

Mac OS X App Store Poses Problems for Open Source Software - starkness
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/20/director-of-firefox-fires-opening-salvo-at-apples-tyrannical-ma/

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msbarnett
Well that article certainly wears its editorial slant on its sleeve.

I'm not really seeing the problem here; Apple isn't interested in selling, or
giving away, in-progress beta apps or apps which exhibit obvious bugs because
they want to maintain a certain quality of experience for people who use their
store.

If Apple isn't interested in distributing your app, that's their prerogative.
You're not entitled to it, and you certainly don't need it; Firefox has been
doing just fine distributing their software through their own servers. They're
free to continue doing so.

Nordstroms isn't interested in selling my janky, lumpy, hand-carved ash trays
either, but that hardly makes them tyrants. They're just maintaining their
store's brand.

~~~
ed
But Nordstroms _doesn't own the city_. Apple does.

When all roads lead to the local men's department, yeah I'd be concerned with
which products do, and don't make the cut.

No kexts? Seriously? No outside updates? Can't wait for the first app store
0-day.

~~~
msbarnett
> But Nordstroms doesn't own the city. Apple does.

Er, no they don't. This is about the completely optional Mac App Store.

To extend the metaphor, there's a Macy's next door and a Farmer's Market
across the street.

~~~
ed
Maybe it's time to step away from the metaphor. Just so we're clear I'm
referring to the operating system -- the thing on which the store is built. It
is, quite literally, owned by Apple.

------
jws
The current HN title is wrong.

The article doesn't address Open Source. It states that the store will not be
used for the distribution of beta versions of software. The tweet just says
firefox betas won't be in the store.

Especially note: Free software is allowed.

There are classes of software that won't work in the store. The article
mentions:

• Things that implement their own copy protection.

• Buggy software.

• Things that need root.

See the whole list: <http://pastie.org/1236378> but you will go blind before
you finish if your don't have readability plugin.

I would characterize the forbidden stuff as "obnoxious, useless, or malicious"
applications. There is some collateral damage along the way, e.g. anything
with a kernel extension, and there are some morality/legality driven
restrictions e.g. encourge minors to consume alcohol or realistic human
killing.

The most alarming exception to me, is that the application can only distribute
updates through the store. I would hope Apple doesn't hold up new versions
like they have with the iOS stores. As a developer I cringe when I read of
customers living with month old defects because the update is stalled in
queue.

Customers will have a reasonable belief that stuff from the store isn't
tearing through their computer looking for email addresses or credit card
numbers to sell.

But that's ok, they have other channels for distribution. It isn't a Apple
Store or nothing proposition like the iOS devices.

~~~
starkness
The title was on the basis of this part of the article "If an app even
exhibits a bug, it will be rejected -- does Apple know how many apps, open-
source or otherwise, have bugs?"

The point that this could make FOSS especially vulnerable, although am open to
discussion otherwise.

~~~
msbarnett
They can't, by the very nature of software, reject all software containing any
bugs. The store would never contain anything.

But if your software contains obvious bugs that impact the user during normal
usage (it crashes when you try to save, or the preference pane only stays open
for 5 seconds), they're not interested in being associated with your software.
That seems fair to me.

This is only "unfair" to FLOSS if you take the position that FLOSS is
significantly more likely to contain such significant, user-facing defects.

Now, I'm not saying that's true, but if it were true, that seems to me to be
an indictment of FLOSS, not of Apple's rules for being in its store.

------
YooLi
Of course Apple doesn't want beta software in the Mac App Store. I don't want
it either. If I want to experiment with some Firefox nightlies, I'll go and
get them from the dev site. The Mac App store is geared at people who want
software installation and maintenance to be painless and worry free. They are
'curating' it to be that way. It's not a software directory listing service
where everyone can list their offerings.

~~~
starkness
What happens when Apple "curates" it such that apps of a political nature are
no longer allowed? Or apps that compete with their own?

EDIT: (1) There is a risk that the vast majority of the population (non-
geeks), will increasingly rely on the store to get apps, so smaller
innovators/FOSS projects will not have the same exposure as others if
rejected. (Think the Microsoft antitrust issue with the preinstallation of IE
on Windows. People could still get Netscape elsewhere.) (2) This could also be
a first step, much like the iPhone/iOS app store, in Apple being the arbiter
of _all_ apps that are allowed on Mac OS X.

~~~
YooLi
Not sure I follow you. What do you mean what happens? To me it means they
won't be in the store and you will have to get them like you have been getting
them this whole time. What happens when Shell 'curates' their convenience
stores so Newsweek is no longer sold there?

edit:typo

------
CrazedGeek
" _apps that require optional installations (such as Java) will be rejected_ "

What additional installations do OS X apps usually need, though? Flash and
Java are already included; the only additional thing I can think of is SIMBL,
and that isn't usually used for normal apps.

------
thought_alarm
Correction: the App Store doesn't work with buggy, unfinished software that's
in a constant state of beta.

The author sure has a low opinion of open source software quality, doesn't he?

~~~
cletus
Perhaps the author has a slanted view of how open source software tends to
work.

You often have nightly builds, development (alpha/beta) releases and stable
releases. Most people want and use the stable releases.

It's true the Mac App Store won't work for distributing the rest. This is
hardly surprising and not the way you'd want to distribute this anyway I would
think.

For stable releases, the App Store guidelines will probably result in more
stable software. That's probably a good thing.

------
xpaulbettsx
"Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected"

 _So many_ OS X apps today use non-public APIs, this would exclude the vast
majority of applications in use today.

"Apps that install kexts will be rejected"

There goes VMWare and Parallels.

~~~
msbarnett
VMWare and Parallels are already well-known and have their own direct sales
infrastructures. I don't think they would ever have been interested in this.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
So that's the thing - if Apple promises that there will _always_ be a way to
directly install to the machine, I'm totally okay with these rules, they're
quite reasonable.

However, this sets them up to do the same thing they did with iPad / iPhone,
then require me to pay $100 to bless my machine as a "Development machine",
_then_ I can install what I want. Or maybe even then, I can only use Apple-
certified binaries but I can use XCode. Curated experience is fine, but only
if I have the freedom to choose an alternate one.

~~~
jonhendry
Promises? Corporate promises are worthless.

Rely on _logic_ and assume Apple is reasonably _rational_.

They mentioned AutoCAD and Steam today. Steam isn't compatible with the
guidelines, and Autodesk isn't about to sell AutoCAD through the store.

Apple isn't going to cut them off, nor are they going to cut off the myriad
other software vendors for whom the App Store is either unworkable or
unattractive or unneeded.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
Sure, that's how it looks _today_ , but being in the App Store will be a huge
draw, and tons of people will rework their apps to be App Store compatible.

In a few years once most apps have been pushed onto the App Store, they'll be
in a far better position to cut them off, making the excuse of "This will only
affect a small number of apps..."

While I agree that right _now_ , it's infeasible for them to do this, a few
years of the Mac App Store will change the landscape to a point where they
very well could do this.

~~~
jonhendry
It would be a case of "This will affect a relatively small number of hugely
important apps that we can't afford to lose from the platform".

They're not going to feel free to lose Adobe, Matlab, Steam, VMWare,
Parallels, and AutoCAD just because they have a million fart apps.

------
tealtan
A question: can open source projects submit just their most stable versions to
the App Store and then also release in-progress versions through their own
sites?

If so, that would seem to address most of the issues. The people downloading
software from the App Store don't want buggy or untested software, and those
interested in cutting-edge versions are likely to be aware and active enough
to download it themselves.

Win-win situation.

~~~
tealtan
I mean, open source projects already have stable branches and dev branches, so
it wouldn't even require that much additional work from developers.

------
al_james
It might not be the best solution for geeks, but Apple is serious about smooth
user experience. I might not mind a few bugs in the software I download, but
it will confuse/frustrate the hell out of Mr Average Joe.

------
gfodor
This App Store isn't the same as the iOS one. If the iOS one didn't push your
app, nobody could use it (practically speaking.) Obviously this isn't true
here. (For now!) So, it's hard to give Apple flak for any rules they have in
their approval process.

------
ozten
The crux of the matter: 1) Will Lion change the software install policy to App
Store only (like iOS)

2) Will the App Store create an un-level playing field years from now by
training users to only install Apple certified software.

~~~
jonhendry
"1) Will Lion change the software install policy to App Store only (like iOS)"

No, unless you think Autodesk wants to give Apple 30% of the $4000 price of
AutoCAD for Mac on each sale.

------
cletus
No beta software? Great.

No license keys? Why do you need license keys? You're now in the iTunes
ecosystem like apps on iDevices.

No optional add ons? For a start, java isn't optional on OS X. Apps on iOS are
completely self-contained. I guess the same philosophy is coming to the Mac.
Not surprising but there are potential issues I guess.

No root privileges? This one has potential issues but I guess apple wants to
play it safe. Not surprising.

Same censorship as the App Store? I took this as a given when I heard about
it. No issue here.

The author's bias is pretty obvious and expect the Apple-haters to roll out
the predictable criticisms.

But apps don't need to be distributed via the app store on the Mac. You can
still use download links from a website at which point it's a question of
choice as to whether you want to be part of that ecosystem.

I see a bigger issue being the 70/30 split. 30% is a lot to lose when you can
sell it yourself. Even small sellers can use third party payment services.
It'll be interesting to see how the software makers big and small react to
this.

I suspect that those in the app store will sell more units. This is probably
why Steve pushed the discovery argument (with some merit).

~~~
DrJokepu
License keys can be really useful for institution-wide software licensing.
Imagine an advertising agency trying to buy 30 instances of Photoshop. How are
they going to do that with the App Store? Without some support for bundle
purchases, the Mac App Store won't be very useful for developers of software
for a professional audience.

~~~
cletus
The App Store has always had this "problem". Just like an IT desk can't easily
manage, say, 500 iPads. That's really what Windows is built for. Apple is
really targeting consumers not enterprise customers.

~~~
DrJokepu
I'm not talking about large enterprises, I'm talking about small-to-medium
creative workshops, a sector where Apple is traditionally very strong in. At
my day job, we got a bunch of composers with high-end Mac Pros with Logic Pro
installed on them, and believe me, we're very far from being "enterprise". We
got producers, graphic designers and so on. These people would rather quit
than ever use a PC. My point is, it looks like that the Mac App Store is not
intended for this kind of audience, which is a shame because creatives and
media people are a very core user group of the Mac, the kind of customers that
were loyal to Apple even during its darkest hours in the mid-90's.

------
tehchoyce
more and more developers seem to be really unhappy with the new app store..
probably not the best model

~~~
DrJokepu
You know what, as a user, I quite like it. It's a really convenient way to get
software. I like all the categories, featured apps, simple payment &
deployment and the good signal vs noise ratio. I just simply don't care
whether developers like it or not. (Having said that, I'm a software developer
too but I understand that my convenience is less important than the customer's
convenience.)

