For some, this has to be the best news of the month so far¹: “within a week or so”, Apple will send iPhone developers a new version of the SDK agreement that will no longer put API usage under NDA. From open discussion (and exchange of code) to books being published to open source software being put out of legal limbo, this should resolve many entirely unnecessary (from the developers’ perspective) hindrances.

What I find interesting is how Apple describes this as a change of mind, rather than something they had intended all along:

We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software.

And:

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Whether individual developers had a stake in this decision, or whether is was rather influenced by higher-profile companies (or perhaps largely by recent cancellations of books) will perhaps never be clear. Nonetheless, it confirms Matt Gemmell: “Apple is listening”. Perhaps they sometimes do so too late, but at least they do at all.

Now let’s hope some progress can be made on the arbitrary rejection front.

1. Especially considering the month just started today. ↩