Re:Apple’s app store and other digital marketplaces [pdf]
by dfabulich on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @07:35PM
(#23922723)
The App Store rules are right here. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ There's nothing in here about cross-compiling.
macOS's license terms forbid running it on non-Apple hardware (even in a VM), and Xcode's license terms only permit running it on macOS, but people can and do compile iOS and macOS builds on open-source operating systems in a purely open-source reverse-engineered stack.
It's just more practical to use a Mac for CI than it is to reverse-engineer the iOS toolchain.
Re:Apple’s app store and other digital marketplaces [pdf]
by damnyou on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @09:12PM
(#23923237)
That's not what at least one lawyer has told me, though lawyers tend to be a pretty cautious bunch.
As I said, you've got to know the right people to get access to the stuff I'm talking about. (There are also other conditions, such as you can't be a current or former Apple employee.)
If you know the right people, you can get access to complete toolchains built in secret for compiling iOS apps on Linux. It's a lot of engineering work but not technically impossible. But it's all very hush-hush because going up against Apple in court is terrifying.