Re: [needs proofread] Legal corner - Apple notarization

I have proofread the news item, and attach a version of the xhtml that
reflects my suggestions.  As usual, it is a .odt file.

There is a complication because the news item is a moving target.  The
first version I have is represented by the xhtml file that you sent out the
morning of November 4 (my time, afternoon your time).  The second version
is represented by the xhtml file that Henning Lammert sent out less than an
hour later.  (For convenience, I shall refer to this as the revised
version.)  A third version is represented by the webpreview.  I have
confirmed that its exported xhtml agrees with the revised version;
fortunately the target has not moved since Henning Lammert wrote.

 I am proofreading using the webpreview text, which is easier to read than
an xhtml file.  But I am basing my comments on both your version and Henning
Lammert's.  When he has made a suggestion, sometimes I prefer his version,
sometimes I prefer yours.  Sometimes I have a suggestion of my own to
make.  So for each of my comments below, I am supplying a label.  An "A"
means that I prefer your version to his.  An "H" means that I prefer his
version to yours.  An "R" means that I have my own suggestion, which I
prefer.  Similarly, an "a," an "h" or an "r" indicates a choice that I feel
less strongly about, but for which I think I have identified the best
choice.  Of course, my opinions are not the last word.  Yours are.

Because of this complication I am supplying more explanations than usual.
The texts in the suggestions below are those of the webpreview, and thus of
the revised version.  (However, I am not making any comment in those
instances in which the only difference that I can see between your version
and the revised version is a matter of formatting of the xhtml files.)


a  1.  There is a choice of "html newsdate=" values.  "2025-11-05"  seems
more natural to me than "2025-10-29," but I do not know the convention for
this detail.

a  2.  Title.  The revised version seems simply to put your version on a
single line (but with "softwarefreedom" as a single word, which does not
appear in the webpreview).  If there is something else going on, I have
missed it.

r  3.  "prohibiting alternative app stores and hindering
interoperability."  I suggest inserting an Oxford comma after "stores."
This is consistent with the general practice in this news item (and with
the Style Guide).  There is no virtue in inconsistency.

H  4.  "The FSFE has recently contributed to a complaint initiated by
civil-society organisations targeting Apple’s non-compliance with the DMA"
You have "targetting."   The latest (fourth) edition [2015] of Fowler's
Dictionary of Modern English Usage, has an entry for "target (verb)":  "The
inflected forms are targeted, targeting.  See  -T-, -TT-."  At "-t-, -tt-,"
item 2 starts "Words of more than one syllable follow the rule for
monosyllables if their last syllable is accented, but otherwise do not
double the t."  There are only three special cases listed as exceptions.
(This is in marked contrast to the situation for final l, where there is
consistent variation between UK and US usage.)

     Let me repeat to all of you an offer that I make occasionally to the
FSFE translators.  I will be delighted to send any of you a copy of this
valuable reference work if you will send me your address.  This latest
edition of "Fowler" is particularly good.  The original edition is a
classic, and I enjoy reading in it, but it is now a century old.

5.  "Imagine that you are a Free Software developer willing to make your
programme available on the iPhone."

R  (a)  Replace "programme" with "program."  According to Fowler, "In
computer work in all English-speaking countries the spelling _program_ is
routinely used for 'a series of coded instructions to control the operation
of a computer'."

h  (b)  You have "in" instead of "on."  Apps can be thought of as being
"in" their devices, but when I consider an iPhone as a computer it seems
more natural to me to say that the app runs on it.

a  6.  "This all sounds good, until you realise that your plan is not
possible on iOS."  Again, you have "in" instead of "on."  But conversely,
iOS is an operating system, not a computer.  One might well say that it is
not just an operating system (a large but even nowadays a very finite mass
of computer code) but an ecosystem.  Considering the control that Apple
exerts over the iOS system as a whole, It seems more natural to me to say
that programs are ecompassed in iOS than to say that they run on it.

H  7.  "Apple blocks non-profit app stores with extremely high financial
requirements and prohibits unfettered installation of software."  You have
"prohibit" instead of "prohibits."

h  8.  "Apple still applies a complete review and control, through an
encryption layer over distributed source code."  You have "applying"
instead of "through."  Either is acceptable.  I prefer "through" so as to
avoid saying "applying" in such close proximity to "applies."

9.  "Apple prevents third-party app stores from effectively working on iOS
and iPadOS;"

H  (a)  You have "to effectively work" instead of "from effectively
working." English usage is "prevent from," not "prevent to."

R  (b)  I suggest replacing "working" [or "work"] with "running" [or "run"]
or some other verb.  In English, the phrase "to work on" something can mean
(as here) for a program to run on a computer.  But its more common meaning
is to try to improve something or to try to accomplish something.  That is
not intended here.

h  10.  "with the company’s features controlled by iOS and iPadOS."  You
have "via" instead of "by."  Either is acceptable.  My preference for "by"
is that it is both shorter than "via" and more specific.  (In its origin,
"via" means "by way of the road."  For "via" to be a synonym of "by" so
that "controlled via" can be a synonym for "controlled by" is more recent.)

R.  11.  "Notarisation forces all apps, even those distributed outside the
Apple’s App Store"  Remove "the."  English usage.

R  12.  "This transforms Apple’s self-appointed “security review” into a
choke-point of power; locking developers and users into the company’s
proprietary ecosystem."  Replace the semicolon with a comma.  The half of
the sentence that follows the semicolon would not be a complete sentence in
itself.

13.  "The company has conditioned the provision of a third-party app store
as a native app in its iOS and iPadOS by"

r  (a)  I suggest replacing "The company" with "Apple."  Shorter and
simpler.

R  (b)  Replace "by" (the last quoted word) with "on."  English usage.  We
say "conditioned on," not conditioned by."

14.  "(1) a letter of credit"

R  (a)  Insert "providing" before "a."  Grammatically, a verbal noun like
this is needed after the change suggested in my #13(a), above.  The verb
Apple uses in its "Alternative Terms Addendum" is "provide."

R  (b)  Insert "standby" before "letter."  See the Addendum, 2.1.A.  It is
important to be accurate.

R  15.  "be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program"
Replace "be" with "being."  Grammatically, a verbal noun like this is
needed after the change suggested in my #13(a), above.

16.  "Both requirements are extremely unfair and disproportionately affect
non-profit Free Software projects, SMEs, startups and individual
developers."

H  (a)  You have "affects" for "affect."

r  (b)  I suggest inserting an Oxford comma after "startups."

17.  "This breaks user’s rights when it comes to the freedoms of Free
Software."

R  (a)  Replace "user's" with "users' ".  Some change is necessary; another
possibility would be to insert "a" or "the" before "user's."  The
substantial advantage of using the plural  form "users' " is that this
plural possessive form matches the plural word "Users" that begins the next
sentence.

h  (b)  You had "Free Software freedoms" instead of "the freedoms of Free
Software."  Both are acceptable, but I prefer the revised version; I think
that it is easier to understand than to have the compound (but
unhyphenated) adjective "Free Software" modify "freedoms."

R  18.  "What makes this process absurd, is that Apple applies this
notarisation process to all apps running on iOS, no matter which channel of
distribution."  Remove the comma after "absurd."  English grammar.  (The
phrase "What makes this process absurd" is not the sort of introductory
clause that should be set off from the rest of the sentence with a comma.
Rather, it functions as the subject of the sentence, and it is good general
rule that in English the subject of a sentence should not be separated from
the verb by a single comma.)

19.  "excludes non-commercial, community-ran projects that cannot afford or
refuse to submit to Apple’s terms."

A  (a)  You had "community-run" rather than the "-ran" of the revised
version.  The form "-run" is correct.  "Run" is the past participle, as
well as the present-tense form, of the verb "to run."  "Ran" is the simple
past tense.

R  (b)  I suggest rewriting the second half of this as ". . . cannot afford
to submit to Apple’s terms or refuse to submit to them."  The problem that
I see is that it would be easy to interpret "cannot" as referring to both
the affording and the refusing.

R  20.  "They have effectively prevented non-profit Free Software app
stores to work in iOS and iPadOS."  Replace "to work" with "from working"
see my #9(a), above.  You could alternatively replace "to work" with "from
running" as in my #9(b) above, but there is no need to do so here and I do
not suggest doing so.

21.  "The provision of a 1 million letter of credit or 1 million downloads
within a year in the EU overburden not only non-profits, but also
individual developers, startups and SMEs."

R  (a)  Insert "euro" after "million."

R  (b)  Insert "standby" before "letter."  See my #14(b) above.

R  (c)  Replace "overburden" with "overburdens."  The subject of the
sentence is one of two alternatives, and thus (in normal usage, at least)
singular.

r  (d)  "but also individual developers, startups and SMEs."  I suggest
inserting an Oxford comma after "startups."

R  22.  "such requirements are not met by industry standards and
expectations."  I suggest replacing "are not met by" with "do not reflect"
or some other rewriting.  This sounds as though you are saying that
industry standards and expectations are inadequate, that they do not
measure up to Apple's standards and expectations.  There is nothing wrong
with them.

R  23.  "They derive from Apple’s monopolistic behaviour over mobile
devices."  Replace "over" with "with respect to."  English usage.  One does
not behave over things.  (Other rewritings are of course possible.)

R  24.  "Apple ignores less restrictive alternatives (i.e. insurance and
escrow frameworks)"  I suggest replacing "i.e." with "e.g."  "I.e." means
"that is," and indicates that these are the only two less restrictive
alternatives available.  This seems implausible.  "E.g." means "for
example," and indicates that there are also others.  Note that I have not
read the complaint.  If it says that there are only these two possiblities
for less restrictive approaches, then of course my suggestion should not be
followed.  But the discussion of decentralised software curation in the
following section suggests otherwise.

R  25.  "The complaint prompts the European Commission to impose fines and
to find an alternative"  I suggest replacing "prompts" with "urges" or
whatever is customary in European pleadings.  To prompt is to provide a
gentle hint or reminder.  Again, I have not read the complaint, and I do
not know what it says, nor do I know how European pleadings are phrased.
But in other FSFE news reporting, I have seen much stronger language used,
language of demands (actually stronger than I would normally use, and I
have sometimes objected).

a  26.  "The European Commission must ensure that compliance with the DMA
means actual openness."  You had "genuine" instead of "actual."  Either
would be good, but I prefer "genuine".  There is a discussion under
"authentic, genuine" in the latest edition of "Fowler" that says many
things "can be described as either authentic or genuine without a
perceptible shift of meaning" and then proceeds to make a distinction.  If
"genuine" is a better fit than "authentic," I think that it is also a
better fit than "actual."

h  27.  "The right to install, share, and verify software freely on any
device"  You have "in" instead of "on."  Comparing my #5(b) to my #6,
above, you can see why I prefer "on" to "in" when items of discrete items
of software are involved.


>
> On Tue, Nov 4, 2025 at 9:04 AM Ana Galan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> we will publish tomorrow a new article of our Legal Corner. It is a bit
> last minute but it would be great if we can have it proofread.
>
> You can find it attached and here:
> https://webpreview.fsfe.org/cgi/fsfe.pl?pad=1549
>
> Best and thanks a lot,
>
> Ana
>
> --
>
>
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