Language Selection

English French German Italian Portuguese Spanish

Proprietary Software Problems and Apple's Monopoly

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 23rd of August 2020 01:07:00 PM Filed under
Misc
  • University of Utah Pays $457K After Ransomware Attack [iophk: Windows TCO]

    Cyber insurance policies, like the one utilized by the University of Utah, is also changing the ransomware game, and has drawn concerns about how it will change the overall security landscape. For instance, some have wondered if companies could slack on proactive security measures if they have a fallback buffer of cyber-insurance.

  • Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases after all

    On Friday, the internet erupted in a small way to learn that Apple had successfully forced WordPress to monetize its free app — forcing it to sell premium plans and custom domain names seemingly just so that Apple could get its traditional 30 percent cut.

    But one afternoon and evening of surprise and outrage later, Apple is backing off. The company is issuing a rare on-the-record apology, and it says that WordPress will no longer have to add in-app purchases now that all is said and done.

    Here’s Apple’s full statement: [...]

  • Apple Reverses Move for WordPress to Add In-App Payments

    Apple Inc. on Saturday reversed course on a decision to force popular blogging platform WordPress to add in-app purchases to its app, a move that could help lessen tensions between Apple and developers amid a public battle with Epic Games.

    On Friday, WordPress said that Apple had informed it that it had 30 days to add in-app-purchases to its application, which would have given Apple a 30% cut of purchases of WordPress.com plans purchased via the app. Apple’s request was questioned by developers online as the WordPress app previously didn’t offer a way to purchase plans inside their app, rather just on its website.

  • Epic Games' App Store antitrust case against Apple reassigned to Oakland judge presiding over Pepper v. Apple and Cameron v. Apple class actions

    What remains to be seen is whether Epic's case against Google will end up in Oakland, too. Epic's two app distribution antitrust cases involve many common questions of law and fact. Maybe Epic v. Google will be consolidated with Epic v. Apple.

  • Fortnite's absence from Apple's App Store will be short-lived--here's why and on what basis Epic Games will put it back soon

    Epic Games provoked Fortnite's removal from the iOS App Store and the Android Play Store by running a promotion that circumvented the in-app payment rules of those platforms--and already had that Nineteen-Eighty-Fortnite video as well as two partly-overlapping antitrust complaints, each more than 60 pages long, prepared at the time.

    This legal dispute may very well take years to be resolved and go all the way up to the Supreme Court. Epic Games isn't seriously going to forgo its revenue opportunity on iOS (and Android) for the better part of the 2020s.

    Epic would have us all believe that they're idealistic freedom fighters, the Braveheart of the mobile app universe. Realistically, they're more principled than a self-serving Spotify (trying to capitalize on the fact that the EU presently has the least principled competition commissioner in the bloc's history), but neither are they prepared to die for this cause nor are they just drama queens (well, maybe to some degree if that YouTube video is any indication). At the end of the day, they're businesspeople running a company recently valued at $17.3 billion and trying to change some parameters in their favor. Also, I do find it credible that it's not only about money but also about their view of what would be fair.

  • Gibson Dunn lawyers to defend Apple against Epic Games' App Store antitrust action in the Northern District of California

    Gibson Dunn frequently represents Apple as well as parties whose interests are aligned with Apple's. The two most important cases of this kind that I've followed are the second Apple v. Samsung case in the Northern District of California and the Apple v. Qualcomm antitrust and contract litigation in the Southern District of California. In the latter case, Gibson Dunn worked for Apple's contract manufacturers (Foxconn/Hon Hai, Pegatron, Compal, and Wistron)--and squared off with the very firm on the other side that filed Epic Games' complaints against Apple and Google: Cravath, Swaine & Moore of New York City.

  • Apple gets more time to respond to Epic Games' motion for a temporary restraining order--Monday hearing postponed, case may be transferred to Oakland

    I've previously expressed doubts over whether this motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) was truly as urgent as Epic's lawyers claimed. Originally they would have preferred a hearing to be held the same day, which would practically have required Judge Edward Chen to make a decision without the benefit of an opposition filing. With the court having vacated the Monday hearing, Apple's ultimatum for a termination of Epic's developer agreement may expire prior to a decision on the TRO motion. While there is no doubt that Epic sooner or later needs access to Apple's developer program, it's not like the Unreal Engine would instantly stop working for any of Epic's licensees in the event of a termination.

»

Pretend to have moral high ground when it comes to competition

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 23rd of August 2020 07:00:00 PM.
  • Epic practically gives up on Fortnite, prioritizes Unreal Engine in reply brief pushing for temporary restraining order against Apple

    Epic's reply brief completely fails to address the legally most powerful part of Apple's opposition to the TRO motion: that Epic brought this situation upon itself, and "self-inflicted wounds" can't give rise to the requested type of relief in the Ninth Circuit. While Epic described as a "hotfix" its tactic of firstly running a Fortnite version by Apple that already contained the code for an alternative payment system and later triggering the display of that option to end users by means of data the Fortnite app retrieved from Epic's servers, Apple's opposition brief said this breach of a longstanding App Store rule became Epic's "hot mess."

    Epic's decision not to address the "self-inflicted wounds" part is consistent with my overall impression that they've already given up with respect to Fortnite--not formally in the sense of a partial withdrawal of the motion, but practically. They must have realized that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is hardly going to force Apple to offer a Fortnite version via the App Store that clearly breaches Apple's terms. Instead, Epic's reply brief focuses on the Unreal Engine, arguing that even if Apple was in its right to terminate any Fortnite-specific Epic accounts, "the breadth of Apple's retaliation is itself an unlawful effort to maintain its monopoly and chill any action by others who might dare oppose Apple." By "breadth" Epic means that Apple terminated multiple accounts, and that there are two Epic legal entities: Epic Games, Inc. of Maryland and Epic Games International S.à.r.l. of Switzerland. However, Apple argues that all those Epic accounts are managed as one, and Apple generally terminates the contracts of affiliated entities when a major breach occurs.

  • Microsoft supports Epic Games' quest for temporary restraining order against Apple, stresses importance of Unreal Engine

    After Apple filed its opposition to Epic Games' motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in the App Store antitrust dispute in the Northern District of California, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers allowed the Fortnite and Unreal Engine maker to file a reply brief of up to 10 pages by 9 AM Pacific Time today.

    The very first document Epic's lawyers filed in this context is a declaration by Kevin Gammill, General Manager of Microsoft's Gaming Developer Experience division, supporting Epic against Apple by stressing the relevance of the Unreal Engine to Microsoft (this post continues below the document)...

  • Microsoft says Apple's move against 'Fortnite' creator would hurt its games

Microsoft Backs Epic...

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 24th of August 2020 08:11:45 AM.
  • Microsoft Backs Epic’s Apple Battle on Game Technology Access

    The graphics technology, known as Unreal Engine, is a suite of software used by millions of developers to build 3-D games and other products. Cutting off Epic from Apple’s iOS and Mac developer tools would mean the gaming company can no longer distribute Unreal Engine to other developers, Epic said in its legal filing. Microsoft, which makes the Xbox, uses the technology for games developed for consoles, PCs and mobile devices.

  • Microsoft Supports Epic Games, Says Apple Blocking Access to Unreal Engine Would Harm Game Creators

    In a declaration in support of Epic Games [PDF], Microsoft gaming executive Kevin Gammill wrote that "Apple's discontinuation of Epic's ability to develop and support Unreal Engine for iOS or macOS will harm game creators and gamers." Specifically, Gammill said that games utilizing Unreal Engine will be put at a "substantial disadvantage," citing Microsoft's own racing game Forza Street for iPhone and iPad as an example.

  • [Old] Fear of collateral damage in Apple battle with ‘Fortnite’ maker

    Unreal Engine is used by thousands of developers to create some of the top games in the App Store including PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which “alone is installed on hundreds of millions of mobile devices”, Epic said in its legal filing. If the engine can no longer be updated, it will impact third-party developers caught in the crossfire.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

More in Tux Machines

digiKam 7.7.0 is released

After three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. Read more

Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand

Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future Tech

The metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. Read more

today's howtos

  • How to install go1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

    In this tutorial, we are going to explore how to install go on Ubuntu 22.04 Golang is an open-source programming language that is easy to learn and use. It is built-in concurrency and has a robust standard library. It is reliable, builds fast, and efficient software that scales fast. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel-type systems enable flexible and modular program constructions. Go compiles quickly to machine code and has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. In this guide, we are going to learn how to install golang 1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04. Go 1.19beta1 is not yet released. There is so much work in progress with all the documentation.

  • molecule test: failed to connect to bus in systemd container - openQA bites

    Ansible Molecule is a project to help you test your ansible roles. I’m using molecule for automatically testing the ansible roles of geekoops.

  • How To Install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9 - idroot

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, MongoDB is a high-performance, highly scalable document-oriented NoSQL database. Unlike in SQL databases where data is stored in rows and columns inside tables, in MongoDB, data is structured in JSON-like format inside records which are referred to as documents. The open-source attribute of MongoDB as a database software makes it an ideal candidate for almost any database-related project. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the MongoDB NoSQL database on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

  • An introduction (and how-to) to Plugin Loader for the Steam Deck. - Invidious
  • Self-host a Ghost Blog With Traefik

    Ghost is a very popular open-source content management system. Started as an alternative to WordPress and it went on to become an alternative to Substack by focusing on membership and newsletter. The creators of Ghost offer managed Pro hosting but it may not fit everyone's budget. Alternatively, you can self-host it on your own cloud servers. On Linux handbook, we already have a guide on deploying Ghost with Docker in a reverse proxy setup. Instead of Ngnix reverse proxy, you can also use another software called Traefik with Docker. It is a popular open-source cloud-native application proxy, API Gateway, Edge-router, and more. I use Traefik to secure my websites using an SSL certificate obtained from Let's Encrypt. Once deployed, Traefik can automatically manage your certificates and their renewals. In this tutorial, I'll share the necessary steps for deploying a Ghost blog with Docker and Traefik.

More on Tux Machines: About ● Gallery ● Forum ● Blogs ● Search ● News ● RSS Feed

Part of Bytes Media ● Sister sites below.

TechBytes Techrights button

Powered by Drupal, an open source content management system

Content available under CC-BY-SA CC

© by original authors

Powered by CentOS 6.5 (GNU/Linux), Varnish, and Drupal 6