GSoC open source projects for iPhone are possible ?

[ZioPRoTo (Saverio Proto)]

Hello,

at Ninux.org we are receiving project ideas from students that want to
develop open source applications for the iPhone / iPad / Android
platforms.

as far as I know for Android there should be no problem with the open
source licence, but I have no idea if it is eligible to have a project
idea about developing a open source software that will be downloaded
for free on the apple store.

there is any legal problem about this ?

thanks for support,

Saverio Proto

[Wasik Mursalin Rushafi]

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 3:59 AM, ZioPRoTo (Saverio Proto) <ziop...@gmail.com> wrote:

as far as I know for Android there should be no problem with the open
source licence, but I have no idea if it is eligible to have a project
idea about developing a open source software that will be downloaded
for free on the apple store.

there is any legal problem about this ?

There is no legal problem. You can release the the source code of your app under any open source license. Actually there are some prominent open source app in the market. For example: Last.fm [source]. Facebook has also released several component code of their app here.

--
Rushafi

[Dirk Haun]

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 6:48 AM, Wasik Mursalin Rushafi
<rus...@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is no legal problem. You can release the the source code of your app
> under any open source license. Actually there are some prominent open source
> app in the market.

IANAL, but there may be some issues with the GPL vs. Apple's AppStore.
See the discussions about VLC for iOS, which was removed from the
AppStore (on the request of the authors, but still). Other licenses
(BSD, etc.) may be okay, from what I understand.

But this discussion is probably off topic here. For GSoC, all that
counts is that your open source project releases code under an OSI
approved license.

[Wasik Mursalin Rushafi]

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Dirk Haun <68k...@gmail.com> wrote:

IANAL, but there may be some issues with the GPL vs. Apple's AppStore.
See the discussions about VLC for iOS, which was removed from the
AppStore (on the request of the authors, but still). Other licenses
(BSD, etc.) may be okay, from what I understand.

AFAIK GPL requires that the product would not be able to make any revenue from it's sell. So if the app is free should there be any problem? In case of VLC there might be other patent related issues in their codecs. Though I am not sure.

--
Rushafi

[Elin Waring]

The GPL does no such thing. The GPL only concerns the licensing (defining the terms under which you can use and redistribute) of code that is distributed, not whether the code is sold or anything else like that.  There is nothing wrong with selling GPL code or with making money from it in other ways.

Elin

[Stefano Lattarini]

On 03/02/2012 10:10 AM, Wasik Mursalin Rushafi wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Dirk Haun <68k...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> IANAL, but there may be some issues with the GPL vs. Apple's AppStore.
>> See the discussions about VLC for iOS, which was removed from the
>> AppStore (on the request of the authors, but still). Other licenses
>> (BSD, etc.) may be okay, from what I understand.
>>
>
> AFAIK GPL requires that the product would not be able to make any revenue
> from it's sell.
>

Wrong: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html>

Regards,
Stefano

[Ross Gardler]

On 2 March 2012 07:27, Dirk Haun <68k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 6:48 AM, Wasik Mursalin Rushafi
> <rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There is no legal problem. You can release the the source code of your app
>> under any open source license. Actually there are some prominent open source
>> app in the market.
>
> IANAL, but there may be some issues with the GPL vs. Apple's AppStore.

Yes, there are issues with certain types of licence and some app
stores. More discussion in
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/appstores.xml

Ross

> See the discussions about VLC for iOS, which was removed from the
> AppStore (on the request of the authors, but still). Other licenses
> (BSD, etc.) may be okay, from what I understand.
>
> But this discussion is probably off topic here. For GSoC, all that
> counts is that your open source project releases code under an OSI
> approved license.
>

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