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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

#691

Post by quotha »

gruez wrote: post #395
quotha wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, Epic should get special treatment? They don't have to pay the fees? Just everyone else? How is apple supposed to run the app store? They kinda know what they are doing or why else would so many people buy their iphones?

> They kinda know what they are doing or why else would so many people buy their iphones? Or maybe it's something that people merely tolerate. Kind of like how ISPs are almost universally derided in the US for crappy service and high prices, yet everyone seems to be paying for their serivece. If you asked people when they're buying an iphone whether they want 30% of app and in-app purchases to go to apple, with no wa…

Yes I see that, and you can apply that to all sorts of things in our lives. It’s still arbitrary where the line is that keeps everyone happy, I guess Epic thinks it’s < 30% but I am just not with them on this fight

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

#692

Post by caf »

burnte wrote: post #645
grishka wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so that's why I never liked nor trusted this whole idea of code signing with non-self-signed certificates, especially on desktop OSes. This notarization mechanism introduced a single point of failure: Apple. And now there is concrete evidence of how exactly this is bad. On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.

> On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this. This is only true if you contain at least the minimum amount of knowledge to built said device yourself. If you cannot design the type of CPU required, you must trust the vendor. If you cannot design the RAM, you must trust the vendor. If you cannot design the motherboard, you must trust the v…

The misunderstanding here is because the word "trust" has been misappropriated in this context to mean something slightly different from its everyday meaning.

You do indeed have to trust the designers, manufacturers and suppliers of your equipment, in the sense that they are in a position to cause you harm without a realistic way to prevent that beforehand.

However, when "trust" is used in the sense of "what is allowed", what we're actually talking about is sovereignty or authority, not "trust". I believe the word is used in this context because giving a third party authority over your device necessarily puts them in a position of trust, but it is actually the authority that is important here, and the fact that you have some measure of trust in a party does not imply that the party should also be granted authority.

If you recast the GP's comment in these terms, I believe it captures the essence without muddying the waters with "trust":

> On a device I own, there should be no parties with more authority than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.

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

#693

Post by m463 »

weikju wrote: post #612
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And in that situation you have the much less obvious solution but still not Terminal: go in System Preferences -> Security and you will see a new button appear to allow the specific app to open

I think you need to be connected to the network for the button to show up.

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

#694

Post by laser »

zip1234 wrote: post #674
modeless wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic needed to demonstrate that they and consumers were harmed in order to have standing to sue. If Apple's policies are illegal then Epic is not bound to follow them and retaliation is unjustified. It won't be known until it's decided in court. That's why Epic's motion should be granted to prevent retaliation until the court decides.

How would Apple's policies be illegal? Epic entered a contractual agreement with Apple and then knowingly and intentionally broke it in order to benefit themselves.

I'm not a lawyer, but presumably because there's US antitrust law, under which the courts may find Apple's contractual impositions to be illegal. They may also find they are legal, but if the court has any doubt they should grant Epic's request to stop retaliation.

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

#695

Post by quotha »

chillacy wrote: post #360
quotha wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Sorry, that is not what I think of at all regarding this situation.

Maybe elaborate your comment further to prevent confusion? When you commented >"I hear ya, but something smells real bad about how Epic decided to wage this war" I read it as "I agree that the situation is unfair but I disagree with how they decided to uncover it because it was deliberate".

Yes exactly, I don’t know how much effort they put in to just discussing it with Apple, but it is clear they planned this out and that’s why I don’t like about it. And their plan seems a bit melodramatic to me.

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

#696

Post by johncolanduoni »

misnome wrote: post #364
mvn9 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why then all those monopoly-discussions? Cannot any program be 'side-loaded' by creating a personal team? Or the other way round: What good would be a personal team for epic if they cannot test their games on actual phones? If personal teams allow side-loading of apps, why isn't this a way to distribute apps? Why is there no app store for personal team apps?

You need to re-sign it frequently because the certificate is only short-lived, and I think there are difficulties in signing existing binaries that make it mostly only useful for things you can distribute the source for. It's not really an alternative to an app store. There are also enterprise signing certificates for distributing custom apps within large companies without these restrictions, along with cases in the…

Re-signing iOS binaries is tedious, but ultimately scriptable (including creating certificates, provisioning profiles, etc.). Android’s sideloading is significantly easier, and it still hasn’t led to anyone competing with their App Store.

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

#697

Post by nodamage »

grishka wrote: post #262
baddox wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a misleading question, because on other platforms you can choose to avoid the store. That's definitely not true. You cannot run unsigned code on most video game consoles. And for PC game marketplaces, those platforms still have market power. Surely there's a big difference between being banned from Steam and being banned from the Discord Store.

Video game consoles are specialized hardware. They do one thing and they do it well. It's kind of understandable that these companies want to review anything released for those. They want to ensure that games are of high quality so as to not hurt the reputation of the platform itself. They want games to help sell consoles. And that's how video game consoles always worked. iPhones, on the other hand, are not specializ…

Even if that were true (which is highly debatable given than an Xbox is basically a rebranded PC), there is no provision in US antitrust law that treats "general purpose devices" as different than "specialized hardware".

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

#698

Post by waterhouse »

ntSean wrote: post #661
peapicker wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I personally run with this setting: https://it.nmu.edu/docs/allowing-third-party-applications-in... Amazingly it then lets me run all the open source I want that I download from the internet but am too lazy to build myself.

This setting has been removed from recent macOS versions.

Yup. In the Mac OS security settings window, for "Allow apps downloaded from:", you can only choose "App Store" or "App Store and identified developers". The workflow is now:

1. Try to open the application. Get a window that says "APPLICATION can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.", and below that, in a smaller and non-bold font, "Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the App Store and identified developers." The window only has an "OK" button. (There is also a small "?" button in the lower left, which is present in lots of notification windows and presumably points to a generic help page.)

2. Open Security & Privacy in System Preferences. There is now, magically, a line in it saying "APPLICATION was blocked from opening because it is not from an identified developer", and an "Open Anyway" button.

I only discovered that workaround by accident. Before that, I believed that Mac OS had completely removed the option to run such applications. (As I recall, back when "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere" existed, if you did choose it, it would show some kind of warning and also revert itself after 30 days; it seemed obvious they wanted to remove the option entirely.)

I'm tempted to bring out the word "gaslighting" to describe this. Because that line about "Your security preferences allow ..." is in a context where it should be an explanation of why "APPLICATION can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer", yet your security preferences about apps have only two choices and neither one would permit opening the application; and because a System Preferences pane now shows different options depending on what unrelated user applications you've opened recently, which is insane.

... Turns out there is a second, faster workaround. Right-click (or control-click) on the application, and click "Open". Then, instead of getting the liar window with only the "OK" button, you get a window that has an "Open Anyway" button. This workaround is, in fact, documented in the generic help page that the liar window's "?" button points to. This is also insane because it makes "Open" in its different forms (double-click, command-O, command-line "open", and the right-click "Open" option) no longer a single, uniform operation.

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

#699

Post by caf »

threeseed wrote: post #495
mantap wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they want you to think. Which is why they say it. Sounds better than "Tim made the order to retaliate, sayonara"

Given that there are lawsuits in place pretty sure they aren't going to lie about it. Question is how serious the multiple infractions are.

Lawyers don't do anything so gauche as lying.

They might "creatively interpret the facts and make novel legal arguments in a way that paints their client's position in the best possible light", though.

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

#700

Post by ChrisLomont »

laser wrote: post #694
zip1234 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would Apple's policies be illegal? Epic entered a contractual agreement with Apple and then knowingly and intentionally broke it in order to benefit themselves.

I'm not a lawyer, but presumably because there's US antitrust law, under which the courts may find Apple's contractual impositions to be illegal. They may also find they are legal, but if the court has any doubt they should grant Epic's request to stop retaliation.

I doubt this is antitrust. There's a zillion other places to sell a game (as Epic has shown). If you want to claim the entire market in question to be Apple products, I doubt that will get very far. Everything is a monopoly when you make your market hyper specific.
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