Just amazing how close to an official product this gets quality wise. I really regret updating to 7.1, too bad this guy plans on releasing it commercial instead of open-source.
I'm curious: do you have an alternative suggestion for what would have allowed him to spend as long as he did working on this challenging piece of software? People often make these "too bad he didn't do this work for free" comments on HN, but I feel like it turns more into "too bad this person wasn't already well-off enough that he was able to donate his time and effort to working on this for free". This is why I went to the trouble of building Cydia into a market in the first place: to help support and encourage long-term development.
Based on a quick Google, I don't think this tweak has been cracked yet; however, unless the author has spent an inordinate amount of time on custom DRM* , I expect it will be eventually. At that point, there will not be much downside to releasing the source code, perhaps under a no-derivative-works license. Potential exceptions I can think of include making it harder to re-secure the tweak when updating for newer iOS versions or to add features, since someone could make an illegal fork, and making it easier for someone else to simply clone it, but I would not personally consider either of those a big deal. Of course, it will remain their choice whether to release anything; they may not see an upside, or, more likely, they will simply not see the request here and follow the norm of not doing so. However, it does not seem unreasonable to hope for/encourage them to make a different choice.
* Nobody has invented DRM effective against highly skilled people, but most people cracking iOS tweaks are not highly skilled.
You also have conveniently misrepresented my original complaint (and, I am pretty certain, goldenkey's later elaboration): there is a difference between "hoping for" or "encouraging" something and indicating displeasure and expectation :(. "it is too bad that comex didn't give me $10" is a fundamentally different statement than "I would really appreciate it if comex gave me $10"... even "it would be really awesome if comex had given me $10" is not a sufficient fix: it continues to imply a form of entitlement where it is not just subjectively but objectively bad that the speaker did not get what they wanted... that comex is actually doing something objectively bad (and worse, already in the past did something objectively bad: note that the tense also changes in those versions to did/had) by not giving me $10... this kind of attitude does, I believe, seem somewhat "unreasonable".
There is one main problem with releasing the source code, and that is derivatives, of little extra work.
Even if the tweak is cracked, there will still be many who pay for the official version off of BigBoss or the like. However, with derivatives that could eventually add more gestures, and reproduce the full behavior, comex's tweak would become muddled in a pool of competitors.
Most piracy arguments come down to 'well we're gonna do it anyways so give us the keys to the castle beforehand.' This basic argument can be torn apart by the very fact of being human. We live to die but still fight to live. Caving in before a battle has begun is fundamentally inhuman