[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Open-ness get abused by marketers but the fact is it's a value-add trait and one on which Apple built their entire iPhone business, by taking control of app sales and installation away from the telecoms welcoming aps from all comers.

I don't think openness should be considered a value add. It should be considered the default. Why on Earth should a consumer tech company decide what software you should be 'allowed' to run on your hardware? That is absurd.

Products don't have to be open to all comers to be successful as many closed systems can be and are successful.
The fact that some people may have a greater tolerance for its absence does not negate the underlying reality that more open is better than less for customers.

What is needed is a balanced solution. Too open = potential issues for users (this is a reason Apple has stated, though it's clearly not as important to Steve Jobs as removing political apps and mild nudity that offends his ultra-conservative opinions), such as malware, garbage apps, etc. Too closed and you have what amounts to censorship.

In ebook terms; I "suspect" that we would have a hard time finding somebody willingly inflicting a upon themselves a truly closed ebook reader like, say, the Sony Librie 1.0.
But maybe that's just me...

I disagree...well, actually I don't think I do. Most consumers don't have a clue that their devices have moderated marketplaces. I've seen the look on people's faces when they hear that an app isn't available on their phone because it was banned. I've had people ask why a certain webpage won't work on their iPhone only to see that it needs Flash, which Apple arbitrarily ban from iOS devices because Steve Jobs has a vendetta against Adobe for putting more effort into Photoshop on Windows than on Mac (allegedly).

But the bigger problem for ebooks is that publishers have different rights and use different bookstores (i.e. the bookstores are not inter-compatible).