That Apple's investment of billions into the ecosystem is not an argument I see valid, given the alternatives.
>all software must be free.
Heavens, that's not what I'm saying. I find it contradictory that Apple have open sourced an entire operating system and an entire kernel, and are kvetching over a mere privilege to begin approaching a distro of their OS. I'm not fighting the freedom fight, I'm in awe of the bait-and-switch they're employing.
Apple's App Store earns developers something like 50%+ more revenue than equivalent apps on Android. No small part of that is due to the ease of piracy on Android.
I do not see any contradiction, nor any "bait-and-switch". The operating system and a kernel are not the services engine which keeps their company running. Open sourcing that code doesn't imperil their primary revenue streams.
Granted the worldwide open source community has had and has nearly zero interest in making a darwin distro with a minimalistic tiling window manager, or anything similar. Yet I see gnu/linux developers create dozens of linux distros and dozens of functionally identical window managers. So much for side-rant.
Demanding all software be free is also demanding the end to freedom. People want iOS to be more open because of the incredible value of iOS. Not because there’s an equivalent free alternative at hand they simply didn’t notice.
> Darwin/XNU is libre software, so it's a contradiction to make people pay for the right to program.
This does not make logical sense? That other free software exists is not an argument that all software must be free. Apple has a business model which increasingly relies on selling services and licenses on iOS over selling new hardware. That’s their choice for how to fund their operations, which I’m very happy that they are free to make!
Being forced to make all my code freely available would be an appalling restriction on my own personal freedom. Not to diminish the brutal history of slavery, but what gives someone the right to free access to my work?