Ares' Soap Box

The Ethics of Selling GPLed Software For the iPhone - SeanCier writes "We're a small (two-person) iPhone app developer whose first game has recently been released in the App store. In the process, we've inadvertently stepped in it, bringing up a question of the GPL and free software ethics that I'm hoping the Slashdot community can help us clear up, one way or the other. XPilot, a unique and groundbreaking UNIX-based game from the early/mid nineties, was a classic in its day, but was forgotten and has been dead for years, both in terms of use and development. My college roommate and I were addicted to it at the time, even running game servers and publishing custom maps. As it's fully open source (GPLv2), and the iPhone has well over twice the graphics power of the SGI workstations we'd used in college, we decided it was a moral imperative to port it to our cellphones. In the process, we hoped, we could breathe life back into this forgotten classic (not to mention turning a years-old joke into reality). We did so, and the result was more playable than we'd hoped, despite the physical limitations of the phone. We priced it at $2.99 on the App store (we don't expect it to become the Next Big Thing, but hoped to recoup our costs — such as server charges and Apple's annual $99 developer fee), released the source on our web page, then enthusiastically tracked down every member of the original community we could find to let them know of the hoped-for renaissance. Which is where things got muddy.

As noted in a previous blog entry here, I got my first iPhone app published for sale in the App Store a little under 3 weeks ago. Now that the first calendar month is complete (albeit not a full month), I'd like to share the results of the month's worth of endeavor.

According to the iTunes Connect site, iCoach has sold 28 copies in 19 days. Not bad considering I only used the app as an exercise towards learning the programming environment. In addition, in an effort to promote the application, I gave away 1045 copies of it.

Now for the breakdown:

Back in September 2008, my wife decided it was time for her to get an iPhone. Being a software developer, I welcomed the decision. Earlier that summer, Apple introduced the iTunes App Store and along with it, the opportunity for a little bit of supplemental income. I figured the iPhone would be a write-off on our taxes, as would the Mac I'd need in order to do the development.

One of the guys I used to work with, who runs Open Stack, Inc., had been earning a couple of hundred dollars a day on his slow days. That was a nice incentive for me. Knowing what he developed (and actually paying for it), I know that it is going to take a lot of apps to make that kind of money for myself but even if I can earn 10 or 20 bucks a day, I'd be money ahead; my internet connection and cell phone bill would be covered. Fortunately, my wife is a geniue when it comes to marketing and she could probably sell snow to a polar bear. She's got a lot of great ideas for apps which, when I put them together, may produce a decent income stream for us.

Thus, it was decided. We formed an LLC for our activities, at a cost of $160 in Minnesota. We paid Apple the mandatory $105.69 after sales tax for a developer account. I spent $7 on a domain name, 3dogsandacatsoftware.com. I already had a server running Apache, and installing Drupal on it for content was no big deal. I bought a used Mac off of eBay for $350 or so with Leopard already on it. All in all, for under $1000, we got the business side of things off the ground. If I manage to make 10 bucks a day, that venture capital from myself will be paid back in a little over 3 months. It would certainly be nice to turn a profit this year.

The Learning Curve

Every now and then, something pops up on my favorite tech news site that just makes me scratch my head and want to sound off about it. This is one of those items:

iPhone App Pricing Limits Developers - HardYakka writes "According to this post in the Fortune blog, the iTunes app store has been a boon for users but some developers are saying the number of free and 99 cent apps make it difficult for developers to create complex, higher priced apps. Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory says the iPhone may never get its killer app like the spreadsheet was for the Mac. If Apple does not do something, the store will be left with only ring tones and simple games. Some are suggesting that overpaid developers are the problem and the recession will soon lower the wages and costs for complex apps."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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