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Last I checked, the agreement that iPhone developers enter into says nothing about their rights regarding freedom of development language...in fact I think this

Last I checked, the agreement that iPhone developers enter into says nothing about their rights regarding freedom of development language...in fact I think this whole fuss is about it doing the exact opposite. Nobody promised these devs anything, as far as I know. I suppose Apple could've put a warning on the sign-up page: "Warning! You're developing software for a platform that we control and may decide to alter at any point in time." ...but honestly, how many devs would've turned around and walked away if they had?

jarek 16y ago
1) You read pre-OS 4.0 developer agreement. You decide it sounds reasonable. You decline the job offer from BigCorp, buy a Macbook, and code your application in MonoTouch as C# is your personally preferred programming language. You pay $100 and your application appears in the App Store. 2) Apple changes section 3.3.1 in the developer agreement for OS 4.0. 3) You have to spend the time and possibly money to learn a new language if you want your application to work on OS 4.0, or forgo your previous investment of time and money. Most iPhone OS devices will be upgraded to 4.0 relatively quickly. Legal? Probably. Justified from Apple's point of view? Likely. Reasonable, fair or ethical? That's pretty subjective.
- jballanc 16y ago
  You decline the job offer from BigCorp See, this right here^^^ This is the key: why did you decline the offer from BigCorp? Only two reasons I can think of... 1. You were naive and thought you could make a quick buck with less work by developing for the iPhone platform without doing it the way Apple suggested you should. 2. You had the drive to strike out and make it on your own, BigCorp be damned! If it's #1, you only have yourself to blame. If it's #2, you're not about to let something like 3.3.1 stand in your way...
  - tuxychandru 16y ago
    What if he'd also recruited a couple of C# programmers to build the next improved version of the same application? Now he has to either train them too in Obj-C or recruit a new bunch of Obj-C developers. To top it all off, he must stop improving his product and start rewriting it in Obj-C, while his competitor who started off with Obj-C doesn't have to. There was nothing in the previous version of the OS agreement to suggest that cross-compilation would somehow be banned in future versions. All because Steve Jobs, loves Obj-C. Now how isn't that screwing people's livelihood?
  - jarek 16y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but pre-OS 4.0 the agreement did not say anything about which languages you should be using. Xcode might have been the only officially supported IDE, but that's about it. You could say one shouldn't have trusted Apple not to screw others over, but that doesn't really help the ethics argument at hand here. Take out the job offer from bigcorp from my example. You're still going to have to invest in hardware and probably ramp-up.

jarek 16y ago

1) You read pre-OS 4.0 developer agreement. You decide it sounds reasonable. You decline the job offer from BigCorp, buy a Macbook, and code your application in MonoTouch as C# is your personally preferred programming language. You pay $100 and your application appears in the App Store. 2) Apple changes section 3.3.1 in the developer agreement for OS 4.0. 3) You have to spend the time and possibly money to learn a new language if you want your application to work on OS 4.0, or forgo your previous investment of time and money. Most iPhone OS devices will be upgraded to 4.0 relatively quickly. Legal? Probably. Justified from Apple's point of view? Likely. Reasonable, fair or ethical? That's pretty subjective.

jballanc 16y ago
You decline the job offer from BigCorp See, this right here^^^ This is the key: why did you decline the offer from BigCorp? Only two reasons I can think of... 1. You were naive and thought you could make a quick buck with less work by developing for the iPhone platform without doing it the way Apple suggested you should. 2. You had the drive to strike out and make it on your own, BigCorp be damned! If it's #1, you only have yourself to blame. If it's #2, you're not about to let something like 3.3.1 stand in your way...
- tuxychandru 16y ago
  What if he'd also recruited a couple of C# programmers to build the next improved version of the same application? Now he has to either train them too in Obj-C or recruit a new bunch of Obj-C developers. To top it all off, he must stop improving his product and start rewriting it in Obj-C, while his competitor who started off with Obj-C doesn't have to. There was nothing in the previous version of the OS agreement to suggest that cross-compilation would somehow be banned in future versions. All because Steve Jobs, loves Obj-C. Now how isn't that screwing people's livelihood?
- jarek 16y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but pre-OS 4.0 the agreement did not say anything about which languages you should be using. Xcode might have been the only officially supported IDE, but that's about it. You could say one shouldn't have trusted Apple not to screw others over, but that doesn't really help the ethics argument at hand here. Take out the job offer from bigcorp from my example. You're still going to have to invest in hardware and probably ramp-up.