“Apple’s Lockdown Mentality Will Ultimately Lose,” Linus Torvalds

Sao Paulo, Brazil – Apple’s restrictive control measures and policies will ultimately fail, according to Linus Torvalds.

“Technologies that lock things down tend to lose in the end,” said Torvalds at the keynote of LinuxCon Brazil. (Cult of Mac is reporting from Sao Paulo; come to our Nov. 20 meetup for a chance to win a signed copy of the Brazilian edition of Leander Kahney’s “Inside Steve’s Brain.”)

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Mac App Store Apps Susceptible To Piracy If Not Carefully Validated

The Mac App Store has been live for less than a day, but already pirates have figured out how to circumvent its DRM to install and run unauthorized paid apps. It’s not Apple’s fault, though: instead, it looks like developers just haven’t been paying attention to Apple’s own app validation advice.

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iPad Shredded for DRM Restrictions

A Jobsian-attired protester at the Apple event. @FSF

Journalists streaming into the iPad event yesterday were greeted by a handful of volunteers from the Free Software Foundation protesting DRM restrictions in the about-to-be released device.

They dubbed the iPad the iBad for two reasons:

* All media in the iTunes store (with the one exception of music) is wrapped in Apple’s DRM. That means films, TV shows, movies and audiobooks (NB: books are in an open format ePub) are locked to Apple’s platform, taking away your right to share.

* All applications must be signed by Apple if they are to run, an unprecedented level of control for a general purpose computer. On top of this, Apple can push updates to the device over its wireless connection, letting them add or remove capabilities at any time.

There were only about six or seven naysayers outside Yerba Buena center yesterday, but they still hope to bring about some long-term change, namely by getting people to sign an online petition.

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