Those who loved having it on their devices lose. VLC loses "customers." The GPL loses by looking worse than Apple's own rules. Apple loses by looking as if their approval process failed to catch yet another edge case.
Everyone loses.
The FSF (and the VLC developers in question) would rather have their software distributed in the App Store, as long as Apple complies with the terms of the license. The Android Market has no problems with this (and even if it did, you can install apps that you don't get from the Market on an Android phone).
By locking users down, not allowing them to install their own software except through the App Store, and not allowing applications to be distributed under licenses of their creators choosing in the App Store, Apple is limiting the software that users can use on their phone. Apple seems to have a policy of ignoring free software licenses in their app review process, until the developer actually complains, but the fact that they ignored and violated the license despite their draconian review process, and only pulling software once someone complains, seems calculated to allow them to blame the developers for the app's removal (as you are doing) rather than the blame being placed on their own policies, which are the real reason that users's freedom is restricted.
Yes, Apple's policies are calculated. That doesn't make them evil nor does it make them necessarily wrong. It sounds to me like you want your (GPL, etc) rules to trump Apple's rules. What gives you that right? The App Store is huge, popular, and everyone wants a piece of it. Apple created that success for themselves. You (or anyone else) has no basis to rush in and claim they deserve their own little slice of it just because. You play by Apple's rules until Apple changes their rules or don't play at all. Don't like it? Go somewhere else - that's your right which is given in exchange for Apple having the right to make their own rules.
If you take away one of those restrictions, great! If the App Store isn't the only way of getting software onto my own hardware, then they can have whatever policies they want; I can just get the software from elsewhere (see, for instance, Android). Or, if they actually abided by the terms of any free software licenses for software they distributed, well, less fine (I still would like to be able to get my software from elsewhere), but they're at least complying with the terms of those licenses.
So yes, it's disappointing that someone clicked "agree" to something they couldn't legally agree to, because it violated the terms under which they were distributing free software. But Apple is the one here who is significantly restricting end-user freedom; and the point of this sort of enforcement of the GPL is to get the point across that free software developer will not let Apple benefit from being able to distribute said free software without complying with the terms of the license.
Apple benefits from having a better selection of software in the App Store; if I can play my videos on an Android phone, but not an iPhone, that might help me decide in favor of Android. They shouldn't be able to benefit from this without complying with the terms of the license. There are several free software packages (like VLC, GNU Go, and more) that they could benefit from, but should not be able to until they stop restricting end user freedom.
I am not trying to get "my" rules to trump Apples. I am trying to say that if Apple wants to benefit from my work, then they must play by my rules. I don't use or develop for iPhone for just this reason; because Apple isn't willing to play by a set of rules that I agree with. I have an Android phone; while it isn't perfect in respecting end-user freedom (it doesn't come with root, and rooting it voids your warranty), it is a heck of a lot better (I also use a Mac, for instance, which while much of the software is not free, Apple does not restrict what software I can an cannot run on my own machine, which I consider an acceptable compromise).
Whomever agreed to Apple's terms told Apple, by way of agreeing to the contract, that they had full rights and authority to grant Apple the right to distribute the app with all the associated restrictions, etc. outlined in the contract. It would seem that when you consider the terms of the GPL, that person did not have the authority to claim such a thing. That person lied or, at best, was simply mistaken. This isn't Apple's fault. That's all I'm saying. Perhaps ultimately we agree on that point.
Open apps can't get on the iPhone because Apple disallows it.
Apple is pulling it out, they control what software can or cannot get in. There's no way for anyone to install anything (legally, and without hassle) on the iTouch devices without Apple's permission.
I've been dying to ask: What kinds of awesome things can you do with a jailbroken iPhone? I know you can install VLC + some software to stream videos from some other computer via wifi, which is pretty sweet. What else?
I've been considering Jailbreaking, but it would be cool to have a compelling, shiny reason.
http://thew0rd.com/wp-content/gallery/postrelated/lockinfo.p...
I can do all of that with my current iPhone anyway though.
Gimme a reason to void the warranty... god knows I want to!
- any missed calls
- any new voicemails
- and any new text messages.
Each of those, I can check simply by sliding the "unlock" slider.
The daily event isn't really relevant because all events will alert me anyway (because they beep when it's time to do it).
Mail again isn't very relevant.. I'm mostly at a computer all day, I have email open anyway.
The weather I just don't care about.
Apologies for sounding argumentative / etc, I don't mean to! I am merely pointing out that I want to do something cool with a Jailbroken iPhone, something I can't do with my regular iPhone. Else I'll pass. :)
I don't even see how Apple could comply with the licensing terms. They don't have the source code of the app in question, so they can't comply even if they wanted to. Unless you're suggesting that Apple should force every app developer to hand over their source code to Apple, and give Apple the right to distribute it without the developer's agreement? Yeah, that's an attractive deal, I'm sure it'll do wonders for the number of apps in the App Store...
The developer failed. Apple said up front what they'll do for the developer. That doesn't include "whatever you ask us to do".
Apple's completely in the clear. The developer's a moron.
The GPL ends up standing out as the "free" license that makes it hardest to actually distribute free software and reuse free code in other free software projects.
In other words, talking about reuse is changing the subject. The important thing is freedom to modify the code you're using.
As someone who prefers to license under the FreeBSD license -- no it's not. It's about contributing code to make software everywhere better (whether or not you can modify the result or not). Now, this is just my opinion, but so is yours and you should probably speak of it that way instead of like fact.
>The GPL ends up standing out as the "free" license that makes it hardest to actually distribute free software and reuse free code in other free software projects.
Is only true when you look at it immediately. In the long run, BSD licenses stand out as the ones that make it hardest to reuse code, because people don't have to think about reuse when they modify it, which is an important consideration. If you're just modifying some code for your company's internal use, not only are you not going to refuse to distribute it, you're going to avoid coding for situations that have wider applicability.
And of course this is my opinion. That was clear when I said "the important thing." There's no need to pepper my speech with "I think" when I'm obviously stating things that are not factual.