If you don't mind a parenthetical point, I'd argue that Marx's specific analyses and the precise names stuck to them are too limiting at this point - or at least I'm convinced you've conflated two properties that someone pointed out a while ago would make debate considerably more productive (by virtue, I suppose, of making the "heterodox" double-qualifier idelogies suddenly more motivated) when separated - the degree to which ownership and control of the means of production are centralized; and the precise ownership described in the terms of some separate dichotomy. Your point would prescribe for the first - but "socialism" as a name I'd claim has accreted and been recast to the extent that some synthetic history in which the limited-liability company is replaced with the cooperative would be called "market socialist" by last-generation Soviet nomenklatura, and yet "social-democratic and cooperativist" by the Co-operative Party that by agreement constitutes a curiously significant amount of British Labour (and hence the use of a name.) That's neither to argue, though, that the two are a mile and a half away: you're right to say that it did once imply both, and that in past contexts (or that's my impression of Western European economic reform post-World War II) it was overbearing as a trend no matter how the actual distribution of control could be construed.
(Edited for spelling correction, the contextualization at the end, and the note about how overt signs of association affect self-appropriation of names...)
But I'm convinced if at all, only very reluctantly so - certanly not so over an ideology whose championing stands to benefit not those of Deng Xiaoping's orthodoxy but of Maoist irredentism (Hua Guofeng may only be relevant as a historical footnote dominated by currents with consderably more inertia now, but Bo Xilai certainly seemed to have justified a thorough purging. At the very least I'm confident enough to estabish that faction-on-faction maneuvering in the far past has been justified on ideological differences of a similar magnitude - and that we looked at Bo's dramatics for shades of that precedent.)
The sole fact that one has to reach over themselves and make a great deal to invoke it when thinking within Clojure's mechanics - they become neither cheap to mentally fiddle around with, nor actually implement within.
(FWIW, though, Clojure's novelty to me was an STM system that I could get up and running without a night's worth of tweaking, and otherwise fall safely into a great deal of attention if something were to go hilariously wrong - most of the other solutions around "back then" seemed to regard themselves as research curios lagging behind in fit and finish.)
Assuming none of the rest of the infrastructure'll change - I'd consider working with possibilities as future "when"s impractical enough; a user'll go download Firefox, the standard Gatekeeper denial message'll pop up:
"Firefox" can't be opened because it was not downloaded from the Mac App Store.
Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the Mac App Store.
Safari downloaded this file today at...
And the user'll either trip over the message and give up in frustration - there will be a class of user who'll visually pattern-match, rather than engage with a meaningful back-and-forth with their computer - or pop into the System Preferences, find Security waiting for them, and off they go.
Fairly banal, but by far and large that's because the assumption that switching the default to the MAS-only option would be a novel attempt at total exclusion shouldn't be true, give or take the major assumption outlined above: not so when the current default's in fact "Mac App Store and identified developers" - narrowing the locus of trusted sources, then, is a change that should happen independently of how easy it'll be to get an unsigned app running.
The default used to be the bottom option which allows all apps. Then Apple switched it to App Store and Publishers that paid Apple $99 with the introduction of Gatekeeper. They'll switch it to App Store only by default soon enough.
I'd wager that when Apple switches it to Mac App Store only by default, lots of open source developers will simply give up on Macs. I was planning on developing for Mac myself. Even bought a second hand Macbook to fire things up. But the way Apple works, I just don't trust that it'll be viable in a couple years. Given Apple's arbitrary application of rules in the iOS ecosystem, I have a dim view of the Mac's future in terms of openness. I decided instead to continue to focus on Windows and expand into *nix and Android.
I doubt open-source developers were paying to have their executables codesigned in the first place - I'd assumed in the argument above, at the very least, that the Gatekeeper denial isn't the silent suppression the iOS kernel uses; and on that basis little may as well change for them.
Projecting that Apple'll change both the default position of a radio button and their marginalia and messaging around Gatekeeper is different (as a somewhat more substantial change) from your premise, though.
A 3rd party to VLC tried getting VLC in the Mac App Store and then later it was pulled for violating the GPL. VLC had to relicense their whole code base to get in the App Store fully legally. Most open source projects will be unable to do that due to the sheer number of contributors and resistance to hobbling the copyleft license on their code.
Most of us that had been watching Apple had projected that Apple would launch a Mac App store and make it the main place to get Mac software while still keeping clauses in their App Store license that are GPL hostile. That came to pass. As for Gatekeeper, expect that Apple will switch the setting in the next couple years. After all, Mac went from allowing installs of any software by default to restricting unsigned apps, essentially going from the lowest Gatekeeper setting to the middle, with little fanfair and minimal pushback from their userbase. They'll have an easy time taking it the next step as well. It's only really holdouts like Adobe that aren't in the app store that matter at this point. And Apple will likely force them into the App Store to get their 30% cut in the next couple years with the Gatekeeper change.
All of this fits with Apple's core values of making things easy, exercising complete control, and forcing an excessive revenue share from all publishers. It already works that way for iPhone/iPad/iPod apps, music, videos and books. The only holdout is Mac apps and that will happen soon enough. The only folks that usually argue that it won't are the so-called Mac power-users who continue to think that they are critical to Apple's success. This was true for a time when they catered to media professionals. But they don't anymore, nor do they have to. Apple's entire desktop/laptop hardware business accounts for 12% of their revenue and falling. They're a pure consumer company now, not a computer/tech company anymore. There's simply more money in it. That's why their bread and butter OS, iOS, is so completely locked down compared to all of their competitors. There's no reason for them not to follow suit on the desktop/laptop and get their 30% there as well.
Your second point is terribly exhaustively induced - I've two nitpicks, though, for the record's sake: there's the fairly low-lying target of whether the poweruser response to the introduction of Gatekeeper suffices to predict the response to any total lockout within OS X: the first was defended on the basis that it retained the option; the second violates that.
There's also the question of their role: while "power users"'ll make up little direct contribution to Apple's haul, they've forced Apple to expedite the usual inscrutability at times: Apple's been fairly quick with the reassurances after the dual (perceived) fiascoes that were the half-done rehaulings of both FCPX and the-suite-formerly-known-as-iWork.
The question then becomes whether a variable amount of scorn'll sufficiently tarnish the Mac platform as a whole, and whether it retains any inertia to overcome any blip in opinion; that'll depend on what proportion of Apple's Mac owners do care - that hasn't been established specifically for the Mac itself. But it's fairly easy to project along the lines of your note on Apple's dependence on the consumer when accounting for all business: no doubt adoption rates during the past few years've been up to the halo effect, and we only need decide whether the proportions line up - the power users, after all, have always remained, by definition, a minority; they've thus always had a disproportionate amount of influence.
But you're arguing just as well for simply getting rid of their business selling computers: perhaps they could just as well play that chance and feel all the better focused for having fallen into the second. I'm sure there's a surprise within that mold happening within Apple's future; it'd at least give the analysts an impression of sufficient prescience. (Or they'd grant the issue sufficient apathy on that front solely on the basis that their computer lines have reverted back into one of their self-proclaimed "hobby" niches - half the fun of Kremlinology's in tossing away the assumption that every actor must constantly execute, chop-chop.)
(Which takes me back to your first - I do understand that both App Stores don't even so much as consider OSS licences: precisely my claim that "I doubt open-source developers were paying to have their executables codesigned in the first place".)
I never claimed they'd get rid of the ability to change the Gatekeeper settings. Merely that they'd switch the default again. Just like before when it went from unsigned being permitted to unsigned not being permitted. Sure, there's an option to change it. But, as it is now, the vast majority of users will never do it. So, yes, you'll have the option to change it as you can now. But with it off by default, it becomes onerous to distribute an app for Mac but not via the app store. Which is as Apple wants it. With all the apps in the Mac app store, Apple can collect their 30% and exclude competition to their own properties like they do on iOS.
FCPX and it's still less-than-previous-version-abilities and the abandonment of the Power Mac for so long are perfect examples of 'power users' being de-emphasized across Apple. Power users and media professionals were a much larger part of Apple's business in the past. They're an extremely tiny part of their business today and, as evidenced by Apple's own decisions and behavior, worth paying a little bit of attention to eventually, but not much.
The main reason for Apple to continue to build laptops and desktops is in service to their iOS and media businesses. Folks still need tools to build apps and put together media.
And as for open source projects having their code signed, LibreOffice, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org, my own PortableApps.com, etc would politely disagree with you. Being open source doesn't preclude paying to sign or having a business model. But the app store's onerous licensing agreement does preclude some of my apps from ever being able to be offered.
I apologize for bringing up the first assumption and running off it - I'd went off with it precisely because you talked about complete exclusion: but of course Apple can do a very well-considered nudge; I'm treading right over false equivocation here, but the question so is always "to what extent?" - we're happy to consider Android relatively unfettering, despite having a similarly "recessed" option like your projected one, but no doubt we're judging it differently because a phone never needs to hold much promise.
An equivalence to Microsoft - I'm raising a great deal of them only because I believe having everyone rush to emulate Apple's MO has a bit of their exceptionalism rub off - is suggested by your second, though: both have individual consumers, customers dependent on unique line-of-business setups (as to the standard business, media professionals), and independent developers (the last two make up the constituency with an interest in unfettered application installation) in precisely the same proportion - but not the same magnitude. The question, yet again, is in precisely how the proportion represented by "a little bit" turns out to be - and how much that'll be when applied. One has to measure precisely how much's been added back to FCP to the magnitude of their retargeting of the FCP line in the first place to get an impression of their influence. Apple's able to show a great deal of strength, though; I'm simply sizing up the opposing influence.
But neither do I doubt that Apple'd ever deny themselves an opportunity for a bit of bravado: I shouldn't ever be overtly hostile to someone projecting reasoning with overt change and incompatibility for the ideal's sake onto Apple.
Edit: and my thanks to you for the PortableApps as well - I remember lugging around a gaudily pimped-up Firefox (Aqua theme and a Ghostfox-like quick-hide addon, woot woot) on a 512MB flashdrive in middle school, and subsequently realizing that the show of ricer agency can neutralize anyone's ability to reasonably judge taste. A fairly good life lesson to be had early while getting to terms with a teenager's first pecking order.
No apology necessary, just a typical online missing-a-few-blanks-and-filling-them-in-ourselves event. :) It's true that Android has the ability to 'side load' and it is off by default, but phones and PCs are different animals. So, it's better to compare it to Windows which permits running even unsigned apps by default, though it does black the screen and show a warning box with a big red exclamation point.
Realistically, I think the Mac laptops and desktops will continue along the 'consumer' line of thinking in terms of features and functionality. Apple will likely set Gatekeeper to Mac App Store only by default within the next release or two of Mac OS X. Users will be able to change it, of course, but it will still have the desired effect of making publishers feel like they have to sell through the App Store and give up 30% of their revenue to Apple (and also abandon many of their pricing models since the App Store doesn't support variable upgrade pricing, unfortunately).
Most Apple users won't even know they can get apps outside of the App Store at that point, similar to how most Android users don't know. Similarly to Android, of course, there will be some power users that know and make use of that feature. Most Mac OS X users will be completely unaware of the fact that any of this happened or that their options have been limited, though, the same way most iOS users are unaware Apple prohibits third party browsers (unless they're just a skin on hobbled Mobile Safari), SMS clients, etc.
Personally, I disagree with the path Apple has forged the last few years. They make pretty good hardware and were the first company that really 'got' mobile music (and the fact that it needed good hardware and software - both on the device and the connecting PC). I have an original iPod Mini I got and later hacked a 16GB CF card into and ran Busybox on. I even have an old Mac Classic sitting in the closet that I'll pull out and put shufflepuck on at some point. But I likely won't buy anything from Apple ever again at this point. And I won't develop anything for a platform whose owner operates the way and has the level of control that Apple does. Both of which make me a bit sad.
Glad you like PortableApps.com and it's helped you out. We're still chugging along. If you're so inclined, give it an install to your cloud drive (Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, etc) and you can run your apps from there and sync them among your Windows machines. You can even run them under Wine on *nix or one of the Wine equivalents on Mac (CrossOver, Wineskin, WineBottler, PlayOnMac).
I'll offer my congratulations as well - it feels like it's just been able to freshly tap the nerve of what lies beneath cosmopolitan America, and for that alone it won't go stale for a bit. The LRB, even through the same means, has ended up sounding like it fights a rear-guard action.
I'd wonder whether methods that make use of zeroing or /dev/zero'd be staved off for longer on Mavericks - perhaps it'd compress the recurring patterns that'd result?
Complete income inequality isn't even orthodox Marx - "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" goes the standard quote by Marx; but that was his study of a specific utopia. (The rest of the cited work in fact goes on to rip its jaws into a transitional programme wrought out of "effective politicking" - pointed stuff.) The official CPSU line was then "To each according to his contribution" in the "transitional" period - through Trotsky and Lenin; so goes the degeneration.
I wonder how long it then took to get to imposed equality.
"Any one that won't let Bedrock's tools and clients complain" is the answer - I know nothing about what the author's hinting wrt his future plans, but my impression's that the current release's a fairly light layer of mostly shell-scripted userland tools with only one needing compilation ("bedrock chroot"); Kernighan would be proud. (Those who treat the Unix Haters' Handbook as a source of design maxims would simply conclude a runtime built upon an introspectable and introcessionable language would obviate the need to marvel at the engineering involved here. The initial effort involved here, to be fair, is orders of magnitude less.)
> "Any one that won't let Bedrock's tools and clients complain" is the answer
Spot on.
> I know nothing about what the author's hinting wrt his future plans, but my impression's that the current release's a fairly light layer of userland tools with only one needing compilation ("bedrock chroot")
Sadly we're adding additional userland tools which will need to be compiled in the next release. However, we're aiming to stick as close to the "fairly light layer of userland tools" description as we can while ensuring the core idea works without issue.
> Kernighan would be proud
I think that is one of the kindest things anyone has ever said about me. Thank you!
Gah - typo - "intercessionable" is the word; I've taken its use from the the Art of the Metaobject Protocol. (Thanks for the double-checking.) It's a usage that doesn't bear much relation to its others, but it's fairly easy to define: if introspection queries internal state, intercession changes it.
Weren't the full-QWERTY Communicators within that price range? Any more interesting than that and we'd have credited to them a more full-featured OS barging into the range of PDAs - assuming we can rule out an Apple-style lateral leap.
(Edited for spelling correction, the contextualization at the end, and the note about how overt signs of association affect self-appropriation of names...)