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Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

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Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#251
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be said for any platform these days. It's certainly not specific to Apple!

I guess Windows doesn't break their compatibility almost ever. Linux doesn't break user-space, but of course the libraries you depend on might change in a few decades.

I've actually spent about 25 years writing software on Windows, mostly desktop. Stuff breaks all the time and getting it fixed is nigh on impossible even if you happen to be a partner with contract.

What is claimed to be backwards compatibility is only partially true; reality is that bugs and their workarounds will exist forever.

As for Linux and breaking userspace, that's the kernel interface which is stable, not the whole distribution. I really wish people would report that honestly. NT's API is stable too. It doesn't mean Gtk and ComCtl32 doesn't have abhorrent stability problems and bugs in them.

The issue is, on all platforms, the thousands of libraries each containing hundreds of calls and data structures.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiya! Former mac native developer here, moving to a new company. My new corp gave me the option of a thinkpad running windows or a Mac, and I chose the mac just so I could have a sane terminal experience, UNIX-like tools, etc. I would vastly prefer to use Linux, but unfortunately that's just not an option for a company-issued machine at this juncture--and in my experience it's easier to spin up a VM on a Mac than a W…

You should give Windows Subsystem for Linux a try. It's what I'd choose in your scenario. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dev-environment/ove...

There is the other issue that Windows is full of spyware. Most of the mac's telemetry is inadvertent and leaks much less data to the OS vendor.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#253

As an iOS developer I can relate, Apple makes amazing hardware, but their software development is often meh. I don't think it's malicious, its just they have so many thousands of teams, often working independently of each other, and your experience with them is like dealing with sightless people describing an elephant. Some teams do amazing things, some mediocre, some downright awful, like any company, but exaggerate…

> makes amazing hardware

Louis Rossmann would disagree

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#254
post #242
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only is it much faster other VPNs IPSec is as fast as Wireguard. And there is native client in MacOS. As for bloated codebase, there is an OpenBSD iked rewrite.

Is IPSec as fast as Wireguard if I'm running it on a potato like a Raspberry Pi 2?

Yep

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#255
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be said for any platform these days. It's certainly not specific to Apple!

Microsoft broke a lot in the past few years when they got rid of their dedicated QA department(s) but they are very keen of fixing backwards compatibility issues. I can still run my desktop application that I compiled in 1998. Try that on a Mac.

Try running 16-bit visual basic, which I was still writing as late as 2000, on a Ryzen and your analogy falls to bits. I remember the entire win16 to win32 porting effort that had to go in. APIs are never stable forever.

Change is the only constant and I've learned to embrace it where possible or suffer later.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#256
post #215

Apple doesn't deserve to have such careful and detail-oriented FOSS developers like Jason, developing for their platform. He is genuinely wasting time in order to work around Apple's developer-unfriendly platform. Not that I should be telling devs where they should spend their time... but I feel like so much effort is being devoted to fix Apple's issues. > When I'm debugging these issues, I'll often times spend a few…

This is exactly why I won't use or develop for Apple products for any amount of money.

I can't justify wasting that much time and stress on a platform that clearly is more concerned with meeting the needs of casual users and media professionals rather than developers or those concerned with freedom, security, or privacy.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#257

Couldn’t you just change the url to /about instead of /donations? Seems sort of the thing sketchy sites do to say one thing and link to another. If I want to donate to a project I want to browse the site and learn more about rather than straight to the donation page. Seems like a money grab to take me to the donation page.

To defend Apple here - if they allowed “donations” with only a 5% fee you’d have thousands of developers offing “free premium” to “donators”. What Apple needs is a curated system to support open source development for apps - for example, after proving that you really are a non-profit (think Mozilla foundation) Apple could still charge the 30% but then rebate 20% back as a donation from Apple itself. Win/win.

Apple already has such a process - you may not agree with the criteria, but they do outline it quite clearly:

3.2 Other Business Model Issues [..] (vi) Approved nonprofits may fundraise directly within their own apps or third-party apps, provided those fundraising campaigns adhere to all App Review Guidelines and offer Apple Pay support. These apps must disclose how the funds will be used, abide by all required local and federal laws, and ensure appropriate tax receipts are available to donors. Additional information shall be provided to App Review upon request. Nonprofit platforms that connect donors to other nonprofits must ensure that every nonprofit listed in the app has also gone through the nonprofit approval process. Learn more about becoming an approved nonprofit. [https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/nonprofits/]

Mozilla Foundation would be fine, but WireGuard is in hot mess as the "Donation" is not actually going to a non-profit organisation - it has in fact taken steps to avoid identifying _who_ the money is going to.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#258
post #247
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Apple would just integrate Wireguard into macOS itself. macOS has a built-in option for VPNs in the network preferences but it's shit like L2TP over IPSec.

I don't think Apple cares very much about personal VPNs, only corporate ones. The number of people who gate a mac purchase on the capability to speak WireGuard is tiny. I now only connect my macs and ios devices to the internet via external VPN router/firewalls on which I have root; I can no longer invest the time to hack macOS sufficiently to permit me to ensure that no unauthorized traffic is leaving it. This means…

I would imagine Wireguard usage in corporate networks to increase in the future, so if Apple only cares about corporate VPNs, surely there'd be reason to implement that as well.

My guess would rather be that Apple at some point cared about corporate VPNs but no longer do, and that option is mainly just legacy.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#259
post #121
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. You're not paying for the app, or the service, those are free and you are simply making a donation. I can imagine that Apple may want to define 'FOSS' to some extent (donations need to go to a non-profit with a board, software needs to be licensed under one of the following licenses, etc), but there should be some room for supporting FOSS that is included in an App Store.

> Apple may want to define 'FOSS' to some extent "The stuff we won't pay for, but will make other people pay for, even tho we did nothing for it"

Funnily enough that’s how everyone views FOSS including us HNers and developers.

Re: Response to “WireGuard: great protocol, but skip the Mac app”

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about Apple, but I know Google has special treatments for formally registered 501(c)(3) orgs and they are allowed to seek donation directly without going through Google Play's commission. Update: Apple Pay appears to have similar policies [0]. [0] https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/nonprofits/

Same for Signal? They have a donate button in android app.

Signal is actually registered as a non-profit (which means accounting for where the money is going as well), so iOS version is perfectly fine to have "Donate to Signal" link opening in Safari.
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