Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 996 posts

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

#711

Post by jordigh »

marcan_42 wrote: post #705
rabidrat wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for this very reason. You might think it's ridiculous but the fight for the right to modify the software running on devices you own has been raging for 35 years and is bigger than ever.

Richard Stallman has been way off the rails and a detriment to his own cause for years. I'm not talking about the pedophilia comments, the sexual harassment of women in tech, or the toe jam. All those are well documented and don't need restating. No, if you look at the FSF's recent policies regarding software freedom, they are also bass-ackwards. The FSF had a "respects your freedom" certification which is designed t…

> Then there is also the AGPL, which isn't a Free Software license, but rather an end-user license agreement (EULA), because it violates Freedom Zero: the freedom to use software however you want.

If you have this opinion of the AGPL, then you should also have it about the GPL, since the only difference between the two is section 13 of both of them (seriously, just diff them) which says that conveying over a network also triggers copyleft. This is just a modernisation of plain ol' copyleft from the days when conveying was mostly done on physical media instead of over a network. If some day we discover a way to distribute software over neither a network nor physical medium (I can't imagine what that could be... quantum entanglement?), then the definition of "conveying" should be updated to reflect the new technology.

The GPL has long been considered open source by OSI and free software by the FSF. You are free to use the software however you want -- you're just not free to deny this freedom to your users or clients, with neither the GPL nor the AGPL.

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

#712

Post by drawkbox »

cma wrote: post #555
drawkbox wrote: post #510

> "Millions of developers rely on the Unreal Engine to develop software, and hundreds of millions of consumers use that software," argues Epic. > "Developers that intend to sell their apps for use on iOS or macOS devices will have to forgo the Unreal Engine in favor of other engines," reads the motion. That is what I was expecting after Epic went after Apple. They had to know it would hurt them and all the devs using…

Epic also allows free to play games to set up their own payment systems and pay 0%.

If Apple waived the 30% take if you used GameCenter or their game kits you think that would be seen as anti-competitive? Yes. What you have described is Epic engaging in anti-competitive behavior that isn't yet because they are the smaller of the store players.

I think people are short-sighted in what Apple did for gaming. Just go back to 2007.

Before Apple the only way to make a game was flash/PC with no markets other than sites.

Consoles and handhelds were for selected larger game studios only. Consoles always took 30% and it was near impossible to dev on them, very few indie programs.

Apple changed the game.

Apple opened up game development especially handheld.

That success of the App Store led to Google Play!.

It led to Unity and Unity Asset Store (which also takes 30%).

That led to Steam opening up (which also takes 30%). It even led to Epic Games store.

It also led to engines like Unity/Unreal being simplified. Unreal at one time was $300k per title, same with Valve, same with other engines. Now those are essentially free.

I sometimes think that Apple takes heat, yes some of their rules are annoying, but compared to consoles and the way it was before Apple it is massively better for indies/small/medium game companies. Mobile is in a space between open and console.

Epic is biting the hand that feeds here, and Unity would never even attempt something like this. I think Epic is pushed by Tencent to do this and there is deeper reasoning for this, but they are selling it as "for the greater good" which is a lie.

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

#713

Post by ifmpx »

sneak wrote: post #601
heavyset_go wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. When I brought up that Notarization was going to be used to gatekeep (literally with Gatekeeper[1]) access to the macOS platform, I was assured it would only be used for security and never for evil. Apple only made Notarization mandatory this February, too…

AFAIK it is still possible to run entirely unsigned apps on macOS.

Sure, but for how long.

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

#714

Post by Semaphor »

StevePerkins wrote: post #567
Waterfall wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you find him wrong about?

He has expressed skepticism that "willing participation" in pedophilia harms children. And given a couple of bizarre quotes on bestiality (essentially, "if the animal initiates it then what's the problem?"). More recently, he was pushed out of MIT and the FSF last year for questioning whether one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims was truly a victim or not. He prefers Emacs over Vim. There are probably other examples, but…

> essentially, "if the animal initiates it then what's the problem?"

Note that this is current law in Germany.

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

#715

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #514
dimator wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think Apple is going to keep this true for Macs in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I think there is slim to none chance that they give a shit about the "openness"of Mac. As far as I'm concerned, Mac openness is just a cat that got out of the bag, before anyone knew they could produce a _mint_ from rent seeking walled garden platforms. I find it highly unlikely Apple is not looking to correct this mistake…

I believe they’ll likely keep this the case, not out of generosity, but because the most valuable thing Mac gets them is developers writing apps for iOS. This will only become more true in time unless there’s a sudden reversal of the trend towards phones and tablets over laptops. They may not care about power users in general, but allowing developers to run their own code to target their platforms is crucial, and the…

Given you need to be a bona-fide security researcher to qualify to gain access to a partially-unlocked iPhone[1] - I think you’re on to something: having DRM built-in to the lowest levels of the hardware means it’s possible for Apple to truly control the system.

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/programs/security-research-devic...

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

#716

Post by jlarocco »

grishka wrote: post #280
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…

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.

I agree with you in principle, but disagree in practice.

For every person who knows what they're doing and can trust themselves, there are 1000 who will install malware and other crap and end up at an Apple store getting it fixed, and they'll blame Apple instead of themselves.

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

#717

Post by ryandrake »

tdrp wrote: post #633
axlee wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any automatic software is a malware, according to that definition. That's weak.

Seriously. We generally release most of our new features at 10% of the users and then gradually increase the percentage on the server end. If there's any issue we can turn it off immediately rather than potentially waiting days for the app store to approve our fix.

The use of feature flags to show/hide features is arguably against the App Store guidelines [1]:

"2.3.1 Don’t include any hidden or undocumented features in your app; your app’s functionality should be clear to end-users and App Review."

1: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

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

#718

Post by anchpop »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #696
misnome wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazon at one point made a strong attempt to compete, and I actually bought a few apps from there. Also, on Android Epic made their own app store you had to sideload to download Fortnite.

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

#719

Post by frosted-flakes »

jimmydorry wrote: post #628
untog wrote: post #455

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. Epic willfully violated their terms with Apple to make a point, and Apple is responding in the same way that they did to Facebook: taking away their access to the users, because they cannot be trusted to comply with the restrictions placed on…

Imagine the wild west it would be if every app could redirect payment info to what ever their sketchy payment processor was. I shudder at the thought. I very much categorize Epic's actions in the "unsafe" basket.

How would that be any different than general Internet e-commerce, where there is no landlord forcing everyone to use its services? It wouldn't, and nothing disastrous would happen.

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

#720

Post by Waterfall »

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…

Why? It's one of the only things that you can get in trouble for without even knowing it was there. You could have taken them yourself or your children, did, it's seen in your house and they assume it's yours, now you can have a big lawsuit. With the quality of cameras and common usage of them I see a huge problem looming. It's used to plant investigations on innocent people. It's turned innocent people into jobless hated people for something they didn't do or simply were accused of.

I don't think it is a black and white issue as much of a tool of entrapment. I am not pro possession of it, but the laws are clearly entrapping innocent people. Romeo and Juliet laws exist for underaged people, should a similar law exist if you make it yourself so you don't get labeled a sex offender for making a video of yourself?

During his time it was about not legislating everything. Dworkin who was anti pornography debated a conservative judge, who saw no difference of exploitation of children as of women. Here she debates a conservative judge on wanting to make it illegal. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zt8KVB8AunQ

Post reply on HN