Slashdot Mirror
iPhone SDK and Free Software Don't Match
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."
It seems Apple haters are coming out of the wood work just to attack poor defenseless Apple! Apple does things they way they do them because they work. And the proof of that is illustrated perfectly in how cool and popular Apple stuff is... and by extension, anyone who uses Apple stuff is also cool and popular. So why can't people stop reading all these legal issues and get back to fun and sunshine!
People should really read what they agree to but of course they don't most of the time. Of course, the /. crowd as a whole probably does so far more than most demographics.
/.ers to RTFA (not just this one, but any FA) is any example to go on, then it's a completely hopeless situation...
And if the ability of
This guy's the limit!
"...If you want to develop Free Software, Linux.com (Shares corp overlord w/ Slsahdot )..."
/. editors can't even spell their own name? Somebody should give them a pointy hat and make them go sit in the corner for a bit ;)
Wow,
Enough said really, why should everything strive to be GPL compatible? I've often wondered this in the past when has its license suddenly decreed to be 'GPL incompatible' to a great outcry here on Slashdot, when at the same time the GPL itself doesn't strive for great compatibility with others.
It might be considered a surprise considering you can release your software for free (as in beer). But you can't really release the source for free (as in speech) under a GPL.
If want to release "free" software, it's hard to believe you have to do so restrictively.
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
There are three points of contention:
(1) You must have your application signed before it will run on any cell phone,
(2) Your application must be delivered via the Apple iTunes store, and
(3) Your usage of the beta version of Apple's development kit subjects you to an NDA.
Well, the NDA part of the beta program struck me as a little odd, as it takes about no effort for any idiot to sign up and download the SDK for free--however, this seems to be a standard tactic by Apple for all its beta SDKs. The NDA will be gone, however, by the time the SDK is out of beta--so the whole "you must sign an NDA and that is incompatible with the GPL" thing will be gone by summer.
So what is left is the fact that you have to sign your application before it will run on the iPhone.
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. It's very common in the cell phone industry to use certificate signing--and at $99/year, Apple is the cheapest to obtain a signing key. Further, from the sounds of it, by the time the SDK goes out of beta, anyone with $99 can get a signing key and sign as many apps as he wishes. (By contrast, for Windows Mobile you pay VeriSign $350 for 10 signing events, meaning you can only sign 10 applications or different versions of the same application. (Actually a signing event means you sign one executable.) Symbian is even more of a pain in the neck. And let's not talk about Android until real Android-based phones start showing up on the market and we learn what sort of package signing requirements the cell phone manufacturers impose on Android applications.
While I appreciate the need for authors to fill column space in order to get paid, it seems to be a little early to start complaining about GPL incompatibility and pointing the fingers solely at Apple because you're too lazy to compare and contrast with the other mobile operating systems out there.
STOP THE PRESSES, FOLKS! This guy doesn't see any problems. There must not be any!