Non Compete Clauses Reduce Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/06/non-compete-clauses.html <comment><USER2> I completely agree, and yet I feel thinking this way misses the point: non- competes are blatantly disrespectful of human rights, and so on some level, the effects on innovation shouldn't matter.

If you take voluntary contracts to the extreme, it would include the ability to sell one's self into servitude, which is something that used to happen, in addition to the more violent and coercive forms of slavery that are more often remembered. Today we would consider the notion of owning someone, even with their permission, to be morally repugnant, and so we have defined limits on how much of yourself you can sell, both in the present and the future.

I understand that it is a problem to invest in people and have them leave. But them's the breaks: you don't get to have your cake and eat it too when you want to harvest the ruthless efficiency of a capitalist market. Maybe those employees _should_ have that much negotiating leverage, or maybe the greater economy is better off if they poach a few coworkers and start a new company. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen; someone else will be happy to take your place, and give your workers a good enough deal such that they have no interest in leaving.

<comment><USER3> "I understand that it is a problem to invest in people and have them leave. But them's the breaks"

In reality it is easy to keep the people that you have invested in. Pay them significantly above market rate and treat them well.

If an employee who has been with you for 3+ years isn't worth 5x market rates to you then you haven't invested in them and trained them properly. If they are worth 5x market rates to you then pay them 2x market rates and most will stay.

<comment><USER4> I like what you're saying, and wish companies thought like that, but most lots of companies look at devs like fruit to be squeezed until dry, then discarded. This is particularly true in game dev. Granted, the devs are partly to blame for going along with this terrible plan, allowing themselves to be pushed to work 80 hour weeks, all-nighters, etc. A smart employer would actively prevent their employees from working like that, because you're right when you say that a dev can be worth a great deal more if they stick around a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Non-competes that remain in effect beyond the term of employment are useless in 90% of current use cases, and only create legal headaches for both employer and employee. They are often ambiguous and may vary in terms of your ability to enforce them from state to state (or country to country). They also have a tendency to be drawn up merely to satisfy the insecurities of paranoid executives.

Don't waste your time with long term non-competes unless you're doing something so cutting edge that it is the commercial equivalent of performing work for national security. To put it plainly, if you're that concerned about a person who USED TO work with you competing against you, then you're not exactly very confident in the core capabilities and innovation potential of your company.

Intellectual property is one thing, but non-competes beyond the tenure of one's employment are too often a complete waste of time, money and effort to create and enforce.

<comment><USER6> The linked-to NYT article has a story about a hairdresser whose previous employer went to court and succeeded in banning them from working for any "nearby town" for a year -- even though this is unreasonable by any sane standard.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete- clause...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses- increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of- jobs.html?hpw&rref=business&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0)

Insert "cutting edge" joke here, but at the end of the day, if you've signed a non-compete, there is at the very least an element of risk in willfully ignoring it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This blog post makes a pretty good public policy case against engineers and product designers being subjected to noncompetes, but I don't think the logic ports over very well to salespeople --- who, correct me if I'm mistaken, are the most important targets of noncompete enforcement.

<comment><USER8> Yes - that and any client-based operation where an employee can leave and take their clients with them. The Dentistry field is notorious for this; my wife is barred from working in an entire half of the city for several years after the end of her contract.

<comment><USER7> Even in these cases there's a balance of interests that probably needs to be evaluated. A dentist might be responsible for generating substantially all of the value in their customer relationships, and there might be no good public policy case to support noncompetes for them. On the other hand, an insurance brokerage might as a firm be generating 95% of the value in their customer relationships.

<comment><USER9> At first glance, I agree with you. But then, customers are quite good on knowing what they get value from, and submiting their choice to the direction of the company they currently contract is a sure way to get suboptimal results.

If they get 95% of the value from the company, they simply won't change business that easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently signed a contract with a sort of non-compete clause in it, so i'm quite interested in how enforceable they are under English law.

Some lawyers reckon [0]:

"When considering restrictions the general rule is that they are void as they are in illegal restraint of trade and therefore against public policy. However, the courts recognise that some legitimate interests can be protected by reasonable clauses. [...] Although the types of business interests capable of protection are not fixed the usual ones that are protected are customer connection and goodwill, trade secrets and confidential information and the maintenance of a stable workforce (no poaching). Preventing competition is not really a legitimate interest on its own but a non-compete clause may be upheld if it may be the employer's only means of protecting the business."

So, under English law, it's quite likely that there would have been no Fairchild Semiconductor. I believe the crucial test would have been whether the Traitorous Eight were basing their new business on _trade secrets_ they had learned at the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, or on _know-how_ they had acquired there. The distinction between those is probably a topic for another day.

[0] [http://www.steenandco.co.uk/thomas-v-farr-plc---important- co...](http://www.steenandco.co.uk/thomas-v-farr-plc---important-court-case- on-non-compete-clauses-_60/)

<comment><USER11> It sounds like Shockley would have had a decent chance of winning in the UK. In that case, he would have tied things up in court for years to drain resources. Even if he didn't win, Fairchild (and the rest of us) would lose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe I'm ignorant or maybe I'm skeptical but I'd always assumed that was their sole purpose: to protect current employer's interests by legally forbidding novel approaches to solving problems within their current purview.

<comment><USER13> I think the most common use case of a non-compete is to prevent employees who have developed strong customer relationships during their time at a firm from leaving that firm and bringing those customers with them.

<comment><USER14> That's what non-solicitation is for, yes?

Sometimes employers even know that they aren't enforceable but are still doing them "because our lawyers say so." Which is a standard negotiating tactic, but there you go.

<comment><USER13> I'm certainly not an expert on this, but I think what hnal943 said is the general motivation behind these types of agreements. The one "non-compete" agreement that I've signed in my career covered both non-competition and non- solicitation all in one, and I was using the term to cover all of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Discussion of the NYT article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7866634)

</comment><comment><USER16> non-competes are like antibiotics. You want to be the only one that uses them.

<comment><USER17> until you understand Nash equilibrium.

Protection of moonlighting and non-recognition of non-competes is that makes CA leaving other "Silicon Valley wannabes" in the dust. Creative free people who flock to whoever pays better and/or offers more interesting job vs. enslaved ones who wouldn't be able to get a new job if kicked off from the current one - your choice.

<comment><USER18> There are a fair number of intelligent people (and me) who think that Silicon Valley is a joke.

<comment><USER19> It has its problems, but I'm laughing all the way to the bank.

<comment><USER18> Well, we all have our priorities. Congrats on achieving yours!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In my state (Idaho) they are legally unenforceable....but still exist in many employment contracts. So, you can add the non-compete to a contract, and sew for infringement, but there is no way for the corporation to win the suit.

I've only seen the threat of lawsuit hit once. An employee left to work for a company he was contracted to work with (it was a year prior, but with a different department of a large corporation). The consulting company threatened lawsuit against the former employee. At that point, a number of employees threatened to quit, the story went viral in town, and that company had enormous trouble hiring for several years after that.

TLDR: unless you are a company that people are dieing to work for, non- competes will only work against you.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is some discussion about the validity of non-compete agreements in Washington state at the moment. I'm completely on the side of eliminating non- compete agreements, but as with everything there are always scenarios where it's not so clear.

Case in point: when Kai Fu Lee left Microsoft for Google, Microsoft sued Google and Lee to enforce their non-compete. It took a bit to sort things out, some injunctions and whatnot, and they eventually settled out of court. By hiring Lee, Google was able to establish presence in China. When Microsoft originally hired Lee, he moved to China and established their (MSFT) research division in Beijing. Presumably, Microsoft had to invest resources to learn how to do business in that part of the world and for Lee to learn what was necessary to succeed.

Did Microsoft have a claim to say that what Lee learned in China during his employment with them was a competitive advantage? Certainly, but Lee _also_ could lay claim to those skills as well (after all, it was he who had to learn them.) He had a reasonable expectation to be able to move to another company, but Microsoft likely should have a reasonable expectation to protect their investment in learning how to procure and develop that market as well.

In some scenarios, I can appreciate arguments from both sides.

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai- Fu_Lee#Move_from_Microsoft...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai- Fu_Lee#Move_from_Microsoft_to_Google)

<comment><USER22> _...Microsoft likely should have a reasonable expectation to protect their investment in learning how to procure and develop that market as well._

Shouldn't it be enough that they got a head start with their research division, and that the research division would still be there after its founder left the company?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Any artificial limit on intellectual property will reduce innovation, and we can only hope that targeted government efforts to regulate/legislate (eg patents) have a net-positive effect on the environment, for very specific reasons (eg allowing small competitors time to develop their network before letting market-breaking 'big business' forces use the technology).

</comment><comment><USER24> That's such a genius statement...</comment>


Atlas: a visual IDE for desktop-like web apps - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2009/03/atlas-a-visual-ide-for-desktop-like-web-apps.ars

<comment><USER2> This could be a killer app for business applications.

Having the development environment hooked up to the visual mockup designer is a key element for quickly bringing apps that the business likes and IT approves of.

If they can get this right, there is a lot of money here. Especially considering the amount of lazy IT shops out there.

<comment><USER3> Atlas must appear pretty killer to people who haven't seen Flex Builder.

<comment><USER2> Flex is very nice, but Flex uses a flash plugin as it's runtime. A flex application is compiled binary sent to the browser - doesn't sound very dynamic or open web to me.

Cappucino uses good old XHTML and javascript. If you look at browser advancements in Javascript just in the past few months alone, 2 years from now technologies like flash may only be useful for very niche circumstances.

<comment><USER3> _Cappucino uses good old XHTML and javascript._

Does it really? When I view source on <http://280slides.com/Editor/> I don't see much HTML. Does Atlas generate HTML or something else? In what ways does Cappucino participate in the open Web?

<comment><USER4> Yes, it does really use HTML and JavaScript. Cappuccino "participates" in the open web as much as any other application written on top of open web technologies.

<comment><USER5> Isn't objective-J translated to javascript by a sort of compiler? in that case you can't easily re-use pieces of code and use them in your javascript application.

<comment><USER6> Obj-J is run by, yes, a JavaScript file! It can be reused anywhere that ObjectiveJ.js will run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every web app that I've ever created in my five years as a web developer has been ugly as hell, because neither I nor my employers could or would ever pay a good designer to make it pretty. I've spent literally years creating ugly things.

This could change that. I likey. I likey a lot.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why does so many people want to create desktop-like web apps? It's not a desktop, it's the web. It never worked and it always looked bad and unusable.

<comment><USER3> Laziness. We know what desktop apps are supposed to look like, but designing good Web apps is still more of an art.

<comment><USER9> reusing learned behavior is good for usability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As the world shifts from desktop software to web-based software, tools like this are going to be huge.

Atlas is going to enable nearly every single cocoa developer to start making webapps instantly. No learning Rails or self-teaching JavaScript.

Apple should have done this already. 280north has a huge headstart.

<comment><USER11> What does Apple have to gain in having Cocoa developers developing web-apps instead of desktop apps? (serious question)

If anything, I feel like it would actually be a bad thing: a web-app that looks like a (Mac) desktop app doesn't sell more Macs since it would run the same on any OS.

<comment><USER10> Why do they make iTunes for Windows?

<comment><USER11> For iTunes, they do it because it makes them money by selling iPods and music. A better question to me would be "Why do they make Safari for Windows?". I'm not sure... is it to show different Apple software to Windows users and lure them into buying Macs? That sounds doubtful to me but I might be wrong.

But my question was a serious question: what do you think Apple has to gain from getting the Cocoa/Obj-C developers to write web-apps in Obj-J?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not impressed. Building RSS reader without writing a single line of code? This is not important at all. We all know anything else will take lots and lots of code to write.

Also what's up with emulating desktop GUI on web? That's just dumb. When users see desktop GUI, they expect it to behave like desktop GUI as well. If their drag-and-drop and context menus fail, they think application is broken. Why would any sane developer want to confuse its users like this.

No matter how good this IDE is... it's still for desktop-like web apps, failed branch of web-development, so it's already FAIL and waste of time of these talented programmers.

<comment><USER13> Who says that drag and drop, or context menus, need to fail? And why would any sane user, who's spent the last 15 years getting used to the way desktop software works, want to switch to a completely different, entirely text based user interface?

Any existing user of Office will feel far more comfortable in 280 Slides than in Google's presentation app. Desktop-class applications are not always the right answer, but to say they are _never_ the right answer seems pretty silly.</comment></comment>


New analysis shows a way to self-propel subatomic particles - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2015-01-analysis-self-propel-subatomic-particles.html <comment><USER2> Propel 2 neutrons; precipitate fusion without additional energy?</comment>


Someone's Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Security Hole in the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/bgp-hijacking-belarus-iceland/ <comment><USER2> Are there any tools that automatically alert you when your traffic gets routed in a way like this where one or more of the hops simply don't make any sense at all?</comment>


On the Importance of Design and Brand Identity - <AUTHOR> http://expatentrepreneur.tv/2010/10/07/on-the-importance-of-design-and-brand-identity/ <comment><USER2> interesting. So, is a ugly (but unique, and closely matched to the brand) logo better or worse than a pretty (but not so closely matched to the brand) logo?

ugly: <http://prgmr.com/xen> pretty: <http://prgmr.com/~lsc/penguin-logo.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> ugly is in the eye of the beholder :-) A logo well suited to the brand is better than something not well suited to the brand. I would argue, however, that a great designer could come up with a unique and closely matched logo, and you wouldn't have to settle for one or the other.

<comment><USER2> ah. the 'pretty' logo was what a friend came up with who is trained as a designer. Now, I have no taste, so if 'tasteful' was my goal, I'd pretty much just do what he said, but besides that, he seems to think a logo that looks like other logos is a good thing, while I think a generic looking logo, while you are smaller than everyone else, works against your brand building efforts. My theory is that something that is unique (and thus ugly... isn't that what ugly means? honestly, I wouldn't know) would be much better suited to building a strong brand organically.</comment></comment></comment>


Stonebraker Explains Oracle's Obsolescence, Facebook's Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/03/30/michael-stonebraker-describes-oracles-obsolescence-facebooks-enormous-challenge/ <comment><USER2> _Look at Facebook, it is one giant social graph, with the problem of how to find the average distance from anyone to anyone. You can simulate a graph as an edge matrix, and a connectivity matrix in an array-based system, and you model graphs in a table system, or you build a special-purpose engine to implement the graph directly. All three are being prototyped and commercialized, and the jury is out whether there is room for a new graph engine or if one of the other technologies would be good enough._

This.

So I'm dealing with this problem. There is _nothing_ out there.

Neo4J doesn't really do in-graph processing[1]. BlazeFB/OrientDB/RDF Stores all are similar to Neo4J

Pregel/GraphX/Giraph are graph processing engines, but lack property stores.

I want a single system that does both. I want to run PageRank (etc) and query- by-property on the same system.

Titan was promising, but they stopped working on it when they were bought.

I'm surprised no one is fixing this.

[1] [http://neo4j.com/blog/categorical-pagerank-using- neo4j-apach...](http://neo4j.com/blog/categorical-pagerank-using-neo4j-apache- spark/) note this bit: "I can scale each Apache Spark node to perform parallel PageRank jobs on independent and isolated processes all consuming a _Hadoop HDFS file system where the Neo4j subgraphs are exported to_." (ie, Spark runs against HDFS, not Neo4j)

<comment><USER3> Shameless self promotion: My company is working on an open source distributed hypergraph database that tackles this problem, called PatternSpace. Written in C++14, uses Paxos, Cap'n Proto, lots of mechanical sympathy, and is queryable/traversable via subgraph isomorphism among other methods.

<comment><USER4> Could you provide some pointers to your work? I googled a bit and searched on github and could not find anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't the fact that Facebook still manages to make MySQL work an indication that unless you doing something special, current SQL server will support most users for a very long time?

Sure Facebook might have preferred a better solution, but most of us aren't Facebook, and the solutions that would work for Facebook might not be ideal for small companies.

<comment><USER6> I think that it's more an indication that running SQL is a business requirement, not a technical one. To run your business, you need to be able to query your data in a number of ways. SQL offers the most flexibility and is essentially compatible with every reporting tool out there. Your awesome NoSQL database isn't as awesome if every software package you need to run your business requires a custom integration layer.

In other words, just because our data sets are exponentially larger doesn't mean we still don't need to be able to perform complex joins or other relational operations. The data sets are more complex, but the queries we're running on them are even more complex. While some other data stores may be optimal for niche use cases, SQL offers the best mix of speed and flexibility while still meeting the business requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The linked profile on MarkLogic is quite good. [1]

I remember them from _ages_ ago as basically an XML focused database. I'd see them at trade shows with a small booth. They had interesting technology but had very engineer-y marketing and not a lot of customers. My company had been on the lookout for such a technology and IIR our engineering team checked them out for a bit, but they weren't a great match for our product and we ended up using dtSearch instead. [2]

In the last year or two, I've started hearing MarkLogic show up again all over the place and wondered what was going on. Turns out they got new leadership (Gary Bloom) and have been making a big push to grow. It's funny how that happens, I wonder how many other serviceable companies with decent tech are hiding out just waiting for the right CEO to come along and push them into the spotlight (I'd also add that 'XML' is no longer one of their marketing keywords).

1 - [http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/02/13/oracles-...](http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/02/13/oracles- challenge-in-bloom-marklogic-redefines-the-database/)

2 - [http://www.dtsearch.com/](http://www.dtsearch.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Only four years ago, it was a 'fate worse than death' rather than a mere challenge:

[https://gigaom.com/2011/07/07/facebook-trapped-in-mysql- fate...](https://gigaom.com/2011/07/07/facebook-trapped-in-mysql-fate-worse- than-death/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree about Oracle's lack of a strategy that incorporates Hadoop is definitely going to hurt them. With the addition of Spark the Hadoop platform is looking like being the first choice for analysing data sets whether small or big. And whilst I am sure SQL has and will continue to be a major part of that it won't be the only approach. There will be R, PMML, Python, Scala and a whole lot more.

That aside Facebook having a buy versus build decision to make seems pretty strange. What would they even buy given that Cassandra and HBase which they created are two of the most scalable databases right now. Strange observation.

<comment><USER10> Oracle partners with Cloudera for their hadoop servers: [https://www.oracle.com/engineered-systems/big-data- appliance...](https://www.oracle.com/engineered-systems/big-data- appliance/index.html)

Hadoop is not what the article is talking about though, nor is Cassandra. The issue is not about whether it scales out or not, it's about whether it is memory-based or disk-based. If queries have to pass through a block API at any point, they can never perform as well as a database where all queries run out of main memory, like Hana or VoltDB. On block-based systems you can't run some categories of analytical queries interactively, they always end up being too slow.

He's saying oracle has a problem because they don't have a good in-memory story ready. Right now they're aiming at this problem from two directions: Oracle NoSQL (a distributed KV store comparable to Riak), and Oracle 12c In- Memory (in-memory engine bolted onto the oracle db). Neither are particularly convincing to me, and definitely not a match for Hana or VoltDB.

<comment><USER11> I think your comment explains the problem clearly and should be at the top. To add more bluntness, Oracle's problem is that their typical enterprise customers who may be interested in, or require, in-memory databases have no practical option but to abandon Oracle. And if they move away from Oracle for analytics, what's stopping them from considering moving away for transactional work as the next step?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> According to the article, there are three strategies - Traditional Row based DBMS, Column based ones (Vertica, VoltDB) and MapReduce/Hadoop.

My current employer is making the switch from Row based to Hadoop - which I feel is because of hype & not justified technically, given the size of our cluster. The goal is to reduce speed of data delivery to clients, but I believe a column-based DBMS with an optimized ETL, would be the way to go.

Wonder how it'll look like in 5 years & if others companies' IT are buying into hype too.

<comment><USER13> I assume you mean "enhance speed of data delivery to clients". Otherwise you are trying to make the system slower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is meant by _array-based_ system that he is referring to ? Can someone point me to some other basic literature that explains array-based database systems?

Context from the interview: _Sooner or later, the business intelligence world will move to the data science world, using things like regression analysis, Bayesian analysis — these are lots of big words, but all of these techniques, if you look at them, it's an array-based, not a table-based calculation._

<comment><USER15> You stream the arrays (column vectors) to the OLAP engine or data processor rather than constructing a big join.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No SQL => Not Only SQL => Not Yet SQL

</comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone tell me what is fundamentally different between array and table processing ie. For data science?

<comment><USER18> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_algebra](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_algebra)

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure how this answers the question. Personally, I'm reasonably conversant with the ideas of relational algebra, and quite good with relational databases.

But the article at the link you suggest doesn't even contain the word "array", so I'm still no closer to understanding how this concept differs from traditional tables.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Stonebraker and his predictions - legendary!</comment>


New York attorney general is investigating fake net neutrality comments - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16686644/eric-schneiderman-fcc-net-neutrality-spam-investigation-evidence <comment><USER2> Original title: _New York attorney general says the FCC won't help investigate fake net neutrality comments_

Techmeme summary: _Adi Robertson / The Verge: NY AG says the FCC has ignored multiple requests for logs and records amid NY's investigation of the flood of fake net neutrality comments to the federal agency_</comment>


Fertilizer plant explodes near Waco, Texas, causing numerous injuries - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fertilizer-plant-explodes-near-waco-texas-causing-numerous-injuries/2013/04/17/df34de68-a7cd-11e2-9e1c-bb0fb0c2edd9_story.html?hpid=z1

<comment><USER2> Google doc of homes and rooms available for victims of West, TX explosion: [https://docs.google.com/a/willroman.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=...](https://docs.google.com/a/willroman.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgDf4PSmZPRXdExMTmpGZ3dMYUZTWnJTeEZMRUs5U0E&buffer_share=69764#gid=0)

\---

OFFICIAL HOTLINE: 254-202-1100 is the official resource phone number at Hillcrest Scott & White in Waco. Please keep this line free unless you have loved ones in West, TX.

BLOOD DONORS TOMORROW: Hillcrest Scott & White in need of blood donors, but is asking that people wait until 9am Thursday due to currently being overwhelmed. Also the Carter Blood Care Center in Waco will be open & accepting blood donations starting at 9am Thursday as well.

\---

Here is a list of locations open for shelter for the victims of the West explosion:

Texas State Technical State College in Waco Blair's Cove Apartment in Waco Gholson ISD Gholson Baptist Church Latham Springs Inn Aquilla ISD Alliance Auto Auction on I-35 Sykora Family Ford in West Abbot Community Center La Vega Veterinary Clinic - taking in small animals for the night

Pharmacy at the HEB on Woodway is open and the Home Depot in Bellmead has reopened tonight for anyone needing to buy supplies.

</comment><comment><USER3> Apparently, the plant exploded while firefighters were trying to stop a fire?

EDIT: "Fire officials fear that the number of casualties could rise as high as 60 to 70 dead, said Dr. George Smith, the emergency management system director of the city." <http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/texas-explosion/index.html>

Also, I really don't like sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but it's the 20th anniversary of the Waco siege. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the radio report that I heard said that the firefighters responded to the initial fire and then after they had arrived, the tank holding the fertilizer exploded so there is a very good chance than some of the first responders are among those injured or dead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is tragic, but with most major news outlets carrying the story on their front pages, I'm not sure this is right venue for this post.</comment>


Assembly programming for Perl programmers [video] - <AUTHOR> https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/assembly_and_perl/ <comment><USER2> It's a nice intro to assembly but there's no link to perl. The talk could be titled assembly for ruby programmers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. It was useful for me as I did a lot of Z80 a long time ago, and then some x86, but no amd64.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's failed attempt on Debian packaging - <AUTHOR> https://www.preining.info/blog/2018/06/microsofts-failed-attempt-on-debian-packaging/ <comment><USER2>
      rm /bin/sh
      ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh

Oh shit. Please do not do this in your install scripts. Making permanent changes to core system utilities from an unrelated package seems like a level beyond the usual mistakes people make in third-party packages.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not like they didn't know about it...

[https://github.com/Microsoft/microsoft-r- open/issues/20](https://github.com/Microsoft/microsoft-r-open/issues/20)

</comment><comment><USER4> Given how bad Microsoft is at Windows packaging (the next version of Visual Studio that can be unpinstalled cleanly will be the first) I'm not too surprised.</comment>


People's happiness at work usually dips mid career - <AUTHOR> http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/07/peoples-happiness-at-work-usually-dips.html

<comment><USER2> These articles drive me nuts. Every year they say the same thing. 20 year olds feel this, 30 something experience that.

What they don't explain is that there are fundamental shifts happening with regards to work, age, education, income, etc.

Those changing statistics are everywhere. People are having children later, people are having more jobs throughout their lifetime. Tenured jobs are being eliminated.

So for me, the now is so very different from what it was that I was moving towards. Most all my jobs have been contract based / project based / entrepreneurial and start up based. My peers who have excelled have done so in the civil service and in the creative industries, but not in more traditional areas such as finance, business, law and medicine. Why? Because there is a boat load of dead wood up ahead of them. What used to be tiny steps professionally for people in their twenties are coming to people later and later in life.

Work is changing. Work expectations are changing.

But here's the thing, it's always been changing. It changed during the Wars, when millions of people died. It changed in the post-war period. And it's been changing ever since.

Work is bad in your 30s for the reasons that this article outlines, but for many it's worse now than it has been for several generations. But it's clearly better than it was 100 years ago.

All I ask is that culturally we have those expectations in line with what it actually happening. For many people, highly trained, highly skilled, and highly educated, it's a tougher row than it has been for a while. Sure there are winners, but the bread and butter, working and middle class jobs have been crushed.

And I believe it's going to get harder and harder. For this I hope that our kids don't have to read this articles about how things are for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Because for one thing, it's going to be so very different.

I know people who say to their kids that they've got it easy. I'm telling the kids that I know that they've got it hard. We are over the high point in terms of employment and per capita income. And if we don't make some radical adjustments to our economic distribution policies, it's going to get worse.

Besides, isn't 40 the new 30. (Or was that 50?)

ps. I'm currently looking for better work opportunities myself and I'm in my 40s.

<comment><USER3> > I know people who say to their kids that they've got it easy. I'm telling > the kids that I know that they've got it hard.

You might be right, but that advice may not be helpful or actionable. It might be better to say their world is different, but there are all kinds of opportunities in it. In almost any situation in life (work, marriage, prison, anything) it's almost NEVER the right influence/move to remove or reduce _hope_.

<comment><USER2> Your point is well taken. I think the important thing is to readjust expectations to a more likely/reasonable outcome. Aiming for the stars is great, but crashing to the ground, which is the likely outcome, isn't. Instead, aiming for the moon and hitting it is pretty awesome considering.

I hope I don't remove or reduce hope, but instead adjust their sights better - with actionable advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think "in their remaining tenure" is a key phrase here. For me, 36 now, even owning my own profitable company and making neat software for a living can suffer downward pressure, because I'm starting to deal with feelings that I should be _much_ further along by now - money wise, job wise, stability wise.

It's very mental - I should be the happiest kid on the block, but this is when you start to look back at time wasted, and wonder if your incredibly lofty goals will ever come to fruition.

Everyone thinks they're meant for greatness - so few reach it, and right around now is when we start admitting to ourselves that we may not be all that extraordinary.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get past all of these mental roadblocks before my 50s!

<comment><USER5> I'm 21 now trying to plan out my life and this is one of the major things for me. What do I want to do in life that is important to me and can I accomplish this within the timeframe I have. I don't have a second chance so I don't want to spend time doing something that I'll lose interest in, or end up being stagnant in some job that I can barely stand. I'd rather do all that worrying now then when it could mean finishing something on time. At least now I can plan accordingly (do this before I'm x years old) to how much time I've wasted, instead of wasting time and not accomplishing a part of it before I need to.

Also trying to figure out how "great" I am, or what I am "great" at. So I'm not disappointed at myself . I've already gone through that once on several levels when I went from being an old teenager to a young adult. One time is enough, and I bet it's so much worse when you're at the point where you can't accomplish the goal because you're not good enough (or even just questioning if its feasible, that has to drop you farther than where you should be and end up doing worse because of it.)

Or I may be just wasting time now and I should just jump in. I don't know, maybe I'll figure that out. I don't need much in life, just to feel like I've done the best that I can at whatever I end up choosing. Not even in an idealistic way really, I want to give back what people have given to me (knowledge, ideas, materialistic things if any) so at most I don't leave the world knowing that I did less than nothing. If I leave doing more than I have taken then I can be happy in the fact that I've made the world a little bit better. Not a lot but it wasn't a waste being alive.

Maybe I should just get a job.

<comment><USER6> Reading material:

1) You and Your Research, by Richard Hamming

[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

\---

"There's another trait on the side which I want to talk about; that trait is ambiguity. It took me a while to discover its importance. Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance. But most great scientists are well aware of why their theories are true and they are also well aware of some slight misfits which don't quite fit and they don't forget it. "

\---

2) By definition, what "you" are uniquely good at cannot be represented by logic, mathematics or reason. Otherwise, "you" could be duplicated, cloned, automated. The unique properties of you exist at the boundary of possibility, in the space historically occupied by philosophy/magic/religion, now supplemented by scientific research and metaphysics. A good starting point is understanding the history of the number zero. See also Heinz von Foerster on the subject of ethics and free will, [http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html](http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html)

\---

"Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide.

Why?

Simply because the decidable questions are already decided by the choice of the framework in which they are asked, and by the choice of rules of how to connect what we call "the question" with what we may take for an "answer." In some cases it may go fast, in others it may take a long, long time, but ultimately we will arrive, after a sequence of compelling logical steps, at an irrefutable answer: a definite Yes, or a definite No.

But we are under no compulsion, not even under that of logic, when we decide upon in principle undecidable questions. There is no external necessity that forces us to answer such questions one way or another. We are free! The complement to necessity is not chance, it is choice! We can choose who we wish to become when we have decided on in principle undecidable questions.

This is the good news, American journalists would say. Now comes the bad news.

With this freedom of choice we are now responsible for whatever we choose! For some this freedom of choice is a gift from heaven. For others such responsibility is an unbearable burden: How can one escape it? How can one avoid it? How can one pass it on to somebody else?"

\---

3) Tactical Office Politics

[http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-...](http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-myth-just-world-part-1)

[http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-...](http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-myth-just-world-part-2)

\---

"This guidance probably should have been Chapter 1 of our Politics 101 series. It's foundational. It's a HUGE problem for many professionals, particularly young – and dare we say it, naïve – professionals. So many young people say, "I don't 'play politics.'" The more savvy folks around them think, that's good, because this isn't a 'game' you can 'play.' "

\---

4) The biographical stories in Plutarch's Lives of "Noble Grecians and Romans" were preserved for several centuries by people who believed those lives were memorable, back when books were non-trivial to produce. These lessons cross platforms, time and space.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch%27s_Lives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch%27s_Lives)

ePub/Kindle: [http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/lives/](http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/lives/)

<comment><USER5> I've only read the first link so far, I've had a bit to do today but I appreciate all these links. Already learned a ton so far and this is almost exactly the sort of material I was looking for. Just wanted to say thanks before this falls into obscurity and/or you forget about it so you know your time was not wasted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was a survey of 771 Australians, almost all men, working in construction[1]. Also "coworker support" is a big factor[2], the authors concluded.

It's entirely unclear to me whether the results have any applicability to the types of technology jobs that the largely (I speculate) Silicon Valley HN audience holds.

For one, software engineering isn't exactly hard physical labor, where getting a promotion to foreman in your 40s may mean a lot less hauling concrete. Second, women are present in greater numbers in white-collar jobs than in construction. Third, relationships with your coworkers are likely going to be different in an office environment. Fourth, there may be cultural differences between Australian construction workers and the rest of the world, even U.S. construction workers. Fifth, there's likely not the same (alleged, at least) age discrimination in construction, where you gain more skills over time and aren't expected to know the latest inane web JSRubyPythonGolangMartiniNodeDjangoErlangLuaRailsExpressConnectHaskellRestMVCController framework du jour.

So in other words the NYMag.com article this HN thread links to could have been written exactly the opposite way -- by concluding that the study's results have no proven applicability except to, well, Australian male construction workers.

[1] [http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/07/peoples- happ...](http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/07/peoples-happiness-at- work-usually-dips.html) [2] [http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&id=...](http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&id=23043BB8-C419-8E86-D71E-E34F2AAFC6D1&resultID=1&page=1&dbTab=pa&search=true)

</comment><comment><USER8> Live in the moment. Save. If work isn't fulfilling, move on to the next thing. That said, keep on top of the skills you deem important for your next thing or future direction.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is the median age of HN aging with the site?

<comment><USER10> That's an interesting question. If it is, where are all the kids? Thinking about that reminded me of 'Losing My Edge' by LCD Soundsystem... [http://rock.rapgenius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge- lyr...](http://rock.rapgenius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyrics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 31\. Howdy.

In your early 20s, you're like a girl in college. It's very easy to get "activity" (for college girls, sex; for young nerds, jobs with minor but impressive perks) but it's really hard to find respect. (I stopped being indignant about gender disparities in dating when I realized that, in terms of getting _respect_ , it was equally hard for men and women.)

Your late 20s is when you learn that most employers-- and especially the "prestigious" ones-- never much respected you. You may have been right that you had the right idea or were the smartest one in the room (whilst ignored). It didn't matter. You didn't have a chance. That enlightenment can be a bit painful.

This "mid-career blues" period seems to be the stretch in which a person has learned a few things about what people really are when there's enough at stake, but before having enough life experience (or, for the apolitical or fortunate who are able to focus on the work more than the politics, domain mastery) to avoid the obvious pitfalls, deal with obnoxious personalities, and still play the game to a win. The 27-40 period seems to be when people learn their hardest lessons-- first firing or layoff, first non-paying client, first lawsuit, first truly unethical employer. (My friend started consulting and is dealing with his first non-paying client.)

The problem, in the US, is that we're practically not allowed to talk about what is really going on. The fact that I've been open with some rather vanilla details of my Google experience has made me into some sort of +3-sigma outlier "bad-mouther". We live in this culture where we're supposed to pretend that these negative experiences just don't happen. Everyone pretends to be "crushing it" and getting $150,000 signing bonuses and all that bullshit. The result is that the painful experiences of that mid-career spell become isolating, because people are shamed into silence. And that's a fucking crime.

</comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone done sentiment analysis on HN comments by day of the week? Seen a lot of "work's a bummer" articles on Thursdays.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think tech "work place suck" can also come from experience. Things are no longer shiny, unexplored, or hacky. Just old hat stuff that needs to get done and not that interesting. And sometimes you just get tired of the FOTM languages that come out. It's a rat race that causes burnout.

</comment><comment><USER14> 30s is 'mid-life'? and 'mid-career'? If you plan to retire at 50 and die at 70, maybe...

<comment><USER15> I don't plan to retire at 50, but dying at 70 is somewhat realistic. 30's is definitely not mid-career though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The situation about having young children and being in a time crunch couldn't be more right.

There's nothing like walking out the door to "Daddy, I miss you!".

The you feel bad for laying the long day on your spouse so you can "crush it".

</comment><comment><USER17> Url changed from [http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/07/work-is-the-worst- when-...](http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/07/work-is-the-worst-when-youre- in-your-30s.html), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER18> This scares me so much. I'm 28 and I'm upset that I haven't done anything notable yet. I just haven't found my magnum opus yet, and I don't know how to.

<comment><USER19> _" Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life… The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't."_

<comment><USER20> I rather be rich than interesting, to be honest...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is happening to me and I have no children. I just think I'm not surrounded by the right people and I'm not also in the right environment.

</comment><comment><USER22> You start to value time more than anything.

</comment><comment><USER23> You define your own life.</comment>


(1.0+2.0)+((3.0+(4.0-5.0))/(6.0-((7.0/8.0)-9.0))) - <AUTHOR> http://zachaysan.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> Here is a script in Python that exhaustively calculates all values, then spits out the formulas for the 1900-2100 range: <http://pastie.org/777044>

The code is about 30 lines and runs in under seven seconds on my machine.

It works by splitting the list of numbers into all possible sets of two sublists, recursively calculating the possible values of expressions for each sublist, then merging the expression values together using each possible operator.

I think this approach runs faster than the Java/Lisp solutions because it can collapse equal-valued subtrees together, which helps particularly when you have a subtree that consists only of additions, multiplications, or divisions.

(Edit: It also caches the value set of each subtree, which probably helps even more.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Brilliant. Just brilliant.

<comment><USER2> Thanks!

On further experimentation, the approach is maybe too aggressive in trading memory for speed... It runs out of memory on my 32-bit machine if you try to run it for the range 1-10 instead of 1-9.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very non-descriptive title, though it results in a number fairly close to Pi. It's based on this:

      The challenge: calculate all numbers between 1900 and 2100 with
      exactly one operator between the sequential numbers 123456789
      with as many brackets as desired.

There are links to two other methods of solving the problem, both of which are significantly more "intelligent" methods, but it's an interesting starting point for all three.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to chime in and point out that the Java approach had by far the best performance (about 7 seconds), for all you Java haters out there ;)

<comment><USER3> Compared to the Ruby one, of course. Semantic tree > string mangling.

I'm not a Java hater (I just think it's a horrible language to start in), but I'll make the counter-point that the Java approach is _significantly_ larger and less readable than either of the others. There's likely a significantly simpler implementation somewhere deep in Java's frameworks, but ouch.

<comment><USER4> I think the main culprit hurting the readability is the inner classes. Which is bad form, in my opinion, unless someone is being very lazy.</comment></comment></comment>


Parallelism is not Concurrency - <AUTHOR> https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/parallelism-is-not-concurrency/ <comment><USER2> Another explanation by Rob Pike which I think is much simpler: [https://blog.golang.org/concurrency-is-not- parallelism](https://blog.golang.org/concurrency-is-not-parallelism)</comment>


Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-countersues-fortnite-maker-epic-games-seeking-to-halt-in-app-payments-11599592017 <comment><USER2> This is a very bad look on Apple. Regardless of the enforceability of their agreements, the sense of entitlement that underlies Apple's position is shocking.

The claim that Epic has "lined [its] pockets at Apple's expense" implies that Apple deserves to sit in the middle of every transaction that happens on their devices and take a margin. This is the world's most valuable company we're talking about here; assertions like this demonstrate an unbelievable lack of self-awareness.

Let's also not forget that Apple already extracts huge amounts of money from developers even if they don't make a cent on transaction margins.

It's not possible to develop for iOS without a Mac, and therefore even the smallest developer making free apps has paid Apple for at least: one computer, one of each device class they develop for, and the cost of their developer account subscription. Large companies like Epic buy thousands of computers and test devices from Apple. The idea that anything is happening "at Apple's expense" is preposterous.

Maybe next Toyota will decide that they deserve a percentage of Uber's revenue because Toyota's cars help facilitate Uber's business?

<comment><USER3> > Maybe next Toyota will decide that they deserve a percentage of Uber's > revenue because Toyota's cars help facilitate Uber's business?

There are many car manufacturers that Uber could choose from in just the same way that there are many platforms that developers can develop for.

Stop trying to spread the idea that the ability to make apps for the iPhone is an inalienable right.

<comment><USER4> There aren't many platforms there are exactly two. And the costs of switching between them are significant enough that this argument holds less water by the day.

<comment><USER5> > there are exactly two

If we are talking about platforms and not codebases there are waaay more than two.

iOS (App store)

Android (Google Play)

FireOS (Amazon App Store)

LineageOS (Fdroid)

One UI (Galaxy Store)

To name a few. These all have distinct and thriving marketplaces for apps with decent market share (some can overlap). The code base they use is irrelevant for this context.

<comment><USER6> How many of those are installed on more than 1% of mobile devices (however broadly construed)? I think the answer is two. Amazon has like 10% of the tablet market share, but the tablet market is like 1/20th the size of the phone market.

Just to demonstrate that this is the variable that matters, consider the case where there are exactly three devices that have each of the other marketplaces installed on them, respectively. Would they present a meaningful competitive alternative to the big two?

<comment><USER5> > How many of those are installed on more than 1% of mobile devices

4/5 in the examples I gave.

Google, Apple, Samsung and Amazon all have decent market share.

<comment><USER7> Samsung's market is installed on a substantial percentage of phones but almost no one on any of those devices uses anything besides the regular Google Play store. So while you technically answered his question in the larger conversation Samsung's app store isn't a competitive alternative.

I couldn't find robust stats on Amazon's market share overall but I did find that they sold 5.3% of all tablets in Q3 2019. So if its true that the phone market is 20 times larger than that it would mean its unlikely that The Amazon App store is installed on 1% of all mobile devices.

<comment><USER8> So users do use playstore in the presence of the other store. Doesn't that contradict the argument that they are poor non-tech walled-gardened who cannot choose? This entire farce is about developers who want to control platforms they do not own, on devices they do not own, with users who do not even want to deal with them under rules other than playstore ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really wish there was a third party - the customer - actually represented in this trial. Apple and Epic arguing over what is best for the customer, while clearly they are having their own interests in mind, screams for the actual customers to be represented.

The whole argument about them promoting an app "for free" is a bit ridiculous. They clearly knew the amount of commission they were going to earn from pushing that app through their App Store - so please admit that you clearly didn't do this out of the good of your hearts.

The same goes for the portrayal of "look how much money they made through us" - yes - and look at how much money they made you along the way. I mean if Epic made 600 million, than you made about 260 million - from the very same people that paid you for the hardware.

I think if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don't you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly. Let's see how valuable everybody thinks the App Store is when they actually have to pay an access fee directly to Apple.

<comment><USER10> The real problem here is that companies are forced to accept apples terms. Because apple controls every level of the stack, to opt out of the App store ToS you have to opt out of the store, the OS, and the hardware.

If there was a way to install apps outside of the store this would not be an issue. Most users and developers would still use the app store since it provides value but devs who feel that they can supply their own marketing and payment processing can do it themselves.

<comment><USER11> > devs who feel that they can supply their own marketing and payment > processing can do it themselves.

The issue I have with that is that then a ton of companies think it's a good idea to ship a crappy "launcher" that needs to run on startup, taking up resources in the background while providing little to no added functionality. We can see that with PC games; it used to be just Steam, but now there's the Epic Games Launcher, Origin, GoG, and a bunch of more obscure launchers that need to be installed to play particular games.

<comment><USER12> And this is a good thing, competition between this stores is good for the users, some users got free games, some developers got better deals.

The "needs to launch on startup" is FALSE , you can have this launchers set no to start at all and you launch the game and the launcher will start if needed (not all Steam games need Steam in background).

FYI GOG launcher is optional, you can just download the game from the website with a browser and then install it as in old times.

Competition is good and except the Epic drama I did not see anyone complaining the GOG, HumbleBundle, itch.io or downloading from Patreon is a bad thing for PC. I expect though if Apple blocks all launchers on the new OSX for ARM then an army of people will say that downloading a small game directly from Patron is too complicated and insecure for the average Apple user mind.

<comment><USER13> It's not a good thing that I need 6 stores installed to play the games I've bought, each with their own updater pulling several gigabytes a week off the net just to keep the store app up-to-date.

I'd be interested to see whether any jurisdiction would hand down a consumer mandate for unbundling the DRM component from the storefront app; the former only updates occasionally.

<comment><USER12> Better to have the option of 5 stores that you can launch when and if you want then only have a Windows/Apple Store that will have more expensive games, will censor stuff based on "american values", will DRM shit so you can't say swap a .dll with something that works better(some old games that work bad on Win10 can be fixed by using a different directx.dll), you could not mod the games - basically you are telling PC people that a console is the best thing because it has 1 small advantage but it fucks you in 12 different ways(more expensive stuff and no freedom)

<comment><USER14> Simply put, none of the things you've said are better are actually better.

Launcher apps are garbage, but you just move right past that to one single game that can be downloaded directly out of hundreds that can't.

<comment><USER12> Fortnite is not the only game rejected by Apple. There are many small games that have versions for Windows,Mac,Linux and Android but not iOS.

You are ignoring that except the exclusives you can game most of your games on one store. I do not support exclusivity for one store either and I would prefer I always had the option to buy the products directly from the developer. Like my Intellij subscription I don't want that Microsoft or other big american company gets 30% of the money this hard working developers deserve because I am forced to use a middle man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apple writes in their court filing: "Epic sought to enjoy all of the benefits of Apple's iOS platform and related services while its 'hotfix' lined Epic's pockets at Apple's expense."

It seems that Apple has forgotten that each iPhone user already paid Apple hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars for the iPhone itself. It is reasonable to charge developers for development tools, but if that's what you want to do, just charge them for development tools. Meanwhile, I bought an iPhone so that I can run the software that I like. If it costs money to develop a platform, it doesn't seem that strange to just charge that upfront when someone buys an iPhone.

<comment><USER16> > It is reasonable to charge developers for development tools, but if that's > what you want to do, just charge them for development tools.

This isn't how the software development eco-system works. There are _tonnes_ of examples of providing free development tools with restrictions on use and revenue sharing agreements. For example, there's this little known company called Epic Games which provides the Unreal Engine for free- but with the following clause:

> This license is free to use and incurs 5% royalties when you monetize your > game or other interactive off-the-shelf product and your lifetime gross > revenues from that product exceed $1,000,000 USD.

And Epic doesn't even provide quality control, a discovery mechanism, or payment processing.

<comment><USER17> They seem not quite the same to me. A game built with Unreal Engine is essentially powered by it and would not exist otherwise. A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download. Apple's app store provides no utility to developers other than being the forced walled monopoly that all developers must list through.

The proper analogy to Epic charging for its game engine is Apple charging for its developer licenses - which it already does separately from the app store.

<comment><USER18> So if stores don't provide any utility over side loading, how come Epic gave up on relying on side loading on Android, which allows it, and ended up on the Play Store? It's literally that exact scenario.

<comment><USER19> Epic still allows Fortnite to be sideloaded.

More importantly, Google does not prohibit sideloading. It simply does not make it convenient to do it.

<comment><USER20> I suspect the OP is referring to the fact that Epic is also suing Google, because they consider the "inconveniences" that Google places on sideloading to be a form of unfair, illegal restriction. This strongly suggests that if Apple offered sideloading but still had the same fees and restrictions in the official App Store, Epic would _still_ be suing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "There is nothing anticompetitive about charging a commission for others to use one's service," Apple said in the filing.

What about forcing someone or some company to use a service (apple's payment systems)?

<comment><USER22> Such a weird argument too, as if there was a different service Epic could use to reach > 50% of the US mobile market.

<comment><USER23> iPhones market share is less than 20%.

<comment><USER24> 20% of what? That number doesn't mean anything without context. Also, references?

<comment><USER22> 20% of global market share. ~50% of units sold in the US. > 50% of the app market share.

For units sold: [https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone- sh...](https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-share/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for > the tremendous value it derives from the App Store.

Half true. EPIC doesn't really get any value from the App Store except data delivery, which they're more than willing to do themselves. Fortnite is popular enough that the app discovery part of the store is meaningless.

<comment><USER26> Apple on the other hand gets plenty of value from Epic.

For example, 10 years ago, when Epic made the Citadel demo for Apple to show their smartphones could run games. Ground breaking R&D work, gratis for Apple, & legitimizing their devices.

[https://www.theverge.com/21405805/epic- citadel-2010-annivers...](https://www.theverge.com/21405805/epic- citadel-2010-anniversary-games-apple-app-store-mobile-smartphone-gaming- platform)

We'll see how much more bad blood Apple can make with developers before people start noticing & caring about the software they can't get on their i-devices.

<comment><USER27> If Unity and Unreal Engine disappeared from iOS you'd probably lose at least 50% of the games on that platform, if not more. Likely almost all of the top revenue-generating titles. People use middleware like UE and Unity to compensate for how difficult it is to ship games on Apple's platforms (along with others) _instead_ of building for Apple's SDK. The citadel demo is the tip of the iceberg.

<comment><USER28> > to compensate for how difficult it is to ship games on Apple's platforms > (along with others) instead of building for Apple's SDK.

Apple's SDK doesn't contain a game engine.

<comment><USER29> Right, it actually contains two game engines:

2D => [https://developer.apple.com/spritekit/](https://developer.apple.com/spritekit/)

3D => [https://developer.apple.com/scenekit/](https://developer.apple.com/scenekit/)

Alongside lots of other game related goodies, [https://developer.apple.com/games/](https://developer.apple.com/games/)

<comment><USER26> Some seriously willful ignorance to pretend that a scriptable scenegraph is the same as a game engine. Netcode, entity systems, loading/streaming systems, matchmaking, achievements, level editors, material/shader editors, model editors, physics, particle systems, lighting, sounds, voice chat, plugin libraries/mods,... the game engine of today is a big thing, & well integrated.

Second, who would adopt a platform specific "game engine" like scenekit? Are you going to rebuild your whole game to port it, is that the plan here? Apple is categorically unable to compete with actual game engines exactly because they dig their own hole, invent their own proprietary closed technologies (metal, scenekit) up & down the stack. They aren't playing keep up with the real tools, a game of "me too": they can't begin to compete with the real deal even if they tried.

Surely you must be joking?

<comment><USER29> The same kind of people that adopt platform specific game engines like PhyreEngine, and sign console exclusives.

Apple engines are so bad that Cocos2D-x is basically a copy of their features, using C++ instead of Objective-C/Swift, one of the engines that Google and Microsoft give first class on their platform SDKs.

Not every game engine needs to be a bullet point list copy of Unreal capabilities.

And no I am not joking, contrary to many here, I had a past life in demoscene, been a former IGDA member, previous GDCE attendee (London and Cologne), have been inside a couple of known AAA publishers and have kept my contacts from them.

<comment><USER26> You're right. It seems like a weird way to build to me, but I can confess to that being a bias. Plenty of people do opt to build to platforms, & adopt narrower tech. Go everyone, whatever you use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The thing that really annoys me about this entire argument is that the principal of the thing isn't really controversial. Apple provides a tonne of services (SDKs, marketplace, payment processing) that other people also provide and also charge for. It's not that controversial - in fact, Epic's Unreal Engine has the exact same revenue share terms as Apple. The only thing that's really controversial here is that 30% is quite a high share, and Apple has to pull out all the stops to protect that 30% becuase of how high a share that is.

I think it's a very hard push to claim Apple is a monopoly. It's just a damn good platform that's able to claim a disporportionate share of the revenue because it's so damn good. The whole moralistic histrionics from Hey, Epic, and Apple are total rubbish though.

<comment><USER30> Sorry to flatly contradict you, but the size of Apple's cut is not at all controversial. It has never been a crime to be expensive.

The legal controversy is that Apple prohibit apps from advertising, linking to, or even mentioning that external account management/payment/service sign- up options are available.

This forces vendors to become complicit in misleading the consumer about their options, an anti-competitive position that distorts a market.

Some journalists may choose to focus on the 30% out of sheer crassness. Don't be misled by sub-par reporting.

<comment><USER16> Do you think that I can put "Cheaper on www.mysite.com" in my amazon description? Why would it be controversial to prohibit someone from advertising a competing service on your platform?

<comment><USER30> You're mistaking the platform for the product.

I bought an item through Amazon recently and it _did_ come with a bunch of materials inviting me to visit the manufacturer's website.

I bought an app through the App Store and it is _prohibited_ from inviting me to visit the vendor's website.

In contrast, I bought a MMORPG through the PlayStation store and the first thing it did was direct me to the maker's account sign-up.

<comment><USER16> It's only prohibited to invite you to visit the website whilst you're still on the Apple platform. If you bought a physical item via an in-app purchase that item could include advertising for the external site -the exact same as Amazon.

<comment><USER30> _I 'm_ not on the Apple platform. The product is _sold through_ the Apple platform.

Do you think Apple own the apps that are installed on your phone? Do you think they own your phone? Your ongoing relationship with a software developer? Do you think _you_ are the product here?

The answer for me: no, no, no, and no, respectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I look forward to Epic's next set of suits against Sony and Microsoft, who offer basically identical terms for inclusion on the app platforms for Playstation and Xbox, respectively.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I saw this counter argument before, and I wonder the same thing, but does intellectual consistency matter much in the court of law?

<comment><USER33> In this case it doesn't really, in general it does.

You aren't obligated to sue everyone breaking the law just because you sued one person that did, which seems to be the sum of the "but Xbox and playstation" argument. In that sense, literally not at all.

Intellectual consistency does matter in the sense that courts will... heavily frown upon... you arguing X in one case and not X in another. But that hasn't happened here.

<comment><USER34> I fully expect the court to ask the question though.

"Is there any difference between Apple and Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo?" is a logical sequitur to "what's your market?" and "who holds the power?".

Epic might say yes, they might say no. Either way, I'm interested to hear the reasoning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The perfect outcome according to me will be that you could be required to pay apple tax if you use app store to distribute the app, but the user should have a way to install any app outside the store and apple has to provide user a way to let them install it. This will have far reaching consequence for many devices like consoles, home assistants etc. I believe we are simply giving control of the devices we own for not much reason at all, only reason is that the manufactures want to earn after they sell the device.

<comment><USER28> > The perfect outcome according to me will be that you could be required to > pay apple tax if you use app store to distribute the app, but the user > should have a way to install any app outside the store and apple has to > provide user a way to let them install it.

Isn't that the current situation on Android, and Epic still sued them?

<comment><USER5> You can also sideload on iOS (without jailbreak), I do it all the time but for some reason no one is talking about that either.

<comment><USER35> But you can need to do it every 7 days and it requires connecting to PC, right?

<comment><USER5> Nah you can use AltStore (or others) and it will auto renew your certs. I've had an alternate YouTube app and an emulator sideloaded for months and haven't even thought twice about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's as if Apple is on a mission to destroy the credibility and respect they had.

<comment><USER37> I felt like every poor quality controlled release they've had on OSX for the last 10 years has been trying to do that.

I feel lost. Wanting to have a simple OS that lets me develop with unix tools but also "just works". The expense i pay for Apple products no longer follows this, for me.

<comment><USER38> I agree. Apple are pretty much the only company in the world with the money, engineering knowledge, and clout to do a privacy first _open_ ecosystem. On an Apple product you are free only to what Apple says is Kosher, why? Their customers will buy anything apple does, why not just go for it and be more open?

<comment><USER23> Because customers love the walled garden. An open version of iPhone would be a disaster for Apple and its developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> No company has pushed me more strongly towards the ideologies RMS (who I still think is a bit crazy) writes about than Apple.

At this point I'm convinced there needs to be a law against closed devices and closed software.

<comment><USER40> "I like my newfound ideology so much, I think it should be written into law"

<comment><USER39> His argument is that the law should prevent this kind of abuse. That's the ideology itself.

<comment><USER40> Is that what rms says? That his ideology should not be an option, but mandatory? Honest question.

<comment><USER41> [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more- impor...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more- important.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Couldn't have said it better myself: "Epic's lawsuit is nothing more than a basic disagreement over money," Apple said in its filing Tuesday. "Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store."

<comment><USER39> I said a few weeks ago this is _exactly_ the way apple would want the conversation to go. That apple is asking for 30% is uninteresting (even reasonable!) That they've sold the world a PC many people can't leave which they can control (to the point of deleting apps and data!) is what's absolutely insane about the situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Apple's aim with this is to make an example out of Epic, as if to say: "This is what happens when you don't toe the line, conform and everything will be fine".

That being said, this is scary and also shows how comfortable Apple feels in their position. I am hoping that someone as strong as Apple will come with a lawsuit and shake them up a bit so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER33> Brief: [https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.364265...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.364265/gov.uscourts.cand.364265.66.0_1.pdf)

<comment><USER44> > _Left unchecked, Epic's conduct threatens the very existence of the iOS > ecosystem and its tremendous value to consumers._

<comment><USER45> By that they mean if developers force Apple's hand to pull the apps that consumers want, those consumers might choose another device next time?

<comment><USER44> How would an Epic iOS app store make consumers not buy an iPhone?

<comment><USER45> Let's say Amazon joined in and started selling Kindle and Audible books without using Apple's 30% digital cut. Apple would have to pull the Amazon app, possibly the Kindle app. Actually, they'd have to do that if Amazon simply said, Apple won't let this be sold here on reasonable terms, buy from the website. Amazon would lose some, but Apple would also be crippling iOS. Then Spotify joins in, and Tinder, and Duolingo. All of a sudden, Apple's platform looks pretty lame.

<comment><USER44> So what you're saying is that Apple wants to set up an example to maintain the status quo?

<comment><USER45> I'm saying Apple is inadvertently admitting that they won't have an ecosystem if they remove the apps that create it. Allowing digital goods to be sold at market prices puts Apple's digital goods in a bad competitive position, but wouldn't kill iOS or iPhone sales. However, Apple removing the apps will.

<comment><USER44> "We can't allow Epic to behave like this, otherwise we'll be forced to remove apps from the AppStore and we really don't want to kill iOS with our own draconian policies"

:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> What's the actual theory of the case of how Apple are owed damages here?

Obviously they're losing revenue from Fortnite but that would have happened if Epic just decided they don't like the rules and took the app down themselves instead of breaking them. I can't imagine Apple would be entitled to damages then and I can't see how they've lost more money than that.

The other obvious thing is legal expenses, but you don't throw them in as damages during the case right? That'd be settled based on the result and depending on the jurisdiction.

I guess I can see them getting a few hours of someone's wage for re-reviewing Fortnite after the changes and taking it down?

I feel like I'm probably missing something, does anybody know the actual position Apple would argue for damages from here?

<comment><USER16> There is a material difference between costing Apple revenue by doing something they're allowed to do and costing Apple revenue by breaching their agreement. They cost Apple revenue by circumventing the in-app purchase system and Apple will naturally want the lost revenue. My guess is they'll produce figures saying "We made 30% of X revenue from in-app purchases over Y time frame, this dropped to 30% of Z revenue after Epic breached our terms, so they owe us 30% of X-Z + punitive damages because they did this deliberately".

<comment><USER47> But surely that position would only apply if Apple hadn't removed the game from the app store? If myself as an indie dev breaches the TOS and my app store account is suspended, surely Apple can't sue me for lost revenue because they opted to suspend my account? Imagine the precedent that would set: Apple could sue you for lost income if you break the store TOS causing your app to be removed.

I think Apple would have had much more of an argument for lost revenue if they had kept the game on the store. It would be directly quantifiable, they could say "look, the game made x million and we received $0, we should have received $y".

<comment><USER16> Oh, I see where you're coming from. No, the way that Epic have been suspended is such that they can't put out any more updates, but people who already have the game installed still have it, the game doesn't get deleted from your phone, so people are still using it and still buying stuff direct from Epic.

<comment><USER47> Ah yeah that makes sense. In that case, Apple does have a pretty strong case here, will be interesting to see the result

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> In my experience bullies cry the most when they get hit back. Apple throwing a temper tantrum when somebody fights back fits that pattern.

<comment><USER42> In my view Epic is the full grown capable adult wanting to live in his parents basement for free.

<comment><USER49> Except no, because Epic wants to move out entirely. They don't want to use Apple's house (read: payments & app store) at all.

But Apple has everyone chained up in the basement.

<comment><USER34> > Except no, because Epic wants to move out entirely. They don't want to use > Apple's house (read: payments & app store) at all.

Epic may want you to think that, but it's just not true.

My reasoning? They already tried it on Android, and it failed miserably. They moved out the house entirely, taking their listing off the Play Store and allowing side-loading via their website. I'm assuming they also handled payments themselves, too.

A year or so, they came crawling back to Google, presumably due to a massive drop in users.

It's pretty clear that side-loading is not a commercially effective means of distribution, and publishers _need_ the App/Play Stores to get to users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Well, it certainly seems clear from a facts point of view at least, that Epic was engineering the plan to test Apple.

They prepared a release that contained the ability to bypass the payment mechanism. Then they did that, and told Apple that was what they were doing. And then launched a big marketing campaign to rally support for it.

At least in facts, this wasn't a sudden action by Apple to crush an unsuspecting little player.

<comment><USER51> Epic's big mistake was assuming that enough consumers care. Certainly Fortnite is popular, but it's not popular with a large enough percentage of the entire iOS market to support that kind of action.

<comment><USER33> This was never going to be won through public opinion, Epic's pretty clear goal from the start was to win this in court.

I can't imagine how big a backlash there would have to be for Apple to give up on it's 30% cut voluntarily, and I don't imagine that Epic thought there was any chance of this happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> For people saying this is just the iPhone and I can always buy from a different OEM, it's not about my individual choice.

Say I am a mobile bank or some other kind of service that needs to reach all my customers on mobile.

There are significant populations across the world on iPhone, so to stay competitive as something like a challenger bank, ignoring iOS is simply not an option.

If the argument is that Apple provides payment processing, this is not a benefit as it's the only option, i.e. does not win on the merits.

As for game consoles, they're not essential. Smartphones are.

</comment><comment><USER53> Someone is asleep at the wheel here.

</comment><comment><USER54> Can we _please_ stop using paywalled sources?

Here's one that's not paywalled for me, if someone else has an issue with it I will try to find another decent source that's not paywalled.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/08/epic- ap...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/08/epic-apple- countersuit/)

Alternatively,

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/08/apple-seeks-damages-from- epi...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/08/apple-seeks-damages-from-epic-for- breach-of-contract.html)

<comment><USER55> WaPo is paywalled as well.

<comment><USER56> You can read wapo in incognito mode but not the wsj.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Does anybody else remember how well they used to get along?

Here's Epic demoing Fortnite at WWDC15: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChIuImrOsaY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChIuImrOsaY)

Ever since the Citadel and Zen Garden demos, I remember Epic getting a prime spot or mention at almost every WWDC, where they used their tech to showcase Apple's and vice versa, like the power of modern iPads and Metal.

What do you think must have gone down behind closed doors for their relations to have soured to this point?

Unless of course it's all a calculated stunt that ultimately benefits both companies.

</comment><comment><USER58> If apple is countersuing for lost revenue due to fortnites in app payment system, does this mean apple will need justify the value of their 30% cut, and in turn potentially have a judge declare its too much?

<comment><USER33> No?

I mean, Epic will be able to argue that it was illegal, they were able to argue that anyways. The exact value for the cut isn't really a legal issue though, _if the cut is legal in the first place_ then the existing contract will almost certainly hold and it will be 30%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> [https://archive.is/v93T1](https://archive.is/v93T1)

</comment><comment><USER60> Note: I am not a lawyer but I have been doing a deep dive into the legal background behind this case. Ultimately I believe the outcome of this case will depend on two questions:

1\. Can Epic establish that iOS app distribution is in fact a valid antitrust market that Apple has monopoly control over?

Epic argues that Apple is abusing its "monopoly" over the iOS app distribution market. However, in an antitrust case you cannot simply declare an arbitrarily narrow market where the defendant is the only participant and expect the court to accept it. iOS app distribution is an "aftermarket" of the smartphone market, and as a general rule, US courts do not permit antitrust markets to be based on a single brand's product unless specific exceptions are met.

 _> "In general, a manufacturer's own products do not themselves comprise a relevant product market..... [A] company does not violate the Sherman Act by virtue of the natural monopoly it holds over its own product." Apple Inc. v. Psystar Corp._

The circumstances in which the courts have allowed a single brand's product to be treated as a valid antitrust market have usually involved situations where the customer purchased a product _not knowing_ they would be locked into some aftermarket restriction, for example due to a change in contract or company policy. If, on the other hand, customers knew about the restriction ahead of time, could have purchased an alternative product without restrictions, and went ahead and purchased anyway, the market power deriving from that restriction is generally not considered a valid basis for an antitrust claim.

Of particular note is that courts routinely reject market definitions based on restrictions stipulated in EULAs that customers voluntarily agreed to when purchasing the original product. For example, in _Blizzard Entertainment Inc. v. Ceiling Fan Software LLC_ , the court rejected the defendant's claim that Blizzard held monopoly power in the "WoW add-on software" aftermarket, because WoW customers explicitly agreed to WoW's EULA stipulating they would only used Blizzard authorized WoW add-ons when they purchased the game. Similarly, in _Apple Inc. v. Psystar Corp._ , the court rejected Psystar's claim that Apple held monopoly power in the "hardware that runs Mac OS" aftermarket because customers _" knowingly agreed to the challenged restraint"_ when they purchaed Mac OS.

Interestingly enough, I double checked and surprisingly the iPhone EULA does not appear to have language restricting app installation to the "App Store and other authorized sources only". If it did, I believe Epic would have trouble getting past here. However, even in absence of an explicit contractual restriction, the court permits an analysis of _" whether a consumer's selection of a particular brand in the competitive market is the functional equivalent of a contractual commitment"_. This analysis is explained in _Newcal Industries, Inc. v. IKON Office Solution_ which describes four relevant aspects to consider:

a) The existence of two separate but related markets. Epic alleges these are "smartphone OSes" and "app distribution". It's not clear to me whether these two markets need to be economically distinct (more on the meaning of this below), but it could be problematic for Epic if they do.

b) The allegations of illegal monopolization relate only to the aftermarket. (This is a given.)

c) Whether the source of the company's market power is based on contractual provisions obtained in the initial market or based on the company's relationship with its customers. Epic argues that in the absence of a EULA there is no contractual relationship, while Apple will presumably argue that there is a quasi-contractual agreement in place because they made the app installation policy very clear at the launch of the App Store and it has never changed.

d) Whether market imperfections prevent customers from realizing their choice in the initial market will impact their freedom to shop in the aftermarket. In other words, did customers _" make a knowing choice to restrict their aftermarket options"_ when they decided to buy an iPhone instead of a different phone that allowed side-loading?

I think Epic is going to have a particularly tough time establishing (c) and (d). If the court concludes that customers purchased iPhones knowing that they would be restricted to installing apps from the App Store, then Apple's "monopoly" over iOS app distribution is based on the customer's knowing consent, and therefore will not be a valid basis for an antitrust claim.

We'll see what the court decides. But in any event, even if Epic succeeds in proving that Apple has a monopoly over iOS app distribution, the job is not done. They then need to prove that Apple used that monopoly to illegally restrain competition in another market, which brings us to question 2.

2\. Can Epic establish that iOS app payment processing is a separate and distinct product from iOS app distribution?

In order to prove Apple illegally tied app distribution and payment processing together, Epic will need to show that the two are actually economically distinct products.

 _> "[T]here must be a coherent economic basis for treating the tying and tied products as distinct. All but the simplest products can be broken down into two or more components that are "tied together" in the final sale. Unless it is to be illegal to sell cars with engines or cameras with lenses, this analysis must be guided by some limiting principle. For products to be treated as distinct, the tied product must, at a minimum, be one that some consumers might wish to purchase separately without also purchasing the tying product. When the tied product has no use other than in conjunction with the tying product, a seller of the tying product can acquire no additional market power by selling the two products together." Jefferson Parish Hospital Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde_

In _Jefferson Parish_ , the Supreme Court ruled anesthesiological services were _not_ economically distinct from hospital services because anesthesiological services were always sold in conjunction with other hospital services, and therefore tying the two together was not illegal. In _Rick-Mik Enterprises, Inc. v. Equilon Enterprises, LLC_ , credit card processing was considered an essential component of a gas station franchise and therefore was not economically distinct from the sale of the franchise itself. The legal test for whether two tied products are economically distinct has historically depended on whether consumer demand exists for the tied product separate from the tying product, but it's not clear whether that test is appropriate here.

For the case of paid apps, there clearly _aren 't_ economically distinct products. If Apple distributes a paid app on behalf of a developer and collects a fee in exchange, the fee is the cost of using Apple's distribution service. Distribution and payment happen simultaneously, they are not separate services, therefore there is no tie between them.

Now, what happens if Apple initially distributes the app without a fee and (later) takes a fee when an in-app purchase is made? Does the act of deferring the payment from the download create two economically distinct products when before there was only one? Apple argues that it does not, and similar to _Rick-Mik_ , in-app payment processing is simply a component of its app distribution service.

I don't know if this argument will hold up in court but it's certainly very interesting and probably venturing into uncharted territory as far as existing precedent is concerned. But if the court does decide that in-app payment processing services are not economically distinct from app distribution services, then Epic is going to have difficulties with their tying claim.

Overall these are very tough questions and as the judge said, it's not a slam dunk for either side. I tend to think Epic is fighting the uphill battle here, as existing US antitrust law seems like it favors the defendant in cases like this. If Epic does win, it's certainly going to open up a lot of similar questions for other companies that sell tightly controlled hardware and software. (Particularly on the console side, but also stuff like smart TVs and even cars.)

</comment><comment><USER61> Just remember, everything that applies here also applies to Xbox, PSN and Nintendo stores.

If Apple loses and is forced to allow Tim Sweeney Store on its platform, then Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo must allow the same on their consoles.

</comment><comment><USER62> Epic is a company that reserves the right to sell your data for marketing purposes, says so in their privacy policy.

Remember that on Android they first tried to workaround Google Play's limitations by distributing Fortnite outside the store. They caved later. So this isn't about having no ability to distribute Fortnite, rather it's about them wanting easy distribution without paying the tax that everyone else is paying.

I dislike Apple's walled garden approach very much, but on the other hand it's their app store and this is still capitalism. If you don't like it, as a consumer, buy another brand, and as a developer, avoid developing for Apple. Develop for Android, develop for the open web. Voting with your wallet still works, the problem being, of course, that Apple fans are happy with the current arrangement.

And seriously, I can't side with a company willing to sell people's data for marketing purposes. Sorry.

<comment><USER34> This is less about Fortnite and more about a mobile Epic Games Store. That being said, caving to Google and putting Fortnite back on the Play Store dramatically undermines their case, because it shows that how important the Play/App Stores are for distribution & eyeballs. Apple and Google can both claim they invested heavily in that ecosystem for the benefit of publishers and users alike.

I'm the first to criticize Apple for its attitude towards users and developers, but I'm struggling to see how it falls afoul of the law. It's their walled garden - don't like it? Don't play in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> play.fortnite.com cannot come soon enough. React and Flutter are doing 120fps right? At least 60fps I know.

</comment><comment><USER64> Are we gonna start arguing about Planet Fitness having their classes on Peloton bikes next?

</comment><comment><USER65> Why are people demonizing Apple over this? Sure, they have made questionable decisions in the past but Epic clearly went into this in bad faith and absolutely deserves a slap in the face with a countersuit.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think one big thing is that Fortnite is no longer available on iOS devices. I didn't think it was a big deal, how many people game on iOS?

But the little people in my life are missing the corporate synergy of Marvel and Fortnite for the new season. This makes just having iOS devices in your world less palatable and teaches a valuable lesson on walled gardens.

Saddly Fortnite is one of the rare games that is cross platform online playable. It took their weight to make that happen.

Wish Epic would work to make linux a more viable native gaming platform now (steam does a lot of work with Proton, but I think native might be better...).</comment>


The One Method to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ayasin/the-one-method-to-eliminate-bad-tech-hires-630d539b2e1d <comment><USER2> Am I the only one that reads a head line like this and thinks.... "Thats complete and utter BS" Titles like this are not helpful. Something like "One method we used at xyz to help eliminate bad tech hires" is much better. Also makes it sound less click baity

<comment><USER3> Good point, I changed the title. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fatal flaw here is that most people who are currently employed have specific policies prohibiting them from doing work-for-hire for 3rd parties without permission. Add in clauses that make everything they do the property of their employer, and this concept really hits the rocks.

<comment><USER5> Just curious, are these clauses really enforceable? Or even often enforced?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope this idea takes off. The compensation part is going to be the hardest part.

I don't think candidates will have a problem with it (I don't), but I don't know how many employers will go for it. I assume there's a pretty decent phone screen first?

In any event, I sent a signup request.</comment>


Why we shouldn't set our expectations too high for the Kickstarter funded Ouya. - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesonQuave/20130103/184266/Why_we_shouldnt_set_our_expectations_too_high_for_the_Ouya.php?utm_source=altnate&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><USER2> I disagree with both of your main points.

During Ouya's Kickstarter campaign many people were _very_ skeptical. Like "they're never going to ship anything" skeptical. After looking at the developer console, the Ouya team looks _more competent_ than I previously thought. Ouya may still fail, but it won't be an epic fail.

Unlike Android in general, Ouya has no fragmentation. It has one spec. Once your game is ported to Ouya, it runs on Ouya.</comment>


Real-Time Streaming ETL with SnappyData - <AUTHOR> https://www.snappydata.io/blog/real-time-streaming-etl-with-snappydata <comment><USER2> We could really use this capability set for modernizing heterogenous, legacy enterprise data systems into a consolidated, common data fabric. Great job, SnappyData!</comment>


Lyft says it had record usage last week in wake of Uber controversy - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/25/lyft-says-it-had-record-usage-last-week-in-wake-of-uber-controversy/ <comment><USER2> The same can be said for Uber and Lyft just about every week for the past few years. But kudos to Lyft for turning a non event into a PR piece. Apparently venturebeat was dumb enough to print it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe it. I installed Lyft last week and will be using them instead of Uber whenever possible.</comment>