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Comment by TazeTSchnitzel | Hacker News Reader

Didn't Microsoft basically immediately clarify that the new policy is only meant to target developers with no affiliation with a project who are lazily repackaging open-source apps and trying to make a quick buck?

Edit: Yeah, see https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/microsoft_store_open_...:

> In response, Sardo, who oversees the Microsoft Store, insisted Microsoft is just trying to prevent abusive store listings, like app clones.

> "We absolutely want to support developers distributing successful OSS apps," he said. "In fact there are already fantastic OSS apps in the Store! The goal of this policy is to protect customers from misleading listings."

> Sardo said Microsoft would review the policy language to make sure its intent is clear.

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Even if they say they will not enforce it, here are the new terms/conditions.

Would it be normal for any project to depend on the good will of Microsoft for them not to enforce their conditions on them?

In addition, you have the right to sell most open source softwares, that is one of the right given by open source licenses.

Isn't it even against antitrust laws for Microsoft to decide of the financial conditions of third party software they don't own a right on?

If they have a problem with paid clones, they could just put a rules against parasitism, and put some apps as top in search results or with a special 'official' tag.

Is there a meaningful difference between depending on Microsoft not enforcing the T&C and depending on Microsoft not changing the T&C? As this whole thing shows, making money on the Windows app store has always been up to the whim of MS.

When they don't change the T&C, the rule is the same for everyone and you can complain.

When they change it, it is a favor they do to you, to not enforce it for you. You can't complain. They can hold you hostage to revoke this exception if you do something they don't like or if you offer an Oss stack that is in competition with their own things.

Yeah this seems like something that should have been researched and run by press contacts at Microsoft before assuming it was as they (wrongly) describe in the blog post. It seems like the policy exists so a team like Krita can kick out anyone repackaging their open source tool on the app store and instead ship/sell it there directly themselves.

That's my devil's advocate take. This basically prevents another uBlock or $INSERT_ANY_CHEETAH_MOBILE_THING situation.

Microsoft was also clear with their intent when the policy changes were initially made 3 weeks prior to The Register article.

However this is not against most os licences. And no one called Microsoft to play gatekeeper or nanny.

Many, many people have been calling for MS to clean up their store since it was launched. It has been full of crapware for its entire existence; most devs have only used it to install WSL.

An average Store user will definitely benefit from not having to sort through dozens of spyware-laden clones of VLC

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