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Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

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Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#251
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are mostly an hardware firm that packages a nice experience in the box. Nope, 12% of market share isn't a monopoly.

How about being the only way to even build an application for 50% of the U.S. mobile market?

99% of said apps are actually nothing more than CRUD Web forms, or crap games easily done with WebGL + WebAssembly, so no it isn't the only way.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AWS are offering the first ever officially supported macOS virtualisation AWS is offering dedicated bare metal Mac Minis for rent with virtual NICs and virtual storage powered by AWS Nitro, there is no macOS virtualisation.

Technically no, but the word has come to mean something different. Because even bare metal instances come under the same APIs, security, architecture and usage model as the other "real" VMs, the difference is very slim now. We can think of them as VMs of a specific size with a minimum billing time and get on with using them with our existing tooling.

You can call them EC2 instances then. They aren’t VMs at all.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#253

GitHub has been doling out tiny macOS runners in virtual machines for a bit now [1] (seemingly in violation of macOS SLA), and these were hosted on MacStadium [2]! So for MacStadium to come out and pretend they were following the rules the entire time is disappointing. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20200511183317if_/https://github.... [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20201108115438/https://docs.githu...

CI runners are kinda different than VM hosting. I mean sure you could abuse them to run sshd and interactively use them for a while :D but the service as intended is that you don't "rent" the VM in any meaningful way, it's fully theirs, they just run your one single job on it and show you the logs.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#255

GitHub has been doling out tiny macOS runners in virtual machines for a bit now [1] (seemingly in violation of macOS SLA), and these were hosted on MacStadium [2]! So for MacStadium to come out and pretend they were following the rules the entire time is disappointing. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20200511183317if_/https://github.... [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20201108115438/https://docs.githu...

CI runners are kinda different than VM hosting. I mean sure you could abuse them to run sshd and interactively use them for a while :D but the service as intended is that you don't "rent" the VM in any meaningful way, it's fully theirs , they just run your one single job on it and show you the logs.

Prior to Big Sur, it's my understanding the macOS SLA explicitly disallowed this. Snippet:

> Except as otherwise permitted by the terms of this License or otherwise licensed by Apple: (i) only one user may use the Apple Software at a time, and (ii) you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be run or used by multiple computers at the same time. You may not rent, lease, lend, sell, redistribute or sublicense the Apple Software.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#256

Amazon lists the price of mac1 instances (running on rack-mounted Intel Mac Minis) at $1.083 per hour, $9,487 per year. You have to pay for 24 hours up front, after which they bill by the second. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/dedicated-hosts/pricing/ They don't yet display any reservation pricing for mac1 instances, but they do offer a "savings plan." https://aws.amazon.com/savingsplans/pricing/ If you pay for three yea…

Those numbers actually make the AWS instances a shoo-in for my current development purposes. The cost of housing and managing a unit of hardware is nonzero. Actuals vary wildly by location, purposes, and sector; but if everyone can get their heads out of the hobbyist-tinkerer mindset for a moment and consider that lifetime TCO is a real and meaningful consideration for businesses, then the component that isn't buying…

> Since my duty cycle for a Mac Mini is rather less than 20%, the economics even of on-demand instances immediately make sense,

What are you doing with macs that naturally works out at ~one continuous 24h period per work-week on average? Turn on CI once a week Thursday midnight, and no one goes into the weekend before all test failures are fixed?

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an absolutely bizarre take on the situation. You don't really think Apple added those EULA terms for MacStadium now right? They were clearly added for AWS! MacStadium just happens to be happy that there's crystal-clear red lines. These rules are 100% down to Apple, absolutely nothing to do with AWS and MacStadium in terms of decision-making. Apple don't want the perceived value of their machines to be…

The terms seem to be a perfect fit for MacStadium and a poor fit for everyone else, including AWS. Do you think AWS wants to bill by the second…with 24 hours up front? Does this match their business model at all? It's really not Apple's business to try to protect people from "performance issues due to multiple tenancy". People who buy these things already know how this works.

No I'm sure AWS don't want it either.

And it absolutely is 100% typical of Apple to do this kind of thing. They don't want third party companies to provide offerings which might cause them problems or degrade their brand/perception.

I'm not at all saying these terms were added to benefit AWS. More that they were a condition of Apple doing this first official cloud partnership.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#258

GitHub has been doling out tiny macOS runners in virtual machines for a bit now [1] (seemingly in violation of macOS SLA), and these were hosted on MacStadium [2]! So for MacStadium to come out and pretend they were following the rules the entire time is disappointing. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20200511183317if_/https://github.... [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20201108115438/https://docs.githu...

It seems we are making the assumption that GitHub/MacStadium are bound by the same terms as everyone else. There is nothing that says they can't get special treatment for some arbitrary reason.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#259
post #226

An interesting offering from Amazon that is crippled by Apple and MacStadium, who deserve to be raked over the coals for their recent EULA changes. Just read the post on MacStadium's blog: https://blog.macstadium.com/blog/developers-big-sur-and-vind... Under the new agreement, you must: * Rent to only one organization * Rent for 24 hours at the minimum * Use it for some set of "approved" development work …among other…

Not a lawyer, I do wonder if such terms would hold up in court. I can see the case for EULA around virtualization when you're running multiple instances of macOS. But say I just buy a bunch of Mini's and rent (full access to) them out (bare metal, full system) per hour, rather than 24hr. Or for non-"development" work, whatever that means. Could Apple really put up a good case in court? It seems unlikely that they cou…

You’re describing the first sale doctrine. Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to digital licenses; at least not today.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#260
post #226

An interesting offering from Amazon that is crippled by Apple and MacStadium, who deserve to be raked over the coals for their recent EULA changes. Just read the post on MacStadium's blog: https://blog.macstadium.com/blog/developers-big-sur-and-vind... Under the new agreement, you must: * Rent to only one organization * Rent for 24 hours at the minimum * Use it for some set of "approved" development work …among other…

Not a lawyer, I do wonder if such terms would hold up in court. I can see the case for EULA around virtualization when you're running multiple instances of macOS. But say I just buy a bunch of Mini's and rent (full access to) them out (bare metal, full system) per hour, rather than 24hr. Or for non-"development" work, whatever that means. Could Apple really put up a good case in court? It seems unlikely that they cou…

That looks like a loophole for Apple. I wonder if soon you'll have to log in with your biometric identity document in order to use it plus always recording camera will ensure only the person who is licensed to use it, use it.
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