Thankfully, this was resolved today with Apple restoring Gui’s access.
Back in August, Apple locked me out of my developer account, preventing me from updating my apps on the App Store.
They didn’t provide any explanation or reason, and since then I’ve reached out to them many times, without success.https://t.co/gcLP9rCosd
— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) November 20, 2019
The first thing that struck me when I read this was that it was just another in the long line of transgressions Apple has against the developer community. The second thing which struck me was the out-pouring of “you deserve this” sentiment on Twitter, citing the developer NDA and developer agreement all developers must sign to have a developer account with Apple. Provided that a developer cannot offer an iOS app without an Apple developer account, and that it is onerous to be a macOS developer without an Apple developer account – it seemed strange to not see sentiment the other way ’round dominating the conversation.
For as long as I’ve loved computers, being “into technology” has always been associated with a natural curiosity, the ability to tinker, and a problem-solving attitude. There has always been a fine, fine line between “hacking” and “doing bad things”. What Gui does is, morally, on the white-hat side of things. Unconscionability has been a staple of contract law “that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience.”
Is forcing a developer to not reveal features found in beta software unconscionable? Is saying “don’t touch that” to a group of people who, by their very nature, enjoy tinkering a rational and justifiable approach?
I don’t think so, but reasonable people can disagree.
Regardless, I’m hoping Rambo continues to develop cool software.