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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Just a law student, but I can buy the SOX thing. Companies have very different approaches to compliance, get advice from different counsel, account for things in different ways, etc.

I feel like there is a Occam's Razor argument in here. What purpose besides SOX could Apple have in not giving away XCode 4? Could be pure greed as others are saying, but when Apple wants to make money they're incredibly good at it. How many people are going to download XCode? Tens of thousands? Apple might stand to make, what $100k off the venture? If they were really trying to monetize XCode why would they price it so they don't make any money off it?

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You know what?

I think you might be right and I might be wrong on this.

After reading how Apple pulled this previously (on the iPod Touch upgrade) I now think it's possible they may use SOX as justification for this more.

I still don't think it's good a justification, and I still think Apple could have worked around it if they wanted, but yeah - you are possibly more right that I am.

(I know admitting you are wrong on the internet is unheard of, but Strong opinions, weakly held & all that.. )

They why $5? Why not 1c, or 99c, or make it $99 and include a year's membership?

I said it elsewhere, but I'll say it again here: can you really imagine Steve Jobs agreeing to charge for something he didn't want to charge for because of accounting practices?

When the have the force of law, and when they've been burned in the past, absolutely.

Given that the guy was personally in the hot seat a few years ago for an option backdating scandal, yes. I can imagine him agreeing to this.

can you really imagine Steve Jobs agreeing to charge for something he didn't want to charge for because of accounting practices?

They might have been lying, but Apple has publicly claimed this before:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/01/16/2127204/Apple-Ch...

This macworld article has the actual quote:

http://www.macworld.com/article/54948/2007/01/80211nfee.html

“The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products,” said Teresa Brewer, Apple’s Mac hardware public relations manager.

The SOX rules are about products. Developer tools are a service that repays OS sellers in their being used, because without tailoring the tools developers use, they lose influence on the direction that

Lawyers are good at scaring people, but the SOX thing sounds too much of a stretch for something that is not a revenue item. Charging for it will complicate the accounting. I guess they want to simplify the way they run the ADC.

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