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Comment by gokhan | Hacker News Reader

Seems like people on this thread are OK when Apple remotely fiddle with what they can and can't run on their own machine without a notice. Interesting times.

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For those answering this: when answering, consider this post by patio on the recent rails vulnerability: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5035886

"[...]when this was announced I pushed the Big Red Button and pushed three emergency patches to my servers at 3 to 5 AM Japan time. My perception was "This just can't wait." I went to sleep with the vague feeling that I had probably broken something (there's always something that slips when you're tired and hasty) but that it was almost certainly acceptable given the alternative. [...]"

I know that was not about the machine you own, but frankly, does it matter whether you own or rent a box and whether it is in your or in somebody else's server room? In both cases, it is about third parties with the power to (partially) disable the code you run.

What you see as "Apple is remotely fiddling", my grandmother likely sees it as "Apple fixed something for me" (if she were to become aware of what they did).

Don't assume your perspective or belief is shared by vast majority of users.

"Screw your rights and liberties to run what you want on OUR OS X!" -Apple

This is why I chose Ubuntu over Mac OS X. I have a Macbook and OS X 10.7 on it, I got tired of being restricted and locked out. Then I found that Ubuntu was more open and less restrictive. I replaced Windows 8 on my PC with Ubuntu 12.10 and my Acer laptop no longer runs Windows 7 but Ubuntu 12.10 (I won it at a church raffle) and my Macbook now gathers dust, I'll only use it when I get around to developing iOS apps or something. For everything else it is useless to me now.

Seeing how nice the new ultrabooks are in general is really attractive. I'm sure Ubuntu runs pretty well on a Macbook Air as well?

I'm not tied to OSx as much as the build and form factor of my machine.

Truth. At least once a week (sometimes more) I'm tempted to install Arch on my MBP.

Truthfully though, there are some truly incredible tools for developers on Apple… not all are without comparable tools in the Linux world, but it always makes me question myself.

I love my MBA but am due for an 8GB one. I'd be open to dual booting into Ubuntu. There's not much I need from any OS anymore that I can think of, it would be an interesting experiment.

I put Arch on my MBA a while back. I used it exclusively for a while, but ended up going back to OS X. The trackpad drivers just aren't there yet, and with such a limited keyboard I really need the support for 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-finger gestures.

I just installed Slackware on my 2007 17" MBP because Leopard was EOL'd and I'm not enamoured with Mountain Lion as a development environment. I wish I had done it sooner.

You can run anything you want in OS X. This block for Java is part of a (easily deactivated) security system to prevent malware or critically vulnerable software from compromising your system.

I think you missed his point. :)

Quite possibly! Have re-read, but only see a misinformed comment. What was the point?

Nope not when Apple has the ability to block anything on OS X remotely. You unblocked it, and then they do another check and block it again.

What is to stop Apple from blocking free and open source software in the same way? Say they want you to buy iWork, not use LibreOffice for free, so they put in a block for LibreOffice. Now let's say they don't want you using Firefox or Chrome and they want you to use Safari instead, so they block Firefox and Chrome. Citing that they are all 'security risks' because they are code Apple does not control. BTW LibreOffice and OpenOffice.Org are Java based, and this Java block would stop them from working in the web browser to display documents.

There will come a time with Mac OS X that Apple will lock it down like they did to iOS, and you'll have to jailbreak it to run what you want on it. This will be done for security reasons, of course, to protect the user.

Just turn off the auto update for the blacklist (IIRC, it's in the Security prefpane). "Problem" solved?

Could you elaborate on exactly what you are restricted and locked out from?

They are also OK with Apple stopping other people from running code on their machines.

Is a slippery slope the concern here, or is it just a matter of principle that nobody should be allowed to mess with your machine unless you give them permission to?

In this specific case, I don't have a problem with this security fix/decisions. I'm also they glad they did this for my parents since they use Mac's at home, and I'd rather things like this be fixed silently rather than me having to explain some complicated popup that showed up asking they to turn off "Java".

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