Today two articles of mine were referenced in Yahoo answers. When I went to look at the links on Yahoo, I was forwarded to a screen that said that the question violated the Community guidelines. Interesting. I wonder what they referenced on my site?

So I was thinking that I should probably share where most of my readership is from. It seems that the bulk of people who visit are just looking for macintosh related answers. Fair enough since that is the main purpose of this site. However increasing as I have focused on non macintosh content, I have gotten traffic from that as well. In fact, my highest rated day was on a non macintosh topic. I am not chasing views, but just sharing what happens.

I was thinking that almost every community of the internet, probably violates some other  communities guidelines of conduct. As a rule, I don’t feature illegal content since that doesn’t help anyone. I will link to sites that talk about things like hackintoshing which to my admittedly non-legal training, seems like a gray area. There are many gray areas in technology where what the company claims in writing and what it says are two different things.

Which is frustrating for everyone. In hackintoshing, mac software is put on Windows computers that it wasn’t designed for. The problem here is that, if you buy the Mac OS software, and you own the pc hardware it seems silly that you can’t hack this. I like that Apple is clear that they only support Mac software on mac machines. The problem is that because of the way the software works, it works in many other configurations. When someone asks me if its legal to do this, I tell them no. However that does not stop people, and perhaps it shouldn’t.

The history of computing, were people hacking the software. Some would argue that Apple still continues to hack other companies software and hardware. Apple uses the open source model and contributes back, and both sides have benefited. To me, things like hacking seem much like open-source. It allows alternative uses, that can decrease Apples profitability, but Apple has also gained much from open source software. I think that to fund development of open source is the future of any successful platform, and to encourage innovation is more helpful than limiting it.

I get it Apple. I get that controlling things has made you the star you are today. We all enjoy the positive things from the wise decisions that have made in the past. However, life is about balance. Now that Apple is no longer in danger of closing, doesn’t it seem the reins can be loosened a bit for everyone? Besides hackintoshing, what about alternative payment models in iTunes, all content allowed not just what you consider acceptable, and a willingness to properly compensate small time developers when you lift their ideas? You do most things so well, why not consider some of the social consequences of your policies? Perhaps you don’t need a “do no evil” model, but more of a “how can this benefit Apple and everyone else?” thinking.