The Digital Markets Act mandates that mobile gatekeepers open their device operating systems to competing app stores. This affects the landscape of app distribution on iOS and Android and has brought about a variety of different compliance efforts, most of which have been found lacking by regulators thus far. The law is important for Free Software, as its obligations grant smaller Free Software projects the rights to demand access to gatekeepers' infrastructure like enabling alternative app store, sideloading and un-installation of software and interoperability with operating systems.

This talk will outline the current state of compliance efforts on the part of Apple and iOS, the primary areas where they are deemed insufficient, and how they effectively block any marketplace from emerging as a viable source of FOSS software distribution for the iPhone and iPad. Financial preconditions, ongoing fees, enforced DRM, centralized notarization app review, and other factors all conspire together to maintain the status quo of monopolistic control over the app marketplace on these devices.

The App Fair Project (appfair.org) is a non-profit charity with the mission of creating an app marketplace for the distribution of digital public goods in the form of free and open-source mobile applications. We have been active in the various workshops and working groups that have examined the DMA compliance efforts on the part of the mobile OS gatekeepers, and have provided technical advice and expertise to groups such as the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the NGI TALER project.