Filed under: iPhone
First signs of a schism in the iPhone dev community
One of the challenges of ad-hoc open source development is that, sooner or later, disagreements arise. Personality conflicts generate friction (often exacerbated by the limits of online communication, and cultural or linguistic differences). Optimal technical solutions may be obscured by the rising heat of names called and accusations leveled.This tension was bound to hit the iPhone developer community, and it seems like the time is now. The iPhone Dev Team, by most accounts an informal collection of hackers run pretty much on a meritocracy basis, is now being called on the carpet by a splinter group calling itself the iPhone "Elite" Team. The cause of the split is both technical and personal: personal, a hacker called Zibri was banned from the IDT irc channel; technical, the "Elite" Team is claiming on its Google Code wiki that the iUnlock and AnySIM unlocking utilities contained critical errors that led directly to the 1.1.1-related iPhone bricking problems.
We know that the combination of the unlocking utilities and the 1.1.1 firmware has been a poison pill for iPhones; however, with the substantial population of never-hacked, never-unlocked phones that have also suffered iBrickage, we can't exclude the likelihood that there are some dangerous bugs lurking in the firmware upgrade itself.
It would be nice if all the clever folk who have taken the time to explore the iPhone's inner workings could cooperate in the spirit of harmony and mutual support... but even in a world with something as cool as the iPhone, maybe it's too much to ask that everyone get along all the time.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Paul Joyce said 12:25AM on 10-10-2007
thanks for the update, Mike!
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Tu said 12:27AM on 10-10-2007
R King:
"Can't we all just get along?"
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compuguy1088 said 12:35AM on 10-10-2007
Things like this happen, I guess. Though hopefully things will stabilize, soon enough.
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Nathan G said 12:43AM on 10-10-2007
It would not surprise me if someone involved in this split was working for apple trying to stir up some trouble...
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Ben Englert said 12:54AM on 10-10-2007
What do you know? Apple wasn't lying, iUnlock/AnySIM really DID damage the iPhone's software in unforseen ways.
I wonder if ATT has a way of detecting transmissions malformed by corrupt basebands...
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gj said 1:02AM on 10-10-2007
Here's a hint. The "schism" in the dev team has been going on since day one of the iPhone release.
There are always going to be different approaches to any problem. Some people find approaches that work well early on. In any unorganized community effort some people are ostracized for their approach or efforts.
Having gone through this firsthand with the "original" dev team, I can tell you that there are all kinds of problems with the community, have been since the first moments, and will continue to be. Like anything else, maturity is optional.
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Joe said 1:02AM on 10-10-2007
What a bunch of assclowns.
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Carl Trimble said 1:12AM on 10-10-2007
Which team will release the promised re-lock application first I wonder?
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Jesse Gillespie said 1:28AM on 10-10-2007
C'mon, guys. Solidarity!
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MuscleNerd said 1:40AM on 10-10-2007
This isn't the first sign. The first sign was the geohot/devteam split. The fact that geohot then came out with a solution first, and got lots of publicity for it, was a bitter pill for the devteam to swallow.
Then, when it turned out that the IPSF solution was superior to the free unlock, (because unlike the free unlock, it didn't brick your iPhone when updating to 1.1.1) the devteam looked even worse. Rather than just brush that off and recover by releasing better hacks, the devteam decided to try to suppress this information. This effort will: a) fail; b) waste time; c) burn bridges.
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DrunkDwarf said 2:03AM on 10-10-2007
And then you have the "ethical" 3rd party developers.
I just dropped the dime on TUAW to AOL Time-Warner. Being one of the world's largest owners and distributors of intellectual property I suspect their legal department is going to take a very dim view of some of the things that have been going on around here.
My next step is a visit to the local FBI field office to report Erica Sadun and her admissions here. I'll also be sharing my concerns regarding the legality of the described TIFF exploit. If I'm not mistaken, writing and distributing such a TIFF is a federal crime as it operates as a computer virus.
Evil flourishes when good men stand idle. I'm really not interested in seeing what evil uses that TIFF can be used as a carrier for against unprotected iPhones. Especially when there is a group of iPhone users out there that can not upgrade in order to be protected (thanks in part to Erica).
Now that they are in beta and distributing it they are advancing the time table for action.
If you also don't care for the risks involved in the recent "hacking" activities you are free to visit your local FBI field office and report these people as well. The more people that report these activities the more pressure there will be for the FBI to assign resources to act quickly.
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ktula said 2:13AM on 10-10-2007
Hey DrunkDwarf, would you like me to call your mom (with my unlocked iPhone) to pick you up from your montly tampon run? Get a life!
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ZinkDifferent said 2:39AM on 10-10-2007
NathanG / #4 says: " It would not surprise me if someone involved in this split was working for apple trying to stir up some trouble..."
Time to check the tinfoil hats at the gate, buddy...
Carl Trimble / #8 : "Which team will release the promised re-lock application first I wonder?"
Well, we were pretty much promised one of these, what, a week ago? Maybe the 'Dev team' figured out that their rushed, hurried, and reckless solution was after the cause of some serious damage to the system, and now they are hoping for the issue to just go away (i.e. someone else to come up with a solution).
Essentially, the problem can be found in the vary basic personality of those in the Dev team - competing for quick results, instead of well-thought out results. When iPhoneSIMfree released their solution, it increased the pressure on the kids from Dev Team, resulting in initial unlock code being *immediately* released without enough testing to ascertain the consequences of the method.. and we know how that ended - Dev team unlocks bricked the iPhones, iPhoneSIMfree unlocks didn't.
This kind of competition for attention continues even now, with every single new development immediately reported in detail - heck, just reading TUAW probably saves Apple tons of R&D money... I should be grateful, I guess :-)
DrunkDwarf - maybe going a bit overboard (though I don't disagree with your observations and conclusions).
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ZinkDifferent said 2:41AM on 10-10-2007
A bigger schism is being created in the community with the paranoid and often delusional threads on iPhone persecutions posted by the Dev team PR Team, specializing in endless self-promotions....
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Adrian vG said 2:48AM on 10-10-2007
Maybe it's time for a non-iphone-hacking-feed of Tuaw? I'd sill like iPhone news, but think that his blog is flooded with hack-talk which surely isn't so intereseting to all readers...
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Ben said 2:54AM on 10-10-2007
Or maybe its time for these sodding hackers to have their tedious schism somewhere else, then this blog can get back to what it used to be.
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samjdavies1 said 4:07AM on 10-10-2007
Oh what nerdy goodness. Why do I need the TUAW to inform me of this? Really. Such pointless news. Handbags at dawn!
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harrywolf said 4:26AM on 10-10-2007
Nonsense!
DrunkDwarf you are clearly a pillock - go and join the FBI if they mean so much to you - 'computer virus' indeed - rubbish, sir!
Actually, I would recommend you for the RIAA as well.
NONE of the unlock methods could protect the iPhone from SIM re-locking with 1.1.1 - as for third-party apps, well who cares if the damn PHONE bit doesnt work?
So somehow the people who allowed thousands of us to run an iPhone in Canada and other places should have predicted what Apple were going to do and magically made the hack compatible with the 1.1.1 update?
What a load of bollocks.
Lets get real:
Apple and the FBI and a host of other people dont give a FLYING FUCK about the iphone dev team or their friends - they are just getting on with their lives.
The egotism here, both in the negative (the massively self-aware and useless DrunkDwarf), and in the positive, (the horribly self-aggrandising, but useful Dev crowd) is palpable - its like the overweening awareness of a 14 year-old discovering his dick.
Just quit it, you bunch of tossers - and DrunkDwarf: dont miss that medication again, buddy.
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Levon said 5:56AM on 10-10-2007
A little healthy competition and skepticism among open source/non-profit will go a long way to make our lives as consumers and supporters of these efforts much more comfortable. It would also improve the quality of the their product, and, who knows, may even compel these guys to become even better hackers. Good times ahead.
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DrWho said 8:18AM on 10-10-2007
"Elite" team - modest bunch!
Well if I didn't know it already, this news is just another good reason to stay well away from these temporary hacks.
Seeing as the non-elite teams code was shitty enough to brick your phones I wonder if they will now be decent enough to send $600 to everyone who suffered that fate? Or do they not stand by their code?
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