[sword-devel] iPhone dev (was: Re: MacSword2 early dev)

[Greg Hellings]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Chris Little <chrislit at crosswire.org> wrote:
> My perspective on a Sword port/frontend is that we have essentially two
> alternatives. There is nothing about the iPhone SDK that specifically
> precludes GPL software--rather the iPhone SDK NDA precludes any kind of
> code sharing. I have to hope that Apple will expire the NDA and make
> iPhone SDK development of GPL software possible. There's nothing
> particularly secret about the SDK anymore, the hardware and new OS are
> all out, etc.--so I'm not sure why it hasn't happened yet. That being
> the case, we have these two alternatives:

I had been hoping for the same thing.  However, when I read the
Agreement last night, it appeared to me that the problematic portion
was still kept in, but my intention is to contact Apple to find out if
that is their stance.

>
> 1) License the Sword library for closed source development (i.e. say to
> some subset of Sword developers, such as yourself, that they can develop
> a non-GPL Sword app). That would require removing all GPL code
> incorporated into Sword that CrossWire does not hold the copyright to.
> (And by "removing" I mean making it possible to build a library without
> them, not removing from SVN entirely.)

Not ideal, from my point of of view.  I would much prefer GPL
available apps, it's just a pet peeve of mine if an application is
closed-source, even if I have no intention of ever playing with the
sources.  As a developer, I am strongly of the opinion that any
applications I want to develop would be available as GPL-like
applications.

>
> 2) Develop Sword for iPhone using the GPL toolchain, which would require
> that any user have a jailbroken iPhone and use installer.app/Cydia to
> run our app. That would work fine for me--I know I'm going to jailbreak
> my iPhone once I get it--but it will severely limit our exposure.

Even worse, in my opinion.  Now, with the App Store, I see little
reason to take this route, which is clearly going to cause problems
with software updates and upgrades, and possibly with functionality.
One of the risks I knowing walked into, eyes wide shut, when I got the
device was its closed nature and "walled garden" mentality.

>
> I would much prefer Apple dump the NDA (or change the terms to make open
> source development and books on programming to the SDK possible) so that
> we can just do a nice GPL app in the App Store--and quickly shoot up to
> the top of the Bible App offerings. ;) I quite agree that the current
> Bible Apps are poor and/or over-priced. We can do better.

My preference as well!!  I just got off of the phone with the nice
people in Edinburgh, Scotland at the Apple Developer Connection
hotline and the lady who was assisting me had no answer to whether
Open Source Software is possible on the iPhone, neither did any of her
colleagues.  Supposedly they will get back to me, or I to them
regarding an answer.  The ADC FAQ page also has no mention of FOSS,
etc.  I would imagine, with the extent to which Apple utilizes the
GPL, etc, they would be SOME mention, somewhere, of the viability of
the GPL on the iPhone, at least in the memory of the developers.

I'll keep you posted if I hear anything else.

--Greg

>
> --Chris
>
> Greg Hellings wrote:
>> Manfred,
>>
>> Where would the source for it be?  I remember you were working on
>> pulling out just an Obj-C wrapper for the SWORD library which we had
>> talked about as being possibly useful for working on the iPhone.  How
>> mature is that wrapper at this point, and how can I locate and
>> download it?  I'm once again trying to forge a path to see if GPLv2
>> apps are possible on the device (I know v3 is not workable because of
>> the application signing that Apple requires).  Since getting mine,
>> I've been very disappointed that all of the Bible programs are either
>> for-pay or have questionable quality of their modules (the only free
>> Bible app for the iPhone is put out by the people over at youversion -
>> and it requires you to have a good data connection and the quality of
>> their modules is very poor so far).
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 2:35 AM, Manfred Bergmann <bergmannmd at web.de> wrote:
>>> Sorry, removed from SourceForge because MacUpdate and Versiontracker
>>> do automatic release scanning.
>>> Trying to find another place to distribute development versions.
>>>
>>>
>>> Manfred
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Am 22.07.2008 um 22:07 schrieb Manfred Bergmann:
>>>
>>>> Hi.
>>>>
>>>> For all of you that are curious.
>>>> A very early development version of the next major release of MacSword
>>>> has been released (at sourceforge).
>>>> Mainly to get feedback actually.
>>>>
>>>> It shouldn't break any existing MacSword installation but use with
>>>> care.
>>>>
>>>> Currently only a single window bible view is implemented with
>>>> features:
>>>> - reference search
>>>> - indexed search
>>>> - view search
>>>> - multiple parallel bible views
>>>> - session storing
>>>>
>>>> There are no icons and the interface is very basic but it should give
>>>> an introduction of how things will look like - almost.
>>>> Ah, yes - this version will be Leopard (Mac OSX 10.5) only.
>>>>
>>>> Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Manfred
>>>>
>>>>
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