When is free not free? When it comes to Appcelerator's Titanium mobile developer tools, the answer is "when you make money from it." Confusion over the company's license and some aggressive attempts at revenue generation by Appcelerator's sales team have led to a complaint from a developer on the company's forum accusing the company of "extortionate fees," an apology from the CEO, and arguments about the ethical use of open-source licensing.
As a result, the company says it is working to remove the "confusion" around its licensing, which blends an open-source software developer kit with a proprietary integrated development tool. "Rarely does this happen that we get such confusion and noise (about the licensing)," Appcelerator Vice President of Products Jonathan Rende said in an interview with Ars. "We acknowledge there's some confusion on our licensing. We hear the feedback loud and clear. We're going to make sure the message is very clear as we approach customers in the future. Our developer community is super important to us, and we want to do right by them."
Appcelerator's Titanium development tool allows programmers to build native applications for Apple's iOS and Google Android mobile operating systems using JavaScript and a framework that connects to the operating system's native widgets (rather than using HTML5). It's available in a free version called App Explore. The core software developer kit is available as open-source source code under an Apache license through GitHub. "We give our software away for FREE!" the Titanium Mobile "readme" proclaims. "In order to do that, we have programs for companies that require [an] additional level of assistance through training or commercial support, need special licensing or want additional levels of capabilities."
Based on that wording, Malcolm Bailey, proprietor of the small UK-based custom development shop Bluesky Industries, thought he was in the clear. He used the tool to develop a free application for a client under his company's account, using no support or services from Appcelerator.
But two weeks after the application was posted to the App Store, he was contacted by an Appcelerator salesperson who informed him he would need to pay £5000 (about $10,000) for a commercial license—or the app would be yanked from the App Store for intellectual property infringement. His client was also told by Appcelerator that they would have to purchase the same license.
Bailey posted his story to the Appcelerator developer forum—and seemed more frustrated about Appcelerator contacting his client than the licensing issue. "If I use Photoshop to develop a logo," he wrote, "would Adobe contact my client to ask them for a license as well?" Other developers in the UK reported in the forum that they had been contacted in the same way.
The key, apparently, is that Bailey (and others) used the free distribution of Titanium and its developer tools, instead of compiling an SDK from the source on the GitHub site and using another tool to write their code. But there's little if anything in the licensing information on GitHub, which links to the pre-built version as well, to let developers know that—the licensing agreement is displayed when developers first run the Titanium Studio developer tools. Rende admitted that this causes confusion over what part of the toolset is open source and which is commercial—as well as what developers' rights with the tool are, since it's not well-documented elsewhere.
In a response on the site, Appcelerator CEO and co-founder Jeff Haynie apologized for the confusion, and for the apparent shakedown. "To be crystal clear here, our intentions are that we will not charge for development that happens under the "App Explore" product (i.e., the free version)," Haynie wrote. "Usage of the Appcelerator platform at this level is permitted for all applications, both commercial and free, with no financial obligation to Appcelerator." And in a response to comments on his answer, Haynie reiterated that Appcelerator's employees should have never contacted the developer's customer, "and it is totally unacceptable to have contacted your customer if that is what you say has happened. We should NEVER do that EVER without your permission or without your assistance."
However, Haynie was defensive about the licensing fees, saying "we certainly NEVER intend to extort money from anyone. I simply don't see how you can draw a straight line from spending literally tens of MILLIONS of dollars this year alone on Titanium and providing it for FREE to well over 98% of the users—and then say that we're 'extorting people'. Was the sales rep over eager and trying to hussle to get a deal? Probably. In my opinion, that's the job of the rep and we work with hundreds of new paying customers each quarter and we've only had a few complaints about it. Do they need better training and coaching? Yes."
The exchange drew a number of heated responses from other developers, including a blog post by developer and author Kay Rhodes that questioned the morals of Appcelerator's management. "Do not work with this company," Rhodes wrote. "Please. You're better than that. 99.99999% of humanity is better than that, and if you've got clients you definitely don't want to risk your reputation with them by working with a company this morally bankrupt."
Rende wouldn't comment on the accuracy of the complaints from Bailey and others, stating that "we had a very good conversation with the customer," and that the company's focus would be on clarifying the licensing up-front for both the community of developers using the open-source version of the SDK and for commercial customers. "The community is really valuable to us," he said, "and as part of clarifying (the licensing), we want to review it with community before we finalize it."
Listing image by ferret11
reader comments
51