Inside Apple's iPhone SDK Gag Order 495
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Tom Yager takes a closer look at Apple's iPhone SDK confidentiality agreement, which restricts developers from discussing the SDK or exchanging ideas with others, thereby leaving no room for forums, newsgroups, open source projects, tutorials, magazine articles, users' groups, or books. But because anyone is free to obtain the iPhone SDK by signing up for it, Apple is essentially branding publicly available information as confidential. This 'puzzling contradiction' is the 'antithesis of the developer-friendly Apple Developer Connection' on which the iPhone SDK program is based, Yager contends. 'You'll see arguments from armchair legal analysts that the iPhone developer Agreements won't stand up in court — but those analysts certainly won't stand up in court on your behalf.' Anyone planning to launch an iPhone forum or open source project should have 'a lawyer draft your request for exemption, and make sure that the Apple staffer granting it personally commits to status as authorized to approve exceptions to the iPhone Registered Developer and iPhone SDK Agreements,' Yager warns."
Sorry I can't talk about this. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry I can't talk about this. (Score:2, Funny)
Since this is slashdot however, I'm sure nobody has actually bothered reading or even agreed to the EULA, therefore we can all talk about the SDK as much as we want with little or no basis for facts...
Typical Steve Jobs... (Score:5, Funny)
He'll demand that people conform to his world view, and demand that the people working for him force their customers to conform to his world view.
Now, he's demanding that his workers force his customers to force THEIR customers to conform...
*phew*... I'm so glad I don't work for / with / against / near Apple. I get winded just thinking about them!
Re:Try not to choke. (Score:5, Funny)
A secret survey conducted by the Rand Corporation in the 1970s confirmed that any person attracted to white, plastic machines completely without sharp edges is an utter homosexual, subconsciously wishing to insert them into his rectum.
Wow. I gotta watch Wall-E again...
The first rule of Apple SDK Developers club is.... (Score:5, Funny)
...you don't talk about Apple SDK Developers club.
Because we all know... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:no sale, here, then (Score:5, Funny)
The only explanation I can see for Apple's recent surge in popularity is their marketing, which is absolutely top notch.
Really? That's the only explanation?
Re:Apple hosts public iPhone discussions (Score:5, Funny)
The EULA for Safari for windows [theregister.co.uk] also forbids the installing of safari on windows. Again silly. Apple needs to become about 638% less litigious. Yes, I quantified it, wana fight about it?
Re:So basically, no learning help? (Score:3, Funny)
The second rule of Apple SDK is that you don't talk about Apple SDK.
Or one could look at it from the stand point that a population that isn't
allowed to talk to one another is easily controlled, ala 1984...
which would make this all the more ironic. [youtube.com]
Re:Common Fanboy Behaviour, in general... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:no sale, here, then (Score:1, Funny)
But they're soooooo cute.
And could you imagine me pulling out some horrid LG or Samsung thing at Twin Peaks or the Mint Karaoke Lounge? Embarassed, OMG I'd simply die!
Re:Apple hosts public iPhone discussions (Score:4, Funny)
Apple needs to become about 638% less litigious. Yes, I quantified it, wana fight about it?
Yes. Fatness is a scale which starts from a midpoint and extends out. Someone who ceases to be fat can continue to lose weight; becoming 638% less fat could refer to someone who goes from being overweight to being skin and bone.
Litigiousness, on the other hand, is naturally a scale starting from zero and extending out from there. Once you are no longer litigious at all, you cannot lose any litigiousness. If, perhaps, you cease suing everyone and begin instead to be sued by everyone, you aren't less litigious than someone not suing anyone at all; in fact, you could easily say that if someone's doing that, they're more litigious because they're still involved in the adveserial culture of common law courts.
Seeing as you haven't specified who Apple needs to become "about 638%" less litigious than, it's implied you mean than they currently are. One hundred percent refers to the entirety of something, so 638 percent refers to over six times the entire amount of Apple's litigiousness. This would imply some sort of negative value of litigiousness, but as I've argued above, no such concept is conceivable.
This is without even mentioning the strangeness of saying "about" followed by a very specific number.
Apple certainly could do with being less litigious, but I don't think "about 638%" is the amount they need to become less litigious by.
Re:Apple hosts public iPhone discussions (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Apple hosts public iPhone discussions (Score:4, Funny)
754617600 is the unix time stamp for the year that Carl Sagn sued Apple. It all begins from this key epoch. Now take the epoch in binary 101100111110101000110100000000 if you remove all of the zeros from this binary number, becuase there are no 0's at Apple! Apple is #1, you get the decimal number 8191. Take tangent of (8191*Pi) because all things at Apple are circular from a certain point of view you now get: -0.12658781837828924382846055790048. Now take this number and multiply it by E getting -0.3441013664019776161079362032018 rounded up, now if you carefully pick out the numbers "6(11)" "3(30)" "8(33)" and add a % sign (which everyone knows is JS for MOD and not percent as you so callously imply) you get the calculation 638 MOD less and of course LESS is base 36 for 998956. So what you assumed was 638 Percent was actually the formula 638 MOD 998956 which everyone knows is 638. Therefore the calculated formula is really just 638, and everyone knows about IEEE 638 "Standard for Qualification of. Class 1E Transformers for Nuclear Power Generating Stations." which if you would have spent the time to read clearly states:
Upon completing the calculations in the specification the result is the base 36 number: " and reverse course as to not be so ".
When we put the whole calculation together we get: Apple needs to become about and reverse course as to not be so litigious.
Which, when I read it, really doesn't make a lot of since, but I have Top Men working on it already.
I really hope this fits better with your expectations, thanks! I'll be here all week.
Re:no sale, here, then (Score:3, Funny)
"Yea, grounded in bad law, which doesn't make it right. The Nuremberg trials after the Holocaust established that.
Wow, that was the most subtle introduction of Godwin's Law I've ever seen!
Re:no sale, here, then (Score:2, Funny)
I sometimes get the idea that Apple is stuck in the early 1980s when every company made stuff that was only ocmpatible with their stuff.
Yeah, it's time Apple and those Linux guys finally came to their senses and let Microsoft run the business.
It's a trap! (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone who is posting at the forum has violated the SDK and Apple is collecting names. Settlement terms will be very generous - just sign over the copyright to your App and Apple will agree not to sue you for violating the SDK.
Clever bastards! What will they think of next?