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Re: [Enigma-devel] Engima for the iPhone/iPod Touch


From: Thomas Davies
Subject: Re: [Enigma-devel] Engima for the iPhone/iPod Touch
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 21:15:32 +0100



On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 9:04 PM, Alex Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
On Tue, 2009-10-06 at 21:37 +0200, Dániel Borbély wrote:
> that does not violate Enigma's GPL. It violates Oxyd rights... or not:
> See the Esprit and Oxyd levels and packs in Enigma. However (mentioned
> on mag-heut) it is currently impossible to reproduce some level
> features.

You can't legally make a non-GPL derivative of GPL source code without
permission from all its copyright holders (for Enigma, there are a lot,
and many of them are unlikely to consent to a change of licence in any
case); the reason for this is that the GPL is the only licence that lets
you make a modified copy of Enigma's source at all, and it doesn't
permit that particular operation. The issue with putting Enigma on the
iPhone is that I have heard (although do not know this for a fact) that
giving the source for applications violates Apple's terms; apparently
using Apple's SDK for the iPhone requires you to sign a non-disclosure
agreement that prevents you from giving the application's source out. As
a result, there'd be no way that anyone could simultaneously get a
licence from Apple to develop a version of Enigma for the iPhone, and
from the Enigma developers to port it to the iPhone; any course of
action would break one agreement or the other.

See <http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/131752> for a more in-depth
explanation of this.

Another potential problem would be that as a typical (unmodified) iPhone
will only run code signed by Apple, it would be impossible to legally
distribute GPLv3 code onto the iPhone (section 6 of version 3 of the GPL
implies, among other things, that no licence is given to distribute code
in such a way that the person distributing could create a modified copy
that could be installed, but the person receiving it couldn't;
therefore, Apple couldn't distribute GPLv3 code that they didn't own
copyright for for the iPhone without also publishing the private key
they use to sign software, which would be massively unlikely). Enigma is
licenced under version 2 of the GPL or above; version 2 doesn't have
this protection; however, with a project with a licence like that,
there's always a risk that it will choose to move to version 3 (which is
possible, apart from some GPLv2-only levels), leaving a possible iPhone
port in the lurch even if you did manage to develop it somehow!

Summary: Enigma cannot legally be ported to the iPhone unless either
every Enigma developer, or Apple, have a serious change in their
licensing policies, as the licences just don't match.

Note: I am not a lawyer; I do study copyright law (and the GPL in
particular) for a hobby, but I may of course be completely mistaken in
everything said here.

--
ais523



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That pretty much makes sense. It would be nice to see someone else make an Oxyd clone for the iPhone, even if it doesn't use the Enigma source code.

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