I've no idea about this, heh.

Inaccurate metaphor or not, Apple will continue to be restrictive so long as they are also profitable doing it. People can sneer as long as they please, Apple won't change that until a viable challenge pops up that requires a more open approach.

See, that’s the essential gulf in understanding: I—and the general public at large—don’t see it as restrictive. I hear the same kinds of complaints from car enthusiasts grumbling about manual transmissions and hardcore gamers grumbling about casual games. Yes, fine, to that very small subset of users who are an atypical edge case, it is an affront. To the vast majority of people who just want something that does what they need with no muss or fuss, that is safe and easy to operate, it’s a tremendous boon.

An enthusiast can argue until he’s blue in the face that the consumer isn’t as happy as he thinks he is. The consumers shrugs and keeps using the wonderful thing he’s found that works and doesn’t demand that he be a Formula 1 driver, a shadetree mechanic, a SEAL, or an electrical engineer.

I'm thinking that I misunderstood your original post, but that we are still in agreement.

When I think of "Apple" and "walled garden" together, I usually think just of their iTunes store and their current apps store (iTunes' earlier audio offerings were just as restrictive as their apps store has been, but when they started to get competition from other venues and programs that offered DRM-free listening and were willing to play ANY mp3, they had to change).

It seems you, however, meant all of their products and services as a whole. Under that wider view, I agree with you. I'm using a Mac, and it has been less troublesome than the PC it replaced.

As for your comment about open software, below, there is something to keep in mind. Although Linux won't really be popular among home computer users and looks like something only the technically-minded person will get into (seriously, how many people really care that they can create and compile their own OS?), open CAN win, but only if supported by a less-than-open approach.

For example, Wordpress is a popular CMS that was originally designed for bloggers, and of course Linux itself is still in wide use among ISPs for their systems. In both cases the program is free and the public is permitted to alter the code, but the companies that offer them are profitable because they supply free services that the majority of their users don't want to handle themselves, while also offering high-end paid services to a minority that needs or wants something beyond that. Neither of these are "a guy in his garage" operations, and the public only builds on or alters what they produce, while they still are responsible for releasing improvements and changes to the core products. The products are open, while the people supplying them are working in a traditional company.

I'm not sure if I'm clearly describing what I'm thinking, so I'll stop here.

I was thinking of the App Store in particular, but I certainly agree with the idea of applying the concept across Apple’s product and service line. A popular rhetorical sleight-of-hand regarding music in particular is to proclaim loudly how restrictive iTunes and the iPod are, while quietly neglecting to add that iTunes and iPods are perfectly happy to play any MP3 files one happens to have—say, from ripping one’s CDs.

Yes, it probably was overstating the case to make a simple statement without qualification or nuance. “Open” indeed can win, if it’s supported by companies who understand why judicious opening of code can be beneficial—something Apple does routinely. (Webkit, “blocks”, and a host of other things I can’t recall off-hand.) I do get annoyed with the Android loyalists who ballyhoo Google’s “openness” and lambaste Apple’s lack thereof. They get pretty shifty when one asks why Google hasn’t released, say, their search and advertising algorithms.

And, I’ve gotta say after watching people insist that “next year is the year of Linux on the desktop" for the last ten-plus years, I agree with the folks who say “open never wins.”

The primary exception to walls "keeping things out" is the prison. Although from the right perspective it's keeping those in the prison out of a much larger area than normal...

Indeed. The purpose of a prison is to economize on society’s guard force.