another Apple idiocy

[hgm]

It would be nice if the DMG could be made available from the gnu site, or from winboard.nl.

GNU would not allow it on their website. They also don't allow us to distribute WinBoard from their website. The problem is that it is bundled, and the bundle contains ICC's timestamp. And they categorically refuse to participate in the distribution of such 'non-free software'.

I am not sure winboard.nl would be a more appropriate distribution channel than the WinBoard forum.

[mvk]

It would be nice if the DMG could be made available from the gnu site, or from winboard.nl.

GNU would not allow it on their website. They also don't allow us to distribute WinBoard from their website. The problem is that it is bundled, and the bundle contains ICC's timestamp. And they categorically refuse to participate in the distribution of such 'non-free software'.

I am not sure winboard.nl would be a more appropriate distribution channel than the WinBoard forum.

I always have trouble to find this port. Now I could find it with google because Joshua mentioned the version number.

The timestamp issue remains a pain. It is kept "secret" because basically for lag compensation they need some trusted access to the client's clock, almost DRM-like, which of course they can't do until the evil empires have succeeded to lock down all of our systems without root access. So this is the next-best solution from their point of view.

Maybe at this phase, because timestamp on ICC now only corrects for small lags and not for arbitrary amounts anymore, they might be more open towards the xboard project, as the cheating potential is mitigated. OTH, they might also not want to do this to promote their own client software.

[JoshPettus]

There are two version going around. One is from mediafire, which you advertised on the winboard forum. The other is on macupdate.com. That has the same name, but different contents... I sticked with the first.

What? they should be the same contents... What contents are you referring? The only difference between the two is I silently updated the loading script for casesensative systems on the mediafire one, as I have direct control over that one. (actually that was my main guess as what was happening to Bob) macupdate is a little harder to update, and I figured I would update next time we did a full release. I don't get near as many downloads from there anyway.

It would be nice if the DMG could be made available from the gnu site, or from winboard.nl. This is a really nice port, thanks a lot.

Thanks! Harm and I worked hard on it and Arun helped with the makefile stuff.

Perhaps It would be better if we could sticky the winboard forum thread?

[JoshPettus]

The timestamp issue remains a pain. It is kept "secret" because basically for lag compensation they need some trusted access to the client's clock, almost DRM-like, which of course they can't do until the evil empires have succeeded to lock down all of our systems without root access. So this is the next-best solution from their point of view.

Really is that the reason? what is wrong with ctime()?

[bob]

I'm afraid the solution for xboard is for me to shell out 100 bucks, become a paying apple developer and code sign the program... How much does it bother you?

It would seem to be unnecessary. If the program would install itself somewhere. As it is, it seems to be a "fresh unpack" type thing where it accesses the install package each time???

IE I don't see this with anything installed with macports, even when I used the old xboard with the quartz package...

[bob]

I'm afraid the solution for xboard is for me to shell out 100 bucks, become a paying apple developer and code sign the program... How much does it bother you?

Let's make sure we are on the same page.

I downloaded the .dmg package. Clicked it. It did the usual "this is not from a trusted site (only apple is trusted), do you really want to run it? I said "yes". I ended up with a "knight" icon in launchpad. Now, every time I click that "knight" I get the "Xboard is an application downloaded from the internet, are you sure you want to open it?" EVERY time.

The name of the thing I downloaded is xboard_4.8_0d_OXS_Intel.dmg

[JoshPettus]

If you move it off of the dmg (which is a compressed disk image and not a zip archive) and on to your system hard drive, it would only do it once. Apps aren't meant to be run off of the dmg. (which is partially the reason apple like to bother you about unknown programs) You would loose the program if you deleted the dmg, which happens to a lot to people.

The reason I use dmg files is:
1) Everyone does it. Sure I can use a zip archive, maybe tarball it first to ensure permissions. But that's not how OSX distributions are done.
2) Its a great way to let the user downloading that this is indeed a mac download and not a windows one.
3) It ensures correct permissions for me on install.

I could probably do a package installer like I did a while ago with xboard 4.6, but truth be told, I hate those. The user has no idea what is being installed on the system and where it is. (at least with windows installers you can set an actual directory) There is no unified method for uninstall and the user can't be sure that when you uninstall just the app, that that is it. (Minus the config files hidden in ~/Library which everyone seems ok to just leave behind...)

[JoshPettus]

Oh NOTE: Dragging the icon from the dmg and on to your dock doesn't actually copy it to your hard drive.

[kbhearn]

The timestamp issue remains a pain. It is kept "secret" because basically for lag compensation they need some trusted access to the client's clock, almost DRM-like, which of course they can't do until the evil empires have succeeded to lock down all of our systems without root access. So this is the next-best solution from their point of view.

Really is that the reason? what is wrong with ctime()?

The point is to make it harder to make a time-cheating replacement for timeseal/stamp/whatever the ics of your choice uses by having a proprietary mangling format for the data. Honestly the right answer at this point in time is probably to just use server time and make clients pay for their excessive lag (perhaps with a fixed 200ms per move delay on the clock or something of that nature) - if you're lagging too much for lightning without lag correction then noone really wants to play lightning with you anyways.

[mvk]

There are two version going around. One is from mediafire, which you advertised on the winboard forum. The other is on macupdate.com. That has the same name, but different contents... I sticked with the first.

What? they should be the same contents... What contents are you referring?

I found the two packages, and before opening I did a crc32 on both. They were different. I decided to trust the one you linked to in the winboard forum, and deleted the other.

I have a bad experience with redistribution sites, after having put trust in the official filezilla distribution recently containing malware. They distribute officially through sourceforge, and there it contains unwanted software that installs behind your back deep in the system and is difficult to remove. So I'm always a bit suspicious and was afraid the macupdate site was pulling the same kind of trick.