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The comments in here are weird. HN is normally an advocate for open protocols (like Mastodon, XMPP) and has been highly critical of services closing their integ

The comments in here are weird. HN is normally an advocate for open protocols (like Mastodon, XMPP) and has been highly critical of services closing their integrations with 3rd party clients (like Reddit and Twitter). Yet the moment it’s an Apple protocol, suddenly none of the above matters. I remember the late 90s / early 00s when we had MSN, AOL IM, ICQ and others. People got so fed up with different people using different services that a whole slew of 3rd party clients were available that supported everything. Like Pidgin, libpurple, Bitlbee (an IRC server that supported IM protocols), and Trinity (or something named like that). Now we are stuck with vendor lockouts and crappy 1st party apps that are usually little more than a web container. It’s weird how open source has taken over the world and yet our messaging protocols have gotten more proprietary than ever.

chewmieser 3y ago
There’s a ton of open protocols that could have been the messaging standard. But beeper took a always-closed protocol and tried to open it. I’m not in support of Apple here but it’s pretty obvious which way this would go.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  Beeper doesn’t have any control over the protocol Apple implement. They do have control over whether they reverse engineer that protocol.
  - chewmieser 3y ago
    Beeper could have come up with a new messaging app for iOS. They didn’t have to reverse-engineer iMessage.
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      > Beeper could have come up with a new messaging app for iOS. But the point of Beeper was to bring iOS compatibility to non-Apple devices. There’s a literal XKCD comic about creating new standards. > They didn’t have to reverse-engineer iMessage. Sure. But that’s not a reason not to do something. The literal same remark can be used against Apple too: “Apple didn’t need to break support for Beeper” “Apple didn’t need to make iMessage proprietary” Etc For what it’s worth, I’m not against Apple per se. In fact I’m typing this on an iPhone. I’m just commenting about how locked in messaging has become and how it’s weird that people are ok with that (or more precisely, only ok with it when it’s an Apple protocol).
      - chewmieser 3y ago
        I’m just not sure what your point is? That beeper should just be allowed to do this, just because they wanted to? I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m an Apple user and I don’t really use iMessage deep enough to have issues talking to Android users. I’ve just seen Beeper being incredibly entitled about another company’s service that they’re not paying for throughout this whole process. As a previous startup founder and a developer (which is HN’s primary user-base), I just think it was obvious which way this was going to go. And saying that making a service closed is equitable to reverse-engineering said service is a weird take. Should every non-public service be allowed to be attacked like this?
        hnlmorg 3y ago
        Honestly, I’m not sure I have a point. I was just commenting on what I’ve observed as a double standard on here. If I were to comment on the Beeper thing specifically, I think they were wrong to make it a commercial project (something they’ve now rectified). But I think Apple are wrong to break Beeper too (though I get why they did). I think there is enough blame to go round to all parties involved.
        chewmieser 3y ago
        Ok, that's fair. But what should Apple do in response? If they did not break it the first time, Beeper would be making $2-3/month off of their services. It would have also shown that Apple's platform isn't as secure as they position themselves to be if someone other than them can utilize their services without their permission. There was no winning move here for Apple except to close access off to secure their closed protocol. It was just inevitable at that point.
        hnlmorg 3y ago
        Is it really a security problem though? Something can be secure and support 3rd party clients. More likely this is just a walled garden problem. Because if it was just a security problem then Apple would have released a 1st party iMessage app for Android before now. This doesn't answer your question though. I guess what I'd have liked to have seen is Apple release a public iMessage API. I know that would never happen, but one can dream. The approach Apple took was certainly predictable. I have no sympathy for Beeper either.
endisneigh 3y ago
Your comment is the one that’s weird. HN is not a hive mind, and hacker news itself is a proprietary site that doesn’t implement any open standards or protocols. Even if we accept your faulty premise, the solution would be to encourage the open protocol, not build on top of closed ones…
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  https://github.com/HackerNews/API https://github.com/HackerNews/API
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Which open standard is implemented? Not XMPP, not Mastodon or Matrix. And unless something changed, you can’t even make posts using that API, again to the point. iMessage does have an API as well, it’s just not publicly available. Hence the current debacle
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      > Which open standard is implemented? I never said anything about the protocol needing to be a standard. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man > iMessage does have an API as well, it’s just not publicly available. That’s a hell of a “just” ;)
      - endisneigh 3y ago
        > The comments in here are weird. HN is normally an advocate for open protocols (like Mastodon, XMPP) > It’s weird how open source has taken over the world and yet our messaging protocols have gotten more proprietary than ever.
        hnlmorg 3y ago
        …and not one mention of the term “standard”. Something can be open and not a standard. Like the HN API.
turquoisevar 3y ago
It might seem weird to you, because most of what you’re talking about are false equivalencies. > The comments in here are weird. HN is normally an advocate for open protocols (like Mastodon, XMPP) and has been highly critical of services closing their integrations with 3rd party clients (like Reddit and Twitter). You’re comparing companies who had open and public APIs and then closed them, with one that was never open to begin with. Apple didn’t suddenly tell hundreds of third party developers to pound sand, they made a thing for themselves and never pretended it to be something different. > Yet the moment it’s an Apple protocol, suddenly none of the above matters. Again, that’s not because it’s suddenly about Apple. It is because it’s an entirely different premise. Generally HN and others with similar expertise will applaud hacking and tweaking things for the sake of hacking and tweaking things. If you’d want to do a deeper analysis on it, I’d say it’s primarily applauding the skills that are at display. This, however, was a bit different. For starters Beeper tried to monetize it, it being someone else’s services and resources. While many are put off by monetization, no manner the skills involved on the basic premise that it loses its “rebellious” and “counterculture” edge, even more are put off by recurring monetization schemes. Add to that the fact that it is recurring monetization of empty air (or Apple’s resources if you will) and you lose even more people. Then there’s a subset that simply is of the mindset that they can recognize accomplishments but don’t condone subsequent usage of said accomplishments in the manner Beeper tried to do as opposed to individuals doing it themselves in a grassroots way. There are also many that fall within a spectrum of all of the above. I don’t speak for all of these people, I’m merely attempting to describe the mindset of some people here on HN and the subsequent lack of incongruity you seem to think exists here. > I remember the late 90s / early 00s when we had MSN, AOL IM, ICQ and others. People got so fed up with different people using different services that a whole slew of 3rd party clients were available that supported everything. Like Pidgin, libpurple, Bitlbee (an IRC server that supported IM protocols), and Trinity (or something named like that). I can be wrong here, but I don’t recall any of those efforts trying to charge people $2/mo for using their creation. That alone makes this situation not analogous. Another would be that the ones I recognize from your list were licensed under FOSS licenses, as opposed to being the pet project of a SaaS startup. > Now we are stuck with vendor lockouts and crappy 1st party apps that are usually little more than a web container. iMessage clients on iOS and macOS aren’t web containers and are more and more becoming fully native SwiftUI projects so I fail to see the relevance of that remark. As for vendor lockouts, you say that as if it’s a dirty thing. Personally I take more issue with something that was open and then squeezed shut after everyone’s inside, less so with things that were closed off from the get go and people still adopted it despite that fact, provided later down the line, after significant growth, there wasn’t an abuse of power. > It’s weird how open source has taken over the world and yet our messaging protocols have gotten more proprietary than ever. What’s weirder, to me anyways, is that you talk about open source as if it’s a staple value for you, yet here you are carrying water for commercial SaaS startup. Comparing their efforts to the likes of those who created Pidgin and libpurple.
pvg 3y ago
You can write this comment without the weird HN meta the guidelines ask you to skip and it would be a much better comment.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  My comment is about what I believe to be a double standard in what was a popular comment in this thread. It's not a meta argument because it's directly responding to the comments being made that are Beeper are in the wrong / Apple are in the right and it would be hard for me to make that point without, well, referencing those comments :) In my view it has been a very one sided discussion and I wanted to shine a light on that fact. It definitely isn't a sneer at the wider community (I mean why would I? as a prolific commenter myself, I'd be tarring myself with that same brush!) So I do not believe I'm breaking any of the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). I do want to shine a light on one of the guidelines though: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." I appreciate your comment is well intentioned but it's not taking my post in good faith.
  - pvg 3y ago
    It might be about that but that kind of about is off topic on HN as you can see in the guidelines and numerous moderator comments. It strictly turns reasonable comments into bad comments which end up getting moderated. If you want to respond to a comment, respond to the comment. If you want to write about some broad sentiment, just write about it without attributing it to the forum or thread as a whole, it avoids all the tangential umbrage and counterumbrage.
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      > It might be about that but that kind of about is off topic on HN as you can see in the guidelines and numerous moderator comments. I don't see any moderator comments. Though isn't Daniel (dang) the only mod left since Scott departed? > If you want to write about some broad sentiment, just write about it without attributing it to the forum or thread as a whole, it avoids all the tangential umbrage and counterumbrage. I do appreciate your point of view, I honestly do. But it feels the only issue you take from my comment was that it had two letters in it: "HN". I could write my comment in a way that infers the subjects without saying "HN" but it wouldn't change anything about the tone nor content of the post. So I don't agree with your interpretation of the guidelines on this occasion because Hacker News isn't like Voldemort -- it's ok to say "HN" in a comment on HN. You just can't be derogatory about the HN community, which I wasn't. And the high quality of the discourse that followed should demonstrate that. Anyway I don't wish this to become a tangent. Perhaps it's better to agree to disagree. Your point is valuable generally speaking though. That much I do completely agree with you on.

chewmieser 3y ago

There’s a ton of open protocols that could have been the messaging standard. But beeper took a always-closed protocol and tried to open it. I’m not in support of Apple here but it’s pretty obvious which way this would go.

hnlmorg 3y ago
Beeper doesn’t have any control over the protocol Apple implement. They do have control over whether they reverse engineer that protocol.
- chewmieser 3y ago
  Beeper could have come up with a new messaging app for iOS. They didn’t have to reverse-engineer iMessage.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    > Beeper could have come up with a new messaging app for iOS. But the point of Beeper was to bring iOS compatibility to non-Apple devices. There’s a literal XKCD comic about creating new standards. > They didn’t have to reverse-engineer iMessage. Sure. But that’s not a reason not to do something. The literal same remark can be used against Apple too: “Apple didn’t need to break support for Beeper” “Apple didn’t need to make iMessage proprietary” Etc For what it’s worth, I’m not against Apple per se. In fact I’m typing this on an iPhone. I’m just commenting about how locked in messaging has become and how it’s weird that people are ok with that (or more precisely, only ok with it when it’s an Apple protocol).
    - chewmieser 3y ago
      I’m just not sure what your point is? That beeper should just be allowed to do this, just because they wanted to? I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m an Apple user and I don’t really use iMessage deep enough to have issues talking to Android users. I’ve just seen Beeper being incredibly entitled about another company’s service that they’re not paying for throughout this whole process. As a previous startup founder and a developer (which is HN’s primary user-base), I just think it was obvious which way this was going to go. And saying that making a service closed is equitable to reverse-engineering said service is a weird take. Should every non-public service be allowed to be attacked like this?
      - hnlmorg 3y ago
        Honestly, I’m not sure I have a point. I was just commenting on what I’ve observed as a double standard on here. If I were to comment on the Beeper thing specifically, I think they were wrong to make it a commercial project (something they’ve now rectified). But I think Apple are wrong to break Beeper too (though I get why they did). I think there is enough blame to go round to all parties involved.
        chewmieser 3y ago
        Ok, that's fair. But what should Apple do in response? If they did not break it the first time, Beeper would be making $2-3/month off of their services. It would have also shown that Apple's platform isn't as secure as they position themselves to be if someone other than them can utilize their services without their permission. There was no winning move here for Apple except to close access off to secure their closed protocol. It was just inevitable at that point.
        hnlmorg 3y ago
        Is it really a security problem though? Something can be secure and support 3rd party clients. More likely this is just a walled garden problem. Because if it was just a security problem then Apple would have released a 1st party iMessage app for Android before now. This doesn't answer your question though. I guess what I'd have liked to have seen is Apple release a public iMessage API. I know that would never happen, but one can dream. The approach Apple took was certainly predictable. I have no sympathy for Beeper either.

endisneigh 3y ago

Your comment is the one that’s weird. HN is not a hive mind, and hacker news itself is a proprietary site that doesn’t implement any open standards or protocols. Even if we accept your faulty premise, the solution would be to encourage the open protocol, not build on top of closed ones…

hnlmorg 3y ago
https://github.com/HackerNews/API https://github.com/HackerNews/API
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Which open standard is implemented? Not XMPP, not Mastodon or Matrix. And unless something changed, you can’t even make posts using that API, again to the point. iMessage does have an API as well, it’s just not publicly available. Hence the current debacle
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    > Which open standard is implemented? I never said anything about the protocol needing to be a standard. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man > iMessage does have an API as well, it’s just not publicly available. That’s a hell of a “just” ;)
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      > The comments in here are weird. HN is normally an advocate for open protocols (like Mastodon, XMPP) > It’s weird how open source has taken over the world and yet our messaging protocols have gotten more proprietary than ever.
      - hnlmorg 3y ago
        …and not one mention of the term “standard”. Something can be open and not a standard. Like the HN API.

turquoisevar 3y ago

It might seem weird to you, because most of what you’re talking about are false equivalencies. > The comments in here are weird. HN is normally an advocate for open protocols (like Mastodon, XMPP) and has been highly critical of services closing their integrations with 3rd party clients (like Reddit and Twitter). You’re comparing companies who had open and public APIs and then closed them, with one that was never open to begin with. Apple didn’t suddenly tell hundreds of third party developers to pound sand, they made a thing for themselves and never pretended it to be something different. > Yet the moment it’s an Apple protocol, suddenly none of the above matters. Again, that’s not because it’s suddenly about Apple. It is because it’s an entirely different premise. Generally HN and others with similar expertise will applaud hacking and tweaking things for the sake of hacking and tweaking things. If you’d want to do a deeper analysis on it, I’d say it’s primarily applauding the skills that are at display. This, however, was a bit different. For starters Beeper tried to monetize it, it being someone else’s services and resources. While many are put off by monetization, no manner the skills involved on the basic premise that it loses its “rebellious” and “counterculture” edge, even more are put off by recurring monetization schemes. Add to that the fact that it is recurring monetization of empty air (or Apple’s resources if you will) and you lose even more people. Then there’s a subset that simply is of the mindset that they can recognize accomplishments but don’t condone subsequent usage of said accomplishments in the manner Beeper tried to do as opposed to individuals doing it themselves in a grassroots way. There are also many that fall within a spectrum of all of the above. I don’t speak for all of these people, I’m merely attempting to describe the mindset of some people here on HN and the subsequent lack of incongruity you seem to think exists here. > I remember the late 90s / early 00s when we had MSN, AOL IM, ICQ and others. People got so fed up with different people using different services that a whole slew of 3rd party clients were available that supported everything. Like Pidgin, libpurple, Bitlbee (an IRC server that supported IM protocols), and Trinity (or something named like that). I can be wrong here, but I don’t recall any of those efforts trying to charge people $2/mo for using their creation. That alone makes this situation not analogous. Another would be that the ones I recognize from your list were licensed under FOSS licenses, as opposed to being the pet project of a SaaS startup. > Now we are stuck with vendor lockouts and crappy 1st party apps that are usually little more than a web container. iMessage clients on iOS and macOS aren’t web containers and are more and more becoming fully native SwiftUI projects so I fail to see the relevance of that remark. As for vendor lockouts, you say that as if it’s a dirty thing. Personally I take more issue with something that was open and then squeezed shut after everyone’s inside, less so with things that were closed off from the get go and people still adopted it despite that fact, provided later down the line, after significant growth, there wasn’t an abuse of power. > It’s weird how open source has taken over the world and yet our messaging protocols have gotten more proprietary than ever. What’s weirder, to me anyways, is that you talk about open source as if it’s a staple value for you, yet here you are carrying water for commercial SaaS startup. Comparing their efforts to the likes of those who created Pidgin and libpurple.

pvg 3y ago

You can write this comment without the weird HN meta the guidelines ask you to skip and it would be a much better comment.

hnlmorg 3y ago
My comment is about what I believe to be a double standard in what was a popular comment in this thread. It's not a meta argument because it's directly responding to the comments being made that are Beeper are in the wrong / Apple are in the right and it would be hard for me to make that point without, well, referencing those comments :) In my view it has been a very one sided discussion and I wanted to shine a light on that fact. It definitely isn't a sneer at the wider community (I mean why would I? as a prolific commenter myself, I'd be tarring myself with that same brush!) So I do not believe I'm breaking any of the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). I do want to shine a light on one of the guidelines though: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." I appreciate your comment is well intentioned but it's not taking my post in good faith.
- pvg 3y ago
  It might be about that but that kind of about is off topic on HN as you can see in the guidelines and numerous moderator comments. It strictly turns reasonable comments into bad comments which end up getting moderated. If you want to respond to a comment, respond to the comment. If you want to write about some broad sentiment, just write about it without attributing it to the forum or thread as a whole, it avoids all the tangential umbrage and counterumbrage.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    > It might be about that but that kind of about is off topic on HN as you can see in the guidelines and numerous moderator comments. I don't see any moderator comments. Though isn't Daniel (dang) the only mod left since Scott departed? > If you want to write about some broad sentiment, just write about it without attributing it to the forum or thread as a whole, it avoids all the tangential umbrage and counterumbrage. I do appreciate your point of view, I honestly do. But it feels the only issue you take from my comment was that it had two letters in it: "HN". I could write my comment in a way that infers the subjects without saying "HN" but it wouldn't change anything about the tone nor content of the post. So I don't agree with your interpretation of the guidelines on this occasion because Hacker News isn't like Voldemort -- it's ok to say "HN" in a comment on HN. You just can't be derogatory about the HN community, which I wasn't. And the high quality of the discourse that followed should demonstrate that. Anyway I don't wish this to become a tangent. Perhaps it's better to agree to disagree. Your point is valuable generally speaking though. That much I do completely agree with you on.