While most developers won’t hesitate for a moment to sign Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement in blood to have even a piece of the App Store action, a new legal analysis reveals some disturbing reasons as to why you might want to think twice.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has gotten their hands on a copy of Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement and have distilled a few choice nuggets which should give most developers pause before they drink the Kool-Aid, as it were. Thanks to the existence of the NASA iPhone app, the EFF was able to use the Freedom of Information Act to ask the space agency for a copy of the license agreement dated March 17, 2009, and here’s some of what they discovered.
Section 10.4 of the agreement “prohibits developers, including government agencies such as NASA, from making any ‘public statements’ about the terms of the Agreement.” The EFF finds this section “strange,” noting that the Agreement itself is not “Apple Confidential Information” as defined in Section 10.1 — meaning that “the terms are not confidential, but developers are still contractually forbidden from speaking ‘publicly’ about them.”
Section 7.2 makes it clear that if you use the iPhone SDK to develop your app, you can’t sell it anywhere but Apple’s own App Store. All well and good, unless your app should get rejected — meaning you are then prohibited from distributing it through Cydia or Rock Your Phone, both available for jailbroken devices.
Section 3.2(e) was widely reported on when first added last year, which essentially bans jailbreaking to begin with. But it doesn’t stop there: The EFF notes that “it appears to prohibit developers from tinkering with any Apple software or technology, not just the iPhone, or ‘enabling others to do so.’” That could preclude iPhone developers from making iPods work with open source software, for instance.
Section 8 is one of the more draconian: Apple can “revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time.” Yes, that means that Apple essentially has a “kill switch” built into the App Store and they can remove your app from it at any time.
Finally, Section 14 states that, “no matter what, Apple will never be liable to any developer for more than 50 dollars in damages.” That’s right: Apple has developers by the short hairs to begin with, but if they should happen to trip you up in any way, “the Agreement tries to cap you at the cost of a nice dinner for one in Cupertino.”
The entire iPhone Developer Program License Agreement is available for download as a PDF on the EFF website.
Sometimes if you just can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? A new report from AppleInsider via PC World says that Window Snyder, a former security head with Microsoft and Mozilla, had her first day with Apple on Monday.
The report noted that Apple is the "third browser-maker in the past five years that has employed Snyder," but did not give specifics on whether or not she would work on Safari or other technology for Apple.
While Internet Explorer did not make up the focus of her time at Microsoft, she was credited with developing the Blue Hat program, which started communications between developers at Redmond and outside security research teams.
During her time at Mozilla, it was noted that she carried a pun-ny title of "chief security something-or-other," and she took care of security for the Firefox web browser. Most of the Mozilla programmers worked on the open source software for free, but Snyder brought home a salary through Mozilla.
Snyder then left Mozilla in 2008 to take time to work on a project that she has "always been passionate about." She worked as a consultant for the past year.
Image courtesy of www.bpcouncil.com
(Image courtesy of AppleTVHacks.net)
If you’re one of the few who’s running a stock Apple TV — go read something else. For the rest of you, it’s time to get your Boxee on again!
MacNN is reporting that the latest beta of Boxee — version 0.9.20.10708 to be precise — now restores the ability to run on Apple TV, according to the developer. This is significant, since the new, redesigned Boxee has been MIA from most hacked Apple TVs since Cupertino updated it to version 3.0 (it was technically possible, but only for those with a knowledge of SSH).
Thanks to a “resurrected” atvusb-creator tool, Apple TV users can again create a USB matchstick to boot their device and get Boxee running in just a few steps. Upgrading users are encouraged to perform a clean install, deleting any prior Boxee UserData folder and starting from scratch. This folder is located on your Apple TV within the Library/Application Support/BOXEE/ directory.
For the less adventurous among you, the new Boxee beta is also available from ATVFlash, a more commercially-minded program which collects a number of third-party hacks into one package and allows you to easily update them via the Internet on your Apple TV at any time.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Boxee yet, the open source software based on XBMC is a media browsing interface with far greater format support than the stock Apple TV will get you — including the ability to stream web video from sources other than YouTube. Boxee is also available in Mac, Windows and Ubuntu Linux flavors, and the company has partnered with D-Link for a Boxee Box hardware device that’s promised for this spring.
