In what way are Windows 8 app certification requirements written in stone? If there are hundreds of millions to be made from changing some text, trust me, those rules will fall faster than Felix Baumgartner.
Sure, and if there aren't hundreds of millions to be made in some area, the rules for that area might not change.
The point is that we should be very unexcited about the walled garden approach because it will exclude a lot of cool and fun and useful software. Even if they make an exception for high-grossing software, the whole idea is still a bad one.
The Accessibility API is excluded from the Mac App Store under the new sandboxing rules, for example. Most people won't notice. But it's incredibly inconvenient for those people whose 3rd party accessibility tools give them the ability to use their Mac.
That depends on how high the walls are, and the argument could be made they're not very high at all. A minor entry fee, hardware (don't count this highly, someone wanting to develop for platform x likely already has platform x), and an approvals process that blocks mostly porn and malware (plus a few more edge cases).
That's my argument - "a few" edge cases aren't actually that few, and these are edge cases with the potential to grow into hugely productive industries.
Under the current scheme, DOOM would never have been released, and the multi-billion dollar action/shooter games industry would be dead on arrival.
Applying the same standards to textual content, sites like Reddit and Digg would never have been approved (in fact Reddit apps on the App Store are rated 18+, a rating strictly disallowed in MS's scheme), and we would never have seen the explosion of link aggregation.
These few edge cases aren't that few, and they aren't that edge casey.
What's wrong with porn? I know there will be plenty available through the browser anyway but it seems odd for an OS vendor to be in a position to take a puritan stance.
The problem with not allowing for 'edge cases' is that a lot of popular software probably started as a weird 'edge case'.
> ...there will be plenty available through the browser anyway...
Except there won't.
Imagine:
1. No third-party browsers.
2. No non-whitelisted sites viewable in the default browser (except maybe in "legacy mode", meaning no scripts, no videos and the browser censors the text.)
3. If you're lucky, there will be an "adult mode", where you can access URLs with adult content (but the "guardians" will be notified of each URL in real-time, along with your name and address. Not the NSA, and not in secret, but one of the filtering companies we know today. And everyone living in the same street as you will get a "Warning! pervert in neighbourhood!" alert.)
In all honesty, the requirements aren't that bad, especially for game designers that aren't just attempting to make a quick buck. There's really nothing in there that should force good developers to really have to stretch to follow them.
And their user agreement is friendlier to FOSS projects than Apple's.
c. Third Party Rights. Your app, including any app that contains FOSS, must not infringe or misappropriate any intellectual property or personal right of any third party. You will obtain and maintain all necessary rights, clearances and consents, and pay all performance, licensing and reuse fees, including any consideration associated with providing music or video related content in and through your app. If your app includes FOSS, you must comply with all applicable FOSS licensing terms, including any source availability requirements.
d. FOSS Software. If your app includes FOSS, it must not cause any non-FOSS Microsoft software to become subject to the terms of any FOSS license.
He's talking about this, mass censorship that many of today's games and TV shows cannot pass:
5.1 Your app must not contain adult content, and metadata must be appropriate for everyone
5.2 Your app must not contain content that advocates discrimination, hatred, or violence based on membership in a particular racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, religious, or other social group, or based on a person’s gender, age, or sexual orientation
5.3 Your app must not contain content or functionality that encourages, facilitates or glamorizes illegal activity
5.4 Your app must not contain or display content that a reasonable person would consider to be obscene
5.5 Your app must not contain content that is defamatory, libelous or slanderous, or threatening
5.6 Your app must not contain content that encourages, facilitates or glamorizes excessive or irresponsible use of alcohol or tobacco products, drugs or weapons
5.7 Your app must not contain content that encourages, facilitates or glamorizes extreme or gratuitous violence, human rights violations, or the creation or use of weapons against a person or animal in the real world
5.8 Your app must not contain excessive or gratuitous profanity
Just because everybody with similar platforms do it, doesn't make it right. And I do not agree about those statements being CYA - the worst thing you can get is an environment where the rules are selectively enforced, based on a decision-making process that will never be transparent.
Oh so content-makers are complaining that Youtube steals their traffic? Clearly there's enough content on Youtube to justify a ban under any of those rules and Google is not exactly on Microsoft's list of favorites.
Let's also remember the apps banned by Apple for being "offensive". Were they obnoxious, definitely, to some people at least. However that's censorship. And it's OK as long as controlled platforms are a minority, but when it becomes a monopolizing problem leaving consumers with no choices left, then it should really be against the law.
>However that's censorship. And it's OK as long as controlled platforms are a minority, but when it becomes a monopolizing problem leaving consumers with no choices left, then it should really be against the law.
I have trouble accepting this argument. Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon are not preventing the production of that content. They're simply refusing to sell it, which is their prerogative.
That's not censorship, at all. It's no different from any of the major big-box chains refusing to sell things because of content.
The issue isn't so much that they won't be selling it, the issue is that you won't be allowed to have it on your computer at all.
Since people are going to increasingly consume things on computers this provides a level of censorship power that would disgust people if it were proposed by a government.
One of the points in the article is that Microsoft can't predict the future, and might miss a hundred-million dollar opportunity because they don't recognize it. Today there's nothing to stop someone from exploiting that opportunity regardless of Microsoft's blindness, but that won't be true in the future.
