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 de

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.