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Microsoft had unleashed (once again) the ire of the open source community when, in June, it had published the new guidelines for developers who wanted to host their applications on the Microsoft Store: it was in fact done complete ban on selling open source software. After many protests about it, the company reversed and revised its plans, making the situation clearer.
Open source applications on the paid Microsoft Store: a problem
One of the problems that the Microsoft Store has had for a long time is that of open source programs sold by third party developers. In fact, users find themselves paying for applications that are normally free. The problem is not in the concept itself, but in the fact that the profits go exclusively to the third party developers, rather than to those who actually develop the applications.
The reason why there is no general problem with charging for open source applications is that this is a safe form of financing for the projects that develop them. An example above all is Krita, an application for manipulating images and digital painting, which thanks to the proceeds from the sale of the application on the Microsoft Store is able to employ eight full-time developers. In fact, those who buy Krita on the Microsoft Store pay both to support the project and for the convenience of managing the application and its updates directly from the Store, rather than having to manually install the updates.
The problem when third party developers pretend to be original projects, perhaps even using trademarks without having the right. Precisely to stem these cases Microsoft had introduced new rather strict rules which, in fact, prevented the sale of open source software tout court.
This general ban has generated a lot of noise, with the open source community rising up against the change precisely because of the presence of legitimate projects on the Microsoft Store. Many have requested a change from Microsoft in the way in which the new policy was spelled out in the regulation, so as to allow legitimate realities to continue selling their software.
2/3 To clarify our intent, we removed the previous mention to open source pricing. We’re committed to building an open Store and enabling dev choice and flexibility. If there are intellectual property concerns about an app, please report it at https://t.co/giZuHeCIpH
George sardo (@gisardo) July 18, 2022
This request was accepted by Microsoft, which has therefore amended the regulation removing entirely the part relating to the price of the open source software and adding a section in which it invites you to report any suspicious cases.
A further step, and a further demonstration of goodwill on Microsoft’s part, could be the introduction of a verification system, so as to make it possible for users to identify at a glance the paid open source applications behind which the original developer or project is actually behind. However, Microsoft’s speed of reaction remains commendable, which has exceeded by a few orders of magnitude that shown by the two main competitors, Google and Apple, in dealing with a problem felt by many developers.
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