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

[Geoffrey Gallaway]

Hey Alex, thanks for taking the time to write a great response to some  
of my questions. I've responded to your points below. Please let me  
know what you think.

On Oct 6, 2009, at 3:04 PM, Alex Smith wrote:
> 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.
This is no longer true (although it was true when the linux.com  
article referenced below was written). Apple dropped that requirement  
in late 2008 IIRC. I've read and reread the contract and I can find no  
mention of source code, source code licenses, Apple owning the source  
code, Apple owning the binary, any rights to the application or  
limiting distribution of the source code.

There any many applications available on the app store that are open  
source. They even state it in their product information copy. Take the  
game Tyrian for example:
APPLICATION DESCRIPTION: ".... This is a re-write of the original  
Tyrian v2.1 game by Jason Emery, Daniel Cook... It is based on  
OpenTyrian project's source code and licensed under the GNU GPL v2....  
In accordance with GPL v2, the source code is available upon request."  
Another example is the IRC client known as Colloquy. There is an  
Colloquy mobile app on the app store which uses "Open minded and open  
source, like it should be" as one of it's selling points. Here's the  
source code: http://colloquy.info/project/browser/trunk and here is  
the product information page with links the app store and the source  
code: http://colloquy.mobi/

Other example applications that are open source: Wordpress (a  
Wordpress blog interface), Barcodes (a barcode reader) and others.

I have an application pending approval right now that I've developed  
and is licensed under GPL v2 and states in the product description the  
URL to get the source code. That same URL is presented to the user  
when they start the application on the iPhone or iPod touch.

> 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
> 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

I realize Enigma could switch to GPL v3, at which time I would have to  
remove the Enigma port for the iPhone from the app store. But, as you  
mentioned above ("there are a lot, and many of them are unlikely to  
consent to a change of licence in any case") that seems unlikely.

I believe one of the intents of the GPL is to make the source code  
freely (as in beer) and easily available to anyone and make it easily  
modifiable under the same license. Would I care if someone grabbed the  
source to Enigma for the iPhone, added some features and put it up on  
the app store under a different name? Nope. Would I care if they  
charged for it? Nope, that's the way capitalism works! :)

Thanks!
Geoff