Blog's from the Bush

In a very Jobsian phrasing a simple note to Developers was posted on the Apple Developer website. Quoted below, the note however is not permission for open slather conversation about all aspects of iPhone Development. Rather is like a prelude to the actual changes that will make it possible to talk about working with the released iPhone SDK.

“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”

The first, and easily missed, condition are the last 3 words of the first sentence "released iPhone software" - since the NDA only covers the Apple created iPhone SDK they must be talking about the released versions of the SDK. So, right now that means 2.1 whereas it's well known that 2.2 is in beta, which is not released, ergo, if you have 2.2b1 you can't talk about any features in it on the public lists and forums that abound. The second condition is that a new agreement won't be out for "a week or so" - a mere technicality but I'm sure a lawyer could argue in Apple's favour if they wanted to shut you up before the new agreement was out and executed by you. Interestingly why a week or so? and how are we going to agree to it? The most common way I receive updated licenses/agreements/NDA''s is via a new software release (like the once that came with the 2.1 SDK) - could this mean we're going to see a Released 2.2 SDK sooner rather than later?

Speaking of lists and forums does this mean we can talk about it already - regardless of the wait for new agreement? Well... not yet - Cocoa-Dev's moderators are still seeking clarification on what's happening and are currently asking people to wait until they have some direction. They can't even tell us if a separate list will be created - at least not yet - they hope to have something soon.

Personally I'd like a separate list, firstly it's all mail. Currently I dump it all (Cocoa-Dev, Mac-opengl, Mac-games-dev and a few other) into the same massive archive folder then I use Smart mailboxes to pull out what I'm focused on in my current project. Having a separate list means I can easily setup a smart mailbox that pulls out just OpenGL related items or just iPhone. That way when I search on a Cocoa method/framework I know I'll be getting specifically a Cocoa-Touch or orginal Cocoa result.

Given the foundations of iPhone development are deeply based in Mac OS X & Cocoa, namely Cocoa Touch it means that the chance for confusion will be very high if Cocoa-Dev becomes the list for iPhone as well as desktop development. Let's hope sense prevails and Cocoa-Touch-Dev appears on the lists.apple.com website.