app store gpl violation

[piratePenguin]

Just noticed this:
http://www.fsf.org/news/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement

What do our Apple fans think about Apples decisions and attitudes around their app store?

....

We would've liked to see Apple do the right thing and remove these limits, but it looks like that's not going to happen. Apple has removed GNU Go from the App Store, continuing their longstanding habit of preventing users from doing anything that Apple doesn't want them to do. As we said in our initial announcement, this is disappointing but unsurprising; Apple made this choice a long time ago. We just need to make sure everybody else gets the message: if you value your independence and creativity, you should be aware that Apple doesn't. Take your computing elsewhere.

[Kintaro]

I think Apple are being really silly, as always.

[worker201]

Microsoft and Linux programmers have maintained a very SFW attitude toward 3rd party issues - hey, we just write the software, we're not responsible for the fucked up things you do with your computer.  Apple has always been a very image-oriented company - if the user has a bad experience, it reflects poorly on us, and we lose business.  On a desktop, a pleasant interface and a minimum of crashes is enough, thanks to Windows saturating the collective conscience with viruses, trojans, reboots, and BSODs.  But on a phone or an mp3 player, it's a different playground.  Apple not only has responsibilities to their customers, but also to content owners, app writers, and service providers.  In the cell phone business, crashing apps lead to refunds and Android purchases.  Loopholes and exploits lead to phones being 'jailbroken' and possibly to the de-DRM-ing of content, which service and content partners do not allow.  Apple's no-Flash and no-GPL policies are designed to prevent such a tragedy.

Maybe it still sounds silly.  That's okay, you have a choice - there are plenty of product alternatives out there.

[Kintaro]

Apple has always been a very image-oriented company - if the user has a bad experience, it reflects poorly on us, and we lose business.

We? You are not an Apple spokesman. You are not even employed by them.

Cult alert.

On a desktop, a pleasant interface and a minimum of crashes is enough, thanks to Windows saturating the collective conscience with viruses, trojans, reboots, and BSODs.

For Windows 7 I'll give you that last one, but nobody gets Viruses on it on the account of the priveledge seperation only appearing for third-party shit. Vista created a retarded habit of people turning it off entirely because of how annoying it is. On the other hand, everyone uses a virus checker, as you can always slip things past people in the seemingly genuine form of a program that is passed via the user with UAC. Windows annoys you until you get a third-party virus checker, and it seems to work. Viruses tend to be useless without UAC unless they just involve bandwidth.

Besides nobody needs to write Viruses for macs, it is an ineffective waste of time with its Unix roots. Yet with Apple's reputation it becomes doubly a waste of time as OSX being the last major OS on earth to implement stack protection (SCO would have had it sooner if they didn't work with Microsoft and die), nobody needs to write a virus, they will always simply be able to write worms instead. There have already been worms for jailbroken iPhones. Why? Because Apple restricted users and developers to the App Store in the first place. With Apple it seems the ends always justify the means when it comes to dismissing security.

I don't understand how anyone can tolerate a company that treats security like a cakewalk. Microsoft did that once, a decade sooner. In the mean time, Apple's biggest market is phones and MP3 players. Phones that have had worms because of Apple's bullying of users with the AppStore, turning them to unsound hacks they don't understand. Yet, Apple might just have actually made some real progress on Snow Leopard and time will be the judge. It finally having some decent games could mean it will win me over yet.

Maybe Apple could just avoid security as always and use snort by default.

[worker201]

Apple has always been a very image-oriented company - if the user has a bad experience, it reflects poorly on us, and we lose business.

We? You are not an Apple spokesman. You are not even employed by them.

Cult alert.

Interesting that you jump all over the 'we' from that sentence, but not the 'we' from the previous sentence.  I thought my role-playing trope made sense in context, but perhaps I should apologize for not considering in advance how it would look to you if you took it out of context.

[Aloone_Jonez]

You don't get viruses on Windows XP either as long as you don't use shitware or warez from BitTorrent and use a restricted account for normal computer use.

There are some legacy programs require an administrator account to run. Fortunately it is easy to create an account with the required privileges to run a specific program run it from a restricted account using a script.

The trouble is, an administrator account is the default setting and the average user doesn't know anything about writing scripts.

[worker201]

I wasn't actually talking about viruses - more like the Culture of Viruses that surrounds Windows.  The Windows computer experience is solely responsible for the concepts of computer viruses and Trojan horses being a part of the collective conscience.  Without Microsoft, those ideas would have remained the exclusive knowledge of hackers and IT insiders.  That's one of Microsoft's real accomplishments, for better or worse.

Also, you bring up an interesting side point - Microsoft's hands are somewhat tied.  Their customers demand administrative control and then complain when administrative control bites them in the ass.  Security, and the ability to rampage at will through your own computer without any safeguards or checkpoints, are mutually exclusive.

[Kintaro]

Without Microsoft, those ideas would have remained the exclusive knowledge of hackers and IT insiders.  That's one of Microsoft's real accomplishments, for better or worse.

This is complete fucking bullshit, hobbyists were writing viruses in assembler for 8 bit systems in the 80s, and early 16 bit systems including macs. Writing a self replicating program that was either annoying or harmful has been done a million times, it didn't start on Windows. What Windows really started was ORDINARY PEOPLE HAVING ACCESS TO THE TUBES. The viruses came through those tubes.

[Aloone_Jonez]

If I remember correctly, one of the first viruses was for UNIX, long before Windows.

[worker201]

So if we all started running BSD in 1985, would we have as many viruses and trojans and adware and spyware today?  I won't suggest we would be virus-free, but I think it would be significantly less.

[Aloone_Jonez]

There would still be plenty of trojans bundled with software along with adware and spyware.

[Calum]

i mentioned some people in another forum who i know, and they are each thinking of ditching ms windows, one reason for this is the high amount of viruses and malware they get on their computers (due to them being terminal n00bs, not derisory, just a fact).

I am not a n00b however, if i was, my linux system would still not have got any viruses or malware, and i can say that with assurance because i have never had to deal with any malware on my linux computers, ever. And i have never had to do any complicated configuration either to achieve this result.

So say what you like about how linux viruses don't exist because linux is obscure or windows viruses don't exist because ms windows is so l33t these days, it's all hot air, it's real world facts that count.

[Kintaro]

I can get the same effect on my Windows PC by unplugging my network cable. And it still runs more games and apps than Linux with it unplugged.

[piratePenguin]

but no internet

[Kintaro]

but no internet

Yet still more games.