Yesterday, grassroots gaming organisation the IGDA fired a salvo over the bows of Amazon concerning the terms and conditions for its Appstore for Android. The IGDA considers them a bad thing for developers.

Now free app store GetJar has also got involved in the debate.

In a blog post entitled; Paying Rent: A Developer Manifesto on Pricing, chief marketing office Patrick Mork has outlined four guiding principles he thinks app stores should use to help developers make money.

The world according to

The first is that developers should be able to set the price of their apps.

This is easy on GetJar as everything is free, but Amazon retains the power to discount or give away content on its store, paying developers a guarantee of 20 percent of the list price or 70 percent of the sale price; whichever is greater.

Mork's second point is that developers should be able to choose their billing partners.

This is wider issue, with most app store have official payment channels; Apple requires iTunes, for example. Mork particularly points the finger at Google's Android platform over this point. He recently argued the new Android in-app billing system should be available for everyone selling Android content.

Don't be evil

The third principle is back to Amazon: "App stores shouldn't hamper developers' ability to leverage promotions or placement in other stores through rigid pricing policies." Amazon doesn't allow its partners to sell content cheaper on rival app stores.

Mork's final point is a more general catch-all schema; "Show developers some respect for the product they create and communicate that."

"As app stores, we need to keep in mind that ultimately content is what consumers come to us for," he concludes.

"It's a bit tough to meet that demand if you ignore developers or worse, impose restrictive commercial policies on them. We can do better than that."

Of course, cynics will argue this is fine and dandy for Mork say. As GetJar is limited to hosting free games and apps, few of these points affect it directly. 

Still, it will be interesting to see how the widening debate over standard terms for content, and Android content in particular, develops over the coming months. 

[source: GetJar]