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Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

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Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#301

Post by m3at »

tiborsaas wrote: post #231
em500 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This does sound absurd, how would people react if a car manufacturer would try to raise arbitrary limitations against car rental businesses?

It sounds absurd, but NVIDA has been doing it for a few years, so it certainly can be done...

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#302

Post by himinlomax »

saagarjha wrote: post #172

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…

Why do they restrict the use to development work?

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#303

Post by coder543 »

withinrafael wrote: post #220

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...

How is this at all MacStadium "pretending" to follow the rules? At worst, this is GitHub violating the rules.

MacStadium is renting those macs to a single customer for longer than 24 hours. MacStadium is following the rules. MacStadium is just providing a platform.

You're not really expecting MacStadium to snoop on each customer's usage and business model to enforce Apple's rules? AWS certainly won't be doing that.

If Apple told MacStadium or AWS to stop offering Macs to a customer such as GitHub due to some EULA violation committed by GitHub, they would probably do that.

I don't understand why your comment is trying so hard to frame MacStadium as hypocrites.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#304

Post by em500 »

wayneftw wrote: post #293
saagarjha wrote: post #172

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…

The EULA applies to leasing the whole OS. I don't need a whole virtual Mac to run CI jobs. It doesn't sound like there's anything stopping anyone from offering a Mac CI job runner that gets shared with multiple organizations at the same time.

There are some fairly broad usage restrictions in section 1.J.[1].

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.

Make of it what you will.

https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOSCatalina.pdf

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#305

Post by addicted »

pbronez wrote: post #291
lultimouomo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that you're happy because Apple has now explicitly permitted what you were doing. I'm less clear on why you're happy that they didn't allow more stuff, like renting by the minute or for arbitrary purposes. You seem to depict companies that were doing this as "below board", while you as "above board". This is certainly true now, but before the changes both would have been a grey area - I don't see much of a diff…

Regulations benefit incumbents. That holds whether the regulations are national laws or corporate policies. When you make new rules, the established ecosystem adapts and doubles down while new players have a harder time getting started.

This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against Microsoft, or the breaking up of AT&T certainly did not help the incumbents.

An example closer to home is that entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley is often attributed to California law forbidding non competes in employment contracts. This is regulation, without which, as you see in nearly every other state, workers are severely bound by their employment contracts in the work they can do while and after being employed by a company.

If regulations seem to benefit incumbents, it’s because incumbents exist and therefore can play a role in setting regulations. The counterbalance to this should be public pressure and political action, but incumbents recognizing that do much to dissuade the public from pushing for such action, including convincing people of pithy, but 180 degrees wrong ideas such as “regulations always benefit incumbents”.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#306

Post by est31 »

tiborsaas wrote: post #231
em500 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This does sound absurd, how would people react if a car manufacturer would try to raise arbitrary limitations against car rental businesses?

Inevitably, this inconsistency will be resolved, but not in the way you or I would like. Tesla is already removing features that previous owners unlocked at sale of the car.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#307

Post by addicted »

saagarjha wrote: post #250
BillinghamJ wrote: post #236

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.

Or maybe MacStadium’s model was based on the completely predictable direction and steps Apple would take when it came to licensing such activity.

For example, it wasnt hard to predict that a company which basically gives away its OS for free, and nearly makes all its money selling the hardware to run the OS would start with licensing terms that led to more sales of macs.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#308

Post by amelius »

saagarjha wrote: post #172

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…

> and shame on you Apple

> (...)

> either going to have to buy Macs

Why not ditch the entire Apple ecosystem while you still can? Show them that we, developers, don't like feudal lords that like to tell us what we can and cannot do with our systems. So others won't dare to copy them.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#309

Post by ohmaigad »

em500 wrote: post #286
ivanhoe wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use MacOS you have to first agree on their Terms, and through this they can legally block you from using it in certain ways. Like the famous "It is only legal to run OS X in a virtual machine if the host computer is a Mac." rule.

One thing is, they could write anything in the EULA, I was just wondering how much it is actually enforceable (even with a click-through "consent". Second, I wonder on what legal basis they can actually impose usage restrictions of a whole Mac (hardware+software) via an EULA as long as I don't breach any copyright (which I don't think I do if I rent out usage of the entire system for a few hours). AFAICT (again, not…

I have a hard time believing 1.J.[1] could be enforced as it sounds like you cannot sell your MAC, use it in a work or school environment. Apple can't risk to prove the point in court because if it is enforceable no organisation will touch their products.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#310

Post by hnlmorg »

jraph wrote: post #180
pjmlp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe those companies should focus their business in countries where EULAs have zero legal value, like EU countries.

Though some of their statements probably don't apply, I think EULAs apply in EU. Software license do apply. Software patents are still not recognized, let's hope this continues for a long time.

EULAs definitely apply in the EU. As do software patents. But as always, things are a bit more complicated than either you or pjmlp summarised. eg

- EULAs cannot deny permissions that are allowed under consumer rights.

- It's also worth adding that software licences behave slightly differently to EULAs in that software licenses are designed to provide additional rights above what copyright laws typically allow (this is particularly true in the case of open source licenses) where as EULAs are often (though not always) designed to place restrictions on top of existing consumer rights. Hence why they're often considered invalid.

- I'm not 100% on this specific point as it has been a few years ago since I've investigated it but there was once some contention about whether it's even legal to place a licence agreement to the user after said user has already purchased the product. However companies could still use an EULA to revoke support -- much like a company can revoke warranty if they suspect the device has been opened up (eg the tamper strips). The rules here might have been clarified in court since I've last investigated this point though.

- "The European Patent Convention states that software is not patentable. But laws are always interpreted by courts, and in this case interpretations of the law differ. So the European Patents Office (EPO) grants software patents by declaring them as "computer implemented inventions"." source: https://fsfe.org/activities/swpat/swpat.en.html

- Even the FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe) quote above only tells half the story regarding Software Patents within the EU. There are some restrictions on what counts as a "computer implemented invention" plus also there are also national level patent offices that override the EPO at a local level. Wikipedia has some good summaries about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...

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