New iPhone Developer Agreement Question

[Josiah]

Supposedly this is in the new iPhone Developer agreement (I haven't
reviewed it yet):

"Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary
translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited."

http://www.cultofmac.com/new-app-store-dev-agreement-kills-adobes-flash-to-iphone-compiler/37187

That wouldn't apply to PhoneGap, right?

[Shazron Abdullah]

That's not the whole clause of 3.3.1. Strangely, the agreement itself is under NDA, so...
You could check out some of my tweets on it: http://twitter.com/shazron

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[Andrew Lunny]

The NDA was broken by prominent Apple blogger John Gruber:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler

PhoneGap uses JavaScript as executed by the iPhone WebKit engine, and
Objective-C code (PhoneGapLib) to compile and link against the
documented APIs. There's no violation under a reasonable reading of
that clause.

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Andrew Lunny
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[Josiah]

Glad to hear it.

Thanks!

On Apr 8, 2:49 pm, Andrew Lunny <andrew.lu...@nitobi.com> wrote:
> The NDA was broken by prominent Apple blogger John Gruber:http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler
>
> PhoneGap uses JavaScript as executed by the iPhone WebKit engine, and
> Objective-C code (PhoneGapLib) to compile and link against the
> documented APIs. There's no violation under a reasonable reading of
> that clause.
>
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:52 PM, Shazron Abdullah
>
>
>
>
>
> <shazron.abdul...@nitobi.com> wrote:
> > That's not the whole clause of 3.3.1. Strangely, the agreement itself is under NDA, so...
> > You could check out some of my tweets on it:http://twitter.com/shazron
>
> > On 2010-04-08, at 12:21 PM, Josiah wrote:
>
> >> Supposedly this is in the new iPhone Developer agreement (I haven't
> >> reviewed it yet):
>
> >> "Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary
> >> translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited."
>

> >>http://www.cultofmac.com/new-app-store-dev-agreement-kills-adobes-fla...

> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/phonegap?hl=en?hl=en

[Jeremy Wadsack]

Granted, this isn't the forum to discuss the Apple iPhone SDK agreement, but doesn't that also preclude every game development environment (such as Garage Games Torque and Toque 3d)? I can't think that Apple really wants to kill all the games. There's no profit for games for the iPhone (in the market price-point) to be written from scratch. 

And frankly, the entire MVC architecture that Apple encourages could be construed as "private API's" under the original or the new language.

Ironically, "only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs" is true anyway, from a technological standpoint, license agreement aside.

--
Jeremy Wadsack

[Mikko Ohtamaa]

Hi,

On Apr 9, 12:16 am, Jeremy Wadsack <jeremy.wads...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Granted, this isn't the forum to discuss the Apple iPhone SDK agreement, but
> doesn't that also preclude every game development environment (such as
> Garage Games Torque and Toque 3d)? I can't think that Apple really wants to
> kill all the games. There's no profit for games for the iPhone (in the
> market price-point) to be written from scratch.

I wrote a blog post about the topic and I don't believe Apple is on
killing spree:

http://blog.mfabrik.com/2010/04/13/why-c-javascript-will-be-allowed-and-flash-wont-be-as-app-store-programming-language/

-Mikko

[KenCorey]

<ahem>"reasonable reading"?</ahem>

A reasonable company wouldn't have put that clause in.

A reasonable CEO wouldn't persecute a company who's about to bring
into the fold a multitude of developers who couldn't have reached the
platform before.

A reasonable reading means anything (like the flash translator, or the
game libraries, or phonegap itself) must be coded in Objective C in
the first place, and only translate after the fact. That "after the
fact" bit is what Jobs is gunning for. It gives him the perfect right
(and yet another weapon) to pick and choose what will and what won't
be allowed in the app store.

I've heard Jobs called many things. Reasonable has never been one of
them. Banking on him being reasonable isn't...well...reasonable.

-Ken

[Natale Vinto]

iJail

2010/4/13 KenCorey <kenc...@googlemail.com>:

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--
Natale Vinto
http://www.gotext.org
http://bluesman.gotext.org
FSF Member #8163

[KenCorey]

And have Apple brick your phone on the next OS release?

If I had an iPhone (I don't, but my wife does), jailbreaking is the
*last* thing I'd do to it.

-Ken

On Apr 13, 8:41 pm, Natale Vinto <ebbal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> iJail

[Correa Diego]

¿why some feel so guilty about pushing a button after or before a clause?

¿isn't that attitude what puts you in a disadvantage position?

after all, who determines HOW you write your code, even by a dada poem or writen in sumerian in a paper and scanned after it? even if you use a jacquard loom to determine positions of characters in your program, are you trying to say you would feel guilty before trying to establish your method as your own legit one?

we must try harder than that.

Diego

2010/4/13 Natale Vinto <ebba...@gmail.com>

--
http://labormedia.cl/algoritmia

[giordino]

I partially agree with Andrew, and partially don't.

On 8 Apr., 22:49, Andrew Lunny <andrew.lu...@nitobi.com> wrote:
> PhoneGap uses JavaScript as executed by the iPhone WebKit engine, and
> Objective-C code (PhoneGapLib) to compile and link against the
> documented APIs. There's no violation under a reasonable reading of
> that clause.
>

IMHO the JavaScript executed by the WebKit engine in a UIWebView does
not violate the agreement. But programming agains the PhoneGap APIs
for camera, geolocation, acceleration etc. does. Because the PhoneGap
API is an intermediate layer. This pretty much goes along with
Gruber's reasoning. IMHO, that is.

[Michele Sciabarra]

Yes but there is an API to extends UIWebki that is used by PhoneGap, so
actually you are using Javascript AS EXECUTED BY THE UIWebkit engine.
Then you use a documented api to extend UIWebkit, So actually there is
no layer, that should be between javascript and UIWebkit, and there is
not. The layer is AFTER the UIWebkit, and it extends it in a documented
way. When you implement a delegate in Objective-C you do not do anything
different. I thing that the wording is there exactly to allow this.

Although this wording is still objectionable, because there are other
cases. For example, if you use jquery (as many does) you are actually
using a layer to insulate yourself from the browser differences.. so
this is more dangerous.

Also, what actually concern me more is that you have to write ORIGINALLY
javascript or c/c++/oc.
I would like to actually use Java with GWT and generate Javascript, and
this way I can't...

This is a pity because the GWT generated javascript is more efficient
than hand-written javascript, nor this can damage Apple in the way they
want to avoid. GWT remove compatibility layers actually, putting the
compatibility burden on the compiler....