Firefox mobile

[shmerl]

Not yet anyway.

It seems that it's not so obvious that iOS SDK agreement doesn't violate antitrust laws:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... geNumber=1

[Uncle Spellbinder]

So I wonder when/if we non-iPhone, non Nokia users will have the ability to use Firefox on our 3G/4G smartphones?

[shmerl]

Uncle Spellbinder: Unofficial ports exist: http://www.oxymoronical.com/blog/tag/mobile
Mozilla probably doesn't have enough resources to support a lot of ports so far, since even Android one is still an alpha.

[shmerl]

Don't recent changes in Apple SDK at last allow porting Fennec to iOS? ( http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/2010090 ... ve-branch/ )

3.3.1 OLD:
3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

3.3.1 NEW:
3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

No more WebKit jailing?

[mbrubeck]

Don't recent changes in Apple SDK at last allow porting Fennec to iOS?

No. The new SDK agreement still contains the following restriction:

3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework.

[shmerl]

No. The new SDK agreement still contains the following restriction:

3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework.

I saw that, but it's not as clear cut as the first one which was a real blocker. The first restriction previously didn't allow applications to use JavaScript in the development of the application itself (Firefox uses it in XUL for example). Which naturally banned developers from legally using SDK to even create a Fennec package for iOS. The second restriction is more tricky. One can argue, that Fennec can be run on local data, in which case it doesn't download anything. Therefore it's a legal case. (User can also disable JavaScript altogether which gives another use case). I.e. some kind the violation of that rule happens only if user will run some JavaScript from the Web. Therefore the focus shifts from the developer to the user and this possibly allows developer to legally use SDK to build Fennec for iOS. It's a catch, but legally it might be still valid. As I understood Mozilla is not really concerned about Apple app store acceptance policies (the build can as well be deployed to Cydia for example), but Mozilla does care about producing builds according to the SDK agreement, so they should be legal. Of course it's really up to professional lawyer to evaluate this, but from the first look it seems not as bad as before.

[shmerl]

alisveris: There are no builds for iOS now. If you can figure out how to build it yourself - great.

[amemoh]

Nokia is always late for competitors