yes I get the protest, but it is an ideological one. you create a device, and all the dev tools around it, should a government be able to force you to give it away and support people using it for free? they obviously can't (and shouldn't). EU can plug all the holes it wants, in the end Apple can say "hey we are selling the dev kit for $500k, only good for this major version of the OS" and that will be the end of that. Apple is trying to do the "no upfront cost, low barrier to entry" thing here - they have to get something for it to make it worth their while, but if forced it would come to that and no one can argue that they should not be able to sell their tools.
If you develop a platform that runs software, you should freely distribute necessary the tools to develop software for the platform.
The end user should own their device and that means they should be able to develop software for it free of charge once they have the device.
That does not mean that you can not make libraries that you sell. So I think apple could sell a specialized ML library for their chips, as long as they document the hardware such that someone else willing to do the work could also create such a library
>you create a device, and all the dev tools around it, should a government be able to force you to give it away and support people using it for free?
they aren't using it for free, though. These are $1000+ luxury hardware powered by software that developer pay a yearly license to develop for (and because Apple has no modern server OS, these devs also buy into said $1000+ hardware).
At this point I see it as rent-seeking since essentially they are saying that companies need to retroactively pay for software they made decades ago, even if they want to bypass it.
>in the end Apple can say "hey we are selling the dev kit for $500k, only good for this major version of the OS" and that will be the end of that.
that would honestly be a better deal. $500k for a dev kit for a large gaming company would pay for itself if it can make $2m+ or so in revenue (after advertising budgets). It would be catastropic for indies but indies aren't likely to see alternate stores as is.
> You create a device, and all the dev tools around it, should a government be able to force you to give it away and support people using it for free?
This is an overly broad straw man argument because no one is trying to force Apple to give away iPhones. And yes, the government should be able to force you make major concessions, especially if your device becomes integral to the daily lives of half the citizens of said government.
Apple is selling these devices at a significant profit to end users. The primary purpose of the app store for Apple is to provide value to those consumers, so they continue to buy iPhones. Even if the EU decided tomorrow to confiscate all profits Apple makes from the app store in perpetuity Apple would continue to offer the App Store.
you're the one making a strawman from my argument. I obviously did not imply Apple giving away iOS devices. I was talking about forcing Apple to support a 3rd party developer ecosystem, providing the tools to develop for that ecosystem and eating the costs.
And even then, it is not much different from forcing them to give away iPhones. So what, producing iPhones has a cost so giving them away is "obviously" not tenable, but making tools to develop for it has no cost? Forcing a security model where they have to be ready for "anything, anytime" instead of having a gate where they check things right at the gate has no cost? Especially when if their security fails, they will be the ones to be held responsible?
the rest of the things you say you support is a sure-fire way to make sure no company would risk anything to make devices / inventions so valuable that they become an integral part of your lives. at least not in your jurisdiction.
>the rest of the things you say you support is a sure-fire way to make sure no company would risk anything to make devices / inventions so valuable that they become an integral part of your lives.
yeah, sounds better than this future where they embrace, extend, and extinguish with the mindshare gained before pulling wool over the customer's eyes.
And this isn't new. This is the entire reason behind anti-trust. Because it's not in the government's best interest to allow Microsoft to push out other browsers. Post-innovation runs down a road to greed and corruption, which stifles future innovation for current convinience. It's never worth it.