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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

That's a misstatement of the principle here. I bought a thing. It's my thing, not someone else's thing. Things don't have "terms". I signed no contract. Let me use my thing.

I mean, yes, we shouldn't buy iOS devices. But we should accept that things have ad hoc vendor-controlled "rules" just because someone baked them into the things, either.

> what Apple allows you to run on your own device is actually a different story, not related to this news

How so? It's not like Facebook and Google were hacking their way in here. They asked users "please run this software" and users had the option to do so. Seriously how is that any different than "please run my great jailbreak environment" or "here's a new OS for your iPhone"?

It was the behavior and marketing of these spyware things that we shouldn't like, not their mechanism.

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> I signed no contract.

Facebook and Google did sign it and distributed their software based on it.

> It's not like Facebook and Google were hacking their way in here.

They literally did (in the legal sense).

But of course, it's a battle of two evils here. Both sides can just nuke each other if you ask me, I won't miss them ;)

> Facebook and Google did sign it and distributed their software based on it.

I think we're talking past each other here. I'm not talking about how Facebook and Google's spy kits were licensed to the end users or about their compliance with Apple's own vendor license.

I was pointing out that the principle here is that I (and Facebook and Google) should have the ability to write and distribute software for you (and me, and Facebook and Google and even Apple) to use on your iPhone. And that the fact we don't have that ability is bad.

And more to the point the fact that Apple's control over their platform was used to benefit the public by disallowing spy kits still does not make that control a good thing.

What kind of principle is that it without rules?

Free speech doesn’t allow libel and slander. Free assembly doesn’t allow riots. Without a framework for meaningful justice, the high minded principle is just a race to the bottom.

I should be able to have the freedom to choose a platform where I have some protection against the various bad actors out there. Without Apple, the only options we have is non-participation, believing the lies, and arbritration.

It's not "without rules". The rules are just democratically determined (i.e. laws).

> Free speech doesn’t allow libel and slander

What? Very absolutely it does. It just doesn't protect from the consequences.

You can. Just give people the code, and they can load it on their device.

> I signed no contract.

True, but you entered in a contract with the app developer and they are bound by one with Apple.

Apple’s right to act on iOS devices is in virtue of them being a service provider to google more than the company that sold you your phone

> you entered in a contract with the app developer

... wat? No, I didn't. It's easy to imagine I "must have", but in fact there's no signature, no negotiation nor in many cases any consideration.

Ah, but you say: I must have signed a contract to use the app store that I downloaded the app from, and that must constrain me to honor the terms of the app that I downloaded, which is constrained by Apple's contract with the developer.

Except, no, I didn't do that either. The whole thing is a house of cards. There is absolutely no principle behind this regime, it's just something we've all come to accept because it's technically possible and because "usually" the power granted to hardware vendors hasn't been abused.

But it has bad side effects too, and it's really important that we as a community not lose sight of the fact that locked down devices are really, really bad.

You didn't, but the users of apps discussed here did. There's no App Store involved.

Electronic signatures are a thing. You absolutely are bound by contract.

>Ah, but you say: I must have signed a contract to use the app store... Except, no, I didn't do that either.

Do you have an Apple ID? You need an Apple ID to download apps from the App Store, and when you create the Apple ID, you accept their ToS. So, yeah, I think you did.

Though that ToS has absolutely nothing to do with anything we're discussing -- the ToS that matters here is the one between Apple and Google/Facebook.

> ...and that must constrain me to honor the terms of the app that I downloaded...

I don't think Apple's ToS with you constrains you to honors the terms of the app you downloaded. That seems strangely indirect. I think the app may or may not have their own ToS that they make you agree to at some point before permitting you to use their services.

Go to the app store, search for “youtube”, scroll down, click on “license agreement”.

> Things don't have "terms".

Technically correct. But software running on "things" has terms. It's called a license. When you buy a movie, you don't own the film. You own the right to use that film in accordance with the license.

You're conflating things. Your example is about copyright, not licenses. Copyright doesn't constrain use, it constrains distribution (though there's a parallel argument there about DRM and things like DVD region codes, etc...).

The question you're sidestepping is whether a license can say "you can't run your own software on your own thing". Obviously it can be implemented to do so given the way computers work, but it's not at all clear why that should be so.

Copyright can constrain use (although the actual extent varies a lot between jurisdictions). Most licenses (which are basically a way to manage copyrights) don't make use that, but some do (like a license that Apple uses for their SDKs, which disallows running it on non-Apple hardware).

BTW. I ignore that and even many large, respectable companies ignore that, but it's there ;)

It can.

IBM has had contracts for decades that govern use of your software on the hardware you bought from them. You buy CPU hours or the right to use a certain amount of the computer for a specific timeframe. One place I worked at had a mainframe that they could not use for production workloads unless a disaster declaration was made.

They’ve been litigated and are valid.

> Things don't have "terms".

Sure they do. You want a gun? That comes with certain restrictions on what you can do with it. You want a car? There are certain restrictions on what you can do with it. Jet? Restrictions. Schedule 1 drugs? Restrictions. Knives? Restrictions. Fireworks? Restrictions. Cameras? Restrictions. Hell, even when it comes to a 2x4, there are rules about what you can and can't do with it -- you can't hit someone with it, or you'll suffer consequences.

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