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This appears to be a very typical response from an Apple user who doesn't understand the lengths and hoops developers have to jump through to work around Apple'

This appears to be a very typical response from an Apple user who doesn't understand the lengths and hoops developers have to jump through to work around Apple's many, many restrictions, bugs and limitations. In my day job, our Apple developers have spent years finding solutions to iOS restrictions around CallKit, Push Notifications and NSTodaysProblem, and those are just the things Apple has intentionally restricted, once you get into the bugs and poor documentation for some APIs it's another story. If our users knew the half of what our Apple Developers have to do, the meetings, discussions, concessions and re-design that has to be done to make things just work, even on par with the Android equivalent, they might be a little bit more understanding. WireGuard has been excellent, and as a Linux user, I haven't needed an app, I have a couple of aliases in my shell to start and stop my tunnels. I've used WireGuard daily for work since lockdown and I used it daily for personal use, while commuting to work before lockdown. In all of that time, I've never had a single issue due to WireGuard (and there isn't even a Linux app to be seen). The expectation is often different between Linux and Apple users though. When I was setting up for the first time, Jason even found time to help me himself on the IRC channel, something I've never expected, and for which I am eternally grateful. I made a donation to WireGuard last year, I'll be doing the same this year and I encourage others to "put their money where their mouth is" and show a little support for the people making and sharing this software for free. I expect an Apple user can afford a small cut of their or their employer's money to do so.

bawolff 6y ago
I'm not sympathetic. If you don't think you can do a good job at something due to factors outside your control, you can choose to not do it (refuse to support mac) or do a subpar job. If you choose the latter don't be surprised if users give you negative reviews. There's no participation trophies in business.
OJFord 6y ago
> This appears to be a very typical response from an Apple user who doesn't understand the lengths and hoops developers have to jump through to work around Apple's many, many restrictions, bugs and limitations. Eh? Isn't that a description of the original complaint, and the 'a response' submitted here is from WireGuard creator/lead Jason/zx2c4 explaining much as you do the restrictions, bugs, and limitations he's tried to work around?
- boudin 6y ago
  I think he meant the author of the original blog post that zx2c4 is responding to.
- notRobot 6y ago
  Yeah, the parent to your comment is discussing Rachel's post, not Jason's response.
- alias_neo 6y ago
  Apologies, I indeed meant the original post to which Jason was responding. By "response" I meant the response of the user to the WireGuard Mac app. Again apologies, I somehow jumped a few mental hoops of my own when commenting.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Ah no worries, just misunderstood since between you and the submitter both sides got called a 'response'. Bloody English language, eh!
  - mannykannot 6y ago
    Ah, but the original post, which triggered the uninformed ranting against WireGuard, was not itself from someone who was ignorant of the lengths and hoops developers have to jump through to work around Apple's many, many restrictions. Furthermore, its author outlined how to work around the problems with the app by using Macports instead. What about the problems? Well, it's free. They owe me nothing. But, you should still be aware what you are getting into when you choose to [use the app]. That's why I wrote this post: to serve as a warning to others. Let my frustration save you the same in the future. When it comes to WireGuard, just stick with the tried and true low-level Unix approach, even on your Macs. Your sanity will thank you. I just hope the iOS version never flips out on me. Anyone who has a problem with that state of affairs has a beef with Apple, and should not be posting their displeasure to the WireGuard mailing list.
    - alias_neo 6y ago
dcow 6y ago
I love Jason’s response and think it carries the right tone and is delivered near flawlessly. It’s clearly frustrating to deal with Apple’s platform lockdown, and he captures such in a professional and rational manner. Bravo. What bothers me is that I’ve experienced an increasing number of maintainers of supposed cross platform projects simply not care about macOS anymore to the extent that they’re openly hostile towards macOS users. I know what you do is free and I have no entitlement to anything from you, but don't antagonize me when I add suggestions to open discussion and feature requests to your issue tracker to try and help participate in improving the way your project works on macOS. I’m probably willing to do some work but also need to get the lay of the land first. I would challenge those maintainers to be honest. Yes, it’s your time, but if you’re not interested in spending it actually supporting macOS, don't market your project as a cross platform. Like it or not the macOS platform is changing and if you’re not along for the ride don’t grief everyone who is (either by choice or by requirement). Just to be crystal clear: Json does not fall in this bucket, but this topic in general seems all too familiar lately.
- liaukovv 6y ago
  Being cross-platform is not the same as supporting every platform in existence
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  FWIW in the projects I've involved in we do get macOS-specific requests and reports from time to time but I have yet to see a macOS dev step up and contribute. There is lots of cross-platform software, which works on Linux, Windows and even BSDs; you can't expect (or feel entitled for) open source maintainers to then also go ahead and buy expensive Apple hardware just to support their idiosyncratic almost-BSD-but-not-really-UNIX OS.
  - pimeys 6y ago
    This is especially annoying when getting to the lower levels of programming. I'm maintaining a Rust client for SQL Server, and in recent OS X versions Apple decided with their secure framework to not support the measly TLS certificates of SQL Server (Azure, Docker). Now I have a ticket with no real help. How I finally solved this is I got a Mac Mini from cloud, I could with a lots of trouble finally start docker in it (needed a desktop to click some icons) and test my code. This meant statically linking OpenSSL instead, which is not the greatest from a security point of view. All of this took six months, and it was really hard to get Mac users to commit anything. It was ridiculously annoying to write and test without buying an Apple computer. After this experience I just don't want to support any of their products anymore. Too much time wasted.
Shish2k 6y ago
> I encourage others to "put their money where their mouth is" and show a little support for the people making and sharing this software for free Just went to donate for myself, and happened to spot Rachel’s name in the list of donors too, so that’s a nice little end to the story :) (Not as nice as “apple either fixes their APIs or permits people to work around them”, but still...)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
xenihn 6y ago
>If our users knew the half of what our Apple Developers have to do, the meetings, discussions, concessions and re-design that has to be done to make things just work, even on par with the Android equivalent, they might be a little bit more understanding. It's frustrating, but it's also great job security.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
webmobdev 6y ago
> I made a donation to WireGuard last year, I'll be doing the same this year and I encourage others to "put their money where their mouth is" and show a little support Imagine, Apple even wanted 30% of any donations!! > We faced rejections in submitting the app, because they decided to change their policy on the app having a link in the "About WireGuard" tool window to www.wireguard.com/donations/ (which they previously had allowed explicitly; now they want 30% or something), and then after removing that ... Well, finally they approved the fix ...
- comeonseriously 6y ago
  That is how you become a $2 TRILLION company. Nobody gets a pass on giving up the cash.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    There really is such thing than too much greed though.
- philjackson 6y ago
  The world's richest company. Absolutely unbelievable.
eznzt 6y ago
I blame Google. Had they made Android good, they would've crushed the iPhone eons ago.
macspoofing 6y ago
>This appears to be a very typical response from an Apple user Nothing Jason from WireGuard wrote invalidates anything that the original blogger wrote. The Mac App sucks and Jason merely explained why. In other words, both Jason and Rachel are correct.
0xCMP 6y ago
Also consider giving to Jason's Patreon[0]. He works on many open source projects including the original Git web interface and the `pass` tool. [0]: https://www.patreon.com/zx2c4 https://www.patreon.com/zx2c4

bawolff 6y ago

I'm not sympathetic. If you don't think you can do a good job at something due to factors outside your control, you can choose to not do it (refuse to support mac) or do a subpar job. If you choose the latter don't be surprised if users give you negative reviews. There's no participation trophies in business.

OJFord 6y ago

> This appears to be a very typical response from an Apple user who doesn't understand the lengths and hoops developers have to jump through to work around Apple's many, many restrictions, bugs and limitations. Eh? Isn't that a description of the original complaint, and the 'a response' submitted here is from WireGuard creator/lead Jason/zx2c4 explaining much as you do the restrictions, bugs, and limitations he's tried to work around?

boudin 6y ago
I think he meant the author of the original blog post that zx2c4 is responding to.
notRobot 6y ago
Yeah, the parent to your comment is discussing Rachel's post, not Jason's response.
alias_neo 6y ago
Apologies, I indeed meant the original post to which Jason was responding. By "response" I meant the response of the user to the WireGuard Mac app. Again apologies, I somehow jumped a few mental hoops of my own when commenting.
- OJFord 6y ago
  Ah no worries, just misunderstood since between you and the submitter both sides got called a 'response'. Bloody English language, eh!
- mannykannot 6y ago
  Ah, but the original post, which triggered the uninformed ranting against WireGuard, was not itself from someone who was ignorant of the lengths and hoops developers have to jump through to work around Apple's many, many restrictions. Furthermore, its author outlined how to work around the problems with the app by using Macports instead. What about the problems? Well, it's free. They owe me nothing. But, you should still be aware what you are getting into when you choose to [use the app]. That's why I wrote this post: to serve as a warning to others. Let my frustration save you the same in the future. When it comes to WireGuard, just stick with the tried and true low-level Unix approach, even on your Macs. Your sanity will thank you. I just hope the iOS version never flips out on me. Anyone who has a problem with that state of affairs has a beef with Apple, and should not be posting their displeasure to the WireGuard mailing list.
  - alias_neo 6y ago

dcow 6y ago

I love Jason’s response and think it carries the right tone and is delivered near flawlessly. It’s clearly frustrating to deal with Apple’s platform lockdown, and he captures such in a professional and rational manner. Bravo. What bothers me is that I’ve experienced an increasing number of maintainers of supposed cross platform projects simply not care about macOS anymore to the extent that they’re openly hostile towards macOS users. I know what you do is free and I have no entitlement to anything from you, but don't antagonize me when I add suggestions to open discussion and feature requests to your issue tracker to try and help participate in improving the way your project works on macOS. I’m probably willing to do some work but also need to get the lay of the land first. I would challenge those maintainers to be honest. Yes, it’s your time, but if you’re not interested in spending it actually supporting macOS, don't market your project as a cross platform. Like it or not the macOS platform is changing and if you’re not along for the ride don’t grief everyone who is (either by choice or by requirement). Just to be crystal clear: Json does not fall in this bucket, but this topic in general seems all too familiar lately.

liaukovv 6y ago
Being cross-platform is not the same as supporting every platform in existence
formerly_proven 6y ago
FWIW in the projects I've involved in we do get macOS-specific requests and reports from time to time but I have yet to see a macOS dev step up and contribute. There is lots of cross-platform software, which works on Linux, Windows and even BSDs; you can't expect (or feel entitled for) open source maintainers to then also go ahead and buy expensive Apple hardware just to support their idiosyncratic almost-BSD-but-not-really-UNIX OS.
- pimeys 6y ago
  This is especially annoying when getting to the lower levels of programming. I'm maintaining a Rust client for SQL Server, and in recent OS X versions Apple decided with their secure framework to not support the measly TLS certificates of SQL Server (Azure, Docker). Now I have a ticket with no real help. How I finally solved this is I got a Mac Mini from cloud, I could with a lots of trouble finally start docker in it (needed a desktop to click some icons) and test my code. This meant statically linking OpenSSL instead, which is not the greatest from a security point of view. All of this took six months, and it was really hard to get Mac users to commit anything. It was ridiculously annoying to write and test without buying an Apple computer. After this experience I just don't want to support any of their products anymore. Too much time wasted.

Shish2k 6y ago

> I encourage others to "put their money where their mouth is" and show a little support for the people making and sharing this software for free Just went to donate for myself, and happened to spot Rachel’s name in the list of donors too, so that’s a nice little end to the story :) (Not as nice as “apple either fixes their APIs or permits people to work around them”, but still...)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

xenihn 6y ago

>If our users knew the half of what our Apple Developers have to do, the meetings, discussions, concessions and re-design that has to be done to make things just work, even on par with the Android equivalent, they might be a little bit more understanding. It's frustrating, but it's also great job security.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

webmobdev 6y ago

> I made a donation to WireGuard last year, I'll be doing the same this year and I encourage others to "put their money where their mouth is" and show a little support Imagine, Apple even wanted 30% of any donations!! > We faced rejections in submitting the app, because they decided to change their policy on the app having a link in the "About WireGuard" tool window to www.wireguard.com/donations/ (which they previously had allowed explicitly; now they want 30% or something), and then after removing that ... Well, finally they approved the fix ...

comeonseriously 6y ago
That is how you become a $2 TRILLION company. Nobody gets a pass on giving up the cash.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  There really is such thing than too much greed though.
philjackson 6y ago
The world's richest company. Absolutely unbelievable.

eznzt 6y ago

I blame Google. Had they made Android good, they would've crushed the iPhone eons ago.

macspoofing 6y ago

>This appears to be a very typical response from an Apple user Nothing Jason from WireGuard wrote invalidates anything that the original blogger wrote. The Mac App sucks and Jason merely explained why. In other words, both Jason and Rachel are correct.

0xCMP 6y ago

Also consider giving to Jason's Patreon[0]. He works on many open source projects including the original Git web interface and the `pass` tool. [0]: https://www.patreon.com/zx2c4 https://www.patreon.com/zx2c4