An Open Letter to Apple Computer, Inc.
I have watched, with a certain amount of surprise and agreement, as the nerd elite have rallied in response to your announcement of the Mac App Store. I will summarize their concerns here, for your benefit: First, if you ever decide to distribute software solely through the Mac App Store for Apple Computers, independent software producers will not have an easy way to distribute their software on their own terms. Second, A lot of software licensing requires that it be redistributable, but if the only way to load software onto a machine is through a third party, that licensing is not satisfied even when the software is free of charge.
That's it. That's the whole reason that people are upset. Other people can talk about various other issues with your approval process, but they would frankly get over it if there was an assurance that it will always remain as easy as it currently is to install software on a Mac outside of the App Store channel.
To be honest, your assurance would probably not mean very much. Apple made it very clear that they would never make a netbook, and now we have the new MacBook Air, which absolutely meets the requirements to be described as such. This is but the last in a long string of what I will generously call misdirections.
I have a solution which will, however, satisfy the nerds and make them happier than you have likely considered possible. It's a solution that will lessen the load of your approval team, not cut into your revenue streams, and lower your bandwidth and infrastructure costs. I'm asking you to harness the power of open standards and the internet, something that you have spoken in favor of a number of times, but in a slightly different light.
Open your App Store protocol. Allow people to host their own App Store servers. Provide a single, buried configuration dialog that allows people to add the urls of these servers. Don't even worry about payment, because the nerds want to distribute their software for free. When you have done this, you win.
Of course, it would mean one more dialog, one that would likely be very confusing to some of your users. But then, I might consider buying another Mac or 50 over the course of my life, and I am fairly confident that there are others who feel the same way. Please don't underestimate how many of your customers care about their computers.
Thanks very much for your time,
Chris Rhoden