3 ms·

"Xcode is still free, as long as you pay the $99 a year to be a registered Apple developer". Sort of like the way Visual Studio is free, as long as you pay $80

"Xcode is still free, as long as you pay the $99 a year to be a registered Apple developer". Sort of like the way Visual Studio is free, as long as you pay $800+ to be an MSDN subscriber? That's an odd way to judge something as still being "free". From where I'm standing Xcode is not free now, it costs 5 bucks or a hundred bucks, though the version that costs a hundred bucks includes some other stuff too.

sriramk 16y ago
VS Express is free - you can download it right now - no subscription required.
- georgemcbay 16y ago
  And gcc is free too. But gcc isn't all of Xcode and VS Express isn't all of Visual Studio. But... yeah, I'm aware of VS Express Editions. I do some Windows development and I haven't actually owned a copy of a Microsoft's non-Express IDEs in years, there's really no point unless you have a must-use plugin or want deeply integrated source code control. I was simply pointing out how unfree Xcode is by using another very similar situation where the non-freeness of the tool is made more obvious by the far-higher-than-impulse price of the associated developer registration fee. FWIW, I think Xcode is easily worth $5 to Apple/iOS developers no matter how you look at it and I don't fault Apple for charging for it, but arguing it is "still free" because you don't have to pay for it on top of the usual $99 developer registration is absurd, IMO.
rgbrgb 16y ago
Yeah, sort of... minus $795.01+.
statictype 16y ago
That's an unfair comparison. That $99 fee isn't for Xcode. It's for access to publish in the App Store and for setting up profiles for ad-hoc development (among other things). So yes, Xcode is now free with that registration. It was always free before. Now its only free for developers who have registered as iOS/Mac App Store developers. it costs 5 bucks or a hundred bucks, though the version that costs a hundred bucks includes some other stuff too. When you buy a vehicle for 20k and the dealer throws in free sunfilm, you aren't buying sunfilm for 20k with some other 'stuff' included.

sriramk 16y ago

VS Express is free - you can download it right now - no subscription required.

georgemcbay 16y ago
And gcc is free too. But gcc isn't all of Xcode and VS Express isn't all of Visual Studio. But... yeah, I'm aware of VS Express Editions. I do some Windows development and I haven't actually owned a copy of a Microsoft's non-Express IDEs in years, there's really no point unless you have a must-use plugin or want deeply integrated source code control. I was simply pointing out how unfree Xcode is by using another very similar situation where the non-freeness of the tool is made more obvious by the far-higher-than-impulse price of the associated developer registration fee. FWIW, I think Xcode is easily worth $5 to Apple/iOS developers no matter how you look at it and I don't fault Apple for charging for it, but arguing it is "still free" because you don't have to pay for it on top of the usual $99 developer registration is absurd, IMO.

rgbrgb 16y ago

Yeah, sort of... minus $795.01+.

statictype 16y ago

That's an unfair comparison. That $99 fee isn't for Xcode. It's for access to publish in the App Store and for setting up profiles for ad-hoc development (among other things). So yes, Xcode is now free with that registration. It was always free before. Now its only free for developers who have registered as iOS/Mac App Store developers. it costs 5 bucks or a hundred bucks, though the version that costs a hundred bucks includes some other stuff too. When you buy a vehicle for 20k and the dealer throws in free sunfilm, you aren't buying sunfilm for 20k with some other 'stuff' included.