On Wed, 2014-04-16 at 22:19 +0200, Johan Engelen wrote: 
   This just came up on the dev maillist: does Inkscape have a Mac 
developer ID.
This looks like a board issue. Although I have a Mac, I am quite the 
noob on it, and do not know about Mac developer IDs. Perhaps su-v can 
chime in.

If this is something we need for a smoother experience on Mac, I hope 
someone can take initiative or tell me how to get the ID and credentials 
for us. Considering we are so close to native OSX builds, it'd be pretty 
nice to release 0.91 with it.

The problem is that we're a GPL'd program with shared copyright. There are some that believe the Apple Store is incompatible with the GPL, the FSF being one of them:

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement

Personally I'd disagree saying that as long as the source is available in the exact version as what is distributed in the binaries in the store and those binaries are built with a free compiler you're not effectively limited the user, even if the contract says that you could be limited in your use of those binaries. Practically speaking you have the same freedom.

But my opinion, or the opinion of the board doesn't matter. Every copyright holder of a shared copyright project would have the right to e-mail Apple and claim that distributing Inkscape is a copyright violation and ask them to take down the app. Apple would have no choice but to remove it from the application store.

So while I do believe being in the Mac store would be good for Inkscape and Inkscape users, I don't think that we can do it for practical considerations. It makes me worry about Free Software's continued success on Mac OS and Windows.

Ted