking and (b) really bad.
>As is almost always the case, I suspect this TOS change will either be modified, re-interpreted, or Apple will suffer community backlash.
Are you sure the TOS would change, if there was no backlash, like the one you're seeing on HN right now?
Protests usually precede revolutions.
The phrase "straw that broke the camel's back" springs to mind. The anger and fear that you're witnessing has been building for years - since the launch of the App Store, maybe even back to the iPod with its proprietary connector and its proprietary software. For many people, their worst fears about the iPad platform have been confirmed by this TOS change. It might seem irrational, but as a loyal Mac user I'm genuinely worried about what little bombs might be in the TOS for OS 10.7.
The most influential and powerful man in technology has a vision that many of us find appalling. He is imposing that vision as we speak and is being very successful in doing so. After years of rational debate, many of us have come to a conclusion about Jobs's intentions for the computer industry - a conclusion I see as perfectly reasonable and rational. It is no good closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The developer community needs to air its grievances now, while there is still something to play for.
In some ways, I think the recent obsession over iphone ToS is a community backlash, though it seems overblown. I am surprised that four developers I know are dropping their iPhones at the end of contract and switching to Android. We must feel strongly about it.
"... I'm curious why the reaction to the Apple Developer TOS change is making this community react so strongly ..."
In some ways message boards are to hackers what close knit provincial rural communities are Jane Austen novels. A place of petty intrigue and gallantry.
We're toolmakers, so this just hits too close to home. We can't be completely objective about the idea that any platform vendor wants to ban our favorite tools and demand we use something mediocre (so much so that hardly anyone has willingly chosen it for decades). It just makes it worse that this one might have actually amassed enough power to get away with it.
You're right, the reaction to the TOS was something to behold.
I think due to the nature of hacking and hackers, most people here hate being told how to do their job, especially for what feels to them to be spurious or irrational reasons.
I suspect people would have responded better to a more narrow (though perhaps legally more problematic) "no Flash" rule, rather than the legally safer but over-broad "no cross-compiling".
I'm trying to create a community for rational discourse - http://debate-zone.com