

Free Source Code Available To Download - shakes
http://blog.apptopia.com/free-source-code/

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drivingmenuts
I disagree with the part of his post that reads: "First, to do a chargeback
when you are buying software and or intellectual property rights is repugnant.
Its something you can never give back. No matter what. It can never be
deleted. And you know this when you are making the acquisition."

There is not other way to signal to the developer that the software is not
what you thought it was. For instance, I purchased a note-taking app from the
App Store last night that turned out to not be what I needed. There was no way
of knowing this beforehand because there is no free version that I could test
and pirating it would have been way more trouble than it's worth (plus, I'm
not doing that anymore).

So, what's the reasonable solution? For physical goods, if I'm unhappy with
the purchase, I can return the item and receive a refund. For software, there
is no good return method.

Now, one could argue that it's only a $10 app, but that isn't the point. The
point is that $10 paid for something that I don't want or need, and while $10
probably isn't much to me, it should not be yours because your product failed
to meet my needs.

As for the rest of the post, the purchaser in that case _was_ out of line.
He'd bought the product, used it for a significant amount of time, and
apparently gotten some value out of it. At that point, there should be no
ability to return the item.

~~~
habosa
On Apptopia you don't buy apps, you buy all of the source code and
distribution rights to an app. So in this case the buyer bought the previously
closed-source code, took what he needed from it, and then filed a chargeback.
That's much different than buying a packaged app for personal use from an App
Store.

~~~
colkassad
They should have stated a brief blurb about themselves in their blog post. Not
knowing anything about Apptopia, I thought they released something this guy
created on his own from scratch.

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eric_bullington
I wasn't previously aware of apptopia -- looks very cool and I'm surprised I
haven't heard of it before. There's always an interesting outlier project that
escapes our notice, right?

But I'm a little confused about this situation. Who was listing this app?
(i.e., who originally coded the app?) Was he/she consulted about the
situation?

Perhaps I'm not yet understanding how Apptopia works, but I'm surprised you
took this action without consulting with the app's author. Or do you own all
the apps listed outright? Or did you pay him/her for the app, regardless of
the chargeback?

Anyway, glad this made to to HN, I'll take a closer look at Apptopia.

EDIT: And just to be clear, I meant an outlier on the distribution of the
projects that are on my screen, not a global outlier for everyone. Clearly,
given your funders and growth, many people are aware of your project.

~~~
gerryp
Hey Eric,

So we brokered this app acquisition. The seller (original coder of the app)
sold the ownership to this buyer. After paying for and receiving the app, this
buyer initiated a wrongful chargeback (we paid out the seller already, so we
took the hit as the broker and escrow provider).

So in essence, since he "returned" the app to us, we now own it, and
therefore, the app developer community now owns it.

Does that make sense?

~~~
hashpipe
Just thinking out loud here - Is it possible for you to determine whether the
buyer and seller were related somehow ?

~~~
jckay
Really wild point. So malicious, but i guess in the same sense that would be a
"clever" way to "pay yourself". The seller is someone we have worked with
before and has multiple listings with Apptopia (and has had them for a few
months now). They also have separate payment profiles. So if they are the
same, they have gone through great lengths to hide it...

Still good to keep an eye on. Thanks for making me think through it.

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vog
It isn't really clear from the article under what license the source is
available. For instance, is it using a common Free Software license such as
GPL or a BSD-like one, such that interesting parties can actually do something
with it? That would be much more consumer friendly than the mere permission to
have a look at it.

~~~
jckay
Wow. This is an amazing point, and quite honestly i am sorry for not including
it. My intent is to have people DO SOMETHING WITH IT. Not just to look at it.
I want people to very much do anything they find of value with it. Would that
be more GPL or BSD? I will update the post...

~~~
M4v3R
Go with BSD if you want people to do something with it. Unless you don't want
for people to make closed source apps with it, then go with GPL.

~~~
jckay
Post Updated to reflect <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses>

Thanks for pointing this out guys. JK

~~~
vog
Note that there are 2 common variants of the BSD license: "2-clause" and
"3-clause". Don't forget to specify which one you mean.

I'm using the ISC license (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license>) which
is equivalent to the 2-clause BSD, but does so with fewer and simpler words.

Also, the MIT license (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_license>) is quite
popular. It is also equivalent to the 2-clause BSD, but not quite as short as
the more modern ISC license.

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habosa
Good for you, Jonathan. Apptopia is an incredible service and this is a great
response to being ripped off. I know how hard you work on each sale so it's
frustrating that something like this would happen.

~~~
jckay
I really appreciate the kind words.

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floydpink
Great gesture to open source it. Thanks!

Downloaded the source and took a look at it. It is a PhoneGap powered Android
app, that serves as a viewer to some hard rock artists' videos on YouTube.

Screenshot (as rendered on Chrome) - <http://i.imgur.com/cAzRLpG.png>

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danielhunt
While it's always great to see android apps being made available for others to
investigate and learn from, I have to ask: Are you sure that there isn't
something else going on that would explain this behaviour?

I've just installed the app on my own device (Galaxy S2), and the app is
simply terrible. It's slow to respond to clicks, scrolling is laggy, I
actually can't view any videos because the click event isn't triggering
anything (I can see in the debug logs that it's happening, it's just not doing
anything)

All I'm wondering, is if the chargeback was because the buyer was unhappy with
what he/she got?

~~~
gerryp
Hi Daniel,

The scenario you're describing is exactly what we try to prevent with our code
review option. Likewise, every app we broker is listed publicly on either the
AppStore or Google Play, so every buyer can and SHOULD download the app to
preview it.

I should also note (which I hoped was obvious, but after re-reading the post
and thread I realize it isn't), that we actively reached out to this buyer to
see what was wrong and what happened. We even gave him the opportunity to
withdraw the chargeback and indicated that we would continue to do business
with him. Even though it's somewhat of a moot point, this chargeback was not
the result the buyer being misunderstanding what he was getting.

~~~
danielhunt
Thanks for the explanation!

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chrisdevereux
Slightly OT, but I hadn't heard of Apptopia before. Cool idea. Anyone had any
experience, either as a buyer or seller?

~~~
gerryp
Chris - habosa commented up top on his experience.

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chrisdevereux
Thanks. Managed to miss that!

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pbreit
I hate, hate, hate floating "share bars" like the one on this blog. Yuck.

~~~
nkurz
Yup, but AdBlock is your friend. This got rid of it for me: DIV[id="dcssb-
slick"]

