[I-mobile-u] question involving mobile deployment in Apple apps store (and Android)

[Andrew Yu]

Hi Linh,

Since I am no longer at MIT, I am not sure what I can say publicly. So, hence, this private email...

I don't think I would be violating anything by sharing the following:

- Many institutions raised issues with Apple's agreements in the past ever since the iPhone SDK and developer agreement first came out in 2008.
- Apple made some changes since 2008 to make their agreement more amenable, however, most legal counsel still find some of the clauses (esp. related to indemnification) cause for concern.
- Most attempt to work with Apple's legal counsel only to find that it's not possible for Apple to make special exceptions. This process can take many weeks/months.
- In most cases, if the decision was made by the higher-ups (e.g. the president of the university wants the iPhone App by certain time), the legal counsel typically will be willing to give in with the caveats and allow the head of the IT or equivalent to click on the "agree" button.
- Google's terms are much more friendly, however, some legal counsels will still find issues.

By the way, I have not read the agreements carefully recently, I do not believe that Apple's agreement required the IP to be owned by Apple. 

Good luck!

Andrew
Modo Labs, Inc.
http://modolabs.com

On Nov 18, 2010, at 9:34 AM, linh wrote:

> Colleagues,
> 
> If you decide to share your insights, please take note that Apple bans all public statements regarding your contract agreement
> according to section 10.4 of the Dev License Agreement.
> 
> Perhaps we could discuss the situation in more generic terms and what we'd like in a general higher-ed contract?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> - l -
> 
> On 11/17/10 5:22 PM, linh wrote:
>> 
>> For your viewing, here's an interesting article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
>> 'All Your Apps Are Belong to Apple: The iPhone Developer Program License Agreement'
>>     http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/iphone-developer-program-license-agreement-all
>> 
>> - linh -
>> 
>> On 11/17/10 5:03 PM, linh wrote:
>>> 
>>> Greeting colleagues,
>>> 
>>> USC has recently joined the mobile band wagon.
>>> I'm excited about the MIT mobile framework, 
>>> and is currently reviewing it to see how we can adapt the technology into our mobile development env.
>>> A big thank to MIT for spearheading this project.
>>> 
>>> My question to you is the institution vetting process and legal/contractual agreement with Apple & Google.
>>> 
>>> I'm currently fighting with Apple to get a USC-vetted institution-wide developer license.
>>> For a general agreement, Apple controls and owns 100% of the Intellectual Property rights to all apps uploaded into their app store.
>>> In turns, they share the profit with the developers.
>>> While we are not selling our apps (and thus, not concerned about the profit part), 
>>> our General Counsel is having a cow with the IP terms.
>>> 
>>> As a higher institution, have you all signed an agreement?  (how long did it take?)
>>> Is there a general academic contract that your general counsel worked out with Apple?
>>> Do you have the same problems with Google?
>>> 
>>> Any help or insights are greatly appreciated.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> Linh Pham
>>> University of Southern California
>>> 213-821-3118
>>> 
>>>  
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> I-mobile-u mailing list
>>> I-mobile-u at mit.edu
>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/i-mobile-u
> <ATT00001..c>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/i-mobile-u/attachments/20101118/b4eb98bb/attachment.htm