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> What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the

> What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace. Please Apple, pay all the open source projects that you use, a fair share of the revenue you generate on top of them. Hypocrites.

ThemalSpan 8y ago
I could not agree more.
thegayngler 8y ago
Wow! Thats a new one. Pay the open source world who Apple have been heavy contributors to themselves. Apple are such hypocrites indeed.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- infinity0 8y ago
  They contribute to specific open source projects with a long-term view to undercutting other open source projects that are more independent of Apple. That is far from being "nice" or "contributing back". Have you heard of "dumping"? What Apple does in its FOSS contributions is a similar thing - pour a ton of developer resources into critical FOSS projects so that they eventually control the development process and claim they are "contributing to open source", but in the end everyone that depends on these projects have to follow the direction that they set. LLVM/Clang is perhaps one exception, but even the Apple parts of that project's history have very obvious goals of undermining GCC since they hate the GPL's guts, counterbalanced by the legitimate need for a FOSS competitor to GCC that attracts enough non-Apple influence in the LLVM/Clang project to balance out the Apple influence.
  - thegayngler 8y ago
    Every company uses and contributes open source if they believe there is a business case for it. No one is immune from that fact. I’m sorry but the whole open source claim is weak because the musicians aren’t releasing their product as free to use by anyone. Why would you otherwise need anti piracy measures like Spotify if the music was free to use to begin with?
  - millstone 8y ago
    Apple has no grand plans to dominate open source, that's silly. All of Apple's OSS contributions can be easily understood as solving Apple's needs. Apple's LLVM involvement is not driven by spite towards the GPL; Apple simply needed a compiler that was compatible with their business model. Likewise they started WebKit so as not to be dependent on MS for a browser, and Swift because they wanted a successor to aging ObjC. Apple does not have a monopoly in any market.
    - infinity0 8y ago
      That's very innocent and naive of you to believe, though of course it's easy to write off any corporate misbehaviour as "solving business needs". Steve Jobs originally tried to keep the ObjC compiler frontend to GCC proprietary but was forced to open source it due to GPL requirements. Needless to say he hated the GPL ever since that episode and of course jumped on the opportunity to fund a competitor with a non-copyleft license.
      - vlozko 8y ago
        Lots of companies hate the GPL. It’s nowhere exclusive to Apple. So what? They don’t have to align with your vision of what open source should be like. What’s wrong with the idea of playing in a different sandbox with a different set of rules if the rules in your current sandbox aren’t ideal? Are you suggesting that we should shame companies who don’t want to deal with GPL-licenses code?
  - josephg 8y ago
    Huh? I totally agree that the app store is a monopoly and leveraging the iOS app store to pressure spotify (a competitor to apple music) is anticompetitive. But I'm very confused how you're twisting Apple's huge contribution toward LLVM and Webkit over the years into some evil act. Even if all you want is for GCC to be the best compiler it can be, work on LLVM has contributed to that goal by raising the bar. Predictably, GCC has gotten a lot better in the past decade or so. And I'm sure competition from LLVM has helped, just like how browser performance improved remarkably across the board when Chrome first came out. And Android's UI got way better after the iPhone was first released. (It used to be awful). Competition raises all boats; and consumers benefit when that happens. Who exactly do you imagine is hurt by Apple's open source contributions to LLVM? If clang dethrones gcc it will be because llvm gives developers what we want - a faster compiler, faster executables, better IDE support or something else. My life is made measurably better by these things. Getting all that for free? Hallelujah. If you don't like the direction Apple (and others) set for an opensource project you care about, you're free to build your own community around a fork. Thats what you would have to do anyway if you want a project to succeed without Apple's support. What do you want? Great, free software? You've got it. The freedom to change that software however you want? Fork away, brave coder. The ability to sell software based on your changes? Go right ahead. So where does that anger come from? How is anyone worse off?
- kkarakk 8y ago
  Forget open source - Apple rips off ideas from devs-and subsequently dumpstering their apps coz why buy an enhancement when your device does it already?- on their platform so commonly there is even a term for it - getting "sherlocked"
  - gmueckl 8y ago
    This is not exclusive to Apple. Software included in the default MS Windows installation was a huge concern, too. MS killed a company or two back in the day when they piled on extras in Windows that these other companies were selling for profit. And I am certain that Google killed a few 3rd party apps by integrating similar features in Android nor their apps.
qalmakka 8y ago
This. They took half of FreeBSD without giving them a single cent, only to never give horseshit about them afterwards. They're didn't even add support for FreeBSD to Swift despite the fact it would cost them very little effort, just to underline how little they care.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  The clue is in the name FreeBSD: a portmanteau of both ‘free’ and the BSD licence which explicitly allows them to take it and reuse the code.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  To be fair, if FreeBSD didn't want that to happen, they should have licensed under GPL.
  - valleyer 8y ago
    FreeBSD quite famously is not licensed under the GPL but rather under a BSD-style license.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      I am aware of this. Hence the reason for mentioning it–Apple clearly chose to use BSD because it's not GPL, but I don't think it's fair to complain that Apple is bound to contribute back. This is the tradeoff the project made when they chose the BSD license.
bunnycorn 8y ago
Open Source, pay for Apple's WebKit and Apple's contributions to FreeBSD and other open source projects. Every Linux box that is connected to a printer (specially networked printers) runs CUPS in part by Apple. Also, FreeBSD is a small part of macOS, contrary to what some people want other people to believe, and FreeBSD is not in that camp of GPLv3, so no, FreeBSD is not on that disgusting echo chamber leaded by Stallmann
- kuschku 8y ago
  So then Apple should pay KDE for KHTML, for WebKit is just a fork of that?
- kelnos 8y ago
  > Every Linux box that is connected to a printer (specially networked printers) runs CUPS in part by Apple. CUPS was an independent project before Apple bought it, and we haven't exactly seen major improvements since the sale.
paxy 8y ago
Pay whom exactly? Apple "pays" for open source by contributing code and fixes, which is how it should be.
ms013 8y ago
They owe nothing for anything they legitimately use: that’s the consequence of open source licensing as a developer. If a developer expects a project to get a fair share of revenue from projects that use it, they are free to adopt a licensing model that dictates that. That is a perfectly reasonable licensing model. I get it: I had an open source project that HP built a product around many years ago, but modulo a couple of patches from them, we saw nothing. Didn’t bother me: we knew when we open sourced it, anything that was done with it was out of our hands. The best I’d expect from a company using open source is that they be good open source citizens and contribute back. Apple has. clang, WebKit, etc....
- infinity0 8y ago
  The fact that they set up the legal structure of the "App Store" in a more restrictive/monopolistic way than traditional GNU/Linux package repositories, is no excuse if they are going to start playing the "moral" card like in OP's link. They benefit substantially from open source and give very little back in concrete financial terms, yet complain that Spotify is asking the same thing and portray them as freeloaders. In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no. What Apple have created in the App Store (a software package repository on an OS platform) is a monopolistic trust over what should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked for decades. This is exactly what "anti-trust" is supposed to prevent and the DoJ need to have the balls to start breaking up tech companies for this shit, just like they almost did to Microsoft.
  - xvector 8y ago
    > In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no. You cannot make any moral assumptions here because the whole point of many of these open-source projects is that people can use them freely, with no obligation - moral, or otherwise - to contribute back. > should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked for decades. Yup, this'll end beautifully. It won't devolve into a malware-ridden mess that destroys the privacy and security of users. The users that pay for a curated ecosystem and idiot-proof privacy/security. Package repositories might be great for the HN crowd. But I think it's fairly blind to think it won't harm Apple's target audience.
spiderfarmer 8y ago
> without making any contributions to that marketplace. If Spotify was not available on the iPhone, because Apple wants to push Apple Music, I would ditch the iPhone, not Spotify.
- kelnos 8y ago
  This is a very good point. The simple act of having a popular app on the App Store is a significant contribution to that marketplace. I imagine losing Spotify wouldn't cause every Spotify user to ditch the iPhone, but I'm sure there are others like you. And many people likely have some other app that they'd consider ditching the iPhone for if it was pulled. A healthy app ecosystem is a big part of what drives iPhone sales.
  - spiderfarmer 8y ago
    Just ask Microsoft, they were/are paying developers to port their apps to Microsofts platform, just to get traction. They even made an unofficial Youtube app to fill the gap, which Google blocked.
hjk05 8y ago
There is nothing hypocritical about using opensource licensed software under the terms of that software license.

ThemalSpan 8y ago

I could not agree more.

thegayngler 8y ago

Wow! Thats a new one. Pay the open source world who Apple have been heavy contributors to themselves. Apple are such hypocrites indeed.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
infinity0 8y ago
They contribute to specific open source projects with a long-term view to undercutting other open source projects that are more independent of Apple. That is far from being "nice" or "contributing back". Have you heard of "dumping"? What Apple does in its FOSS contributions is a similar thing - pour a ton of developer resources into critical FOSS projects so that they eventually control the development process and claim they are "contributing to open source", but in the end everyone that depends on these projects have to follow the direction that they set. LLVM/Clang is perhaps one exception, but even the Apple parts of that project's history have very obvious goals of undermining GCC since they hate the GPL's guts, counterbalanced by the legitimate need for a FOSS competitor to GCC that attracts enough non-Apple influence in the LLVM/Clang project to balance out the Apple influence.
- thegayngler 8y ago
  Every company uses and contributes open source if they believe there is a business case for it. No one is immune from that fact. I’m sorry but the whole open source claim is weak because the musicians aren’t releasing their product as free to use by anyone. Why would you otherwise need anti piracy measures like Spotify if the music was free to use to begin with?
- millstone 8y ago
  Apple has no grand plans to dominate open source, that's silly. All of Apple's OSS contributions can be easily understood as solving Apple's needs. Apple's LLVM involvement is not driven by spite towards the GPL; Apple simply needed a compiler that was compatible with their business model. Likewise they started WebKit so as not to be dependent on MS for a browser, and Swift because they wanted a successor to aging ObjC. Apple does not have a monopoly in any market.
  - infinity0 8y ago
    That's very innocent and naive of you to believe, though of course it's easy to write off any corporate misbehaviour as "solving business needs". Steve Jobs originally tried to keep the ObjC compiler frontend to GCC proprietary but was forced to open source it due to GPL requirements. Needless to say he hated the GPL ever since that episode and of course jumped on the opportunity to fund a competitor with a non-copyleft license.
    - vlozko 8y ago
      Lots of companies hate the GPL. It’s nowhere exclusive to Apple. So what? They don’t have to align with your vision of what open source should be like. What’s wrong with the idea of playing in a different sandbox with a different set of rules if the rules in your current sandbox aren’t ideal? Are you suggesting that we should shame companies who don’t want to deal with GPL-licenses code?
- josephg 8y ago
  Huh? I totally agree that the app store is a monopoly and leveraging the iOS app store to pressure spotify (a competitor to apple music) is anticompetitive. But I'm very confused how you're twisting Apple's huge contribution toward LLVM and Webkit over the years into some evil act. Even if all you want is for GCC to be the best compiler it can be, work on LLVM has contributed to that goal by raising the bar. Predictably, GCC has gotten a lot better in the past decade or so. And I'm sure competition from LLVM has helped, just like how browser performance improved remarkably across the board when Chrome first came out. And Android's UI got way better after the iPhone was first released. (It used to be awful). Competition raises all boats; and consumers benefit when that happens. Who exactly do you imagine is hurt by Apple's open source contributions to LLVM? If clang dethrones gcc it will be because llvm gives developers what we want - a faster compiler, faster executables, better IDE support or something else. My life is made measurably better by these things. Getting all that for free? Hallelujah. If you don't like the direction Apple (and others) set for an opensource project you care about, you're free to build your own community around a fork. Thats what you would have to do anyway if you want a project to succeed without Apple's support. What do you want? Great, free software? You've got it. The freedom to change that software however you want? Fork away, brave coder. The ability to sell software based on your changes? Go right ahead. So where does that anger come from? How is anyone worse off?
kkarakk 8y ago
Forget open source - Apple rips off ideas from devs-and subsequently dumpstering their apps coz why buy an enhancement when your device does it already?- on their platform so commonly there is even a term for it - getting "sherlocked"
- gmueckl 8y ago
  This is not exclusive to Apple. Software included in the default MS Windows installation was a huge concern, too. MS killed a company or two back in the day when they piled on extras in Windows that these other companies were selling for profit. And I am certain that Google killed a few 3rd party apps by integrating similar features in Android nor their apps.

qalmakka 8y ago

This. They took half of FreeBSD without giving them a single cent, only to never give horseshit about them afterwards. They're didn't even add support for FreeBSD to Swift despite the fact it would cost them very little effort, just to underline how little they care.

robin_reala 8y ago
The clue is in the name FreeBSD: a portmanteau of both ‘free’ and the BSD licence which explicitly allows them to take it and reuse the code.
saagarjha 8y ago
To be fair, if FreeBSD didn't want that to happen, they should have licensed under GPL.
- valleyer 8y ago
  FreeBSD quite famously is not licensed under the GPL but rather under a BSD-style license.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I am aware of this. Hence the reason for mentioning it–Apple clearly chose to use BSD because it's not GPL, but I don't think it's fair to complain that Apple is bound to contribute back. This is the tradeoff the project made when they chose the BSD license.

bunnycorn 8y ago

Open Source, pay for Apple's WebKit and Apple's contributions to FreeBSD and other open source projects. Every Linux box that is connected to a printer (specially networked printers) runs CUPS in part by Apple. Also, FreeBSD is a small part of macOS, contrary to what some people want other people to believe, and FreeBSD is not in that camp of GPLv3, so no, FreeBSD is not on that disgusting echo chamber leaded by Stallmann

kuschku 8y ago
So then Apple should pay KDE for KHTML, for WebKit is just a fork of that?
kelnos 8y ago
> Every Linux box that is connected to a printer (specially networked printers) runs CUPS in part by Apple. CUPS was an independent project before Apple bought it, and we haven't exactly seen major improvements since the sale.

paxy 8y ago

Pay whom exactly? Apple "pays" for open source by contributing code and fixes, which is how it should be.

ms013 8y ago

They owe nothing for anything they legitimately use: that’s the consequence of open source licensing as a developer. If a developer expects a project to get a fair share of revenue from projects that use it, they are free to adopt a licensing model that dictates that. That is a perfectly reasonable licensing model. I get it: I had an open source project that HP built a product around many years ago, but modulo a couple of patches from them, we saw nothing. Didn’t bother me: we knew when we open sourced it, anything that was done with it was out of our hands. The best I’d expect from a company using open source is that they be good open source citizens and contribute back. Apple has. clang, WebKit, etc....

infinity0 8y ago
The fact that they set up the legal structure of the "App Store" in a more restrictive/monopolistic way than traditional GNU/Linux package repositories, is no excuse if they are going to start playing the "moral" card like in OP's link. They benefit substantially from open source and give very little back in concrete financial terms, yet complain that Spotify is asking the same thing and portray them as freeloaders. In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no. What Apple have created in the App Store (a software package repository on an OS platform) is a monopolistic trust over what should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked for decades. This is exactly what "anti-trust" is supposed to prevent and the DoJ need to have the balls to start breaking up tech companies for this shit, just like they almost did to Microsoft.
- xvector 8y ago
  > In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no. You cannot make any moral assumptions here because the whole point of many of these open-source projects is that people can use them freely, with no obligation - moral, or otherwise - to contribute back. > should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked for decades. Yup, this'll end beautifully. It won't devolve into a malware-ridden mess that destroys the privacy and security of users. The users that pay for a curated ecosystem and idiot-proof privacy/security. Package repositories might be great for the HN crowd. But I think it's fairly blind to think it won't harm Apple's target audience.

spiderfarmer 8y ago

> without making any contributions to that marketplace. If Spotify was not available on the iPhone, because Apple wants to push Apple Music, I would ditch the iPhone, not Spotify.

kelnos 8y ago
This is a very good point. The simple act of having a popular app on the App Store is a significant contribution to that marketplace. I imagine losing Spotify wouldn't cause every Spotify user to ditch the iPhone, but I'm sure there are others like you. And many people likely have some other app that they'd consider ditching the iPhone for if it was pulled. A healthy app ecosystem is a big part of what drives iPhone sales.
- spiderfarmer 8y ago
  Just ask Microsoft, they were/are paying developers to port their apps to Microsofts platform, just to get traction. They even made an unofficial Youtube app to fill the gap, which Google blocked.

hjk05 8y ago

There is nothing hypocritical about using opensource licensed software under the terms of that software license.