[sword-devel] iPhone Frontend

[Ian Wagner]

On Nov 18, 2008, at 12:30 AM, Greg Hellings wrote:

> Ian,
>
> I had planned to respond - but I got caught up in the things of school
> and life.  Myself, Manfred and a few of those who had been working
> with MacSword in the past had been talking about developing an iPhone
> front-end, but I haven't had time to learn the iPhone libraries from
> the ground up (I'm not a Cocoa programmer, so the whole delegate
> system is foreign to me).  I'll be done with school in May, at which
> time I'll be able to give more to the SWORD project that involves
> learning the new technologies.
>
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Ian Wagner <IWAGN973 at students.bju.edu 
> > wrote:
>> Hey guys, I posted to the list a week or two ago about the  
>> possibility
>> of an iPhone frontend and just wanted to give you guys an update and
>> get some feedback. I worked on the project over the weekend a bit and
>> have a usable proof of concept ready. The module text renders fine  
>> one
>> chapter at a time on the screen, navigation buttons are in place for
>> next/previous chapter, and a module selection screen allows the user
>> to select the active module. Searching, bookmarks, a good method for
>> selection of text, and a module downloader system are on my TODO list
>> for now.
>
> This is very impressive.  I've given the module download system some
> thought.  There is already a system in the SWORD library to allow for
> it.  However, it requires libcurl or its own built-in ftplib, and I
> believe both of those would use BSD sockets.  From my reading in the
> iPhone documentation, using any function calls lower than CFNetworking
> are only available over Wi-Fi.  However, CFNetworking has built-in
> support for HTTP and FTP.  So you could either use the built-in SWORD
> library downloading scheme for now, and only be able to access over a
> Wi-Fi connection, or you could rewrite the system using CFNetworking
> classes to allow for data to be transferred over the cell networks
> also.  Or, you could use the built-in system for now and then add
> support for a CFNetworking option in a later stage of the coding.

I had noticed the system in the API and had given it some thought. I  
was not aware of the limitation on the networking though. I was  
thinking that it would be better to just use CFNetwork (or maybe  
NSURL... I'm not sure yet) on the iPhone, and now that I know about  
that limitation I think it will be easier to just code it that way  
from the start.

>
>
>>
>> I have a few questions about what the next steps in the process are
>> though. First off, has anyone determined if we can distribute a GPL'd
>> iPhone app? From what I can make of it as long as the source is
>> available on the web or something then it is GPL-compliant (this is
>> what the people at Wordpress have done so it seems ok to me, but I
>> thought I should double-check). Second, I am wondering if I am to
>> develop this independently or if there is an official method for
>> developing SWORD frontends. I have an iPhone dev license and would
>> really like to see a SWORD frontend for these devices.
>
> My communications with the Apple Developer Connection people about the
> status of GPL software on the iPhone lead to them simply telling me to
> ask my legal counsel.  Unfortunately, I don't have the money available
> to me to pay legal counsel to answer that question.  If I were you,
> I'd scour Linux.com or put in a question to the GNU people about it,
> since those were the groups initially responsible for the articles
> about GPL's incompatibility with the iPhone developer program.
> However, my understanding of Apple's announcement a few weeks back was
> that they wanted to have GPL software available through the iTunes
> Store, so I think you're safe to proceed.  At the least, for now,
> those of us who are also ADC members are legally allowed to see the
> code.  You may just have to make that a requirement for access to the
> code until you can sort out the question firmly.
>
> --Greg

I wish I had money for a lawyer too on this one. I have been looking  
around, reading the NDA and GPL and lots of websites, but I'm getting  
lots of conflicting information. The GPLv3 I THINK is out, but that  
shouldn't matter since SWORD is GPLv2. Obviously wordpress has  
released a GPL'd app and it was approved by Apple and Apple doesn't  
seem to be making any hubbub, but the FSF people might. The NDA seems  
to be ok with distributing code for released software, but my question  
is if the GPL will mess things up by requiring that the iPhone  
libraries that we link against be GPL licensed. That would obviously  
be a problem.

I'll keep plugging away at this until I hear otherwise. Hopefully we  
can figure out the legal issues by the time i have a release ready.

>>
>> Thanks and God bless,
>> Ian
>> ---------------
>> There's no place like 127.0.0.1
>>
>>
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Ian
---------------
There's no place like 127.0.0.1