Over on Symbian.com, David Wood's latest 'Insight' editorial is on the way the huge success of Symbian OS smartphones will inevitably spark a renaissance in home-produced applications. Back to the way things were in Psion's hey-day?
Read on in the full article.
And of course we all remember clearly having to get apps signed. Based at home + have to deal with Verisign = not compatible. Of course we can always give everything away if go via Cellmania. Fine for some, but does not exactly encourage the small start up culture....
Hum, perhaps you're unaware that...
...all Symbian 9 apps do *NOT* need to be signed. Only those apps requiring privileged capabilities (use of a select/restricted set of APIs, Application Programming Interface).
And note also that there is a way to get freeware signed through Symbian Signed (paid for by Symbian, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, at least).
I think the anonymous poster means that if you get your freeware app signed, the only company that does this is CellMania. Essentially, they're sending you the application back signed (if it passes the tests), but essentially it becomes theirs to do with as well (they can even sell it and give you abt 50% of the earnings minus the first 1500$ to cover the testing expense). I'd like to get my freeware signed, but I want to have control over what happens with my application, not another company.
Pity that OPL is only mentioned as an afterthought in the article btw.....
OPL - "yet another rapid development language". Feels almost like adding insult to injury.
[if you get your freeware app signed, the only company that does this is CellMania. ]
Eh? The whole point about the Symbian Signed Freeware Route To Market is that freeware is signed for you by Nokia/Symbian - nothing about giving away rights to it. The reason we haven't heard more about this initiative is that S80 and UIQ apps don't currently HAVE to be signed, and S60 ones are only just starting to need it (for OS 9 devices), while there's no OPL yet for people to work in.
Steve
Steve: I did check out how to get iDesk signed and for submitting your application you have to agree to a whole bunch of rules. You can check it out for yourself at Symbiansigned.com. Cellmania is the company that does the testing and you have to accept tih entire load of rules/regulations from them before they test and sign my application with their key. I didn't read the conditions completely. I stopped reading as soon as I got to the part that they might sell my freeware.....
Arjen wrote:Steve: I did check out how to get iDesk signed and for submitting your application you have to agree to a whole bunch of rules. You can check it out for yourself at Symbiansigned.com. Cellmania is the company that does the testing and you have to accept tih entire load of rules/regulations from them before they test and sign my application with their key. I didn't read the conditions completely. I stopped reading as soon as I got to the part that they might sell my freeware.....
But that's terrible! I wonder if Symbian/Nokia know that their scheme is being hijacked in this way by the testing house? As you've actually tried the process, can I ask you to check with Symbian and see what they say? I agree, with that sort of wording in place, the whole scheme's a bit of a sham...
Steve
Actually the conditions are one of the parts you have to go through to submit your application on the SymbianSigned website, so Nokia/Symbian are fully aware of these.
Big correction though:
I was wrong about them selling freeware applications. The conditions state "we help you sell your fee-based application". I read "freeware" instead of "fee-based". So, that part seems to be ok.
But:
1. One of the conditions that you have to agree to is that they can use your name for sending you advertisements from them and their partners. I get enough spam already, so this is unacceptable to me. I'll send another mail to symbian signed and cellmania, stating that I don't want to receive anything I didn't explicitely ask for and whether that influences the process of getting a freeware application signed for free.
2. Another thing in the conditions is that CellMania may refuse to test or sign your application without having to tell you the reason. So, even when the application passes all tests, CellMania could still opt not to sign it and don't explain anything to you. If you accept the conditions, you're also accepting this.
3. There's no alternative. It's CellMania or fork other several thousand dollars for a publisher ID and the tests at a test house.
Anyway, what is pretty clear is that CellMania is the company responsible for signing your application and not Nokia or Symbian (Symbian and Nokia found "CellMania prepared to do this"😉, and since CellMania is going to use their own publisher ID, it looks like this means that the software will not be signed "Nokia OK" or "Symbian OK" but "CellMania". Apart from the spamming issue and the fact that your application can remain unsigned even if it passes all tests, I'm not sure how I feel about the name "CellMania" in the installation of an application that I created.
I don't know the company CellMania at all and I assume they are nice people that are willing to help freeware developers, but the terms and conditions give me the creeps....
Symbian runs a Symbian Signed discussion forum (discussion.Symbian.Signed) on the (NNTP) server news://publicnews.symbiandevnet.com
You could also voice your concerns there, and get Symbian's (and other people's) response(s).
Thanks N/A. I knew about the news server, but I only have access to news servers from home, so I hadn't gotten around to it.
I will check the newsgroup and voice my concerns (maybe with a little more nuance than my previous posts) there as well.
This is starting to be a real problem issue especially for the smaller developer. For small developers who do not want to (or can't) go the certificate root they have to go through another publisher.
At the moment these aren't exactly very visible and have the disadvantage that they make your application appear to be from someone else during the install process.
I'm not sure what the answer is though. In all fairness I can see why signing needs to happen and understand it. The price here while not ideal is OK. I do think $350 per year together with the registered company only for the ID certificate is too much.
Ok, voiced my concerns in the newsgroup as well. I'll keep you informed about the responses.
@Rafe: I see a post in the development forum (Freeware signing concerns) with my name attached (I didn't post it - did you?), but as soon as I try to open it, I get a "permission denied" error. I also cannot find it if I open the "development" forum. Any thoughts?
Arjen - you shouldn't be able to see that post at all. It is part of a new feature I'm testing. Integration with nttp newsgroups (in that case the symbian signed newsgroup). Its closed both because it is in testing and there might be legal issues.
I saw the post in the main forum screen to the right of the development section (as the latest post in that section).
It wasn't accessible though since I got this "permission denied" message when clicking on it and it wasn't visible anymore as soon as I opened the development forum.