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Comment by ms013 | Hacker News Reader

They owe nothing for anything they legitimately use: that’s the consequence of open source licensing as a developer. If a developer expects a project to get a fair share of revenue from projects that use it, they are free to adopt a licensing model that dictates that. That is a perfectly reasonable licensing model.

I get it: I had an open source project that HP built a product around many years ago, but modulo a couple of patches from them, we saw nothing. Didn’t bother me: we knew when we open sourced it, anything that was done with it was out of our hands.

The best I’d expect from a company using open source is that they be good open source citizens and contribute back. Apple has. clang, WebKit, etc....

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The fact that they set up the legal structure of the "App Store" in a more restrictive/monopolistic way than traditional GNU/Linux package repositories, is no excuse if they are going to start playing the "moral" card like in OP's link.

They benefit substantially from open source and give very little back in concrete financial terms, yet complain that Spotify is asking the same thing and portray them as freeloaders. In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no.

What Apple have created in the App Store (a software package repository on an OS platform) is a monopolistic trust over what should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked for decades. This is exactly what "anti-trust" is supposed to prevent and the DoJ need to have the balls to start breaking up tech companies for this shit, just like they almost did to Microsoft.

> In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no.

You cannot make any moral assumptions here because the whole point of many of these open-source projects is that people can use them freely, with no obligation - moral, or otherwise - to contribute back.

> should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked for decades.

Yup, this'll end beautifully. It won't devolve into a malware-ridden mess that destroys the privacy and security of users. The users that pay for a curated ecosystem and idiot-proof privacy/security.

Package repositories might be great for the HN crowd. But I think it's fairly blind to think it won't harm Apple's target audience.

> You cannot make any moral assumptions here

I'm not making any moral assumptions. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of Apple's moral assumptions that they're making in their posting.

> It won't devolve into a malware-ridden mess that destroys the privacy and security of users.

Windows, GNU/Linux, and in fact Mac OS X itself, are all doing fine. The real security problem is elsewhere, it is disingenuous to use this as an excuse for monopolistic practises.

> hypocrisy of Apple's moral assumptions

Apple's 'moral assumption' is that Spotify would like to 'freeload' off of their store. The App Store is provided with the intent that services which are based off of it contribute back to the App Store.

Open-source software is not provided with the 'moral assumption' that users contribute back.

There is no hypocrisy here. Apple is criticizing Spotify for trying to sidestep the moral expectations of the App Store, but Apple itself is not sidestepping moral expectations of the open-source products it uses.

> Windows and GNU/Linux are doing fine.

Are they? In what context? Do you really think Windows does "fine" for the average user, and that they are not at a huge risk of malware, terrible software, and more?

It's also disingenuous to say that security problems are not in large part caused by how open available distribution channels are. We have proof showing that the App Store has provided an objectively more secure environment for the average user than Windows or even the repository model.

> The App Store is provided with the intent that services which are based off of it contribute back to the App Store.

No, the App Store is provided to drive iPhone sales. If you couldn't install third-party apps on iPhones, no one would buy one nowadays. The market has changed drastically since the iPhone's launch, when a public SDK was still unavailable.

> We have proof showing that the App Store has provided an objectively more secure environment for the average user than Windows or even the repository model.

I'm not convinced that's true. Apple has also invested heavily into app/process isolation on iOS itself, and a permissions model that keeps apps away from sensitive data without the user's consent.

Not to mention the fact that it's more the review process that keeps malicious apps off the phone. Google Play Store is also an app store, but they don't review apps anywhere nearly as closely.

Either way, an app store is not a prerequisite for a review process.

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