Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#831

Post by bduerst » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

yeahforsureman wrote: post #827

bduerst wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as this seems like a foreign concept to westerners, most Chinese citizens (outside of the European provinces) simply do not care about it the way westerners do. To GP's point, their lives have and continue to improve, with the fastest growing middle class this decade. And before you project western ideals on China and start doomsaying about their impending economic collapse, understand that people have been s…

Yeah, that's human nature. A lot of people were fairly satisfied even behind the Iron Curtain for a time before the economic dysfunction became too apparent. Yet even then as now, we have every right to project and even attempt to impose these "western" ideals of individual human rights on systems that try to deny them from any one individual . The only "western" thing about them is that the particular framework of d…

Right, but it will be several generations before that even becomes a possibility. Right now you have the famine generation who remembers how terrible things used to be, and will be content as long as things are and continue to improve.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#832

Post by gatherhunterer » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

lolsal wrote: post #728

parliament32 wrote: post #597

This is why Apple will always be a second-class citizen to Android. If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS. When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Just like when you buy a PC/laptop, what you run on it is your business, not the manufacturer…

> When I buy a phone, it's a hardware product I'm buying. Not to me.

This is where the comment goes into “my opinion is fact and dissenting opinions are wrong.” There are millions of Apple customers who get their preferred OS by buying hardware directly from the OS developer. This has been a viable business model for Apple for long enough to just laugh at that sentence. Hating Apple is an identity, like a political party, and some are too invested for their ego to allow for simple factual observations.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#833

Post by saagarjha » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

mehhh wrote: post #815

saagarjha wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been looking at the App Store Guidelines recently and I don’t see much in them that seems to block GPL specifically. Maybe it’s OK now?

If you have citations of GPLv2 or GPLv3 apps that are in the App Store, I would be highly interested. As far as I can discern, Linphone is provided in the App Store under a proprietary license, VLC had to relicense as LGPL, and GNU Go is still not on the App Store.

I don’t think anyone’s tried it, because it was certainly not allowed a couple of years ago. But the language that the FSF used to point to is no longer there, so I’d like to hope that it might be possible today.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#834

Post by pgcj_poster » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

joshmn wrote: post #772

pgcj_poster wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I have a good reason, I can toggle a setting and install APKs built by anyone. If I have a good reason, I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS. This is not possible for many (and I suspect the majority of) android phones.

> This is not possible for many (and I suspect the majority of) android phones. But it is. You can install APKs from anyone on any phone. It's a feature of the OS. > I can wipe my phone and unlock the bootloader to literally replace and de-Google the entire OS. I've never had an Android phone I couldn't unlock and flash. From the original Evo to Pixel 2. I have an iPhone as of two months ago. I just wanted to try som…

I'm sorry, I quoted more than I meant to. I was exclusively talking about unlocking the bootloader.

> I've never had an Android phone I couldn't unlock and flash.

I've been using Android as long as I've had a smart phone, and I've never had a phone that I could flash. You should remember that most people don't have expensive flagship model phones.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#835

Post by jethro_tell » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:15 PM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #811

mehhh wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An app analysis tool shows that this app––MFsocket.apk––gains ROOT access to an Android phone Source: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2019/07/spyware-used-on-phones...

Fengcai is the app your original article talked about, which the police install when you enter Xinjiang. It does not try to get root access. MFsocket is a separate app that has both an iPhone and Android version that police in Beijing use that does attempt to gain root on both platforms. It is unlikely to actually get root on an Android phone that a technologist would use.

What steps are we talking about here that a technologist would have taken here?

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#836

Post by nyxtom » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

Don’t forget the Quartz app as well

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#837

Post by dwaite » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

mehhh wrote: post #815

saagarjha wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been looking at the App Store Guidelines recently and I don’t see much in them that seems to block GPL specifically. Maybe it’s OK now?

If you have citations of GPLv2 or GPLv3 apps that are in the App Store, I would be highly interested. As far as I can discern, Linphone is provided in the App Store under a proprietary license, VLC had to relicense as LGPL, and GNU Go is still not on the App Store.

My understanding is that Apple doesn't ban GPLvX code - that doesn't mean other people won't write Apple and ask the app to be removed, claiming the app developer did not have proper copyright license.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#838

Post by dwaite » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

mehhh wrote: post #815

saagarjha wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been looking at the App Store Guidelines recently and I don’t see much in them that seems to block GPL specifically. Maybe it’s OK now?

If you have citations of GPLv2 or GPLv3 apps that are in the App Store, I would be highly interested. As far as I can discern, Linphone is provided in the App Store under a proprietary license, VLC had to relicense as LGPL, and GNU Go is still not on the App Store.

VLC-iOS is licensed GPLv2. https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc-ios/#license

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#839

Post by dwaite » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #736

curt15 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What interest would Apple have in banning GPL-licensed web apps?

More details here: http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/ […] Anyway, the message is pretty obvious: Apple won’t ship anything that’s licensed under GPL v3 on OS X. Now, why is that? There are two big changes in GPL v3. The first is that it explicitly prohibits patent lawsuits against people for actually using the GPL-licensed software you ship. The second is that it carefully prevents TiVoization, l…

The GPL v3 prevents things like the Novell/Microsoft deal to "patent license" Linux.

The consequence is that Apple can't merely settle to solve patent disputes for any included GPLv3 component, but has to find a way to have the upstream component (and all deviations) have free use of the patent.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#840

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

jethro_tell wrote: post #654

__m wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? You want to meddle in politics of foreign countries?

It's not really politics, cutting kidneys out of people isn't really politics. Ignoring human rights violations because it's "Just internal politics" is crazy. Is it a family matter if the father is abusing his kids? The same goes for countries. Likewise, letting Hong Kong go back to that fucked up dystopia by hampering their ability to organize is messed up.

[deleted]