A note to developers posted on Apple’s website today reads as follows:
To Our Developers
We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.
We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.
However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.
Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.
Source: Apple Developer Connection.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Will-i-am” for the heads up.]
“It has happened before.” Squirm, Bill, squirm.
Anyway, this is great news for iPhone devs who will be able collaborate more freely!
Not a single developer has posted to this thread, including Please, who is experiencing his menstrual cycle and just wants to bitch about something, anything. It doesn’t matter what, their lives are so miserable and just like John Crawford, is having a Kumbaya feel-good moment commiserating with themselves.
Liberal pussies!
Smart move Apple! Now developers can talk to each other about coding for the iPhone when the have had a program released. This I’m very sure will be the start of some really nice apps!
If the US economy wasn’t soo bad I’d go back in AAPL!
This was very much needed in order for the iPhone developer community to share knowledge. As a new iPhone and relatively new Cocoa developer, I have been very dependent on what resources I could scrounge on the net. This will help grow that community greatly.
Now Apple needs to step up and post development guidelines for what will or won’t make the App Store. Right now the situation is just too anti-competitive and anti-free speech.
But wait! It’s only for released software! So, the NDA will still apply to those that Apple screws over in not accepting their software and not providing any decent reasons.
This is like the Emancipation Proclamation applying only to areas the Union did not control! It’s sneaky, that’s for sure!
“It has happened before”
Did you ever compare the original Mac OS toolbox with the toolbox from Windows 3 & 95? If you didn’t know whose toolbox you were looking at, you sure couldn’t easily tell from the code – many of the system calls had the same names and were virtually identical. “Inside Macintosh” got you halfway towards Windows programming in the early days.
Microsoft, as an Apple developer, was certainly able to borrow heavily from the early Mac SDK.
The iPhone SDK NDA didn’t prevent anyone from learning about SDK contents – all a competitor had to do was join the developer group. It was another barrier to preventing competitors from using that information without getting their pants sued off. In other words, a barrier to competitors who joined the dev program.
I never thought that Apple was concerned about small developers talking to each other, but rather that it was part an “anti-Scully” give-away prevention program.
……someone’s not read that GQ article thats getting fanbois to put their heads thru a NOOSE in readyness in droves for the loss of the sole MASS brainwasher of dumb gullibles himself?
The IRONY of you stating other peoples lives are miserable, when within a year the meaning of your pathetic existence – Jobs + Jobs’ Apple will cease to exist, to leave with nothing but an unbearable pointless vacuum which you will never be able to fill by yourself 😀
I’ve got a different take on this whole NDA thing. Let’s take a walk down memory lane for perspective. Remember when the initial iPhone came out and it was too expensive? They lowered the price. This was purposeful and they planned this. The high initial price got the situation LOTS of press. Press is press–there is no negative press when it gets people talking about the iPhone. Remember? It got a lot of buzz, both up front and then especially when they lowered the price. Good Apple. Doing what Microsoft never does….LISTENING.
This instance uses the same tactic in manipulating the media. Talking about the NDA situation got free press–visibility. Mean old Apple. Then when they “cave” they look like this “responsive, caring company that LISTENS” (just like for lowering the iPhone price).
Neither of these were accidents. It is the PR machine of Apple at work. They are shrewd and purposeful. They wait until the outcry reaches a near tipping point, then they give in with masterful timing. Steve loves to be the puppetmaster.
You heard it here first!
-mmmmark
“Please, who is experiencing his menstrual cycle”
If you don’t think developers being able to buy good books on development for a platform or share problems, coding techniques and and tips on the Internet is essential for a successful platform, then you’ve clearly never done any kind of software development, so really aren’t qualified to make any sort of comment.
“They have many quite intelligent people working for them,”
An NDA that prevented developers discussion how to use the platform was a very dumb idea. At least on the business side, Apple seems to mostly learn by doing dumb things then fixing them rather than spotting obvious stupid mistakes from day one.
In the jail break community there weren’t any books or guidlines and that place was thriving long before Apple opened up these devices to developers. There weren’t any fart apps either!
I stand by my words about the ‘miserable’ among you. More like malcontents who have discovered a world outside of the Microsoft bubble.
Apple bashing is a new sport for some of you but I’ve been listening to it for twenty-nine years and the longest running line has been the one about “Apple is Doomed!” Mr. GQ thinks he’s being original, heh, heh.
The newest line being posited is that Apple’s death will follow Jobs’ but I don’t believe that for a minute. That the Market will be brutal on Apple shares when hearing the news of Jobs’ retirement, I have no doubt but, many of us will see this as a strategic buying opportunity and Jon Ive is more than ready to fill the vacuum.
Many of you came to Apple by way of the iPod or iPhone, and that’s fine. You’re learning that tethered to that device is a company with a long turbulent history of shaking up the status quo. (How many of you are bitter veterans of the MegaHertz War, hmm?) But hear me now and pay me later, Apple will still be here for the rest of our lives.
Tech company’s a lot bigger and brighter than Apple have already gone down in flames and who’s still standing? Apple was burned by Gates because of an ill-defined NDA and it won’t happen again, ever.
Bitch all you want, but Apple just gave birth to the next computing platform and Knife the Baby is not in this kids future.