Nokia has taken the beta label of its free Symbian Signing program, demonstrating Nokia's long term commitment to lowering costs for developers placing their applications in the Ovi Store. Previously the cost for a developer to sign their first Symbian application was $215, with an additional $15 for every signing instance thereafter. In order to participate in the free signing program developers need only become Ovi Store publishers (necessary to publish content in the Ovi Store), which means paying a one-off fee of €50.
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So the application will be only available on the Ovi Store ?
What about the rest of the Symbian eco system?
There's nothing stopping you using the SIS file elsewhere, once it has gone through Ovi Store QA as far as I can tell (maybe a developer who has gone though this can comment).
That said some portals will want a custom version (e.g. customised about screen or buy link), which would mean you would have to get this signed yourself. It's a good point and another limitation of the program.
That said I think it's great to see Nokia offering this as an option.
This should have happened 3 years ago. Nokia will never catch up if they take this long to react to the competition.
Nokia explictly stated that you cannot distribute any app they sign outside of Ovi. Nokia are acting as a Publisher Certifier. This is because the app bascially points back to Nokia as the Publisher via the certificates (and NOT the actaul app owner)
Before the whingers start this is no different to say
iPhone
Windows Mobile
Any other publisher acting as the Publisher Certifier - e.g. Handango used to offer this service.
Not least of which you dont get your SIS file back so you dont actually have anything to distribute..... yes its undoubtly possible to hack....
No this does NOT restrict you from distributing your app elsewhere, however you will need it signed if that other channel requires it to be signed - i.e. you cant use the actual sis with Nokias Publisher Certifier certificate in it.
So does not really fix the signing issue in many use cases...
It's good that Nokia is progressing in their developer relations. I guess we'll see the result, whether developers respond, over the next six to twelve months or so.
BTW, what's a 'whinger'? Do you mean 'whiner'? Sorry to be a grammar Nazi...
Hmmm, can't really blame Nokia for restricting their signing to the Ovi Store. Besides Nokia devices account for around 96% of all Symbian devices, so I don't think most developers would mind anyway. If it is a problem, there is still the Symbian Foundation's signing process, which is still quite cheap (Apple is actually more expensive) and works on both Ovi as well as the other Symbian channels.
Jimmy1 - 'whinger' is British for 'whiner'. Nothing to do with grammer - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whinge