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Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

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Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#581

Post by CobrastanJorji »

ryandrake wrote: post #449
_qulr wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Notarization is about protecting users who are not capable of making an informed decision about code safety from developers who refuse to comply with Apple's terms of service. No, notarization is about preventing malware. That's all. This has been promised to us by Apple many many times. Malware prevention only. Fortnite is not malware.

An application that suddenly changes behavior due to no action taken by the user, triggered remotely by the developer, is getting very close to the "malware" line in my book.

A one day 10% off sale is a change in behavior due to no action taken by the user triggered remotely by the developer. Is a sale very close to malware?

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#582

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #573
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pop-up box you get when you try to run unsigned applications gives the user absolutely no hint as to how they can jump through those hoops to run the thing. You need to know what to google for to find the right magic incantation to enter into the macOS terminal. On Windows, at least, the “Run anyway” button is merely behind the “More information...” link.

> You need to know what to google for to find the right magic incantation to enter into the macOS terminal. You right click it and select “Open”... Almost all MacOS users even the non-technical types encounter this at some point unless they go 100% Mac App Store which almost no one does if they have a job.

I tested this just now on my Mac and “right-click -> Open” on an untrusted .app gave me the same warning message with no obvious way to force-open the app.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#583

Post by waterhouse »

count wrote: post #503
Hamuko wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Apple is going to kill Epic Games' ability to notarize macOS apps does actually make their software unusable on Macs.

No, it doesn't. It just means it's users have to take extra steps. I use non-notarized software every day on a Mac.

For the sake of argument, is there a limit to the number or kind of extra steps before you'd call it unusable? If "downloading VirtualBox and running a VM of an earlier MacOS version" became necessary at some point, would that be over the line?

I suspect there are corporate users who have policies that forbid running non-notarized software. That probably shouldn't apply to a game like Fortnite—most companies wouldn't consider it important, or perhaps even a positive, for their employees to be able to run Fortnite on their company laptops—but it would apply to other apps.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#584

Post by skissane »

the_jeremy wrote: post #575
Waterfall wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you find him wrong about?

A direct quote of RMS from his website[0]: The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal…

A much more recent quote from his website[0]:

14 September 2019 (Sex between an adult and a child is wrong)

Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.

Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.

[0] https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September...

---

Stallman's former view on this was always wrong. But it is good to hear he has changed his mind, and I think to be fair to him, if one brings up his former views, one should also bring up his more recent disavowal of them.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#585

Post by gtyras2mrs »

Bud wrote: post #18
ajkjk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I got the opposite impression. Apple's tonedeafness and developer hostility is finally being challenged by a (comparative) underdog.

Do you think that Google, Microsoft, and Sony are also hostile and tone-deaf, then? One assumes so. All those platforms extract the same kinds of fees from Epic that Apple does. But mysteriously, Epic only wants to go after Apple.

Easier to win 1 battle and set precedent for the next battles. Trying to fight 5 battles at once seems unwise.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#586

Post by fireattack »

zucker42 wrote: post #504
fireattack wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't surprise me in any bit, but I don't understand why people on HN, a much better informed audience, keep defending Apple's walled garden practice until now, while being very critical against any slightly anti-competitive conduct Google, Facebook, or Amazon did/do.

The people defending Apple are different from the people attacking Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Oh, definitely. The point is they are both more common compared to the opposite opinions.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#587

Post by rubber_duck »

floatingatoll wrote: post #373
amaccuish wrote: post #97

What took me aback was the withdrawing permission to notarise their apps for Mac. That was only meant to be a check for known vulnerabilities/malicious software. Apple was more within their rights to kick Fortnite until the dust has settled from the iOS store, that was the retaliation, but now a mechanism supposedly for security has been repurposed as punishment. That's a pretty nasty move and I feel the mask has sli…

Epic expressly snuck code through the door to activate a user-visible feature in direct prohibition to App Store rules. Apple could have revoked their developer certificate in response, which would have essentially killed all installations of Fortnite iOS/Mac worldwide within 24 hours. That they are merely revoking their ability to sign new code and giving them 2 weeks to perform an orderly shutdown is far less draco…

> Most (if not all) of the restrictions on the App Store exist to protect users from app developers who prioritize their own greed over the rights of privacy and safety that Apple promises the users of the App Store.

If Apple was about user protection then one would expect there to be a way for users to opt out of their safety sandbox if it didn't fit users needs.

Their OS and store restrictions are about monetising the ecosystem as much as anything else, calling developers who try to circumvent the apple tax greedy while pretending Apple is doing this purely for user experience is some cognitive dissonance.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#589

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

brundolf wrote: post #459
jonplackett wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is though that they have the ability to 'ban' it for 99.99% of users who don't know that.

This isn't a social app, it's a professional tool that multimillion-dollar businesses are built on (most of which have in-house engine programmers). They'll figure it out if they have to. Heck, Epic could publish instructions for doing so.

Unreal Engine isn’t a shared iOS component. Apple doesn’t care about signatures on individual lib/so files: only the signature on the published app package. When you make an app or a game using an existing engine then only you become responsible for it.

A ragtag band of devs all banned-for-life from Apple’s stores could put together a new app-engine or game-engine that other devs use as the basis for their app and provided that those apps don’t break the rules about undocumented APIs or malware (and no-one in Apple’s higher-ups gets suspicious...) then those apps will appear. I don’t believe Apple has any way to automatically ban or delete all apps that use the same third-party libraries by using their macOS Notary system or iOS Certificate revocation system - they’d have to inspect every published app-package individually (granted, this would be automated, but you know what I mean).

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#590

Post by kevincox »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #350
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #81

This just seems like a dumb move on Apple's part. It's self-sabotaging. It hurts their legal case, it hurts their public image, and it hurts their platform, as Unreal Engine is used in both iOS and macOS games. Not that many people were getting Apple platforms for games before, but they've just shoved one of the most popular engines off the platform. If the judge grants Epic a TRO, Apple is going to be in deep crud.…

Agree 100%. I also think Apple should stop collecting commission fees from all App Store sales starting today. They have billions in the bank. What are those billions for if not to invest back into the company and its developers. Foregoing all commission fees is an easy way to do that and would make Apple a hero and help developers. I’m also willing to be there would be a resurgence in the App Store and bring in more…

I think commissions are the smallest part of the problem. The problem is that you are buying what seems like a general computing platform, but then you will be prevented from using apps that Apple doesn't find helpful to their business.

Not allowing another in-app payment solution is just one of the many things that they are preventing.

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