Is it reasonable to expect people to buy a commercial license if releasing a free app to a commercial app store?
Probably depends on the reasonable(?) license fee.
Probably depends on the reasonable(?) license fee.
"The primary problem is that Apple imposes numerous legal restrictions on use and distribution...through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is forbidden by section 6 of GPLv2."
https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance
See also https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/59495
There is also a significant difference between giving away free applications and giving away the source code. Both from an internal perspective (the company may want to charge for the product or related products or products on other platforms now or in the future) and an external perspective (the app may require other software for which the company does not have rights to release source code).
"Here's a free loaf of bread."
"Why don't you just give me the bread factory and the farms that supplied the ingredients?"
The original comment was that this would limit adoption due to licensing restrictions, and I'm not sure how this change helps.
However, if you aren't making money, and are still using the work of others, then it's good to contribute back - even if that's just by open sourcing your work for others to learn from and study. It's not required, but neither is it required for this framework to have a free tier, much less a truly free one that helps protect the future of your app.