At long last, and no thanks to Symbian's own 'freeware' signing programme, there's a S60 3rd Edition FP1-compatible version of the popular Screenshot utility available, v2.80. Signing its low level features was done in the end at Epocware's expense - thanks guys!(via Ricky)
Read on in the full article.
This is just shocking, really shocking. A total indictment of the way Symbian handles signing.
Antony Pranata already had the app signed, all he wanted to do was update it and add a new key combination to activate it. It clearly wouldn't have compromised security any more than the original signed application, so it's a mystery that he had to even get it signed again let alone wait three months with absolutely no substantial reply to any of his mails or postings.
To cap it all, Screenshot is a really really useful application, not just for us reviewers who promote Symbian software to the world, but also for developers who actually make Symbian software and want screenshots of the finished product in action on a real world device.
If anyone even slightly connected to the Symbian signing programme is reading this, for goodness sake do some sort of gesture to make up for the extremely shabby way you've treated this important application and its creator. This sort of behaviour by the signing department makes it seem like Symbian doesn't care at all about independent developers. Do they care?
They had better start caring if they want to keep/gain more market share in the long term.
As a consumer, the one big thing puting me off the S60 train as opposed to the Windows Mobile train is the huge range of independently developed applications.
I see no obvious reason why S60 has much less development done for it other than the fact that it is much harder for the developer.
I get the impression that Microsoft make a big effort to encourage 3rd party application devlopment (it's not like they are protecting competitors for MS Office for example).
From what I have read regarding S60 and Symbian more generally, that does not appear to be the case.
Zuber
"I see no obvious reason why S60 has much less development done for it other than the fact that it is much harder for the developer."
The point about Symbian Signed is that it didn't exist with previous versions of Symbian, and it has scared off a lot of small developers who used to write S60 1st and 2nd Edition applications and games. (I think they were also annoyed at the lack of backwards compatibility of 3rd with 1st and 2nd.)
There is some awareness at Symbian and S60 of the problem, and one of the official S60 blogs had a readers' poll of what should be done. Of course most people wanted to just get rid of the whole signing system altogether, but I thought the best compromise solution was to sign developers, not applications. If a developer produced a useful application which passes the signing process, they would be given permission to release more software without having to consult Symbian.
If developers were signed, they could issue as many updates and new versions of their software as they wanted, without having to go through this signing process. If the software turned out to be malware (which is what this whole signed thing is supposed to be there to prevent), the developer would be traceable through the signature on the software, and they'd never be able to release signed Symbian software again.
Antony Pranata had already released several signed versions of Screenshot, he had already proved his trustworthyness, and they really shouldn't have forced him to submit minor updates to be re-signed. If they had signed him instead of his software, this whole problem would never have happened.
Some capabilities, such as IMEI, internal GPS, filetype recognizers, and so forth should just be released from the required signing process and only need user's approval. They can limit DRM usage to signed applications: neither I nor anybody else cares ( I think 😊). But the practical features should not require signing.