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iPhone: Article

Apple Drops the iPhone NDA for Released Software

It's just a shame that Apple took so long to open the doors
By Kevin Hoffman
Article Rating:
October 2, 2008 05:00 AM EDT
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 2,921

Kevin Hoffman's Blog

Went to the developer program site a few minutes ago and saw the following notice:

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.

Rest assured that I'll be commenting further on this subject, but I wanted to post letting people know that the floodgates are about to open. I'm guessing iPhone bloggers are going to start posting massive amounts of code samples in the coming days. Good times for all... It's just a shame that Apple took so long to open the doors... I feel really bad for the authors who had to change their writing plans and even change the content of their books to accomodate Apple's resistance to lifting the NDA.

Enjoy!

Published October 2, 2008 – Reads 2,921
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Kevin Hoffman

Kevin Hoffman, editor-in-chief of SYS-CON's iPhone Developer's Journal, has been programming since he was 10 and has written everything from DOS shareware to n-tier, enterprise web applications in VB, C++, Delphi, and C. Hoffman is coauthor of Professional .NET Framework (Wrox Press) and co-author with Robert Foster of Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development Unleashed. He authors The .NET Addict's Blog at .NET Developer's Journal.

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Most Recent Comments
wernerkeil 10/14/08 12:31:14 PM EDT

Dear Apple,
Thanks a lot for this info and finally reacting to user's and developer's demand instead of just pretending to be deaf (which some of you including your CEO might be anyway, probably due to an overdose of iTunes ?;-)

Does this also mean dropping the stupid "No Open Source" clause which sounded as it was part of such NDA?!