18th
How can the iPhone SDK be NDA’d?
I was talking to a friend, who made an interesting point.
For $99, anyone can sign up to be an iPhone Developer. Then, Apple provides you with supposedly confidential information.
I’m no lawyer, but it doesn’t seem right to claim information is confidential while advertising it for sale to the public at large.
Protected by copyright, sure. But confidential?
Well, it’s not that anyone can just sign up. You have to apply, be accepted, sign the NDA and other agreements, and pay your $99. People have been rejected (though not so much these days) and have had their memberships terminated for violating the agreement. And if you lose your membership, you can’t download SDK updates, provision devices for development and testing, or sell your apps through the App Store. So it’s not strictly a sale of information; it’s a contract with very specific language that must be purposely agreed to, and a well-defined penalty for violation. That Apple charges for membership and isn’t particularly selective about whom it lets into the program doesn’t stop them from enforcing its terms, among which is that frustrating NDA.
It’s worth noting, however, that the confidentiality now covers only prerelease and beta materials, as has been the case for the parallel Mac Developer Program for as long as I can remember.
