
Open Source and the iOS App Store - liyanchang
http://blog.inkmobility.com/post/59687500040/open-source-and-the-ios-app-store
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chrisballinger
My apps ChatSecure [1] and OpenWatch [2] are fully open source as well.

1\. [https://github.com/chrisballinger/Off-the-Record-
iOS](https://github.com/chrisballinger/Off-the-Record-iOS)

2\. [https://github.com/OpenWatch/OpenWatch-
iOS](https://github.com/OpenWatch/OpenWatch-iOS)

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I get the sense you're a Cocoa Controls user :)

I always love getting feedback from users of the site; please let me know if
you have any!

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leokun
Open Source applications in iOS are nice for developers to help them build
better applications, but given iOS is such a closed locked system, it is
meaningless for users. A part of the open source idea is that users can know
and have some control over the software that runs on the hardware that belongs
to them. As long as iOS remains a locked proprietary walled garden owned by
Apple and carriers, open source on iOS is meaningless to them. Maybe we've all
just given up on that idea though.

~~~
doe88
I beg to differ, I think that if you are knowledgeable enough to know what
open source is, what it means and how it works, then you're able to download
xcode, build the open source app, bypass the apple store and install it on
your device.

~~~
leokun
As long as you are willing and able to pay Apple $100 a year to install your
own apps on your own phone.

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engrenage
If this is just about you saving $100, why all the rhetoric about walled
gardens?

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leokun
It's not about $100 a year, although that's a real barrier. It's that you and
I are not in control over what software our hardware we own can run. Do I
lease my smartphone from the company or do I own it, because it sure doesn't
feel like I own it when I have to pay someone a $100 a year to run my software
on my device. It feels like I'm being robbed. Robbed of money, robbed of
choice, robbed of control.

~~~
engrenage
I feel as though some people spent many years doing painstaking, world class
engineering work, and I paid them so that I could use it.

After I paid them they continued to support me videos and direct communication
to help me use what I'd paid for, and they took seriously the problems I
identified.

I'm sorry that you consider this being 'Robbed'. I had my car stolen once, and
my house broken into another time, and those things didn't feel good.

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kirualex
Not sure it's really relevant, but I happen to have open-sourced a "dummy app"
which was originally intended for educational purpose.

If some are interested :
[http://alexiscreuzot.com/ColourLove/](http://alexiscreuzot.com/ColourLove/)

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lukifer
The obstacle to open source adoption has always been economics, not usability.
(Give them paychecks, and the usability engineers will come.) While it's
possible to have a successful business model with FOSS, it's typically much
more difficult or less lucrative compared to the product/appliance model, and
too often completely unviable to make a living.

The curious paradox of Apple's walled garden is that it creates an opening to
put every line of code on GitHub, yet be confident that the vast majority of
customers will still click "Buy Now" rather than downloading elsewhere for
free. It may not include Freedom Zero, and so is far from ideologically pure,
but the ecosystem still gains the benefits of transparency, trust, and
iterative improvement from open source.

Outside of certain niches, the market is clearly not gravitating towards FOSS
on its own; if the politics of computing is important to us as a culture, it
probably needs to move forward in the form of consumer protection laws and
antitrust litigation. But in the meantime, FOSS would do well to use the App
Store and make the best of a bad situation.

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uams
This is a really interesting idea. iOS and submitting to the app store has
always seemed high friction task. This takes reduces both of them by having a
fully baked app that I can just modify.

The promise of shipping code to the app store is a bit more tenuous as we have
to bank on the developers packaging it up and sending it up to the app store.

~~~
liyanchang
Thanks for the support. To your concern, yes. But we're also looking at how we
can give not only commit rights to github but also deploy rights on the app
store for frequent committers.

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lucian1900
The missing example for platforms with lots of open source apps is Android.

No platform should artificially restrict development and the freedom of
running any app. iOS deserves its lack of open source apps, in a way.

~~~
engrenage
No platform should artificially restrict development and the freedom of any
app (regardless of how destructive, malicious, misleading, or harmful to the
end user or any other party, it might be).

End users must be prohibited from choosing a platform which does not obey this
rule.

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jeena
It was 4 years ago when I developed a iOS ImagePicker in my free time which I
knew I would use in a app at work, just to be able to open source it. And it
was the right move, seems like many people liked and used it:
[https://github.com/jeena/JPImagePickerController](https://github.com/jeena/JPImagePickerController)
even got a couple of job offers because of it (back then there weren't that
many iOS developers in Sweden)

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CrazedGeek
The WordPress iOS app is also open source: [https://github.com/wordpress-
mobile/WordPress-iOS](https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS)

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seivan
I spent some time moving UIKit over to blocks without resorting to swizzling
or using external dependencies like libffi. Needed to get that off my desk and
ship smaller things.

This looks nice!

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atlex2
This is a great step-- I note that you chose to open source after your were on
the store. As a well-known company, was that to prevent pre-release copycats?

