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I mean, not exactly, but perhaps a restricted selection of reviewed code could be available from a trusted service rather than just "grab anything from wherever

• paulmd 4y ago
  > perhaps a restricted selection of reviewed code could be available from a trusted service again though, you've literally just described the Apple app store. who do you imagine will do this review, they're probably going to want to be paid, right? Maybe we could impose an industry-standard 30% cut of the revenue and give that to the company who does the app review and hosts the authenticated code for download. what do you imagine will happen if third-party apps are allowed to evade app review? Facebook was literally already caught using its dev credentials to get people to install a spyware version of the service... and if they had ever been allowed to do so officially, they would have instantly blocked the web version and forced you to download the spyware version. So we can't allow people to install third-party app stores to bypass review or else everyone bypasses app review and the app review process is trivially circumvented. oh, wait, those are the two things people hate about the app store, so your service sucks too. why are you suggesting this "locked-in walled garden" garbage!?!? /s walled-garden walls aren't for keeping you in, they're for keeping danger out. Everyone has always been able to leave the walled garden whenever they wanted - you can leave at any time you feel the balance of apple services vs google services has shifted. And the price of bypassing app review has always been $99 for a developer credential that lets you build and run your own apps.
  • Nursie 4y ago
    > again though, you've literally just described the Apple app store. I'm more describing debian repos. A non-mandatory trusted source for JS libraries. Perhaps the browser creators would like to fund it. > walled-garden walls aren't for keeping you in, they're for keeping danger out. Great, so lets have an optional trusted source, that's available as standard in browsers, but which can be opted out of with a few button presses and a warning. Just as a concession to "I don't want any old web page to be able to execute any old crap without oversight".
    • paulmd 4y ago
      > I'm more describing debian repos. A non-mandatory trusted source for JS libraries. Perhaps the browser creators would like to fund it. No, I imagine browser developers probably would not like to fund the development and review of your codebase. How about you do that yourself? Serious question, why would you even think that's an option? Why does Mozilla want to pay for doing code review for Facebook? > Great, so lets have an optional trusted source, that's available as standard in browsers, but which can be opted out of with a few button presses and a warning. Just as a concession to "I don't want any old web page to be able to execute any old crap without oversight". as stated, if such a "couple of button presses" mechanism exists, the worst offenders will instantly demand that you use it and bypass app review/permissioning for them. Facebook and Netflix and the like have "network effect" to get away with it, if you want to use facebook to talk to your friends/family you will do this, or else you won't use facebook. We could certainly start unwinding some of these monopolies so there is no longer such a network effect - but I'd absolutely want to see that happening before we even talk about loosening app review protocols, not just "loosen app review, step 2: a miracle happens". User choice already exists - the optional trusted source is you build the app on your PC and deploy it on your phone with developer credentials. But the mere existence of a broad-spectrum mechanism by which publishers can publish un-reviewed code guarantees its usage. Show us that you aren't stealing our movies, or else you don't get to watch movies. It has to be a user-driven thing - and that's exactly what exists. And again, as I already said - this isn't a hypothetical, Facebook already has been using its developer credentials to get users to install spyware that they couldn't get through the app-review process. They already are exploiting the "user-driven mechanism" beyond the allowable bounds, if you hand them the blanket ability to deploy third-party software that bypasses app review, that's essentially curtains for the concept of app review. Your magical fantasy world where everyone is a good actor and nobody malicious will ever just demand that users push the button to bypass app review is just that - a naive fantasy. In the real world, widespread sideloading is antithetical to the concept of app review, period the end. Sideloading has to be gated significantly enough that a typical user won't want to go through the hassle - like requiring a $100/yr dev credential to do it. Let me put this in perhaps a different context: how do you think this will all work out when it's WeChat and Tiktok demanding you give root access to the chinese government? There are a lot of people for whom WeChat is not an option, it's just the "facebook of china" and everybody communicates over WeChat. It's not going to be very nice when you hand WeChat the ability to demand that you root your phone for them, or else you just don't get to talk to your family.