Classici Stranieri

Apple has announced a
plan for allowing other app stores
for the iMonsters, and it seems likely to exclude free (libre) software.

The problem is that users will have to pay a fee, and it sounds like
the redistributor will have to collect that fee — but there is no way
to do that without using nonfree software and insisting that users run it.

That is not certain, though. Depending on details, the problem may exist or not.

The operating system of the iMonsters is
full of nonfree software
(which is, as usual, malware). That is unfortunate and unjust, but
it’s Apple’s doing, not ours. Distributing free software that can run
on iMonsters would not make us culpable for what Apple does. If Apple
charges the user money to install our free programs, Apple would be
culpable for that too, but again we would not be.

If Apple requires whoever redistributes the code to pay a fee and
collect it from the users, participation in that would be odious, and
perhaps (depending on details) financially prohibitive, but supposing
it is possible it would not be culpable for us. This culpability would
naturally fall on Apple, along with all the rest.

However, if collecting that fee from the users requires us to ask the
user to run nonfree software — for instance, the nonfree JavaScript
code sent by Stripe for payment — we would be culpable for that.
There is no getting around this.

Compare with the Android situation. The site f-droid.org uses
free/libre programs which you can downloadand install with free
software. The Android/Linux operating system includes nonfree
software, and even malware, but that is not f-droid’s doing nor that
of the developers of the free programs distributed there.

Why hasn’t the EU required Apple to permit an Fdroid-like distributor
for free/libre software for iMonsters? It is because the EU directive
is based on the concept of more “competition” and not on “freedom for
users.” In the competition framing, all people need is “more choices”,
never mind if all of the choices are unjust.