On Jun 23, 2008, at 7:14 PM, Stephen Pair wrote:

> I read the SDK agreement, and while I'm not a lawyer, I think the  
> essential question is whether the source code to an application is  
> equivalent to the application itself.  The agreement places various  
> restrictions on what an "Application" can do and defines what an  
> Application is, but is ambiguous in this matter.

The SDK agreement is mostly about releasing binaries, I think.

> What is clear is that Apple doesn't want people writing applications  
> distributed via the AppStore that enables the installation of other  
> applications thereby bypassing the controls they have in place with  
> the AppStore.

You are right, and this is where any current Squeak image and VM will  
fail their criteria. The European Apple developer contact simply said  
"never, no way we will allow that, it is illegal", so that is their  
'official' opinion. But they will only pull such an app from the App  
store after it has been submitted, so beware.
They also explicitly will not allow any VM not under Apple's control  
(like Squeak or Flash).

> I think you would be fine publishing the source code of the squeak  
> iphone VM under MIT (and perhaps even compiled versions that a  
> person in the dev program could use to actually install a running  
> squeak on a real iPhone).  It would then be a matter of anyone using  
> that source code to build an application for the iPhone to make sure  
> they were in compliance with all the Apple restrictions if they  
> intended to distribute their application via the AppStore.

Yes, you can publish source code in any case. But compiling under the  
SDK means stripping out everything that makes Squeak so interesting  
IMHO.

> Of course, it would be ideal to have a full, unrestricted squeak  
> available on the iPhone, but that is clearly at odds with the SDK  
> agreement.

I agree. So we are releasing our Squeak VM binaries in its  
unrestricted form, compiled with the GNU toolchain under Xcode. All  
iPhone apps made until now, including those Apple makes themselves,  
are of this unrestricted kind.  These apps can also access much more  
API's than those in the SDK.
Recall that more than 40% of all iPhones are already 'jailbroken' (sim  
lock removed), a term that means you can simply download any binary  
distributed outside the  App Store.

> But I think that's a separate point of consideration from whether  
> you could distrubute the source code of an iPhone VM under MIT and  
> outside the AppStore program.  I would view the distribution of  
> iPhone VM sources as equivalent to a developer sharing various  
> frameworks to aid in the construction of iPhone applications.  I  
> would think Apple would encourange and not try and restrict that  
> sort of thing.

Apple representatives even went a step further and advised us to  
release our binaries outside the App store.

So the discussion in this thread is not really about releasing source  
code or not, this thread discussion is about releasing binaries inside  
or outside the App store.
We clearly choose to do the latter, to preserve the spirit of the open  
source movement (that also implies free and open binaries, I think).
It is in the interest of the users after all, the only consideration  
that really matters.

Releasing only through the App store under Apple's contract is  
therefore about selling the Squeak VM.
Our version will be free, the same as all VMs up to now. Why break  
that tradition?

Merik