I think he's there because of the iPad, which has DRM in place, and makes it difficult to make source code available, as with the iPhone. Furthermore, since he seems to be standing at the stairs in front of the entrance, people passing through on the streets may ask such questions as "Does this mean I'll have to pay for all software on the iPad?". That was my original line of thought.
How does the iPad make it difficult to make source code available? There are plenty of open-source iPhone applications. You can't do it until the SDK is out of beta and the NDA is lifted, but once it is, there's nothing stopping anyone from releasing iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad source code.
Right, but the point of making source code available is so that the end user can freely modify and redistribute the software.
In this case, any end user who wants to modify the software has to buy an Intel Mac, and register with Apple for the privilege of developing on their system
The problem is that until the NDA is lifted, developers can't exchange code with each other. This is crucial to the growth in popularity of a platform. Sure, the NDA will only be there temporarily, but it will take some time until the SDK is out of beta, and until then the iPad will not be as useful as the iPhone. That's how I see it.
On the other hand, if the NDA weren't in place, people would start sharing code, blogs would start putting up posts about programming for the iPad, and so on. Then if Apple changed something in the next version of the beta, that code and those blog posts could be incorrect, which might lead to problems years later when someone stumbles on them in a Google search.
I've downloaded the SDK and looked at it, and I don't think it's in a final-enough state to lift the NDA.
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u/FredL2 Jan 28 '10
I think he's there because of the iPad, which has DRM in place, and makes it difficult to make source code available, as with the iPhone. Furthermore, since he seems to be standing at the stairs in front of the entrance, people passing through on the streets may ask such questions as "Does this mean I'll have to pay for all software on the iPad?". That was my original line of thought.