[mythtv-users] appletv

Simon linux at thehobsons.co.uk
Fri Jun 10 17:16:34 UTC 2022


James <jam at tigger.ws> wrote:

> With a lot of help from John Hoyt I did build a frontend for mac. The whole apple landscape is alien, but maybe building an app for appleTV is doable. If so I'll contribute it. Becoming an apple developer, and being able to contribute to the App store is a BIG deal. I'll see if I can do nuts-n-bolts someone else can ice the cake.

I think you’ll find that building for the Apple TV is really different to building for OS X (Mac). I’m not a programmer on either platform, so the details may be a little out, but I think the just is OK.

OS X is still, despite moves in the direction of closing things down, very open - as in, you can write a program and run it, all without Apple having to know about it or being able to dictate how you do it.

Apple TV (AKAIK) runs iOS, which is about as closed a walled garden as you are likely to find. You have to build using Apple’s tools, use only the APIs Apple approve of (even though it’s been proved they have others that they use themselves), (other than “internal” operations - such as corporates loading on their now devices) you can only distribute it via Apple’s store, and if you charge any money (whether for the app or for add-ons) then you can only take payment via Apple’s store (and they’ll take 30%), and there’s a real biggie for FOSS, you *might* not be able to do it legally anyway !

If your code started as GPL, then you have to abide by GPL rules for licensing. No problem you think, I’m happy providing the code. But the problem is that you can’t provide the code for the App that people download from Apple - because Apple sign the apps. You are physically unable to provide a “if you feed this into your compile system with these options, you will get the same as the binary you’ve downloaded” source file as you don’t have access to the keys or the signing system. I recall reading that this was the reason for something (I can’t remember what now, it was a while ago) not being available for iOS.
I don’t recall how, if at all, this got resolved. And clearly it will vary between different FOSS licences.

Just my 2d, Simon


PS - many thanks to the devs, including those responsible for making it work on OS X :D



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list