Monthly Archives: February 2012

Death of the Mac: The smoking gun

Some people are still convinced that OS X being jailed by default is not a sign of evil intent on Apple’s part. So here’s some more commentary around the topic.

“If Apple really wanted to restrict all app distribution to the app store, why did they come up with this Gatekeeper system?”

Because right now, there are a lot of applications that can’t be placed on the App Store because of Apple’s rules, as well as the technical restrictions such as sandboxing. There are even more applications whose authors are not interested in the App Store. I think the App Store has failed to get the critical mass Apple hoped for.

The ‘third way’ approach of “Well, you can get a key and sign your code but not actually have to use the App Store” is a way to entice everyone to sign their code with Apple-approved keys. Once all the major developers go along with that, the “Turn off Gatekeeper” option can be removed from OS X without 99% of users ever noticing.

At that point, Apple has complete control. They can set the terms for what software is allowed on the Mac, and yank apps even if they aren’t from the App Store. If they don’t want DVD rippers or emulators available, they just revoke the appropriate developer signing keys. And they can rent you developer access to your own hardware, like they do with the iPad and iPhone.

“You’re paranoid. Apple would never do that.”

If you don’t think Apple would ever do all these things, I have to ask: Why wouldn’t they? It would give them complete control over the platform, and the iPhone and iPad have apparently demonstrated that there would be no impact on sales from doing so. Even big names like Adobe and Microsoft have gone along with the iPad’s restrictions.

Compulsory signing would also eliminate the ability to run cracked pirated versions of applications. Developers would love that—and so would Apple, since they could start demanding a 30% cut.

You can see more of this cat-herding going on if you look at the new features in Lion and Mountain Lion. iCloud is only available to applications in the Mac App Store. The new notification center is the same. There’s really no technical reason for such restrictions; it’s just Apple using new functionality as a carrot to get everyone onto the App Store where they can be controlled.

“It’s just being done for the sake of security.”

You could just about make the argument that iSync needed to be limited for security reasons, but there’s no such excuse for apparent limitations on notification center access. To me, this is the smoking gun that shows Apple’s intent.

If Apple were really concerned with security, they’d be updating the out-of-date GPL software that ships with OS X to current versions that have had the security holes patched. But instead, they are purging all the GPL v3 licensed software.

The two big features of GPL v3 are disallowing use of patent lawsuits to prevent people using the code you distribute, and preventing locking down hardware so you can’t run modified code. The idea that Apple wants to be able to sue people who run GCC or the bash shell is possible, but it seems unlikely to me. Similarly, wanting to share code between iOS and OS X doesn’t really explain why they won’t distribute things like the bash shell and GCC which only exist in OS X. So that leaves locking down OS X as the most plausible motivation.

If Gatekeeper is all about security and not about control, why don’t Apple offer the same options as Gatekeeper on the iPad and/or iPhone? If Apple do that, I’ll admit I’m being paranoid and shut up about this. (And buy an iPad.) Since I submitted a request for a developer option to turn off the jail when the iPhone was launched, I’m not holding my breath.

On the contrary, unless Apple reverses their current course and opens up the new OS X functionality to all applications and not just jailed ones they get a 30% cut from, my current Mac will be my last.

Macintosh RIP: 1984–2012

OS X is now no longer Mac OS X. The Mac is dead.

Meanwhile, the next release of OS X will, by default, refuse to allow unsigned code to run. As I predicted, Lion was the last unlocked OS X, and OS X Mountain Lion ships jailed, like iOS. And good luck selling your software if it requires turning off the ‘security’ of GateKeeper; never mind that the OS X malware threat is practically nonexistent.

For now Apple gives you a way to jailbreak your Mac for free, but I expect that option to disappear with the next release. You’ll pay an annual developer fee and submit your code-signing keys to Apple, and in return you’ll get shell access and the ability to run your own code on your own computer. It’ll be just like iPhone and iPad, where you pay $99 a year to be able to run your own code on ‘your’ device.

And as people on Google+ have pointed out, it won’t be long before the corporate interests start politely asking Apple to revoke developer keys.

That emulator you like playing games on? Oh, sorry, Nintendo and Atari asked Apple and they disabled it. Your copy of VLC? Oh, sorry, the MAFIAA threatened Apple with a lawsuit for enabling playback of pirate movies, so it was disabled. Your DVD ripping software? What, you need to ask?

So I guess I’m moving to Linux. I’m sure there will still be people content to live in denial about how this is going to go, but I’m not one of them.

I started using the Mac in 1986. Bought my first Mac in 1990. So I’d just like to repeat a big ‘fuck you’ to all the lemmings who bought locked-down iPhones and iPads, and convinced Apple they could get away with this.

Apple’s great GPL purge

Apple obligingly allows you to browse and download the open source software they use in OS X. Since they have listings for each version of OS X, I decided to take a look at how much software they were using that was only available under the GNU public license. The results are illuminating:

  • 10.5: 47 GPL-licensed packages.
  • 10.6: 44 GPL-licensed packages.
  • 10.7: 29 GPL-licensed packages.

This clearly supports the idea that Apple is aggressively trying to remove all GPL-licensed software from OS X. While the removal of Samba and GCC got some attention, the numbers show that there’s a more general purging going on.

The 29 remaining GPL-licensed packages aren’t too healthy either. Lion apparently ships with bash 3.2. That’s from 2006. The current version is 4.2.10. Why no upgrade? Because Apple’s shipping the last version of bash that was under the GPL version 2.

The message is pretty obvious: Apple won’t ship anything that’s licensed under GPL v3 on OS X. Now, why is that?

There are two big changes in GPL v3. The first is that it explicitly prohibits patent lawsuits against people for actually using the GPL-licensed software you ship. The second is that it carefully prevents TiVoization, locking down hardware so that people can’t actually run the software they want.

So, which of those things are they planning for OS X, eh?

I’m also intrigued to see how far they are prepared to go with this. They already annoyed and inconvenienced a lot of people with the Samba and GCC removal. Having wooed so many developers to the Mac in the last decade, are they really prepared to throw away all that goodwill by shipping obsolete tools and making it a pain in the ass to upgrade them?