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If Beeper Cloud uses a Mac in the middle then I would have assumed that is actually permitted, as its presumably a legitimate iMessage client and some software

If Beeper Cloud uses a Mac in the middle then I would have assumed that is actually permitted, as its presumably a legitimate iMessage client and some software to forward your messages after that. It seems similar to the parallel of iOS builds where its been possible to do so with virtualized MacOS on non-Mac hardware for a long time but its a violation of the TOS of MacOS to do so. Apple does spend effort ensuring that companies running cloud builds do so on Mac hardware; they don't care that the true end user is running Windows and achieving an iOS build as long as there was Mac hardware doing the actual building. So this reply is along the lines of "we did something for 3 years that allow and they never stopped us" which isn't very strong evidence they won't stop you now that you're doing something they don't allow. They may not do anything here thanks to the current EU climate though, I only mean that the fact they did nothing about Beeper Cloud is not evidence one way or the other.

ronsor 3y ago
Apple or Meta (WhatsApp) trying to take down something like this would almost certainly be viewed unfavorably by the ever-lurking EU regulators.
- freedomben 3y ago
  That's the only reason I'm not confident that Apple will kill this. They wouldn't want the regulatory attention and (at least for now) this is a niche area that few people know about.
  - xgl5k 3y ago
    Easier to kill something when it is a small niche area that few people know about rather than wait until it gets bigger and more people use it.
    - xinayder 3y ago
      Except that Matrix never profited from it. Beeper is the first company to provide a paid service for it and had their own servers. But now they are providing a paid (with a free tier) service that runs on Apple/Meta/Signal infrastructure. This is asking to draw unwanted attention towards yourself.
- smashah 3y ago
  Please read this: https://gist.github.com/smashah/667d4d5cf31670ee87547450861a603b https://gist.github.com/smashah/667d4d5cf31670ee87547450861a... The game being played here is poker. If they call beeper's bluff then they risk setting a whole industry wide precedent that interop supercedes ToS (that's the only angle). As it stands, ToS based C&D for interop is untested afaik. We as a community need to discuss ToS-trolling and fight against it.
  - xinayder 3y ago
    This doesn't hold up. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966 https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37 https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37 unless the EU rushes out their legislation that interop is not grounds for terminating someone's account, I'm sorry, but they can do whatever they want to with their app. Would you feel happy if someone used your home network to seed torrents? Using your bandwidth to seed them?
    - smashah 3y ago
      Terminating accounts is fair game. Billion dollar companies making legal threats to OSS devs is another. I can kick said person off my network. It shouldn't be grounds for me to go and start legal proceedings against the developers of uTorrent.

ronsor 3y ago

Apple or Meta (WhatsApp) trying to take down something like this would almost certainly be viewed unfavorably by the ever-lurking EU regulators.

freedomben 3y ago
That's the only reason I'm not confident that Apple will kill this. They wouldn't want the regulatory attention and (at least for now) this is a niche area that few people know about.
- xgl5k 3y ago
  Easier to kill something when it is a small niche area that few people know about rather than wait until it gets bigger and more people use it.
  - xinayder 3y ago
    Except that Matrix never profited from it. Beeper is the first company to provide a paid service for it and had their own servers. But now they are providing a paid (with a free tier) service that runs on Apple/Meta/Signal infrastructure. This is asking to draw unwanted attention towards yourself.
smashah 3y ago
Please read this: https://gist.github.com/smashah/667d4d5cf31670ee87547450861a603b https://gist.github.com/smashah/667d4d5cf31670ee87547450861a... The game being played here is poker. If they call beeper's bluff then they risk setting a whole industry wide precedent that interop supercedes ToS (that's the only angle). As it stands, ToS based C&D for interop is untested afaik. We as a community need to discuss ToS-trolling and fight against it.
- xinayder 3y ago
  This doesn't hold up. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966 https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37 https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37 unless the EU rushes out their legislation that interop is not grounds for terminating someone's account, I'm sorry, but they can do whatever they want to with their app. Would you feel happy if someone used your home network to seed torrents? Using your bandwidth to seed them?
  - smashah 3y ago
    Terminating accounts is fair game. Billion dollar companies making legal threats to OSS devs is another. I can kick said person off my network. It shouldn't be grounds for me to go and start legal proceedings against the developers of uTorrent.