There is any way to submit to the App Store an Qt Quick Controls application
under LGPLv3 license without violating App Store rules?
What i want to do is to deploy my app on iOS store using a dynamically linked version of the Qt libraries.
I tried to find an answer in every forum but seems very difficult.
Any suggestion is very appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
App Store does not care which license you use. It is the users of your application and the Library authors who care. The main point of the LGPLv3 license is that the end users must have the possibility to replace the library with their own modified version. This is very important to understand, dynamic / static / everything else is just distracting.
Let's move to Qt. It is available with LGPLv3 license on major Desktop (Windows, OSX, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android) operating systems. Suppose you develop an application and want to keep your source code closed. On the Desktop you can link dynamically to Qt libraries. When the end users install your application, they can replace Qt libraries in the following way:
Compile their own version of Qt libraries
Navigate the the location where the application is installed
Replace original Qt libraies that were shipped with your applicatoin with their own modified versions
Looks easy, right? The main goal of LGPLv3 is achieved. The user can replace libraries.
Moving to the mobile platforms, starting with Android. Even though you link dynamically to the Qt libraries, we now have a small problem. The user can not navigate to C:/Program Files/YourApp and replace Qt libraries, because it's Android. Rooting is not an option, since it doesn't work on every device (and might not be legal). Remember, the main goal of LGPLv3 is to give the users ability to replace the library and run the modified version of your application on their device.
Solution? Provide .apk file to every user who installed your application with detailed instructions on how to:
Unpack your .apk file
Replace Qt libraries
Zipalign / pack / signtool to a new .apk
Install .apk with modified Qt libraries
Let's talk about iOS. Many say it is not possible to use LGPLv3 with iOS because of static linking. Wrong. Again, you just need to give the end user the possibility to replace Qt libraries. How? Provide your object files for the end user to relink. Or even better, put all your application code and resources in a separate Qt Quick plugin which will compile in a static library archive (technically just all object files concatenated together) for iOS. Then for every user who installed your application you have to provide instructions on how to replace Qt libraries:
Download project files and object files from your website
Download XCode and developer tools from Apple website
Replace Qt libraries
Deploy application to your device
Before this was not possible because in order to deploy on the device the user had to enroll Apple Developer Program. But this is not the case any more. You can launch your app on a device using a free Apple ID account
The end user rights are protected. They can replace Qt libraries. Just make sure you do required steps:
Mention in your application that you use Qt libraries and also mention you use them under LGPLv3 license. Provide a link to LGPLv3 lincese.
Make sure your setup of replacing Qt libraries work. Set up a clean virtual machine and do everything step by step. Document it for the end users.
When the users who downloaded your application want to replace Qt libraries, provide them everything so they can do it.
Actually I don't think anyone would care. But you have to be ready just in case. Do not scream you use Qt LGPLv3 on Qt forums, but make sure you have it visible somewhere down in your application's "About" screen. Qt company does not have resources to scan every application from the App Store if it uses Qt or not. Neither they will touch you if you are a small-near-zero-profit. They have more important things to do.
It is very dissapointing however to see absolutely no help from people who work in Qt on the LGPL subject. Most likely all developers were instructed to answer "IANAL, please contact our legal department". The legal department will tell you - buy our commercial license, it's the only option. On the Qt website you can find Obligations of the LGPL. I am not surprised, there is no word about static linking and providing object files for re-link on this page. Qt company simply prefers not to tell anyone it is possible.
From my point of view LGPL was a huge step which enabled a lot of application to use Qt without disclosing their source code bringing huge popularity to Qt. Not to mention Nokia was the one who sponsored Qt on Mobile first (Symbian and then MeeGo).
Also thinking about MeeGo and Blackberry, there was no problem with developing closed source mobile apps that use Qt and publishing them in respective app stores. No commercial license needed.
Update:
This has been done before. LGPL is possible with static linking and App Store. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4302517
In case the question gets closed as off-topic, I copied the answer here
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/6463/in-2018-if-i-use-c-qt-5-10-0-to-build-a-closed-source-application-requires-ope/6495#6495
Yes, it's possible.
You can use this Qt app template:
https://marketplace.qt.io/products/qt-lgpl-app-template
On IOS it's impossible to relink the App, so it's LGPL V3.0 incompatible (user can't replace Qt libraries)
But this template generates a redistributable .zip Qt project on every rebuild.
Their entire private project is distributed in a compiled .a library, so a user can open project in Qt Creator, rebuild their application and load it on their ipad / iphone, and your source code stays protected
Note: If you are using the qtquick compiler, you must relink it to the same version of Qt.
This .zip file can be uploaded to your own URL or you can add it to your software resources.
You can use the same template in an Android app, a static Windows app, etc.
It's the same as #psyched says, but 100% automatically.
Related
I am building a HTML/JS/CSS application that I would like to distribute packaged either as a NW.js or Electron app. I am new to both, and have read that the packaged executables can be quite large. Since the application would be free, I find that the cost of distributing it from a CDN to be too high.
I was wondering if there was any installer that allowed the "standard" parts of the executable (the Chrome components, etc.) to be downloaded as a shared library from a free CDN, as part of the app's installation / first execution?
With either one, you could host the packages on Github using the "releases" feature, which is free. This is a common approach for a lot of open source Electron applications.
Here are some examples of this being done:
yoda
Caprine
Here is the official documentation on Github releases.
There is a module for Electron designed to make this easy called electron-gh-releases.
I need to know whether we can install and share blackberry application without using .jad files and make it just one .cod files as a distribution package to install.
A clarification, we are talking about BB7 applications here, not BB10.
You ask whether it is possible to install and share a Blackberry application, without using a jad.
In addition to OTA installation (which is where a jad file comes in), you can install applications using the Desktop Manager or some low level application such a javaloader. These use the cod files, from a PC.
What I am not clear on is what you mean by share. Can you explain what you expect to be able to do?
One other comment, another answer suggests that you can use CodeModulemanager. Be aware that you can't use CodeModuleManager unless you write an application, and if you do, you sort of have a chicken and egg situation. Before you can use CodeModuleManager to install Applications, then you need to have the application that includes the CodeModuleManager code installed - in other words, an installer application.
I have an application I've been handed to test, and I'm — shall we say — less than impressed?
I believe the company that built the application for my client didn't build it as an iOS native application; my gut feel is they leveraged one of the multi-target platforms because that's what they're comfortable with. The application's usability is particularly poor, and it just doesn't behave the way an iOS application should.
How can I tell whether this application is native or built on some OS-agnostic platform? Any big give-aways that can tell me?
FWIW, the iPad is the only target platform for this device. It won't need to run anywhere else.
Are you saying that it doesn't have the look and feel of a regular iOS app? It's possible that it has been developed in AIR, HTML5, etc. I don't know if there is much way of doing this without jailbreaking the device.
You could, of course, ask around or post a screenshot and see what others think.
Get the binary out of the device, using softs like DiskAid (free for that part - no jailbreak required), and study it. You may get important infos through a disassembler, such as Hopper, which has support for ARM.
If you can't read assembly, study the application's resources. It may also give you some hints. Again, a software like DiskAid will allow that.
While "some OS-agnostic platform" is a bit broad, there is an easy way to tell if an app was made with PhoneGap, arguably one of the most popular OS-agnostic platforms.
Copy the .ipa file you've been sent (or find it on your filesystem
and copy it).
Rename the copy WhatEverTheAppNameIs.zip.
Extract the zipped folder and open it.
Open the folder named "Payload" (If it isn't already).
Right-click on BlahBlah.app and select "Show Package Contents".
Inspect the bundle.
Check for the presence of a www folder. If it's contents are sizable (compared with the packages contents in general) there's a good chance the whole app was made with PhoneGap.
It's also illuminating to click on the index.html file in the www folder just to see how much of the app runs in desktop Safari.
You may also discover other evidence of OS-agnostic platforms by examining the bundle further.
There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding deploying Adobe Air apps to ios after the restrictions were lifted. Before apple lifted the restrictions you had to go through the process documented here: http://blogs.adobe.com/cantrell/archives/2010/09/packager-for-iphone-refresher.html using the Packager for iPhone. But now that the restrictions have been lifted and the Air 2.7 update we can use the same ADT tool in the flex SDK that we use with all air applications.
My understanding is that the old Packager for iPhone (PFI) some how converted actionscript code into native objective C in order to be accepted by apple.
If that is correct does the restrictions being lifted mean that the ADT tool is not converting to objective C and is only bundling the AS3 .swf and air player together when creating the .ipa app file?
What exactly changed in the Air deployment process after apple lifted its restrictions?
If anyone could point me to some documentation on how the .ipa file is being created behind the scenes I think this would really clear some confusion.
Thanks for the help
Nothing really changed; apple just lifted the ban. The ban wasn't just on flash-created apps, it was on any tool that created any kind of intermediary language or used a virtual machine, etc. What the PFI does: it actually uses the LLVM compiler to statically compile actionscript 3 BYTECODE (not AS3 source) into native ARM assembly. So essentially when you're deploying an IPA it's the same idea as publishing a SWF to an exe (as in the publish settings) in the sense that both your SWF application and the flash virtual machine are bundled together, except instead of being an exe where the code inside is x86 ASM with AS3 bytecode executed along the VM, it's ARM. The PFI and all its classes were simply merged into the ADT tool. The PFI contained a LLVM dll which is accessed through various LLVM java classes that were added to the internal adobe version of the ASC or actionscript compiler. These LLVM classes and other associated classes, however, are not open source, which adobe is allowed to do, even though the ASC is open source because it's licensed under the MPL or mozilla public license, which permits the use of the open source code in proprietary closed source applications without sharing your changes.
For proof of all that I've told you, just download the new flex SDK that includes the ADT with the PFI merged in and you'll find the LLVM dll's etc. Further, you can decompile the ADT jar and see all the LLVM classes. The LLVM classes ( I believe ) intercept the ASC bytecode through the class GlobalOptimizer, or at least it did back in the day... they've probably changed that. The only other thing that has changed is that apparently Adobe has optimized the PFI (now merged into ADT) quite a lot. More info here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/cantrell/archives/2010/09/packager-for-iphone-refresher.html
http://www.leebrimelow.com/?p=2754
Update
Here is an official Adobe article confirming the things I've told you:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/abansod_iphone.html. I also should clarify that I've really over-simplified the process behind the scenes and appear to me mistaken in one of my points. I guess somehow the PFI actually merges the AS3 bytecode and the VM into a single seamless executable that doesn't use JIT compilation, and thus would technically not be a virtual machine? Not sure on that point, but the above article does seem to imply this:
"When you build your application for iOS, there is no interpreted code and no runtime in your final binary. Your application is truly a native iOS app."
Currently my InstallShield project uses a custom prerequiste to install Adobe Reader on the target machine if it is not already installed.
The prerequisite executable (Adobe Reader SetUp) is installed locally and so it is packaged into the SetUp.exe by InstallShield.
Everything works as desired with the Adobe Reader setup completed prior to my program (if it is not already installed).
Now while you can apply for an Adobe reader distribution licence my company needs to investigate the legal implications of the licence first.
Therefore in the meantime I would like to link to the adobe site and install the application from there. Is this possible as I cannot see a way of doing this?
If not, how do I supply a link to the adobe site and then pause or exit the installshield setup while it is downloaded and installed?
If you could provide some pointers / an example or point me to any relevant resource it would be most appreciated.
InstallShield does not provide a built-in way to pause your install and direct a user to a donwload, although you could certainly create a prerequisite which runs an custom executable to do this. I believe it's more common to create a prerequisite that downloads an installation off the web - just provide URLs to all files in it, and set its location to Download - but I can't comment usefully as to whether that has different legal implications.
It's not possible to do what I want within InstallShield.
My company has decided that they do not want to distribute Adobe with our software and so the way I implemented this was to simply have the tool check for the presence of Adboe before opening any PDFs. If Adobe is not installed the user is presented with a message requesting them to visit the Adobe website to install Reader.