[topfs2]

As a final question, and if you don't mind. What principles would you be selling out? Is it the fact that you want XBMC and all of it's companion apps/subsidiaries to remain free to all?

Yup, free in all senses of the word, alas open source also. TBH I don't own an Apple device and haven't looked to much into it, all I know is that GPL is not compatible (which is what XBMC is licensed under and cannot be changed).

Might be that there exist another license which is ok which could be used for a remote/thin client.

I suppose once you add transcoding there wouldn't be anything to stop a developer from writing and selling his own app to accept streams from XBMC but I think it's a real shame that the XBMC team can't at least use some of their work to fund hardware purchases, and an even bigger shame that someone else could profit from the XBMC teams hard work.

If it was possible to create an open source one I would not have been surprised if someone on the team had created one, we know its a big market and would love to have xbmc remotes in there (official ones), but given that its not possible with GPL noone have taken the plunge. For example android remote I started and since it was open source freezy and others jumped in and continued (and made it what it is today) when I didn't have more time for it, these are the powers of open source we fight for and these are the powers apple store miss out on sadly.

Thing here is that even if a dev could in theory make a closed one which he supports its not really fair of us as a community to officially support it, say he changes his mind and start charging for it. Even if we as a team have the code hidden and open within the team we miss out of all those awesome powers of open source. Unlicensed source is even worse as that allows any company to royally screw you over

In the end the we don't want to support apple as their rules doesn't allow GPL applications.

[EDIT]Another hypothetical question. If an independent dev wrote an app for the appstore which accepted streams from the to-be-included transcoding XBMC, and then donated the proceedings to XBMC.org, would that be acceptable to the XBMC team?[/EDIT]

Sure, thats the only option (if they choose to donate or not thats their choice).

EDIT: While we want our apps to be free as in money also, the open source licenses does not hinder charging. So the reason for not being in the store has nothing to do with that you have to charge for stuff, since you do not. Obviously being an official app store developer costs quite a bit more than being that in android market afaik but that has nothing to do with this.

[Chris!]

One thing I think a lot of people forget is that XBMC isn't the Developers' jobs - they don't work for you (they're mathematicians and CEOs etc). They're just extremely talented and generous people who work on an app for you in their spare time.

This may not have been directed solely at me but if so at no point in my post did I make any assertion that the XBMC devs owed me any features, or an iOS version of XBMC. I merely pointed out my frustration.

It wasn't directed at you, no offense meant, just an general observation that I think is important to bear in mind always.

As for the other parts of my post, I was just clarifying that whilst they are your frustrations I think they are likely to remain your frustrations (unless you start developing for XBMC etc). Often people's "IMHO" turn into "this is the facts".
Again no offense meant and obviously you are entitled to your views.

In my opinion the Apple App Store(s) are bad for innovation and diversity as you have to abide by their (often restrictive) rules and often perfectly good projects cannot be included and have less publicity outside of the app store (XBMC, VLC etc).
I'm not against a more open App Store (from anyone) as I do like the idea an App Store for distributing safe and good apps which I may not of heard of otherwise.
Time will tell if my opinions are correct

[jd2157]

Why would you ever want a free, open source program on the official Apple App Store?

The Apple App store represents everything that is wrong with the new business model that is being pushed on consumers. As consumers we will loose our freedom of choosing what to purchase and install on our hardware, and developers will loose the freedom to make new and innovative software. Apple will have a monopoly and total control over what software is developed, placed on their store, and subsequently installed onto their LOCKED hardware.

This is very bad for innovation, competition, and consumers. (But it is very good for Apple's record setting profits).

Please don't take this the wrong way because I am not trying to be rude; If "you don't mind paying for this", the best way to "pay" is to donate to this team. At least this way they will get 100% of the revenue, and won't be coerced into giving 30% to the Apple mafia.

The future is very bleak if the app store + locked hardware, totally eliminates the old method of development, distribution, and installation.

I don't mean to be rude either, honestly, but it's hard to take your arguments seriously when you confuse lose with loose.

I'm not a fan of Apple locking stuff down or their intelligence insulting reasons for doing so either. That being said, where there's (interesting) locked hardware there'll always be a jailbreak community so it'll never be totally eliminated.

[jmarshall]

I really don't want to reply to this thread (as IMO it's outlived it's usefulness) but I wanted to clear some things up:

1. First off, it's not completely clear (i.e. tested in court) that Apple's current rules completely disallow GPL'd software. So that and that alone is not enough for XBMC to be ruled out. However, it's not necessarily up to just us. We use a lot of other GPL software (eg ffmpeg) and they may not be happy with their code being used in something distributed by the app store.

2. There are technical reasons why it's not possible. Private API usage is one. XBMC on iPad/ATV2 would be far less useful without the use of those private APIs. This problem could be eliminated if Apple made those public - that's Apple's choice though.

3. There are other reasons why it's not possible. A simple example is having a python interpreter is generally regarded as a no-no (ability to execute other code). So all the python addons would be gone.

In short, even if we could work around the license issue, by the time we got something that satisfied the other requirements, you'd have a rather different product - effectively a dumb client that would require transcoding to watch anything that iOS doesn't natively deal with.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[davilla]

locking now, move along. nothing more to see here.