On May 21, 2008, at 9:46 AM, Michael Ash wrote:
I "agreed" to similar contracts every time I've installed Mac OS X and Xcode and nobody ever got annoyed when I talked about *those* in a public forum.
You agreed, not "agreed". Checking the box is legally binding. It doesn't matter if you've actually read the agreement: that's up to you, but you're bound by it in either case. Moreover, the contracts for Xcode and the iPhone SDK are not similar: the contract for the iPhone SDK is very clear about the NDA part.
The confusing thing about the iPhone SDK isn't the contract, it's the inconsistency. It's no more difficult to get your hands on the iPhone SDK than it is to get your hands on a public release of Xcode. (In both cases you must have an account, fill out a bunch of forms, click through an NDA, etc.) Yet one can be discussed freely and the other cannot. Frankly I'm left puzzled as to the rules here, or why Apple is so adamant about protecting the "secrets" in something that literally anyone on the planet with an internet connection can download directly from their own servers, and I doubt I'm alone on that count.
In my opinion, Apple is not being inconsistent nor unreasonable: Prerelease software has always been under NDA. The iPhone SDK is still in Beta, hence it's under NDA. Xcode is public, hence it's not. The fact that Apple makes it easy to get your hands on both has nothing to do with it.
Frankly, I'm getting a bit annoyed about this recurring discussion. Apple released a beta version of their free software and told us we can use it on the condition that we don't discuss it in public. As far as I'm aware, it's the first time they've released this kind of software to everyone, not just the people who've paid for their developer membership. They were up front about the conditions, and they provided an email address where we can complain if we don't like them. The bottom line is, they release the software, they make the rules. If you don't like the rules, don't download the software. Once the SDK is public, we'll all be able to discuss it to our heart's content.
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