> The jailbreak (redsn0w, I think) around the iOS 3 days didn't even come with Cydia- it just installed SSH, and the user had to install Cydia after SSHing into the device.

Very few versions of redsn0w ever installed just SSH (the ones that did were beta versions targeting iOS firmware versions where we didn't want to make things easy for end users). Cydia was included by default with the initial release of PwnageTool for iOS 2, and has been included in almost every jailbreak ever since.

> I've always wondered what the term "Cydia" meant, so I hope Saurik can clarify: "Cydia" the app, or "Cydia" the ecosystem?

You use the term MobileSubstrate, which was the name of a dylib and the low-level name of a developer-only package for what was always called Cydia Substrate (the very first source code file for it I wrote in 2008 had Cydia Substrate at the top). Apple named most of their folders and files and bundle names at the time like that.

Cydia is a platform for runtime code modification that includes an SDK for making modifications (Substrate), a distribution system for installing them (Installer), a payment processing, licensing, and accounting backend (Store), and (on Android only, currently, and not really fleshed out yet) a USB device management tool (Impactor).

The icon for Cydia Installer is labeled "Cydia", so the boundaries between the terms "Cydia"-the-app and "Cydia"-the-platform is blurry. People then tend to talk about "Cydia Repositories" (APT repositories with content for usage with Cydia) and "Cydia extensions/apps" (what I normally call "Substrate extensions").

As for the "ecosystem", the line is often blurred here between the "iOS jailbreak ecosystem" and the "Cydia ecosystem" because almost every jailbreak tool has included Cydia Installer, Cydia Installer is the only way to get Cydia Substrate, and almost everything in the ecosystem is built as a Substrate extension of some form.

> I wonder if Saurik could separate the app and the ecosystem of packages.

As explained in the article, I am able to maintain all the things I'm responsible for, as well as have the time to help all the people who maintain all the things I'm not directly responsible for, because I have a semi-profitable business that I have managed to build out of the Installer and Store parts of the Cydia platform.

Alternatively, I could charge developers for licenses to use Substrate, and I could sell Cycript as some kind of stand-alone tool package, but that would have a massively stifling effect on the developer ecosystem. It isn't about "these things are overly coupled", it is "these things are effectively coupled but don't look to be".

Another option is that I could build first-party software for the device built out of Substrate, and distribute my software via someone else's software distribution and payments service. This sounds like an even worse scenario. In this case, I would be highly incentivized to hoard Substrate for only my products as a competitive advantage.

Essentially, if someone wants to compete with me on Installer/Store, they need to be prepared to handle everything else, because that's the place where I am able to make money: if they want the only part that's profitable they had better be prepared to take on all the things that aren't, as they aren't entitled to my effort.

Like, I don't know what you are hoping to obtain by splitting Substrate and Installer/Store apart, but if the goal is to be able to let people compete with some of the things I've built without just replacing me entirely, that isn't really possible and I honestly don't see the point: I would just leave if that happened.