Apple make a big deal out of the fact that their app stores for iPhone and iPad contain thousands upon thousands of apps (or applications for relative oldies such as myself).\u00a0 Some of them are free of change, many of them cost money but I got to wondering how many of them were open source.<\/p>\n
When I say ‘open source’ here I mean ‘The source code is available’.\u00a0 If there is a recognised license attached to the source code (such as GPL<\/a> or BSD<\/a>) then all the better.\u00a0 So, what do we have?<\/p>\n Possibly the the best list of iOS open source software I have found is available at maniacdev.com<\/a> which, at the time of writing, includes 42 different applications complete with iTunes links and the all important links to source code.\u00a0 Another useful resource is open.iphonedev.com<\/a> which is a regularly updated directory of open source apps and libraries for iOS. There’s some great stuff available including Battle for Wesnorth<\/a>, SCI-15C Scientific calculator<\/a> and TuxRider<\/a> (based on Tux Racer<\/a>).<\/p>\n Free as in Speech but not always Free as in Beer<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the things you’ll notice about iOS open source apps is that they often cost money and sometimes quite a lot which is in stark contrast to what you may be used to.\u00a0 For example, Battle for Wesnorth<\/a> can be had for no money at all on platforms such as Linux and Windows but the iPad version costs $5.99 at the time of writing. The more serious, SCI-15C Scientific calculator costs $19.99 right now which is rather steep for any iPhone app let alone an open source one.<\/p>\n Charging money for open source software may upset some people but doing so is usually not against the terms and conditions of the underlying license.\u00a0 The Free Software Foundation (inventors of the GPL, one of the most popular forms of open source license) has the following to say on the matter (original source<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u201cFree software\u201d is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of \u201cfree\u201d as in \u201cfree speech,\u201d not as in \u201cfree beer.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Personally, I am happy to pay a few dollars for the iPad version of an open-source app if the developer has done a good job of the port.\u00a0 What does surprise me, however, is that it seems like no one has taken the source-code of these apps, recompiled them and then released\u00a0 free-of-charge versions on the app store.\u00a0 This wouldn’t be against the license conditions of licenses such as the GPL so why hasn’t it been done?\u00a0 I wouldn’t do it because I feel that it would be unfair to the developer of the iOS version but I would be surprised if\u00a0 everyone felt this way.<\/p>\n What’s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are many open source applications that I’d love to see ported to iPad.\u00a0 Here’s my top three wants:<\/p>\n Over to you….What do you think of the state of open source software on iPhone and iPad?\u00a0 Which applications would you most like to see ported?\u00a0 What are your favourite open source apps?<\/p>\n\n