Doesn't Gatekeeper allow you to sign apps that aren't distributed through the Mac app store and avoid the warning mentioned in the article? That makes it a feature that's explicitly intended to improve the security of the Mac _without_ requiring that all apps be bought through the Mac app store (i.e. the opposite of the EFF's argument).
Also, there's more to the iOS story than the small amount of money that Apple makes from the app store. Apple has over $20 _billion_ in revenue per quarter from the iPhone [1], making Cydia's $10 million / year about a hundredth of a percent of Apple's revenue. Tim Bray has an interesting estimate [2] of how a small a fraction of iPhone revenue goes to software developers - $12 vs. $350 for the hardware - making Apple's cut an even smaller ~$5. I would argue that user experience and control are a much larger part of the motivation for locking down iOS than the additional revenue.
There's a good argument to made about the problems with closed platforms but, by being misleading about Apple's technology and motivation, the EFF does a poor job of making it here.
Also, there's more to the iOS story than the small amount of money that Apple makes from the app store. Apple has over $20 _billion_ in revenue per quarter from the iPhone [1], making Cydia's $10 million / year about a hundredth of a percent of Apple's revenue. Tim Bray has an interesting estimate [2] of how a small a fraction of iPhone revenue goes to software developers - $12 vs. $350 for the hardware - making Apple's cut an even smaller ~$5. I would argue that user experience and control are a much larger part of the motivation for locking down iOS than the additional revenue.
There's a good argument to made about the problems with closed platforms but, by being misleading about Apple's technology and motivation, the EFF does a poor job of making it here.
[1] http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q2fy12datasum.pdf [2] http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/03/04/Mobile-Mon...