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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

#911

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't some hyper specific market. Mobile games are a $76 billion industry (and rising) with the overwhelming majority of users only having access through either the Google play store or Apple store.

$76B is world market. US law doesn't apply to a significant part of that.

Neither Apple nor Google is a monopoly in mobile games. By revenue Apple has about 60%. Check [1], search threshold to see what cases often require.

Taken together they would be, but then you cannot prosecute Apple and win without showing collusion between them and prosecute them both for collusion.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

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

#912
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really hope Apple keeps charging 30% app tax and forbidding us from installing apps from outside of App Store?

most iPhone users love the idea of a single app store with apps vetted by apple

I for one am glad that they ban all alternative web browsers, so I don't have to deal with issues like using addons I like or not having pages randomly reload because ios thinks they should. Enforced lack of choice is awesome. I wonder what jailbroken app idea Apple will steal next...

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

#913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's not a requirement on users anymore than the GPL requiring you to distribute corresponding source on CDs was a requirement on users. Morally and legally, the distribution medium does not make a difference. When you make the software available over the network you are no longer the user -- the users of the software over the network are the users. When you convey the software over the network you are a network…

You seem to have trouble understanding the difference between network usage and distribution . If I give you a CD with nginx, I'm distributing it. If I send you a .tar.gz with nginx, I'm distributing it. If I bring up nginx on a server, put some HTML files in the webroot, and give you a URL to it, I am not distributing nginx. I am merely using nginx, and offering you a service using nginx. I am not offering nginx its…

This kind of sillyness of calling AGPL a contract is incorrect because it assumes that copyright law only care about distribution. It does not.

It is an copyright offence to perform any of the following acts without permission of the owner:

    Copy the work.
    Rent, lend or issue copies of the work to the public.
    Perform, broadcast or show the work in public.
    *Adapt the work.*
A person who take a copyrighted software and adapts it into a online service need to get adaptation permission from the author. If the work is given out under a AGPL license then that license is proof of permission as long as the person follow the terms, just as with any other copyright license.

You do not need permissions from a copyright license unless the action a person does falls within the scope of copyright. If a person don't copy, rent, lend, issue copies, perform, broadcast, show, or adapt the work, then the AGPL conditions are irrelevant because the user do not need permission in the first place. An EULA or contract however is not limited in this way and can restrict usage of a program outside the scope of copyright.

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

#914
post #860
post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they won't. You can configure windows out-of-the-box to completely disable updates (it won't even check to see if there's updates). And there's all kinds of settings in-between.

By editing 3 places in Regedit manually because disabling Update Medic in Services says "access is denied" despite being an admin account. Yes, you totally can. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59077619/how-to-disable-...

That's to disable the services, which is not what this is about. You don't need to do any of that to stop updates/update checks.

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

#915

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…

> Epic expressly snuck code through the door to activate a user-visible feature in direct prohibition to App Store rules

That's not even the case here.

Epic built an app using webviews and the web part of the view is loaded from a remote server controlled by Epic.

Which is the most common way to build multiplatform apps nowadays.

Epic simply updated the web part on the remote server.

Which also proves Apple can't even provide the basic safety they are promoting to push notarization.

Unless they ban webviews completely, we will never know how many apps are already doing it exploiting the less tech savy users, but still bringing profit to Apple.

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

#916

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not consistent at all. App Store rules are basically whatever Apple deems it to be. Why do you think Amazon, Netflix, et al can get away with some "violations" while small developers cannot?

Epic added the violating payment system to the app in an update internal to the app (not through app store review). Doing an end-run around review is what gets you terminated. Amazon, Netflix etc submitted their payment systems to app review and got those updates rejected, which Apple is fine with.

OK, but does that have something to do with my comment or the comment I replied to?

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

#917
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that those other devices have a specific use. Smartphones are general purpose devices, so it's not the same at all

That's a bizarre argument. It seems to imply that Apple could avoid these allegations by either increasing or decreasing the restrictions they place on third-party developers.

seeing you pop up on almost every single comment critizicing apple is the real bizzare thing here. Astroturfing much?

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

#918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an RMS fan overall & think he's been fairly prophetic over the years even and respect him for sticking to his Free Software guns even when his views were unpopular, but these comments of his regarding the Epstein case were stupid. Yes, RMS is correct, the term "sexual assault" is perhaps too vague in this case–the legal term for sex with an underage person is "rape." The context also make his comments strain cred…

> because it was pretty plain to everyone else that it _was_ wrong. I think you’re relying heavily on hindsight here. Yes it’s obvious to us looking in from the outside, but thinking back to any large events/conferences I’ve been at, especially if alcohol was involved, if somebody pretended to be willing because they were coerced to do so, I’m not sure it would have been so obvious and it’s easy to get caught up in t…

Fair enough regarding the word twisting.

So you figure 73 year old Minsky was on this plane or whatever, a highschooler offers to have sex with him and he just figured, what, she was caught up in the heat of passion? Maybe high schoolers offer to have sex with him in the normal course of his geriatric affairs?

I think you’re still not really being honest by trying to construct some scenario where Minsky could have not realized this young girl was either paid or ordered to have sex with him. Walk through it in your head and I defy you to come up with a scenario where Minsky could have not known this was a girl being either paid or ordered to have sex with him.

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

#919

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I'm going to buy all of Epic's games tonight for my PC. In the past, I was a bit annoyed that they plan to remove Rocket League from Steam but now that they're fighting Apple, I love this company. If this whole lawsuit thing doesn't work out, maybe they'll develop a phone so I can buy that too.

Spite's amazing. "I don't like Apple's walled garden, so I'm going to jump into Epic's (Tencent's) walled garden instead." At no point does using, or advocating for, a non-walled garden product come up as an alternative.

What an extremely shallow and thoughtless comparison you've made.

So, you don't think that supporting your enemies enemies is a good strategy?? Because it's a well-known and time-tested basic strategy that's been used the world over.

Are you aware how much more impact Apple's products have on society than Epic's does?? Do you understand how big Apple is compared to Epic?

Yes, I'm absolutely fine with a walled-garden for a bunch of games that are sold across many platforms. Not for a piece of basic infrastructure, for something that is so essential to all of our lives.

As a user, I want to be able to compile and install software on a device that I own without having to re-up it every 7 days. As a developer, I want to give my customers software that they asked for without having to negotiate with a picky, asshole, power-hungry middle-man.

I have nothing against Tencent. Apple's done so much more to limit my freedom while Tencent has hardly entered my thoughts for any amount of time.

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

#920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we not have the liberty to choose a locked-down platform?

Should you have the liberty to sell yourself into slavery?

Choosing iOS is an entirely reversible decision.
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