Apple's Mac Developer Prorgam license agreement

Ethan Blanton elb at pidgin.im
Thu Oct 28 13:52:53 EDT 2010


Evan Schoenberg, M.D. spake unto us the following wisdom:
> Attached is the Mac Developer Program license agreement which I
> propose to enter into as a representative of and on behalf of IMF. 
> Doing so is a prerequisite to participating in the Mac App Store as
> well as to Adium having access to various resources that Apple offers
> its paid-program developers.


Thank you for providing this.

I have no particular problem with this agreement.  It does contain
some annoying clauses, and things that I would require to have some
oversight, but only one may be a show stopper, and that's Adium's
problem to figure out.  In particular:

1) We are required to oversee the usage of Apple Development
   software/documentation/etc. by those authorized by IMF Inc to use
   said materials.  (p. 5, 3.1c) In my mind, this simply means that we
   need to make sure that access to the paid materials is kept on a
   very short leash.  I would make this a condition of entry.  (For
   example, that you oversee such materials personally, Evan.) I don't
   want IMF Inc to have liability because some random Adium developer
   I don't know posts a PDF on a blog.

2) Apple can change the agreement at any time, and the new agreement
   must be accepted before development may continue under the program.
   (p. 9) I would require that IMF Inc approve this each time, it
   cannot just be rubber stamped.

3) Apple will be receiving a license to use 'libpurple' in promotional
   materials.  (p. 18) I'm not super happy about that, but neither am
   I torn up about it.  They will also of course be receiving a
   license to use 'Adium' in promotional materials, but I don't view
   that as something IMF Inc should have a particular position on.

4) (potential show stopper) While Apple says that FOSS is acceptable
   and makes reasonable FOSS protections, the EULA addendum says that
   "The license granted to the end-user for th Licensed Application
   must be limited to a non-transferable license to use the Licensed
   Application on a Mac Product that the end user owns and
   controls[...]".  (p. 22) This is incompatible with the GPL.  I
   don't think Apple will allow a GPL product to be shipped via the
   App Store.

> I am not a lawyer, but I don't see anything offensive in the
> agreement.  I'd appreciate timely feedback so we can proceed, if
> possible.

Note that I believe this will require a vote, which means we have to
give several weeks for votes to come in once we finalize on language.

Ethan
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