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Comment by nanna | Hacker News Reader

I'm happy for OSM, that's great for you and in turn the community. But what about small open source projects? One-person projects where the idea of having several people working on securing legal non-profit status and then acquiring non-profit signing certificates from Apple is for all intents and purposes impossible? And certainly not worth just coughing up the annual $99 fee (+tax) to Apple?

$99+ every year is a lot of money to an independent open source developer who's in most cases losing money for their work. The fact that a company worth $2 trillion is demanding it - it's really beyond outrageous.

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Outrageous is the entitlement of the current generations for not paying for their tools.

Many of us used to pay for every single piece of software that we had to run on top of our already expensive computer around 2000 euros on today's money.

This isn’t about not wanting to pay. It’s about being forced to use a tool in spite of much better possible alternatives. If apple allowed SSL-style certification, I’m sure cheaper and better alternatives (similar to LetsEncrypt) would prop up.

This is a nice example of what a logician calls a false cause: your conclusion (definition of outrageous) isn't supported by your premise (how much you used to pay for kit).

It's also a straw man, since I was talking about an OS developer wanting to publish their software, and you're attempting to sink it by portraying it as referring to a consumer wanting free stuff.

The subject of your conclusion, 'current generations', is also so vague as to be redundant. Current generations who are alive? Generations of 21st century? Of modernity? Of the West?

I'm afraid this is not a very good HN post.

Like 1000 euros per year for a MSDN Professional license, or the required certification from several vendors that have to be renewed every couple years.

Or having to pay Red Hat for support to get access to their KB, get updates, and pay separate licenses if you want any of their premium software offerings. Or having to shell out for console dev kits and game engines. And the embedded software world is even worse.

The exception is being able realistically develop for a platform without little/no expense. People really are spoiled by FOSS tooling.

That the exact purpose of all the FOSS tooling -- to make tools free, so more things can get created? Make all FOSS paid and enforce the licensing and you will bankrupt a lot of small commercial companies that rely on them too. Then really a few giants will remain.

Imagine complaining about accessible technology. Corporations can't find the bottom of their misanthropy.

You don't need to spend €1000 to develop for Windows. Visual Studio Community Edition [1] is free to use for individuals, even for developing paid applications. Even if you're running a multi-developer business, Visual Studio Professional can be had for far less than €1000.

What you're referring to is the top-tier MSDN subscription, which is something that very few organizations will require.

[1]: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

Community has several restrictions for any business with more than 5 developers or more than a specific profit limit.

Right, which is why I was careful to state that Community was for individuals, and Professional was for multi-developer organizations.

This is in contrast with Apple, which requires you to pay $99 regardless of whether you're an individual or a corporate entity.

Yeah, but lets not forget that community also is relatively recent, having replaced the Express editions, which were worthless beyond learning purposes, as per license.

Recently tried to compile scintilla in visual studio, but gave up figuring out how to tune all settings in the IDE and compiled with nmake instead, the make file was very transparent and hackable with everything in plain sight.

A programmer isn't exactly a freeloader. He spends a lot of expensive effort to improve the OS vendor's worth. Microsoft figured this out correctly.

your perspective is limited IMO, for example you have small tools like a save cleaner utility for The Sims3 , some person made this tool in Java in his free time and shared it for free with the community, why should this dev pay Apple.

There are people that make Visual novels,text based games and other indie stuff(without using Apple tools most are Python,Java or Web tech) for free or a few bucks, I think they would not pay the Apple tax and either not support Mac at all or link to some instructions to workaround this limits while it is possible.

Especially since Apple should _want_ you making free tools for their platform, it directly increases the value of their systems.

How many people stick with iOS because of all the apps they like, which may not be available on Android.

Before Java was a thing, that utility would have been written in Turbo Pascal, Quick Basic, Visual Basic, C, C++ compiler, none of them available for free.

At minimum one would need the Shareware or PD disks tax to get hold of some similar compiler.

or use a free (libre or gratis) compiler. GNU Compiler Collection was released over three decades ago, or the BSD licensed Portable C Compiler that was initially released over forty years ago, as for Basic many operating systems had a basic interpreter or compiler built in.

When it became something usable on PCs we are already talking about past Windows 98.

I learned programming on MS-DOS with DJGPP, which is basically the GNU Compiler Collection (and lots of other GNU software) for MS-DOS. It certainly was usable (and included two free IDEs: RHIDE and Emacs), it was as good as GCC on Unix except for the lack of multitasking (which is what led me to Linux). This was long before Windows 98; the earliest DJGPP I can find is from 1994, and I had already migrated from DJGPP to GCC on Linux before 1998.

Hobbiest either used open source or some freeware compilers. The reason I mentioned Java and C# is that is easy to use for simple tools and you can support all OS, around 15 years ago I bought a book about games and c++ it had a CD with a free/gratis version of a c++ compiler (probably from Microsoft) I made some small games and shared them with my friends (I did not had to pay Microsoft a tax or ask approval)

There was hardly any open source on Amiga, Atari, MS-DOS and Windows 3.x worthy of use.

It's not mandatory tool so not a "tax".

Programs in basic from those times: https://web.archive.org/web/20121021081826/http://www.btinte... and basic interpreter shipped in computer's ROM. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedScript

> Outrageous is the entitlement of the current generations for not paying for their tools.

Sure, but in the case of an open-source developer working on macOS, he has already paid for his operating system; if he is using GCC, he has already paid everything the GCC developers require; why then must he pay extra money to Apple in order for other people to run his software in a straightforward manner on their machines (or, in the future, at all)? How is Apple even a party when two people wish to transact, when one writes and compiles free software on his hardware (paid for) and software (paid for) and the other runs it on his hardware (paid for) and software (paid for)?

Because traditionally compilers for a specific OS were extra pay.

Ironically that you mentioned GCC, it only came to be, because Sun made their development tools an additional payment to the base Solaris price.

You do realize the first thing most admins did after installing Solaris workstations was to install the free BSD utils?

No, because I did UNIX administration during late 90's and that wasn't a thing.

DG/UX, Aix, HP-UX, Tru64, Solaris, and some Linux boxes ironically not considered serious enough for production deployments.

Historically free software follows proprietary software because proprietary vendors can't contain their greed and mandate free software, it happened to GNU, git, nextcloud, many times over and over.

You sound like the people against student loan reform because “I had to pay mine back, why shouldn’t they”. That’s peak entitlement, demanding others suffer because you did.

Entitlement is wanting stuff for free, quite the opposite.

It's not entitlement but it is harmful jealousy.

Peak privilege, maybe?

That's just jealousy

This is not about paying for a tool. This USD 99 is a tax paid to Apple to be allowed to distribute the software you wrote, regardless of which tool you used to write it. It could be written with a free tool, it could be written with an expensive tool, it doesn't matter; everyone who wants to distribute software to run on macOS has to pay that tax.

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