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Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

daringfireball.net

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Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#11

Post by Aurornis »

> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”.

Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant.

This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for himself, using other people’s work. He flew too close to the sun and got caught out on every level.

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#12

Post by Aurornis »

haburka wrote: post #7

I worry there will be another retraction on this post since it seems like a miscommunication occurred rather than having someone outright lie.

I doubt it. Did you read until the end where it was discovered that the new web app this person put up was plagiarized from an open source repo? He even used the same name “Dark Hours” as the open source project. The original author called him out on it and identified a unique bug that came from his code.

This guy appears to be a serial liar.

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#13

Post by Aurornis »

Doohickey-d wrote: post #9

One interesting thing: > Note: the original version of this post had a section here about an astronomy app I am working on that began as an astrology app and was rejected after having the astrology content removed. App store [sic] review reached out to me and let me know that they had apparently never been given the updated build and that the app should be fine to submit now. So did the submitter submit the updated b…

Daring Fireball is doubtful:

> Whether Godier ever submitted a build of “Asterly” to the App Store that contained no occult horseshit and only the hard-science astronomy features that were present in his “Dark Hours” website that was available for the last week, I don’t know. But I have no reason to believe that he did.

His original submission was an astrology app. He then stole someone else’s open source repo, reskinned it, and tried to pass it off as his own app.

He is not a trustworthy person. He was trying to manipulate and deceive. I see no reason to point fingers at Apple for this.

He was trying to leverage anti-Apple sentiment for free publicity for himself and he thought nobody would notice that he stole the app and, brazenly, the name “Dark Hours” from someone’s open source project.

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#14

Post by swiftcoder »

Aurornis wrote: post #11

> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”. Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant. This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for…

> Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move

Do you think he stole it directly, or an LLM reproduced it complete with existing bugs?

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#15

Post by user43928 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #14
Aurornis wrote: post #11

> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”. Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant. This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for…

> Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move Do you think he stole it directly, or an LLM reproduced it complete with existing bugs?

I very much doubt an LLM is going to do that without explicitly being prompted to do so.

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#16

Post by Lammy »

Aurornis wrote: post #11

> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”. Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant. This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for…

> Stealing an open source repo

It's in poor taste for sure but let's not pretend that the chosen license is doing him any favors: https://github.com/mbeher2200/DarkHours/blob/813cf85/LICENSE

Hate to see people fall for the “fewer restrictions == more Free” fallacy. Profit-driven entities love when smart people publish MIT code that they can feed off of without giving anything back.

Nor is the copycat project prevented from using the name without a trademark. For instance one couldn't repackage Mozilla or Blender under those names:

- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75558938&caseSearchType=U...

- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85852073&caseSearchType=U...

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#17

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

swiftcoder wrote: post #14
Aurornis wrote: post #11

> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”. Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant. This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for…

> Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move Do you think he stole it directly, or an LLM reproduced it complete with existing bugs?

Whether he stole it directly, by doing the 'work', or indirectly via an LLM, stealing it is wrong. If you generate something using an LLM, you have a responsibility to ensure you're not infringing on someone else's work.

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#18

Post by OsrsNeedsf2P »

Lammy wrote: post #16
Aurornis wrote: post #11

> In an uncomfortable exchange between Beher and Godier on Bluesky, Beher pointed out that Godier’s Dark Hours had the same bug as Beher’s that routed people to “random fields in Mexico”. Stealing an open source repo and launching it as your own app is a brazen move. Launching it with the same name as the original repo is just flagrant. This guy thought he was going to ride this controversy to some free publicity for…

> Stealing an open source repo It's in poor taste for sure but let's not pretend that the chosen license is doing him any favors: https://github.com/mbeher2200/DarkHours/blob/813cf85/LICENSE Hate to see people fall for the “fewer restrictions == more Free” fallacy. Profit-driven entities love when smart people publish MIT code that they can feed off of without giving anything back. Nor is the copycat project prevente…

Can confirm. I used to hate when people published their code under MIT instead of GPL. But now that I work at a startup that competes with a few open source offerings, I love having Claude check in on their progress and port the content over.

Re: Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

#19

Post by user43928 »

ventana wrote: post #4

This is the right way to handle the situation like that, and kudos to the author for writing the second post. This is also a reminder that people lie or just hide some part of the story all the time, and we as readers should question every story if it only presents an opinion of one side, and not the other's. That being said, hearing Apple's own opinion is probably not what we could reasonably expect.

When it comes to Google and Apple's mobile app stores, I generally assume the worst.

I have only published for Android before, and maybe Apple is running its store somewhat better.

Google is shameless. They extort a 15%/30% revenue cut from developers, and they do not hire competent staff.

Pay them $10k, and in case your app is rejected, get an automated email with a link to the TOS.

The appeal process? "Computer says No".

Admittedly I have not encountered this personally, but all reports I have seen paint this picture.

What I did face is when trying to close my Google Play Developer account: they will just not let me do it.

You'd think this would be trivial, but all I received from support were requests I update and bring into compliance a free app removed nearly a decade ago. In order to transfer it to a new account.

Only then will they graciously permit me to close my Google Play Developer account.

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