14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s recent move to include additional restrictions to the iPhone Software Development Kit have prompted an independent developer to cancel a conference devoted to Mac programming and computer science, according to a report by CNet news (via its DeepTech blog).
Earlier this week, Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch announced that he had canceled his C4 conference after four years of painstaking planning and organizing, simply because Apple decided to change one section of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK terms of use.
Rentzsch posted an open letter in which he stressed that he wanted to combine Mac programmers' “maniacal focus on user experience” with newer, better programming tools, hence his motivation to create C4. However, his dreams were shattered when he came across section 3.3.1 of the iPhone SDK agreement, which, according to the programmer, “makes developers wholly reliant on Apple for software engineering innovation.”
His entire post can be found below, followed by what can be considered Apple’s justification for changing the rules of the game.
I want to write the best possible software.
There are two directions from which I approach this goal: the top-down and the bottom-up.
From the bottom-up, I crave better tools.
Software engineering is advancing, albeit at a glacial pace. I spend most of my days writing in languages and using tools that were obsolete over a decade ago.
From the top-down, I want my software to be exceptionally easy to use.
I discovered a group of like-minded people in the Apple programming community. This community has a maniacal focus on user experience unlike anything else I’ve seen. I love it.
An unfortunate side-effect of this focus seems to be far less attention towards making software better from the bottom-up.
C4 was billed as a Mac indie conference, but at its core C4 was a computer science conference.
I believed the best way to move software forward was to inform Apple programmers about better ways to build software — to infect the best top-downer minds with fertile discontent.
My hope was that developers would care primarily about user experience yet also be passionate about utilizing lingual and tooling advances.
C4 was my attempt to push on the Apple community from the bottom-up.
With that background in place, I hope you can understand how Section 3.3.1 has broken my spirit.
Apple is crazy-innovative in terms of hardware and software design, but I can count the total number of software engineering advances they’ve made on one hand.
Section 3.3.1 makes developers wholly reliant on Apple for software engineering innovation.
By itself Section 3.3.1 wasn’t enough to cause me to quit C4. I’ve weathered Apple lying to me and their never-ending series of autocratic App Store shenanigans.
But unlike previous issues such as the senseless iPhone SDK NDA, the majority of the community isn’t riled by 3.3.1. On this issue, Apple apologists have the loudest voice. They offer soothing, distracting yet fundamentally irrelevant counterpoints to Apple’s naked power-grab.
With resistance to Section 3.3.1 so scattershot and meek, it’s become clear that I haven’t made the impact I wanted with C4. It’s also clear my interests and the Apple programming community’s interests are farther apart than I had hoped.
I give my heartfelt gratitude to the C4 volunteers, speakers and attendees. The best thing I can say about C4 is that I know it changed many lives for the better, including mine.
Apple’s explanation for the change to the programming tools license (as noted in “Thoughts on Flash” by the company’s CEO) is that, “[…] Letting a third-party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in substandard apps, and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform.” This, Cupertino claims, it knows from “painful experience.” Although Apple’s stance is a direct response to the Steam let out by Adobe’s engineers, the explanation seems to work for Rentzsch too.
Apple believes that, “If developers grow dependent on third-party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.”
It is without a doubt that Apple’s dispute with Adobe (which many believe goes way back) is affecting the entire developer community. Rentzsch's post suggests that Apple may or may not prevail in a world where all its partners are somewhat forced to be friends with the company. It remains to be seen who is right and who is wrong, or (at the very least) whether Apple is making good choices for its business.