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Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

puri.sm

111–120 of 280 posts

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I spend 0% of my time managing iOS devices for my parents and am constantly bombarded with issues from my in-laws with Android phones. I agree that some of Apple's behavior is monopolistic and has some unfortunate, possibly unforeseen consequences, but the end result is pretty nice for the consumers who are willing to accept the compromise.

I'm always amazed that in the land of the brave and free butchering general purpose computing machines is supposed to be justified by the fact grandma doesn't install the wrong apps. Funny is this argument always exclusively pops up when it comes to Apple smartphones. Are we supposed to lock every desktop down too because mom and pop installed a wrong toolbar? It's like the reverse 'but think of the children', and pe…

It's not about grandma. I also don't want to deal with bullshit myself.

- In the country I grew up I have to install rootkits in my computer in order to use the bank website. Some of them are borderline impossible to uninstall, and some banks have rootkits that conflicted with the ones of other banks. How do I know if it's not spying on me or not? It's a multi-megabyte kernel extension. I can't even use Linux or a Virtual Machine to access the website!

- For some apps I use for music making I had to install iLok which is (or at least used to be) the biggest piece of shit ever and crashed my computer all the time, because it was terribly written. I still refuse to buy anything that uses physical DRM.

- Even today in macOS (which is supposed to have a sandbox) I keep finding stuff in the disk from programs I uninstalled several years ago, because developers can't keep their telemetry spying garbage off every single corner of my machine.

- Every single scummy websites (which is 99% of all sites, HN and Reddit are the only exceptions I can think of) requires a login with Email so they can send me spam and send my information to third parties. With iCloud Sign Up I can sign in without that fear.

So yes, most of the time I wish my desktop was limited the way my phone is locked because I own my computer, not some asshole developer who decided my computer is their playground.

As long as I keep developing my software and compiling open source stuff, I'm good. Other developers can embrace the sandbox or piss off.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I spend 0% of my time managing iOS devices for my parents and am constantly bombarded with issues from my in-laws with Android phones. I agree that some of Apple's behavior is monopolistic and has some unfortunate, possibly unforeseen consequences, but the end result is pretty nice for the consumers who are willing to accept the compromise.

I'm always amazed that in the land of the brave and free butchering general purpose computing machines is supposed to be justified by the fact grandma doesn't install the wrong apps. Funny is this argument always exclusively pops up when it comes to Apple smartphones. Are we supposed to lock every desktop down too because mom and pop installed a wrong toolbar? It's like the reverse 'but think of the children', and pe…

> I'm always amazed that in the land of the brave and free butchering general purpose computing machines is supposed to be justified by the fact grandma doesn't install the wrong apps.

This is because we have so much "freedom" that Apple is free to do this. I would argue this is a false freedom, like the freedom to own slaves.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#113
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. This just happened, so I have not been to an Apple Store yet. There isn't one near me, and it is not easy to get to the far removed ones. It may be weeks or months before I can visit one.

This is just "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" territory.

Actually, I have already tried trusting my Apple device to not backstab me and lock all my data.

I've also tried reasoning with the device and unlocking it myself, which also did not work.

I don't see how you can say I haven't tried anything.

By the way, in case you missed it, this happened yesterday, I just happened to come across a thread which was relevant.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#114
post #43

Off topic but this website has the most obnoxious lower case letter 't' I have ever seen. I had to stop reading after the first two paragraphs and try to figure out what was wrong because the text felt off.

I think it's hinting. Zoom in or view it on mobile—it's probably a fine font for print, just not at default zoom on a low DPI display.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#115
post #5

It is still absolutely fascinating to me how we have arrived at a point where in order to use one's own device properly, one has to ask a US company nicely or be unable to do so - and people pay money for it. On macOS, it is now impossible to distribute a VPN or a virtualization software without permission from Apple. 30% of the world's population would, if their government cut a deal with Apple, be unable to install…

> On macOS, it is now impossible to distribute a VPN or a virtualization software without permission from Apple

No it’s not. It’s impossible if you don’t want to require your customers to change some security settings.

We can have a discussion about whether that’s practical for a developer, but either way, the user has control over their Mac. Completely different situation from iOS.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#116

Any software distributed on the App Store immediately becomes nonfree software. The free software definition is linked to the end-user's freedom to modify the programs on his computers, not whether a developer can fork it. Specifically, distribution on the app store denies "The freedom to... change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1)."

Not true at all - you can modify the source code from open source apps, build, and install on your own device without asking permission from Apple or paying a fee for a developer license. The only control Apple has is over app distribution.

Yes, but if you take the software from the App Store, you are bound by App Store TOS. The TOS supercedes any Free Software rights you may have had from the license; and prohibits you from redistributing the software, which trips GPL's no-further-restrictions clause. Of course, you can take both sets of terms for the App Store and a self-compiled version, and you can then distribute modifications to the source code of the self-compiled version under GPL terms. But you cannot upload software to the App Store under GPL terms without violating the GPL.

In practice, this means you cannot actually put GPL applications on iOS unless you get a CLA from every developer on the project. This means a lot of perfectly good GPL-licensed applications will never actually get ported to iOS. You'll never see, say, Blender or Krita on iPad until and unless they CLA all their developers so that they can actually distribute the port legally.

If Blender Foundation or whoever runs Krita does have a CLA requirement for contributors, then consider that particular example corrected, but my point still stands: You should be able to distribute GPL software on the App Store and have the GPL terms supercede the App Store TOS.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m paying for a walled garden. I own the hardware, and with it bought software which I want to aggressively maintain it. If you don’t like the product, don’t buy it. Don’t compel them to satisfy your whim via police power of the state.

Walled gardens are also legally enforced by police power of the state. Otherwise, Epic would just distribute their own jailbreaks and tell Fortnite users to jailbreak their phones. Furthermore, I find it really frustrating how my desire for the ability to go a little bit outside of certain walled gardens is construed as me demanding you go outside the walled garden at all times. 95% of the walled garden is perfectly…

[deleted]

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#118
post #5

It is still absolutely fascinating to me how we have arrived at a point where in order to use one's own device properly, one has to ask a US company nicely or be unable to do so - and people pay money for it. On macOS, it is now impossible to distribute a VPN or a virtualization software without permission from Apple. 30% of the world's population would, if their government cut a deal with Apple, be unable to install…

> On macOS, it is now impossible to distribute a VPN or a virtualization software without permission from Apple No it’s not. It’s impossible if you don’t want to require your customers to change some security settings. We can have a discussion about whether that’s practical for a developer, but either way, the user has control over their Mac. Completely different situation from iOS.

> the user has control over their Mac.

for now, because observing the current trends, they'll likely won't for much longer... all for the sake of safety and convenience.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#119

A few years ago, I got my grandmother an iPad. She used it for years until she passed. I just powered it on yesterday and it now "requires activation", which won't complete via WiFi. All the data on it, e.g. pictures, is now inaccessible. It is, effectively, bricked. I'll sooner eat a pile of shit before I ever touch or recommend another Apple product again. Edit: To clarify, it was never locked or password protected…

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. It seems you took good care of things like this for her.

Re: Librem Tunnel Is Leaving iOS

#120

Apple is requiring us to add the ability to sign up and pay for Librem One subscriptions within the Librem Tunnel app before they will allow updated versions into the App Store. This the basically the summation of it all. Doesn't Apple require the ability to have anonymous logins too when creating accounts on iDevices?

It sucks, they don't require it of Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, Disney, etc What Librem are doing is the right thing though - go to the press, raise a big stink and Apple will back off. It's been proven to work time and time again.

Apple has a well known exception to the rule requiring an option to subscribe inside the app for “reader” apps, a vaguely defined which includes Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, and seemingly whatever else is convenient to Apple.

Apple did not lift this requirement for the Hey email app during the controversy over that last year. Instead, they reached a compromise where Hey would offer a free trial of their service inside the app, so they could be in compliance with the rule that an app must have some functionality without an account.

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