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Aug 2, 2008 1:19 AM
by: blazespinnaker
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Jul 11, 2008
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Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreement?
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 4:18 PM
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I've read through the licensing agreement, but I'm still not convinced either way. I want to make my iPhone application's source code available on the internet and set up a project page and SVN repository on a site such as Google Code. I wouldn't be distributing my signing keys and would be the single source for submitting the app to iTunes. Is this allowed under the License Agreement?
Mac OS X (10.5.4)
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Posts:
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San Diego, CA
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Sep 17, 2007
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 4:39 PM
in response to: joeldevelops
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Not under the current NDA it isn't.
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Mac OS X (10.4.10)
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Jul 11, 2008
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 4:55 PM
in response to: cpatch
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Is there a part of the Agreement you think states this or is it your impression?
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Apr 26, 2006
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 5:28 PM
in response to: joeldevelops
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Helpful
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3.3.14 If Your Application includes any FOSS, You agree to comply with all applicable FOSS licensing terms. You also agree not to use any FOSS in the development of Your Application in such a way that would cause the non-FOSS portions of the SDK to be subject to any FOSS licensing terms or obligations.
Several
Mac OS X (10.5.2)
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San Jose, CA
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Jul 11, 2008
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 6:07 PM
in response to: orangekay
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Helpful
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The provision implies that you CAN use open source libraries/code in your file. It only says that you cannot use it in a way that requires portions of the SDK to be subject to the licensing of the project.
Just because you utilize open source code in your project it does not necessarily mean that you need to release all of your source code. If I just include a library with my project, and only make calls to the library, unless the agreement specifies otherwise, I do not need to share the code that makes the calls to the library.
Bottom line: Read the licensing agreements that come with any libraries you may use.
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 6:16 PM
in response to: orangekay
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Okay, then let's say the only FOSS code(as defined in the license agreement) is my project itself and no 3rd party FOSS libraries were used. If I chose for myself a license that didn't require me to distribute Apple's Frameworks, wouldn't I be in the clear for giving away the source code for every file in my project?
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreement?
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 7:40 PM
in response to: joeldevelops
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There are many different open source licenses. Some have very few requirements, if any, beyond including copyright notices and/or disclaimers. Others require you make certain portions of the source code available in some form. Others ,potentially, depending on legal interpretation, require you to grant much more, including perhaps patent rights, any private keys needed for signing apps, maybe the source to a lot of code you haven't even written, and perhaps your first born children as well... the usual stuff. Choose carefully.
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Mac OS X (10.5.3)
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 8:38 PM
in response to: rogerly
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The provision implies that you CAN use open source libraries/code in your file. It only says that you cannot use it in a way that requires portions of the SDK to be subject to the licensing of the project.
Which necessarily implies that one cannot release their own project under any open source license as that would expose SDK method names and whatever all else they perceive as a threat to their IP.
If you want to open source your algorithms and whatnot then that should be fair game; you just can't distribute anything that actually uses the SDK's interfaces without getting a feisty letter from Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP.
Several
Mac OS X (10.5.2)
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239
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Jun 10, 2008
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 9:46 PM
in response to: joeldevelops
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(Disclaimer: IANAL, I'm just a smart guy who's worked on GPL projects.)
That isn't the relevant part of the iPhone license agreement. The GPLv2 (which is probably the most important open source license for this question, as it's both very popular and has restrictions on mixing with proprietary code) does not encompass headers and libraries that are part of the operating system. That's how people can write open source Windows and Mac applications--believe me, Microsoft would not be pleased if someone contacted them and said that since Gaim was open source, they had to release the source code to the Win32 API. So the GPLv2 would not attempt to "annex" anything provided by Apple, and thus it wouldn't violate that section.
What may be relevant is the iPhone license section concerning confidentiality. If the class, method, function and constant names are considered "Apple Confidential Information", you would be in violation of the contract if you distributed code that revealed them. I rather suspect that nothing in the Foundation or Core Foundation frameworks could be considered confidential, as information about them is freely available to anyone who has the Mac OS X Core Library, which is distributed with every copy of Leopard. UIKit, Core Location, etc. are another story; I personally think that the fact that the APIs are included in the free SDK ought to preclude considering them confidential, but Apple might think differently.
In other words: you're definitely safe using LGPLv2 libraries. If the code would also compile with the Mac OS X SDK, you're almost certainly safe releasing it under the GPLv2*. If the code uses UIKit or other frameworks documented in the free SDK, you may be safe releasing it under the GPLv2. If you release any code that uses APIs that only licensed developers have access to under the GPLv2, you're probably totally screwed.
The GPLv3 is much stricter, and so the story there might be different; for example, I think it may have key-releasing requirements that would conflict with the contract. I don't really know much about it, though.
* Remember, the original copyright holder can create alternate licensing arrangements for specific people. So he can say "anyone can use this code under the GPL, and as a special exception, it can be linked against FooCorp's non-GPL software". But to use anyone else's GPL code, you'd have to get all of the authors of that code to agree to the same exception. Alternately, you can just release your own code under the LGPL instead and then it's all good.
Message was edited by: Brent Royal-Gordon
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Mac OS X (10.5.3)
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276
From:
blazespinnaker
Registered:
Jul 10, 2008
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 9:51 PM
in response to: joeldevelops
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Just email support and ask.
blazespinnaker
Mac OS X (10.5.4)
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114
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May 28, 2008
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 10:39 PM
in response to: Brent Royal-Gor...
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The LGPL seems to have requirements that a distributed derivative work be modifiable in some manner (linkable shared libraries, for instance). How would I modify and use your iPhone SDK app without all the rest of your .o files and a signing key? Would any of Apple's NDA'd frameworks be required to link? IANAL.
I would look at the new BSD, MIT or Mozilla Public License's instead.
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Mac OS X (10.5.3)
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239
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 11, 2008 10:46 PM
in response to: hotpaw2
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The LGPLv2? That'd be news to me, considering even the full GPLv2 doesn't have a requirement that it be possible to modify the collection of bits actually being executed. (In some circles, this is called the "TiVo loophole", and is a large part of the reason the GPLv3 was drafted.)
Remember the version 2 licenses were drafted before anybody was using digital signatures to restrict hardware. In fact, they were written in a time when dynamic linking was considered somewhat expensive and wasn't always used.
My understanding is that the LGPL is just like the GPL, but it only covers the specific library containing the code. You still have to offer the source code to users, of course, but only the source code to the library; the rest of your code is unaffected by it.
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Mac OS X (10.5.3)
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4,187
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 12, 2008 12:15 AM
in response to: joeldevelops
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No, you probably wouldn't be in the clear at all if you call any private methods from any of that code. Odds are good that they'll re-tool the agreement now that the SDK is out of beta, but that hasn't happened yet.
But don't take my word for it; hire a lawyer.
Several
Mac OS X (10.5.2)
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Mar 17, 2006
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 12, 2008 4:00 PM
in response to: blazespinnaker
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And please post the answer as I'm sure some other people would love to know.
Thanks,
Hunter
MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, iPhone
Mac OS X (10.5.4)
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Posts:
6
From:
California
Registered:
Jul 11, 2008
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Re: Open Sourcing an iPhone Application acceptable under the License Agreem
Posted:
Jul 12, 2008 4:13 PM
in response to: blazespinnaker
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It looks like a paid support arrangement is required in order to send an email regarding an ADC issue such as this.
Macbook Pro
Mac OS X (10.5.4)
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