On Jan 13, 2011, at 2:54 AM, Colin Barrett wrote:
> I don't think Apple would approve such an app.
>
> -Colin
It most definitely wouldn't. I can't name the provision that restricts
such behavior off the top of my head, because there are plenty of them ;) but I
can easily tell you that actions like downloading extra executable code is one
of the first and biggest no-no's of Apple's App Stores (iOS and Mac OS X). Same
reason why it it's been pretty hard for 3rd party browsers to make it into the
iPhone (other than duplicating Safari's "built-in functionality, they'd have to
download & execute JavaScript code -- which can only, legally, be done by 3rd
party apps through Apple's frameworks, i.e. WebKit's built-in JS engine), same
reason why MacPorts will never make it into the Mac OS App Store (even more
ironic, its development having been bootstrapped by Apple itself) and I'm sure
we could spend the entire day here reminiscing many other similar examples.
So I'd say such an approach is even worse than dead-on-arrival, just my
2 cents. Regards,
- jmpp
>
> On Jan 12, 2011, at 7:24 PM, Alan Humpherys wrote:
>
>> Evan,
>>
>> Thanks for taking the time to check this out. I suspected that they would
>> come to this conclusion.
>>
>> It's sadly ironic that the GPL is getting in the way of distributing
>> software for free.
>>
>> I sincerely hope that some sort of accommodation can be made so that more
>> GPL Open Source software can be freely distributed through these channels
>> (iTunes/App Store). Unfortunately, I don't see Apple changing their
>> process... Since a given software title in their store can switch from free
>> to paid on a daily basis, they need to track free software the same way
>> that they track paid software.....
>>
>> My proposed solution
>> ==================
>> We put a free "Adium" app into the Mac App Store which is licensed using the
>> BSD (or similar license) which merely does the following
>>
>> - Downloads a copy of the "real" adium from CacheFly
>> - Makes it so subsequent launches of the AppStore provided Application
>> launch the downloaded Adium binaries
>>
>> This gives us the visibility of being available on the App store - and
>> builds our customer base - yet preserves the spirit of the GPL distribution
>> rules. The filesystem restrictions on iOS wouldn't allow this for an iPhone
>> version, but such a thing is definitely possible on MacOS.
>>
>> - Alan
>
>
