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Apple's Xcode is a free download, the Swift compiler is open source. However, to become an "official" developer on the Apple platforms and publish apps you do n
by chriseidhof 6y ago
Apple's Xcode is a free download, the Swift compiler is open source. However, to become an "official" developer on the Apple platforms and publish apps you do need a paid developer account.
- pjmlp 6y agoHence commercial.
- cultus 6y agoIt makes sense for Apple though, because what the devs are really paying for is access to Apple's closed-source ecosystem, not the tooling itself. This company has no such market power; why would anyone want to pay for Zen, when it has no established ecosystem or audience?
- fastball 6y agoSigning binaries and distributing apps on the MacOS and iOS app store is commercial. The compiler isn't commercial, unless you are saying that anything Apple makes is "commercial" because they are a for-profit business.
- trevor-e 6y agoI'm writing a Swift project right now on my Windows computer using WSL, not paying anything to Apple...
- bumblebritches5 6y agoXcode dev here, I have a certificate with a free account. You only need to pay for it if you distribute your app on the app store.
- hinkley 6y agoAnd if you're doing ruby or nodejs or a handful of other languages, you can use the XCode CLI and most of your code (possibly all) will never see the App Store submission queue.