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iPhone SDK and Free Software Don't Match

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hey-now-wait-a-minute dept.

kookjr writes "Are you planning to develop software for the iPhone? If you want to develop Free Software, Linux.com (Shares corp overlord w/ Slashdot) has a good review of the conflicts between Apple's Registered iPhone Developer Agreement and licenses like the GPL. This is important for people who may not read all the agreements they click Agree to."

10 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Combined FUD, Maby-FUD and Not-FUD... by nweaver · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Not FUD: The iPhone is incompatible with GPLv3.

    If you ask Apple, thats a feature.

    If you ask the Free Software Foundation, thats a feature.

    The Maby FUD: Is code which uses the iPhone APIs confidential information under the NDA? No answer yet.

    The Total FUD: It only affects SOME Free liscences. Even if the APIs are confidential, this does NOT stop BSD code, but only viral liscences like GPL.

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    1. Re:Combined FUD, Maby-FUD and Not-FUD... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 3, Informative

      From TFA, it may affect the publishing of source code under any license. The BSD license isn't going to get you very far if you could be violating the Apple NDA by publishing the source code. Furthermore, even if you did / could publish it legally, it won't do anyone else much good if they can't compile it for the iPhone because they haven't paid Apple $99 and gotten the magical seal of approval.

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      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    2. Re:Combined FUD, Maby-FUD and Not-FUD... by nweaver · · Score: 3, Informative

      You CAN distribute code under the BSD liscence, just you can only distribute to other registered developers.

      Since registering as a developer for the SDK is $0.00, and a registered devolper with a dev key is $100, AND is needed if you want to modify the code, Big Frakin Deal: you can only distribute the code to people who are able to use it, as the jailbreak dev-kits don't use the same APIs (and if they did, then you can distribute to your hearts content because its clearly no longer confidential information).

      --
      Test your net with Netalyzr
  2. Does this conflict with GPL 2 or just GPL3? by DaveInAustin · · Score: 3, Informative

    This seems to conflict with GPL 3, but it's a stretch to say that it conflicts with v2. If I distribute code that uses an API, am I disclosing the API? IANAL so I guess someone could make that argument. I'm glad apple will be pushed to clarify this, but it's probably ok. Is Apple trying to make sure nobody ports an iphone app to the andriod ?

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    --- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
  3. Re:Why should *everything* be GPL compatible? by jrumney · · Score: 5, Informative

    when at the same time the GPL itself doesn't strive for great compatibility with others.

    A great amount of effort went into writing GPLv3 in such a way that it would be compatible with Apache License v2.0 and other Free licenses.

  4. GPLv2 MAY BE incompatible... by nweaver · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, GPLv2 MAY BE incompatible, if the answer is "code which uses the iPhone APIs contains confidential information". In that case, you could only distribute the code to other registered developers, not everyone, which means Berkeley liscence is fine but GPL is not.

    Also, apple's method of distribution MAY BE GPLv2 incompatible, because Apple might not want to also be responsible for distributing the source code and some GPLv2 authors may not like derivitive works where a different party distributes the source code compared to the binary (because the developer could always host the code if its not confidential), and the GPLv2 as written says it is the binary distributer's responsibility to distribute the source code.

    We don't know yet, but if the distribution is not GPLv2 friendly:
    If you ask the Free Software Foundation, that would be a feature.
    If you ask Apple, that would be a feature.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
    1. Re:GPLv2 MAY BE incompatible... by kithrup · · Score: 5, Informative

      The normal ADC NDA says the same thing, and that has never prevented anyone from distributing application source code. (One can argue that the third-party books which describe the API cover this -- but books always lag behind, and I've never seen anyone worried that they'll be sued by Apple for distributing their application source code before any third-party books describing the APIs they're using are out.)

      Of course, I'm neither a lawyer nor Apple (and certainly not an Apple lawyer), so I can't speak definitively... but common sense seems to say this is a red herring.

  5. Re:Then no cell phone is compatible. by Microlith · · Score: 3, Informative

    To be sure, Apple is the only one that requires signing before the application can even be loaded and run. Both Symbian and Windows Mobile will run unsigned applications, but their access to phone capabilities will be restricted to some degree.

  6. Re:Then no cell phone is compatible. by Dionysus · · Score: 5, Informative

    As someone who has written cell phone software before, I can tell you that Symbian and Windows Mobile also require application signing before allowing your programs to run on their platforms

    Oh, please. You hear this excuse from Apple apologists every time this issue comes up. Of all the programs on my Nokia N70, only the stuff from Nokia, Opera and Adobe is signed. Gmail app is not signed. None of the games are signed. They all installed and run fine.
    --
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  7. Re:Apple haters be damned! by drerwk · · Score: 3, Informative

    A lot of the *NIX core is there and rather functional...
    FYI - all of UNIX is now there.

    Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance â" complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software.
    Though my favorite quote is

    The most widely-sold UNIX operating system, Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard combines a fully-conformant UNIX foundation with the richness and usability of the Macintosh interface, bringing multi-core technology and 64-bit power to the mass market.
    Sold. Get it? Sold.