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Comment by simondotau | Hacker News Reader

> If someone else doesn't want to pay 30% to Apple, then they should have that right

That right? Are you saying developers should have the right to all of Apple's stuff for free, no matter what? Is Apple not allowed to distribute their tools and libraries under a license of their choosing?

Should we ignore licenses altogether? Perhaps I don't want to pay the "cost" associated with use of a GPL-licensed library in my proprietary application. Should I have the right to just ignore the GPL license?

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Apple has no right to restrict any API usage in the iOS that is running on MY hardware that I fully paid them for.

Apple doesn't do that. The restrictions Apple impose are on distribution(i.e. you can't use Apple's distribution services to distribute your app to the users of that service if Apple don't let you), you can do whatever you like to your own device and Apple can't do anything about it. That's why it's perfectly legal to jailbreak your phone.

That's splitting hairs. They do do that, exactly by imposing restrictions on distribution.

Your argument is: "You're free to write an app for yourself, but Apple isn't restricting you from using private APIs, they're restricting you from distributing it using their resources, oh and they're blocking any alternative distribution methods, too."

What does “fully paid” mean? Would that allow Apple to sell hardware where they control API usage at a cheaper price than a device where they do not control API?

I'm not talking about restrictions placed upon the end user, but rather on the developer who is distributing an application which uses these libraries. If they're not willing to accept the license terms for those libraries, that is a license violation.

Do you know who would agree with that? The FSF. They will argue that an application built against an API licensed under the GPL is a derivative work and therefore falls under the terms of the GPL.

This was the case back when Qt was quite infamously licensed under the GPL rather than the LGPL.

Would forcing Apple to make everything required to run linux on Apple hardware available to all devs be fine then? Just to keep things fair and allow for competitors and such. Maybe force all hardware manufacturers to allow OS selection when doing a factory reset? Libraries? I'm allowed to use them without selling/distributing as long as they are critical to run the hardware that I paid for(as long as they are only used for said device). Copyrighting/blocking people from reverse engineering any piece of code that is needed for hardware to function should be illegal in the first place.

Edit: A few typos and such.

Well we can't make laws that target Apple specifically, so let's table that for now. Requiring all computer devices sold to have a mechanism for running Linux? That sounds fine in theory, though I don't know that a law could compel a company to assist developers in understanding their hardware.

This argument is nonsensical.. I should be able to use my fully-paid-for device how I see fit.

Apologies if I wasn't clear. I'm talking about the relationship between Apple and developers who are building applications using Apple's proprietary software libraries.

I completely agree that consumers should have very wide rights to the device they purchased.

Should I pay Apple for the right to build a Mac app, or Windows for using their desktop apis? Maybe I should have to pay mozilla and google every time someone visiting my website and I use a piece of javascript that executes in their browsers?

Historically, people had to buy developer tools like compilers and assemblers for hundreds if not thousands of dollars either directly from the company or through retail channels if they wanted access to the inner workings of their computer. Apple included. So the pay-to-build model isn't new. As far as what "should" happen is concerned, that'll be a matter of debate and contract law if/when Apple changes its terms and if/when you agree to them.

Indeed. And Apple does have the benefit of prior art in the case of games consoles which have—for the past 30 years at least—required developers to accept some kind of revenue share for the right to distribute software to customers.

Is Apple advertising iPhones as game consoles?

When I search for iPhone on Google, the top result is a link to Apple with the text "Explore iPhone, the world's most powerful personal device."

Can you suggest why that would be relevant? It's not like the software license model of general purpose computers is enforced under law.

It would be evidence in antitrust proceedings to demonstrate that Apple is not aligning itself with the game console market but with the personal computer market.

You still haven't explained how that is relevant. The law doesn't currently distinguish between a personal computer and a game console.

Antitrust regulators do.

Citation?

If Apple or Microsoft or Mozilla or Google wanted to, they could have. They chose a different model because it suited their business strategy.

Whereas Sony and Nintendo did choose that model for their games consoles.

Or maybe Google should have to pay Oracle for duplicating the layout of standard Java classes.

And Oracle should pay IBM for having practically invented SQL.

And everyone using virtualization should be paying IBM for having practically invented virtualization.

Repeat ad nauseam.

Indeed, though here we're talking about developers literally including Apple proprietary code in their build process.

If Apple wants to license theur libraries and dev tools at FRAND rates, I'd have no problem with them charging for those.

But pretending the current cut isn't supported only because of their platform control is crazy.

Form an open market for app distribution, and then see what the market sets competitive rates at.

Apple is under no legal obligation to license their material at FRAND rates, nor are they under any legal obligation to make you happy. So let's table that.

What does the App Store fee cover?

• Credit card transactions (~3%)

• Gift card transactions (10–30%)

• Absorbing the costs of credit card fraud

• Running the App Store, bandwidth etc

• Performing app review[1]

• A license fee for use of Apple libraries and APIs

• Having your App receiving the residual goodwill of being available in a store where customers know that Apple is constantly breathing down the neck of developers to do the right thing[2] and pushing the envelope of policies such as not allowing third party tracking by Facebook.

• Having your App for sale in a store where customers feel comfortable generally need to fear credit card fraud, malicious code, where scams are less common (and can generally be refunded), etc etc.

Let's imagine that Apple said "okay, you can have an open market" and replaces their App Store fees with a license fee of 15 percent of gross revenues, similar to how Epic charges developers for use of Unreal Engine. Now you can have an open market for apps. Let's see how alternatives compete for the costs of running and marketing their stores.

[1] Just because something is imperfect, doesn't mean it's useless.

[2] This alone is worth 30% to me personally.

Actually not really. Developers are just calling into code that the user already paid for when they bought the device.

First, you are talking about the rights of an end user to use an app. That's different. I'm talking about the rights of a developer to distribute an app built against these libraries and APIs. The FSF says that if you did this with GPL libraries and APIs, this would require your app to also be available under a GPL compatible license.

Furthermore, whether you paid for a thing is not relevant. What matters is whether the license conditions are satisfied. You can pay for a boxed copy of Red Hat Linux, but that doesn't absolve you of the responsibilities under the GPL.

And finally, licensed Apple intellectual property is absolutely contained within the binary of your iOS application.

You can (I guess to an extent). But, you cannot use iOS however you see fit - it's probably in that wall of text you agree to every time it updates.

I get all these laws etc, but they are all at the behest of other big business who wants to take the ecosystem apple made and profit MORE off of it.

This whole thing does not help small devs, or consumers. I would argue apples PR stance that it actively basically harms consumers is 100% spot on.

The problem may be that people in ios have grown to not be looking over their shoulders for scams, but all of this will just bring about that exact thing.

The grift as soon as ios/app store opens up will be insane. You can't stop it in an open platform, and again, the average tech user is not at all savvy about tech.

There are probably good solutions to this, but so far nothing out in public is anything but self-serving of already monied interests.

We need to re-define what 'rights' mean in a digital age. The ideas of property rights from the 1800's are vaguely applicable in digital contexts.

Ultimately, we are the creators of the society we live in, so if we don't think laws are working for everyone, we should change them. We have tons of laws against price gouging, preventing businesses from fleecing customers, etc. Apple grabbing 30% of sales of a company is not something I support.

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